Chapter IX. Anxious Days And Sleepless Nights
The coming of Christmas, that first year of our residence in
Alabama, gave us an opportunity to get a farther insight into the
real life of the people. The first thing that reminded us that
Christmas had arrived was the "foreday" visits of scores of
children rapping at our doors, asking for "Chris'mus gifts!
Chris'mus gifts!" Between the hours of two o'clock and five
o'clock in the morning I presume that we must have had a
half-hundred such calls. This custom prevails throughout this
portion of the South to-day.
During the days of slavery it was a custom quite generally
observed throughout all the Southern states to give the coloured
people a week of holiday at Christmas, or to allow the holiday to
continue as long as the "yule log" lasted. The male members of
the race, and often the female members, were expected to get
drunk. We found that for a whole week the coloured people in and
around Tuskegee dropped work the day before Christmas, and that
it was difficult for any one to perform any service from the time
they stopped work until after the New Year. Persons who at other
times did not use strong drink thought it quite the proper thing
to indulge in it rather freely during the Christmas week.
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