One government official in North Carolina, as late as 1883, said that black work was tilling the ground, and blacks should pay attention to their work. At least during slavery, blacks didn't have to worry about getting paid for the work they did, they only had to worry about getting abused by the plantation owners. According to this book, the author wants to give credit to blacks for being resourceful enough to get the job done regardless of their state of poverty. The author also gives black women credit for keeping the family together and working for their family even when they were working for white families. Mostly the church and the family and neighbors should get credit for helping each other out when they needed it.
Black communities are still like that today.
If somebody needs help, everybody is there to offer what they can. But back then, the whites just couldn't get it through their heads that blacks weren't slaves anymore. A lot of ritual went into the practice of religion in Africa, and even if that same ritual got lost along the way, going to church and worshipping isn't just a self-fulfilling event, it is a community event too. Whites wouldn't even let black men work when they wanted to. That's why black men had a hard time supporting a wife and children.