As I walked toward the fence to get the tools we’d all need for the day, I thought about how things had changed since the war. I remembered when the Union soldiers came through victorious. They promised freedom, and we got it, but it wasn’t the kind of freedom I expected. We were supposed to be able to work for ourselves; make our own way. Instead, I found myself in a deal with the same landowner who had once owned me, working the same fields, just under different circumstances.
      During Reconstruction, the politicians were arguing over how to bring the country back together, but it didn’t seem like they were in a hurry to help folks like me. Sure, there were laws passed and amendments made, but none of that trickled down to the dirt where we worked, and every area that disagreed with the new amendments passed acts that would go around them. I knew some men were doing better than before, especially those who’d sided with the North, like the carpetbaggers and scalawags, who came down here looking for opportunities. But, as for me, the opportunities seemed fewer.