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It was a strange sight to see these black men rallying around the Stars and Stripes, when white men were trampling them under foot and riddling them with bullets.
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Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted)
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Slavery was a deadly cancer eating into the life of the nation; but, somehow, it had cast such a glamour over us that we have acted somewhat as if our national safety were better preserved by sparing the cancer than by cutting it out.
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Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows Uplifted (AmazonClassics Edition))
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I was surprised to learn that Harper had written one of the earliest romance novels, Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted,
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Jessica P. Pryde (Black Love Matters: Real Talk on Romance, Being Seen, and Happy Ever Afters)