Answer:
They faced the challenge of surviving in a society that had declared each of them to be private property and that was organized to maintain their subservient status. In the eyes of the law, they had no authority to make decisions about their own lives and could be bought, sold, tortured, rewarded, educated, or killed at a slaveholder's will. All the most crucial things in their lives-from the dignity of their daily labor to the valor of their resistance, from the comforts of family to the pursuit of art, music, and worship-all had to be accomplished in the face of slave society's attempt to deny their humanity.