"
"What you know 'bout poll-tax, Berry?" asked Nimbus, good-naturedly,
when the song was ended. "Yer hain't turned politician, hez yer?"
"What I know 'bout poll-tax, Squar' Nimbus? Dat what yer ax? Gad!
I knows all 'bout 'em, dat I do, from who tied de dog loose. Who'se
a better right, I'd like ter know? I'se paid it, an' ole Marse
Sykes hes paid it for me; an' den I'se hed ter pay him de tax an'
half a dollah for 'tendin' ter de biznis for me. An' den, one time
I'se been 'dicted for not payin' it, an' Marse Sykes tuk it up,
an' I hed ter wuk out de tax an' de costs besides. Den I'se hed ter
wuk de road ebbery yeah some eight er ten days, an' den wuk nigh
'bout ez many more fer my grub while I wuz at it. Oh, I knows 'bout
poll-tax, I does! Dar can't nobody tell a nigger wid five er six
chillen an' a sick wife, dat's a wukkin' by de yeah an' a gettin'
his pay in ole clo'es an' orders--dar can't nobody teach _him_
nothin' 'bout poll-tax, honey!" There was a laugh at this which
showed that his listeners agreed fully with the views he had
expressed.
The efforts to so arrange taxation as to impose as large a burden
as possible upon the colored man, immediately after his emancipation,
were very numerous and not unfrequently extremely subtle. The Black
Codes, which were adopted by the legislatures first convened under
what has gone into history as the "Johnsonian" plan of reconstruction,
were models of ingenious subterfuge.
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