Poor dusky children of slavery, men and women of my own race-the transition from slavery to freedom was too sudden for you! The bright dreams were too rudely dispelled; you were not prepared for the new life that opened before you, and the great masses of the North learned to look upon your helplessness with indifference-learned to speak of you as an idle, dependent race. Reason should have prompted kinder thoughts. Charity is ever kind.
Elizabeth Keckley (2016). “Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House”, p.52, Enhanced Media Publishing
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