August 13, 1865: A plea from "the colored citizens of the State of Virginia"

KansasFreestater

1st Lieutenant
One hundred fifty years ago today, the New York Times published this plea from newly free black people in Virginia to the people of the loyal Union states. Insightful and prophetic, these Southern black men tried to warn Northerners about the intransigence of many Southern whites:

We know these men -- know them well -- and we assure you that, with the majority of them, loyalty is only "lip deep," and that their professions of loyalty are used as a cover to the cherished design of getting restored to their former relations with the Federal Government, and then, by all sorts of "unfriendly legislation,'' to render the freedom you have given us more intolerable than the slavery they intended for us.
 
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