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
