The Souls of Black Folk - Dr. Earl Wright II

The Souls of Black Folkappear than the eight hundred thousand acres of abandoned landsin the hands of the Freedmen’s Bureau melted quickly away. Thesecond difficulty lay in perfecting the local organization of the Bureauthroughout the wide field of work. Making a new machineand sending out officials of duly ascertained fitness for a great workof social reform is no child’s task; but this task was even harder, fora new central organization had to be fitted on a heterogeneous andconfused but already existing system of relief and control of exslaves;and the agents available for this work must be sought for inan army still busy with war operations,—men in the very nature ofthe case ill fitted for delicate social work,—or among the questionablecamp followers of an invading host. Thus, after a year’s work,vigorously as it was pushed, the problem looked even more difficultto grasp and solve than at the beginning. Nevertheless, three thingsthat year’s work did, well worth the doing: it relieved a vast amountof physical suffering; it transported seven thousand fugitives fromcongested centres back to the farm; and, best of all, it inauguratedthe crusade of the New England schoolma’am.The annals of this Ninth Crusade are yet to be written, —the taleof a mission that seemed to our age far more quixotic than thequest of St. Louis seemed to his. Behind the mists of ruin and rapinewaved the calico dresses of women who dared, and after thehoarse mouthings of the field guns rang the rhythm of the alphabet.Rich and poor they were, serious and curious. Bereaved now ofa father, now of a brother, now of more than these, they came seekinga life work in planting New England schoolhouses among thewhite and black of the South. They did their work well. In that firstyear they taught one hundred thousand souls, and more.Evidently, Congress must soon legislate again on the hastily organizedBureau, which had so quickly grown into wide significanceand vast possibilities. An institution such as that was well-nigh asdifficult to end as to begin. Early in 1866 Congress took up thematter, when Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, introduced a bill to extendthe Bureau and enlarge its powers. This measure received, atthe hands of Congress, far more thorough discussion and attentionthan its predecessor. The war cloud had thinned enough to allow aclearer conception of the work of Emancipation. The champions of24