The Slave's Life Is a Wonderful Life

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When the war closed in the day of freedom came it was a momentous and a ventful day to all Upon our plantation we had been expecting it. There was more singing in the slave quarters than usual It was bolder had more ring and lasted later into the night. The next morning word was sent to all the slaves young and old together at the house In company with my mother brother and sister a large number and a large number of other slaves. I went to the master's house All of our master's family were either standing or seated in the veranda of the house Where they could see what was to take place and hear what was said But not bitterness as I now recall the impression

Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915)^[1] was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary black elite.^[2] Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.