Havens notices that
Lincoln has been changed by the souls who recently inhabited him, an experience that has opened him up. “He had not, it seemed, gone unaffected by that event,” he remarks. “Not at all. It had made him sad. Sadder.
We had. All of us, white and black, had made him sadder, with our sadness. And now, though it sounds strange to say, he was making
me sadder with
his sadness.” Because of this, Havens decides to present Lincoln with all the sorrows related to his existence as a black man in America, holding nothing back as he directs his mind to the hardships of people like
Litzie Wright and
Mrs. Hodge. “We are ready, sir,” he says, “are angry, are capable, our hopes are coiled up so tight as to be deadly, or holy: turn us loose, sir, let us at it, let us show what we can do.”