This describes the old cotton and tobacco plantation that my great grandparents owned in Scotland Neck, NC. When I was a child, enslaved people still worked that land, although they had been "freed." But how could they be free with no money, no property, no skills other than singin' the gospel and working the fields? My childhood home in Virginia was also a former plantation, and descendants of enslaved people also helped my Dad run the farm. At least he paid them! Thanks, Dan... poignant, evocative, truth. Pain and sadness and regret. You are too good for this Medium!