Content Considerations: "There is a chapter called Ole Massa and His Chillun that includes a short folk tale called Why the Negro Works So Hard. In this story Ole Massa sees that the children of earth have become lazy and declares that there will be a race for prizes. In the race the white man loses to the black man and they both get their prizes. The white man gets a pen and ink and the black man gets a plow, a hoe, a sickle, a pick, and an axe.

The white man opened his prize first. There lay a pen and a bottle of ink. He knew well enough what to do with them. Without any further ado he pulled down a big piece of paper and began to write. He wrote figures, accounts, letters, stories, books, orders, laws, and anything that could be written with pen and ink.

Then the black man opened his big prize. He wept when he saw what it contained. Inside lay a plow and a hoe and a sickle and a pick and a shovel and an axe. These were the tools of hard work. He knew well enough what to do with them.

Ever since that day the white man has been figuring with his pen, sitting in an office in his store clothes; and the negro has been bending his back and straining his muscles, hoeing the corn and chopping the wood and picking the cotton and plowing the field.
This is why, said the slaves, the negro has to work so hard." -Time period use of the term "Negro" in reference to slaves from Africa.
Time period use of the term "pickaninny" in the story of John Henry. As a child he is referred to as a "pickaninny child" and as a man his child is referred to as "his pickaninny".