Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not,
when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and
apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I
neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a
tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension: they
were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of
souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a
testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from
chains.
-- Frederick Douglass
