n order to accomplish his fiendish purposes, this creature, made in the
image of God, was often taught that there was no God of justice for her.
Her body, instead of being a fit temple for the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit, was subject to the foulest demands of sensuality. No wonder they
sang,

"Nobody knows the trouble I see, Lord,
Nobody knows but Jesus."

These slave songs, born of agony, might well be called "The Passion
Flowers" of the slave cabin. Thank God that all of my sisters were not
thus brutalized, and even to those who were, God was merciful. Deep down
underneath the lacerated and bruised heart, rested the "Shekinah of the
Lord," preventing the wholesale transmission of vice. Two hundred and
fifty years of such tuition gave her but little chance to develop her
womanhood.

Intuitively she knew that there was a living God, and she sought Him in
visions, and listened for His voice, and looked forward and persevered
for that home not made with hands, and from her heart were wrung these
words:

"O Lord, O my Lord, O my good Lord,
Keep me from sinking down."

And then comforted, she cried out triumphantly--

"Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel,
Then why not every man?"

Many have told me their struggles, and I know of others who even suffered
death rather than submit to the outrage of chastity. One poor mother with
three beautiful baby girls, driven to despair by realizing their probable
doom if allowed to live, sent them back to the God who gave them and then
took her own life.

Thus the colored women and girls lived before the war.

How have they fared since Freedom?

Have they had a fair chance in the race of life? No. They have met
caste-prejudice, the ghost of slavery, at every step of their journey
during these years of freedom. They have been made to feel that they are a
separate species of the human family. The phrases "Your people" and "Your
place," do not so much designate their race identity, as the fixed status
in the sisterhood of races. This idea, as harmless as it may appear, or
as much as it is used, with varied phrases of meaning, according to the
attitude of the speaker, has been one of the greatest barriers to the
progress of the Negro, especially of the women and girls. It has colored
everything they have to do. Their place, like the ebony of their skin, is
a dark place. In the home, and in social life, "their place" is confined
to colored society, color