We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
We smile, but O great Christ, our cries
To Thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh, the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask. ¹.

Frederick Douglass, the slave who escaped to the North to write
as an abolitionist of his childhood on a Maryland plantation, told
of the songs slaves sang to express their feelings against the de-
humanizing character of slavery. Douglass was astonished "to find
persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence
of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a
greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The
songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is re-
lieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears." ²

More meaningful and realistic than abolition literature are the
attitudes and thoughts expressed in the Slave Narratives, a compila-
tion of interviews with former slaves made during the 1930s. The
narrative of Clayborn Gantling of Jacksonville, Florida, serves as
an example. Gantling was born into slavery on a Georgia plantation

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