The beauty of the Black Belt, whether in the Lowndes County, Alabama, or Jamaica or the tenement districts of New York, was unmistakable, and at night, despite the assault of electric lights that dimmed the stars, there was “the laughter of men and women returning from the theatre, or some dance that last[ed] until dawn. Light and intermittent noises, the heat of the long day climbing up from the pavement, this [was] the night at San Juan Hill. The plantation songs sound[ed] in the night, melodious, quavering: ‘All the people talking about heaven ain’t going there.’
