And after the first flush of freedom wore off, and his true helplessness dawned on the freedman, he came back and picked up his hoe, and old master still doled out his bacon and meal.
Du Bois illustrates the harsh reality that many freedmen, facing destitution, were compelled to return to a system of economic dependence reminiscent of slavery.
Share
More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving.
But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.