From his recollections, McCoy remembers the years after the Civil War, describing how there <em>weren't many differences between</em> his life as a freedman and a slave. Even though slavery was abolished, it is observable in the interview that there were few <em>guarantees to exercise liberty</em>, hence being uneducated, dependence on former slavemasters and disinterest on political issues were some of the aspects that led McCoy to conclude that changes weren't that visible.
