1 The Project Gutenberg EBook of Up From Slavery: An Autobiography, by
4 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
5 almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
6 re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
7 with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
10 Title: Up From Slavery: An Autobiography
12 Author: Booker T. Washington
14 Posting Date: October 20, 2008 [EBook #2376]
15 Release Date: October, 2000
16 [Last updated: July 4, 2012]
21 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UP FROM SLAVERY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
26 Produced by Internet Wiretap, An Anonymous Project Gutenberg
27 Volunteer, and Dan Muller
34 UP FROM SLAVERY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
36 By Booker T. Washington
41 This volume is dedicated to my Wife
42 Margaret James Washington
43 And to my Brother John H. Washington
44 Whose patience, fidelity,
45 and hard work have gone far to make the
46 work at Tuskegee successful.
53 This volume is the outgrowth of a series of articles, dealing with
54 incidents in my life, which were published consecutively in the Outlook.
55 While they were appearing in that magazine I was constantly surprised at
56 the number of requests which came to me from all parts of the country,
57 asking that the articles be permanently preserved in book form. I am
58 most grateful to the Outlook for permission to gratify these requests.
60 I have tried to tell a simple, straightforward story, with no attempt
61 at embellishment. My regret is that what I have attempted to do has
62 been done so imperfectly. The greater part of my time and strength is
63 required for the executive work connected with the Tuskegee Normal
64 and Industrial Institute, and in securing the money necessary for the
65 support of the institution. Much of what I have said has been written
66 on board trains, or at hotels or railroad stations while I have been
67 waiting for trains, or during the moments that I could spare from my
68 work while at Tuskegee. Without the painstaking and generous assistance
69 of Mr. Max Bennett Thrasher I could not have succeeded in any
77 The details of Mr. Washington's early life, as frankly set down in "Up
78 from Slavery," do not give quite a whole view of his education. He had
79 the training that a coloured youth receives at Hampton, which, indeed,
80 the autobiography does explain. But the reader does not get his
81 intellectual pedigree, for Mr. Washington himself, perhaps, does not
82 as clearly understand it as another man might. The truth is he had a
83 training during the most impressionable period of his life that was very
84 extraordinary, such a training as few men of his generation have had.
85 To see its full meaning one must start in the Hawaiian Islands half
86 a century or more ago.* There Samuel Armstrong, a youth of missionary
87 parents, earned enough money to pay his expenses at an American college.
88 Equipped with this small sum and the earnestness that the undertaking
89 implied, he came to Williams College when Dr. Mark Hopkins was
90 president. Williams College had many good things for youth in that day,
91 as it has in this, but the greatest was the strong personality of its
92 famous president. Every student does not profit by a great teacher; but
93 perhaps no young man ever came under the influence of Dr. Hopkins,
94 whose whole nature was so ripe for profit by such an experience as young
95 Armstrong. He lived in the family of President Hopkins, and thus had a
96 training that was wholly out of the common; and this training had
97 much to do with the development of his own strong character, whose
98 originality and force we are only beginning to appreciate.
100 * For this interesting view of Mr. Washington's education, I
101 am indebted to Robert C. Ogden, Esq., Chairman of the Board
102 of Trustees of Hampton Institute and the intimate friend of
103 General Armstrong during the whole period of his educational
106 In turn, Samuel Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute, took up his
107 work as a trainer of youth. He had very raw material, and doubtless most
108 of his pupils failed to get the greatest lessons from him; but, as
109 he had been a peculiarly receptive pupil of Dr. Hopkins, so Booker
110 Washington became a peculiarly receptive pupil of his. To the formation
111 of Mr. Washington's character, then, went the missionary zeal of New
112 England, influenced by one of the strongest personalities in modern
113 education, and the wide-reaching moral earnestness of General Armstrong
114 himself. These influences are easily recognizable in Mr. Washington
115 to-day by men who knew Dr. Hopkins and General Armstrong.
117 I got the cue to Mr. Washington's character from a very simple incident
118 many years ago. I had never seen him, and I knew little about him,
119 except that he was the head of a school at Tuskegee, Alabama. I had
120 occasion to write to him, and I addressed him as "The Rev. Booker T.
121 Washington." In his reply there was no mention of my addressing him as a
122 clergyman. But when I had occasion to write to him again, and persisted
123 in making him a preacher, his second letter brought a postscript: "I
124 have no claim to 'Rev.'" I knew most of the coloured men who at that
125 time had become prominent as leaders of their race, but I had not then
126 known one who was neither a politician nor a preacher; and I had
127 not heard of the head of an important coloured school who was not
128 a preacher. "A new kind of man in the coloured world," I said to
129 myself--"a new kind of man surely if he looks upon his task as an
130 economic one instead of a theological one." I wrote him an apology for
131 mistaking him for a preacher.
133 The first time that I went to Tuskegee I was asked to make an address
134 to the school on Sunday evening. I sat upon the platform of the large
135 chapel and looked forth on a thousand coloured faces, and the choir of
136 a hundred or more behind me sang a familiar religious melody, and the
137 whole company joined in the chorus with unction. I was the only white
138 man under the roof, and the scene and the songs made an impression on me
139 that I shall never forget. Mr. Washington arose and asked them to sing
140 one after another of the old melodies that I had heard all my life;
141 but I had never before heard them sung by a thousand voices nor by the
142 voices of educated Negroes. I had associated them with the Negro of the
143 past, not with the Negro who was struggling upward. They brought to my
144 mind the plantation, the cabin, the slave, not the freedman in quest of
145 education. But on the plantation and in the cabin they had never been
146 sung as these thousand students sang them. I saw again all the old
147 plantations that I had ever seen; the whole history of the Negro
148 ran through my mind; and the inexpressible pathos of his life found
149 expression in these songs as I had never before felt it.
151 And the future? These were the ambitious youths of the race, at work
152 with an earnestness that put to shame the conventional student life of
153 most educational institutions. Another song rolled up along the
154 rafters. And as soon as silence came, I found myself in front of this
155 extraordinary mass of faces, thinking not of them, but of that long and
156 unhappy chapter in our country's history which followed the one great
157 structural mistake of the Fathers of the Republic; thinking of the one
158 continuous great problem that generations of statesmen had wrangled
159 over, and a million men fought about, and that had so dwarfed the mass
160 of English men in the Southern States as to hold them back a hundred
161 years behind their fellows in every other part of the world--in England,
162 in Australia, and in the Northern and Western States; I was thinking of
163 this dark shadow that had oppressed every large-minded statesman from
164 Jefferson to Lincoln. These thousand young men and women about me were
165 victims of it. I, too, was an innocent victim of it. The whole Republic
166 was a victim of that fundamental error of importing Africa into America.
167 I held firmly to the first article of my faith that the Republic
168 must stand fast by the principle of a fair ballot; but I recalled the
169 wretched mess that Reconstruction had made of it; I recalled the
170 low level of public life in all the "black" States. Every effort of
171 philanthropy seemed to have miscarried, every effort at correcting
172 abuses seemed of doubtful value, and the race friction seemed to become
173 severer. Here was the century-old problem in all its pathos seated
174 singing before me. Who were the more to be pitied--these innocent
175 victims of an ancient wrong, or I and men like me, who had inherited
176 the problem? I had long ago thrown aside illusions and theories, and was
177 willing to meet the facts face to face, and to do whatever in God's name
178 a man might do towards saving the next generation from such a burden.
179 But I felt the weight of twenty well-nigh hopeless years of thought and
180 reading and observation; for the old difficulties remained and new
181 ones had sprung up. Then I saw clearly that the way out of a century
182 of blunders had been made by this man who stood beside me and was
183 introducing me to this audience. Before me was the material he had used.
184 All about me was the indisputable evidence that he had found the
185 natural line of development. He had shown the way. Time and patience and
186 encouragement and work would do the rest.
188 It was then more clearly than ever before that I understood the
189 patriotic significance of Mr. Washington's work. It is this conception
190 of it and of him that I have ever since carried with me. It is on this
191 that his claim to our gratitude rests.
193 To teach the Negro to read, whether English, or Greek, or Hebrew,
194 butters no parsnips. To make the Negro work, that is what his master did
195 in one way and hunger has done in another; yet both these left Southern
196 life where they found it. But to teach the Negro to do skilful work,
197 as men of all the races that have risen have worked,--responsible work,
198 which IS education and character; and most of all when Negroes so teach
199 Negroes to do this that they will teach others with a missionary zeal
200 that puts all ordinary philanthropic efforts to shame,--this is to
201 change the whole economic basis of life and the whole character of a
204 The plan itself is not a new one. It was worked out at Hampton
205 Institute, but it was done at Hampton by white men. The plan had, in
206 fact, been many times theoretically laid down by thoughtful students of
207 Southern life. Handicrafts were taught in the days of slavery on most
208 well-managed plantations. But Tuskegee is, nevertheless, a brand-new
209 chapter in the history of the Negro, and in the history of the knottiest
210 problem we have ever faced. It not only makes "a carpenter of a man; it
211 makes a man of a carpenter." In one sense, therefore, it is of greater
212 value than any other institution for the training of men and women that
213 we have, from Cambridge to Palo Alto. It is almost the only one of which
214 it may be said that it points the way to a new epoch in a large area of
217 To work out the plan on paper, or at a distance--that is one thing. For
218 a white man to work it out--that too, is an easy thing. For a coloured
219 man to work it out in the South, where, in its constructive period,
220 he was necessarily misunderstood by his own people as well as by the
221 whites, and where he had to adjust it at every step to the strained race
222 relations--that is so very different and more difficult a thing that the
223 man who did it put the country under lasting obligations to him.
225 It was not and is not a mere educational task. Anybody could teach boys
226 trades and give them an elementary education. Such tasks have been done
227 since the beginning of civilization. But this task had to be done with
228 the rawest of raw material, done within the civilization of the dominant
229 race, and so done as not to run across race lines and social lines that
230 are the strongest forces in the community. It had to be done for the
231 benefit of the whole community. It had to be done, moreover, without
232 local help, in the face of the direst poverty, done by begging, and done
233 in spite of the ignorance of one race and the prejudice of the other.
235 No man living had a harder task, and a task that called for more wisdom
236 to do it right. The true measure of Mr. Washington's success is, then,
237 not his teaching the pupils of Tuskegee, nor even gaining the support of
238 philanthropic persons at a distance, but this--that every Southern white
239 man of character and of wisdom has been won to a cordial recognition
240 of the value of the work, even men who held and still hold to the
241 conviction that a mere book education for the Southern blacks under
242 present conditions is a positive evil. This is a demonstration of
243 the efficiency of the Hampton-Tuskegee idea that stands like the
244 demonstration of the value of democratic institutions themselves--a
245 demonstration made so clear in spite of the greatest odds that it is no
246 longer open to argument.
248 Consider the change that has come in twenty years in the discussion
249 of the Negro problem. Two or three decades ago social philosophers and
250 statisticians and well-meaning philanthropists were still talking and
251 writing about the deportation of the Negroes, or about their settlement
252 within some restricted area, or about their settling in all parts of the
253 Union, or about their decline through their neglect of their children,
254 or about their rapid multiplication till they should expel the whites
255 from the South--of every sort of nonsense under heaven. All this has
256 given place to the simple plan of an indefinite extension among the
257 neglected classes of both races of the Hampton-Tuskegee system of
258 training. The "problem" in one sense has disappeared. The future will
259 have for the South swift or slow development of its masses and of its
260 soil in proportion to the swift or slow development of this kind of
261 training. This change of view is a true measure of Mr. Washington's
264 The literature of the Negro in America is colossal, from political
265 oratory through abolitionism to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Cotton is
266 King"--a vast mass of books which many men have read to the waste of
267 good years (and I among them); but the only books that I have read a
268 second time or ever care again to read in the whole list (most of them
269 by tiresome and unbalanced "reformers") are "Uncle Remus" and "Up from
270 Slavery"; for these are the great literature of the subject. One has all
271 the best of the past, the other foreshadows a better future; and the
272 men who wrote them are the only men who have written of the subject with
273 that perfect frankness and perfect knowledge and perfect poise whose
274 other name is genius.
276 Mr. Washington has won a world-wide fame at an early age. His story
277 of his own life already has the distinction of translation into more
278 languages, I think, than any other American book; and I suppose that
279 he has as large a personal acquaintance among men of influence as any
280 private citizen now living.
282 His own teaching at Tuskegee is unique. He lectures to his advanced
283 students on the art of right living, not out of text-books, but
284 straight out of life. Then he sends them into the country to visit Negro
285 families. Such a student will come back with a minute report of the way
286 in which the family that he has seen lives, what their earnings are,
287 what they do well and what they do ill; and he will explain how they
288 might live better. He constructs a definite plan for the betterment
289 of that particular family out of the resources that they have. Such a
290 student, if he be bright, will profit more by an experience like this
291 than he could profit by all the books on sociology and economics that
292 ever were written. I talked with a boy at Tuskegee who had made such a
293 study as this, and I could not keep from contrasting his knowledge and
294 enthusiasm with what I heard in a class room at a Negro university
295 in one of the Southern cities, which is conducted on the idea that a
296 college course will save the soul. Here the class was reciting a lesson
297 from an abstruse text-book on economics, reciting it by rote, with so
298 obvious a failure to assimilate it that the waste of labour was pitiful.
300 I asked Mr. Washington years ago what he regarded as the most important
301 result of his work, and he replied:
303 "I do not know which to put first, the effect of Tuskegee's work on the
304 Negro, or the effect on the attitude of the white man to the Negro."
306 The race divergence under the system of miseducation was fast getting
307 wider. Under the influence of the Hampton-Tuskegee idea the races
308 are coming into a closer sympathy and into an honourable and helpful
309 relation. As the Negro becomes economically independent, he becomes a
310 responsible part of the Southern life; and the whites so recognize
311 him. And this must be so from the nature of things. There is nothing
312 artificial about it. It is development in a perfectly natural way. And
313 the Southern whites not only so recognize it, but they are imitating it
314 in the teaching of the neglected masses of their own race. It has thus
315 come about that the school is taking a more direct and helpful hold on
316 life in the South than anywhere else in the country. Education is not
317 a thing apart from life--not a "system," nor a philosophy; it is direct
318 teaching how to live and how to work.
320 To say that Mr. Washington has won the gratitude of all thoughtful
321 Southern white men, is to say that he has worked with the highest
322 practical wisdom at a large constructive task; for no plan for the
323 up-building of the freedman could succeed that ran counter to Southern
324 opinion. To win the support of Southern opinion and to shape it was a
325 necessary part of the task; and in this he has so well succeeded that
326 the South has a sincere and high regard for him. He once said to me that
327 he recalled the day, and remembered it thankfully, when he grew large
328 enough to regard a Southern white man as he regarded a Northern one. It
329 is well for our common country that the day is come when he and his work
330 are regarded as highly in the South as in any other part of the Union. I
331 think that no man of our generation has a more noteworthy achievement to
332 his credit than this; and it is an achievement of moral earnestness of
333 the strong character of a man who has done a great national service.
344 Chapter I. A Slave Among Slaves
346 I was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. I am
347 not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but at
348 any rate I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time.
349 As nearly as I have been able to learn, I was born near a cross-roads
350 post-office called Hale's Ford, and the year was 1858 or 1859. I do not
351 know the month or the day. The earliest impressions I can now recall are
352 of the plantation and the slave quarters--the latter being the part of
353 the plantation where the slaves had their cabins.
355 My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate,
356 and discouraging surroundings. This was so, however, not because my
357 owners were especially cruel, for they were not, as compared with many
358 others. I was born in a typical log cabin, about fourteen by sixteen
359 feet square. In this cabin I lived with my mother and a brother and
360 sister till after the Civil War, when we were all declared free.
362 Of my ancestry I know almost nothing. In the slave quarters, and even
363 later, I heard whispered conversations among the coloured people of
364 the tortures which the slaves, including, no doubt, my ancestors on my
365 mother's side, suffered in the middle passage of the slave ship while
366 being conveyed from Africa to America. I have been unsuccessful in
367 securing any information that would throw any accurate light upon
368 the history of my family beyond my mother. She, I remember, had a
369 half-brother and a half-sister. In the days of slavery not very much
370 attention was given to family history and family records--that is,
371 black family records. My mother, I suppose, attracted the attention of a
372 purchaser who was afterward my owner and hers. Her addition to the slave
373 family attracted about as much attention as the purchase of a new horse
374 or cow. Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not even
375 know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white
376 man who lived on one of the near-by plantations. Whoever he was, I never
377 heard of his taking the least interest in me or providing in any way
378 for my rearing. But I do not find especial fault with him. He was simply
379 another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily
380 had engrafted upon it at that time.
382 The cabin was not only our living-place, but was also used as the
383 kitchen for the plantation. My mother was the plantation cook. The cabin
384 was without glass windows; it had only openings in the side which let in
385 the light, and also the cold, chilly air of winter. There was a door to
386 the cabin--that is, something that was called a door--but the uncertain
387 hinges by which it was hung, and the large cracks in it, to say nothing
388 of the fact that it was too small, made the room a very uncomfortable
389 one. In addition to these openings there was, in the lower right-hand
390 corner of the room, the "cat-hole,"--a contrivance which almost every
391 mansion or cabin in Virginia possessed during the ante-bellum period.
392 The "cat-hole" was a square opening, about seven by eight inches,
393 provided for the purpose of letting the cat pass in and out of the house
394 at will during the night. In the case of our particular cabin I could
395 never understand the necessity for this convenience, since there were
396 at least a half-dozen other places in the cabin that would have
397 accommodated the cats. There was no wooden floor in our cabin, the naked
398 earth being used as a floor. In the centre of the earthen floor there
399 was a large, deep opening covered with boards, which was used as a place
400 in which to store sweet potatoes during the winter. An impression of
401 this potato-hole is very distinctly engraved upon my memory, because I
402 recall that during the process of putting the potatoes in or taking them
403 out I would often come into possession of one or two, which I roasted
404 and thoroughly enjoyed. There was no cooking-stove on our plantation,
405 and all the cooking for the whites and slaves my mother had to do over
406 an open fireplace, mostly in pots and "skillets." While the poorly built
407 cabin caused us to suffer with cold in the winter, the heat from the
408 open fireplace in summer was equally trying.
410 The early years of my life, which were spent in the little cabin, were
411 not very different from those of thousands of other slaves. My mother,
412 of course, had little time in which to give attention to the training of
413 her children during the day. She snatched a few moments for our care in
414 the early morning before her work began, and at night after the day's
415 work was done. One of my earliest recollections is that of my mother
416 cooking a chicken late at night, and awakening her children for the
417 purpose of feeding them. How or where she got it I do not know. I
418 presume, however, it was procured from our owner's farm. Some people may
419 call this theft. If such a thing were to happen now, I should condemn it
420 as theft myself. But taking place at the time it did, and for the reason
421 that it did, no one could ever make me believe that my mother was guilty
422 of thieving. She was simply a victim of the system of slavery. I cannot
423 remember having slept in a bed until after our family was declared
424 free by the Emancipation Proclamation. Three children--John, my older
425 brother, Amanda, my sister, and myself--had a pallet on the dirt floor,
426 or, to be more correct, we slept in and on a bundle of filthy rags laid
429 I was asked not long ago to tell something about the sports and pastimes
430 that I engaged in during my youth. Until that question was asked it
431 had never occurred to me that there was no period of my life that was
432 devoted to play. From the time that I can remember anything, almost
433 every day of my life had been occupied in some kind of labour; though
434 I think I would now be a more useful man if I had had time for sports.
435 During the period that I spent in slavery I was not large enough to be
436 of much service, still I was occupied most of the time in cleaning the
437 yards, carrying water to the men in the fields, or going to the mill to
438 which I used to take the corn, once a week, to be ground. The mill was
439 about three miles from the plantation. This work I always dreaded. The
440 heavy bag of corn would be thrown across the back of the horse, and the
441 corn divided about evenly on each side; but in some way, almost
442 without exception, on these trips, the corn would so shift as to become
443 unbalanced and would fall off the horse, and often I would fall with it.
444 As I was not strong enough to reload the corn upon the horse, I would
445 have to wait, sometimes for many hours, till a chance passer-by came
446 along who would help me out of my trouble. The hours while waiting for
447 some one were usually spent in crying. The time consumed in this way
448 made me late in reaching the mill, and by the time I got my corn ground
449 and reached home it would be far into the night. The road was a lonely
450 one, and often led through dense forests. I was always frightened. The
451 woods were said to be full of soldiers who had deserted from the army,
452 and I had been told that the first thing a deserter did to a Negro boy
453 when he found him alone was to cut off his ears. Besides, when I was
454 late in getting home I knew I would always get a severe scolding or a
457 I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave, though I remember on
458 several occasions I went as far as the schoolhouse door with one of my
459 young mistresses to carry her books. The picture of several dozen boys
460 and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon
461 me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in
462 this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.
464 So far as I can now recall, the first knowledge that I got of the fact
465 that we were slaves, and that freedom of the slaves was being discussed,
466 was early one morning before day, when I was awakened by my mother
467 kneeling over her children and fervently praying that Lincoln and his
468 armies might be successful, and that one day she and her children might
469 be free. In this connection I have never been able to understand how the
470 slaves throughout the South, completely ignorant as were the masses so
471 far as books or newspapers were concerned, were able to keep themselves
472 so accurately and completely informed about the great National questions
473 that were agitating the country. From the time that Garrison, Lovejoy,
474 and others began to agitate for freedom, the slaves throughout the South
475 kept in close touch with the progress of the movement. Though I was a
476 mere child during the preparation for the Civil War and during the war
477 itself, I now recall the many late-at-night whispered discussions that I
478 heard my mother and the other slaves on the plantation indulge in. These
479 discussions showed that they understood the situation, and that they
480 kept themselves informed of events by what was termed the "grape-vine"
483 During the campaign when Lincoln was first a candidate for the
484 Presidency, the slaves on our far-off plantation, miles from any
485 railroad or large city or daily newspaper, knew what the issues involved
486 were. When war was begun between the North and the South, every slave on
487 our plantation felt and knew that, though other issues were discussed,
488 the primal one was that of slavery. Even the most ignorant members of
489 my race on the remote plantations felt in their hearts, with a certainty
490 that admitted of no doubt, that the freedom of the slaves would be the
491 one great result of the war, if the Northern armies conquered. Every
492 success of the Federal armies and every defeat of the Confederate forces
493 was watched with the keenest and most intense interest. Often the slaves
494 got knowledge of the results of great battles before the white people
495 received it. This news was usually gotten from the coloured man who was
496 sent to the post-office for the mail. In our case the post-office was
497 about three miles from the plantation, and the mail came once or twice
498 a week. The man who was sent to the office would linger about the place
499 long enough to get the drift of the conversation from the group of white
500 people who naturally congregated there, after receiving their mail,
501 to discuss the latest news. The mail-carrier on his way back to our
502 master's house would as naturally retail the news that he had secured
503 among the slaves, and in this way they often heard of important events
504 before the white people at the "big house," as the master's house was
507 I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early
508 boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together, and God's
509 blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in a civilized manner.
510 On the plantation in Virginia, and even later, meals were gotten by the
511 children very much as dumb animals get theirs. It was a piece of bread
512 here and a scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at one time and
513 some potatoes at another. Sometimes a portion of our family would eat
514 out of the skillet or pot, while some one else would eat from a tin
515 plate held on the knees, and often using nothing but the hands with
516 which to hold the food. When I had grown to sufficient size, I was
517 required to go to the "big house" at meal-times to fan the flies from
518 the table by means of a large set of paper fans operated by a pulley.
519 Naturally much of the conversation of the white people turned upon the
520 subject of freedom and the war, and I absorbed a good deal of it. I
521 remember that at one time I saw two of my young mistresses and some
522 lady visitors eating ginger-cakes, in the yard. At that time those cakes
523 seemed to me to be absolutely the most tempting and desirable things
524 that I had ever seen; and I then and there resolved that, if I ever got
525 free, the height of my ambition would be reached if I could get to the
526 point where I could secure and eat ginger-cakes in the way that I saw
529 Of course as the war was prolonged the white people, in many cases,
530 often found it difficult to secure food for themselves. I think the
531 slaves felt the deprivation less than the whites, because the usual diet
532 for slaves was corn bread and pork, and these could be raised on the
533 plantation; but coffee, tea, sugar, and other articles which the whites
534 had been accustomed to use could not be raised on the plantation, and
535 the conditions brought about by the war frequently made it impossible
536 to secure these things. The whites were often in great straits. Parched
537 corn was used for coffee, and a kind of black molasses was used instead
538 of sugar. Many times nothing was used to sweeten the so-called tea and
541 The first pair of shoes that I recall wearing were wooden ones. They
542 had rough leather on the top, but the bottoms, which were about an
543 inch thick, were of wood. When I walked they made a fearful noise, and
544 besides this they were very inconvenient, since there was no yielding
545 to the natural pressure of the foot. In wearing them one presented an
546 exceedingly awkward appearance. The most trying ordeal that I was forced
547 to endure as a slave boy, however, was the wearing of a flax shirt. In
548 the portion of Virginia where I lived it was common to use flax as part
549 of the clothing for the slaves. That part of the flax from which our
550 clothing was made was largely the refuse, which of course was the
551 cheapest and roughest part. I can scarcely imagine any torture, except,
552 perhaps, the pulling of a tooth, that is equal to that caused by putting
553 on a new flax shirt for the first time. It is almost equal to the
554 feeling that one would experience if he had a dozen or more chestnut
555 burrs, or a hundred small pin-points, in contact with his flesh. Even
556 to this day I can recall accurately the tortures that I underwent when
557 putting on one of these garments. The fact that my flesh was soft and
558 tender added to the pain. But I had no choice. I had to wear the flax
559 shirt or none; and had it been left to me to choose, I should have
560 chosen to wear no covering. In connection with the flax shirt, my
561 brother John, who is several years older than I am, performed one of
562 the most generous acts that I ever heard of one slave relative doing for
563 another. On several occasions when I was being forced to wear a new flax
564 shirt, he generously agreed to put it on in my stead and wear it for
565 several days, till it was "broken in." Until I had grown to be quite a
566 youth this single garment was all that I wore.
568 One may get the idea, from what I have said, that there was bitter
569 feeling toward the white people on the part of my race, because of the
570 fact that most of the white population was away fighting in a war
571 which would result in keeping the Negro in slavery if the South was
572 successful. In the case of the slaves on our place this was not true,
573 and it was not true of any large portion of the slave population in the
574 South where the Negro was treated with anything like decency. During
575 the Civil War one of my young masters was killed, and two were severely
576 wounded. I recall the feeling of sorrow which existed among the slaves
577 when they heard of the death of "Mars' Billy." It was no sham sorrow,
578 but real. Some of the slaves had nursed "Mars' Billy"; others had played
579 with him when he was a child. "Mars' Billy" had begged for mercy in
580 the case of others when the overseer or master was thrashing them. The
581 sorrow in the slave quarter was only second to that in the "big house."
582 When the two young masters were brought home wounded, the sympathy of
583 the slaves was shown in many ways. They were just as anxious to assist
584 in the nursing as the family relatives of the wounded. Some of the
585 slaves would even beg for the privilege of sitting up at night to nurse
586 their wounded masters. This tenderness and sympathy on the part of those
587 held in bondage was a result of their kindly and generous nature. In
588 order to defend and protect the women and children who were left on the
589 plantations when the white males went to war, the slaves would have laid
590 down their lives. The slave who was selected to sleep in the "big house"
591 during the absence of the males was considered to have the place of
592 honour. Any one attempting to harm "young Mistress" or "old Mistress"
593 during the night would have had to cross the dead body of the slave to
594 do so. I do not know how many have noticed it, but I think that it will
595 be found to be true that there are few instances, either in slavery
596 or freedom, in which a member of my race has been known to betray a
599 As a rule, not only did the members of my race entertain no feelings of
600 bitterness against the whites before and during the war, but there are
601 many instances of Negroes tenderly caring for their former masters and
602 mistresses who for some reason have become poor and dependent since the
603 war. I know of instances where the former masters of slaves have for
604 years been supplied with money by their former slaves to keep them from
605 suffering. I have known of still other cases in which the former slaves
606 have assisted in the education of the descendants of their former
607 owners. I know of a case on a large plantation in the South in which a
608 young white man, the son of the former owner of the estate, has become
609 so reduced in purse and self-control by reason of drink that he is a
610 pitiable creature; and yet, notwithstanding the poverty of the coloured
611 people themselves on this plantation, they have for years supplied this
612 young white man with the necessities of life. One sends him a little
613 coffee or sugar, another a little meat, and so on. Nothing that the
614 coloured people possess is too good for the son of "old Mars' Tom," who
615 will perhaps never be permitted to suffer while any remain on the place
616 who knew directly or indirectly of "old Mars' Tom."
618 I have said that there are few instances of a member of my race
619 betraying a specific trust. One of the best illustrations of this which
620 I know of is in the case of an ex-slave from Virginia whom I met not
621 long ago in a little town in the state of Ohio. I found that this man
622 had made a contract with his master, two or three years previous to
623 the Emancipation Proclamation, to the effect that the slave was to be
624 permitted to buy himself, by paying so much per year for his body; and
625 while he was paying for himself, he was to be permitted to labour where
626 and for whom he pleased. Finding that he could secure better wages in
627 Ohio, he went there. When freedom came, he was still in debt to his
628 master some three hundred dollars. Notwithstanding that the Emancipation
629 Proclamation freed him from any obligation to his master, this black man
630 walked the greater portion of the distance back to where his old master
631 lived in Virginia, and placed the last dollar, with interest, in his
632 hands. In talking to me about this, the man told me that he knew that
633 he did not have to pay the debt, but that he had given his word to the
634 master, and his word he had never broken. He felt that he could not
635 enjoy his freedom till he had fulfilled his promise.
637 From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the
638 slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who
639 did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.
641 I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is
642 so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery. I have long
643 since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern
644 white people on account of the enslavement of my race. No one section of
645 our country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and, besides,
646 it was recognized and protected for years by the General Government.
647 Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social
648 life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve
649 itself of the institution. Then, when we rid ourselves of prejudice, or
650 racial feeling, and look facts in the face, we must acknowledge that,
651 notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million
652 Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors
653 went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more
654 hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously,
655 than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of
656 the globe. This is so to such an extent that Negroes in this country,
657 who themselves or whose forefathers went through the school of slavery,
658 are constantly returning to Africa as missionaries to enlighten those
659 who remained in the fatherland. This I say, not to justify slavery--on
660 the other hand, I condemn it as an institution, as we all know that in
661 America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not
662 from a missionary motive--but to call attention to a fact, and to
663 show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish
664 a purpose. When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what
665 sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such
666 faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the
667 wilderness through which and out of which, a good Providence has already
670 Ever since I have been old enough to think for myself, I have
671 entertained the idea that, notwithstanding the cruel wrongs inflicted
672 upon us, the black man got nearly as much out of slavery as the white
673 man did. The hurtful influences of the institution were not by any means
674 confined to the Negro. This was fully illustrated by the life upon our
675 own plantation. The whole machinery of slavery was so constructed as to
676 cause labour, as a rule, to be looked upon as a badge of degradation,
677 of inferiority. Hence labour was something that both races on the slave
678 plantation sought to escape. The slave system on our place, in a large
679 measure, took the spirit of self-reliance and self-help out of the white
680 people. My old master had many boys and girls, but not one, so far as
681 I know, ever mastered a single trade or special line of productive
682 industry. The girls were not taught to cook, sew, or to take care of the
683 house. All of this was left to the slaves. The slaves, of course,
684 had little personal interest in the life of the plantation, and their
685 ignorance prevented them from learning how to do things in the most
686 improved and thorough manner. As a result of the system, fences were
687 out of repair, gates were hanging half off the hinges, doors creaked,
688 window-panes were out, plastering had fallen but was not replaced, weeds
689 grew in the yard. As a rule, there was food for whites and blacks, but
690 inside the house, and on the dining-room table, there was wanting that
691 delicacy and refinement of touch and finish which can make a home the
692 most convenient, comfortable, and attractive place in the world. Withal
693 there was a waste of food and other materials which was sad. When
694 freedom came, the slaves were almost as well fitted to begin life anew
695 as the master, except in the matter of book-learning and ownership of
696 property. The slave owner and his sons had mastered no special industry.
697 They unconsciously had imbibed the feeling that manual labour was not
698 the proper thing for them. On the other hand, the slaves, in many cases,
699 had mastered some handicraft, and none were ashamed, and few unwilling,
702 Finally the war closed, and the day of freedom came. It was a momentous
703 and eventful day to all upon our plantation. We had been expecting it.
704 Freedom was in the air, and had been for months. Deserting soldiers
705 returning to their homes were to be seen every day. Others who had been
706 discharged, or whose regiments had been paroled, were constantly passing
707 near our place. The "grape-vine telegraph" was kept busy night and day.
708 The news and mutterings of great events were swiftly carried from one
709 plantation to another. In the fear of "Yankee" invasions, the silverware
710 and other valuables were taken from the "big house," buried in the
711 woods, and guarded by trusted slaves. Woe be to any one who would have
712 attempted to disturb the buried treasure. The slaves would give the
713 Yankee soldiers food, drink, clothing--anything but that which had been
714 specifically intrusted to their care and honour. As the great day drew
715 nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It
716 was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the
717 verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom. True, they
718 had sung those same verses before, but they had been careful to explain
719 that the "freedom" in these songs referred to the next world, and had
720 no connection with life in this world. Now they gradually threw off the
721 mask, and were not afraid to let it be known that the "freedom" in their
722 songs meant freedom of the body in this world. The night before the
723 eventful day, word was sent to the slave quarters to the effect that
724 something unusual was going to take place at the "big house" the next
725 morning. There was little, if any, sleep that night. All as excitement
726 and expectancy. Early the next morning word was sent to all the slaves,
727 old and young, to gather at the house. In company with my mother,
728 brother, and sister, and a large number of other slaves, I went to
729 the master's house. All of our master's family were either standing or
730 seated on the veranda of the house, where they could see what was to
731 take place and hear what was said. There was a feeling of deep interest,
732 or perhaps sadness, on their faces, but not bitterness. As I now recall
733 the impression they made upon me, they did not at the moment seem to be
734 sad because of the loss of property, but rather because of parting with
735 those whom they had reared and who were in many ways very close to them.
736 The most distinct thing that I now recall in connection with the scene
737 was that some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer,
738 I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper--the
739 Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that
740 we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother,
741 who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while
742 tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all
743 meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but
744 fearing that she would never live to see.
746 For some minutes there was great rejoicing, and thanksgiving, and wild
747 scenes of ecstasy. But there was no feeling of bitterness. In fact,
748 there was pity among the slaves for our former owners. The wild
749 rejoicing on the part of the emancipated coloured people lasted but for
750 a brief period, for I noticed that by the time they returned to their
751 cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of
752 being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan
753 for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of them. It
754 was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years
755 out into the world to provide for himself. In a few hours the great
756 questions with which the Anglo-Saxon race had been grappling for
757 centuries had been thrown upon these people to be solved. These were
758 the questions of a home, a living, the rearing of children, education,
759 citizenship, and the establishment and support of churches. Was it any
760 wonder that within a few hours the wild rejoicing ceased and a feeling
761 of deep gloom seemed to pervade the slave quarters? To some it seemed
762 that, now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more
763 serious thing than they had expected to find it. Some of the slaves
764 were seventy or eighty years old; their best days were gone. They had
765 no strength with which to earn a living in a strange place and among
766 strange people, even if they had been sure where to find a new place of
767 abode. To this class the problem seemed especially hard. Besides, deep
768 down in their hearts there was a strange and peculiar attachment to "old
769 Marster" and "old Missus," and to their children, which they found it
770 hard to think of breaking off. With these they had spent in some cases
771 nearly a half-century, and it was no light thing to think of parting.
772 Gradually, one by one, stealthily at first, the older slaves began
773 to wander from the slave quarters back to the "big house" to have a
774 whispered conversation with their former owners as to the future.
778 Chapter II. Boyhood Days
780 After the coming of freedom there were two points upon which practically
781 all the people on our place were agreed, and I found that this was
782 generally true throughout the South: that they must change their names,
783 and that they must leave the old plantation for at least a few days or
784 weeks in order that they might really feel sure that they were free.
786 In some way a feeling got among the coloured people that it was far from
787 proper for them to bear the surname of their former owners, and a great
788 many of them took other surnames. This was one of the first signs of
789 freedom. When they were slaves, a coloured person was simply called
790 "John" or "Susan." There was seldom occasion for more than the use of
791 the one name. If "John" or "Susan" belonged to a white man by the
792 name of "Hatcher," sometimes he was called "John Hatcher," or as
793 often "Hatcher's John." But there was a feeling that "John Hatcher" or
794 "Hatcher's John" was not the proper title by which to denote a freeman;
795 and so in many cases "John Hatcher" was changed to "John S. Lincoln" or
796 "John S. Sherman," the initial "S" standing for no name, it being simply
797 a part of what the coloured man proudly called his "entitles."
799 As I have stated, most of the coloured people left the old plantation
800 for a short while at least, so as to be sure, it seemed, that they
801 could leave and try their freedom on to see how it felt. After they
802 had remained away for a while, many of the older slaves, especially,
803 returned to their old homes and made some kind of contract with their
804 former owners by which they remained on the estate.
806 My mother's husband, who was the stepfather of my brother John and
807 myself, did not belong to the same owners as did my mother. In fact, he
808 seldom came to our plantation. I remember seeing him there perhaps once
809 a year, that being about Christmas time. In some way, during the war, by
810 running away and following the Federal soldiers, it seems, he found
811 his way into the new state of West Virginia. As soon as freedom was
812 declared, he sent for my mother to come to the Kanawha Valley, in West
813 Virginia. At that time a journey from Virginia over the mountains
814 to West Virginia was rather a tedious and in some cases a painful
815 undertaking. What little clothing and few household goods we had were
816 placed in a cart, but the children walked the greater portion of the
817 distance, which was several hundred miles.
819 I do not think any of us ever had been very far from the plantation, and
820 the taking of a long journey into another state was quite an event. The
821 parting from our former owners and the members of our own race on the
822 plantation was a serious occasion. From the time of our parting till
823 their death we kept up a correspondence with the older members of the
824 family, and in later years we have kept in touch with those who were the
825 younger members. We were several weeks making the trip, and most of
826 the time we slept in the open air and did our cooking over a log fire
827 out-of-doors. One night I recall that we camped near an abandoned log
828 cabin, and my mother decided to build a fire in that for cooking, and
829 afterward to make a "pallet" on the floor for our sleeping. Just as the
830 fire had gotten well started a large black snake fully a yard and a half
831 long dropped down the chimney and ran out on the floor. Of course we at
832 once abandoned that cabin. Finally we reached our destination--a little
833 town called Malden, which is about five miles from Charleston, the
834 present capital of the state.
836 At that time salt-mining was the great industry in that part of West
837 Virginia, and the little town of Malden was right in the midst of
838 the salt-furnaces. My stepfather had already secured a job at a
839 salt-furnace, and he had also secured a little cabin for us to live
840 in. Our new house was no better than the one we had left on the
841 old plantation in Virginia. In fact, in one respect it was worse.
842 Notwithstanding the poor condition of our plantation cabin, we were at
843 all times sure of pure air. Our new home was in the midst of a cluster
844 of cabins crowded closely together, and as there were no sanitary
845 regulations, the filth about the cabins was often intolerable. Some of
846 our neighbours were coloured people, and some were the poorest and most
847 ignorant and degraded white people. It was a motley mixture. Drinking,
848 gambling, quarrels, fights, and shockingly immoral practices were
849 frequent. All who lived in the little town were in one way or another
850 connected with the salt business. Though I was a mere child, my
851 stepfather put me and my brother at work in one of the furnaces. Often I
852 began work as early as four o'clock in the morning.
854 The first thing I ever learned in the way of book knowledge was while
855 working in this salt-furnace. Each salt-packer had his barrels marked
856 with a certain number. The number allotted to my stepfather was "18."
857 At the close of the day's work the boss of the packers would come around
858 and put "18" on each of our barrels, and I soon learned to recognize
859 that figure wherever I saw it, and after a while got to the point where
860 I could make that figure, though I knew nothing about any other figures
863 From the time that I can remember having any thoughts about anything,
864 I recall that I had an intense longing to learn to read. I determined,
865 when quite a small child, that, if I accomplished nothing else in life,
866 I would in some way get enough education to enable me to read common
867 books and newspapers. Soon after we got settled in some manner in our
868 new cabin in West Virginia, I induced my mother to get hold of a book
869 for me. How or where she got it I do not know, but in some way she
870 procured an old copy of Webster's "blue-back" spelling-book, which
871 contained the alphabet, followed by such meaningless words as "ab,"
872 "ba," "ca," "da." I began at once to devour this book, and I think that
873 it was the first one I ever had in my hands. I had learned from somebody
874 that the way to begin to read was to learn the alphabet, so I tried
875 in all the ways I could think of to learn it,--all of course without a
876 teacher, for I could find no one to teach me. At that time there was not
877 a single member of my race anywhere near us who could read, and I was
878 too timid to approach any of the white people. In some way, within a few
879 weeks, I mastered the greater portion of the alphabet. In all my efforts
880 to learn to read my mother shared fully my ambition, and sympathized
881 with me and aided me in every way that she could. Though she was totally
882 ignorant, she had high ambitions for her children, and a large fund of
883 good, hard, common sense, which seemed to enable her to meet and master
884 every situation. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel
885 sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.
887 In the midst of my struggles and longing for an education, a young
888 coloured boy who had learned to read in the state of Ohio came to
889 Malden. As soon as the coloured people found out that he could read, a
890 newspaper was secured, and at the close of nearly every day's work
891 this young man would be surrounded by a group of men and women who were
892 anxious to hear him read the news contained in the papers. How I used to
893 envy this man! He seemed to me to be the one young man in all the world
894 who ought to be satisfied with his attainments.
896 About this time the question of having some kind of a school opened for
897 the coloured children in the village began to be discussed by members
898 of the race. As it would be the first school for Negro children that had
899 ever been opened in that part of Virginia, it was, of course, to be a
900 great event, and the discussion excited the wildest interest. The most
901 perplexing question was where to find a teacher. The young man from
902 Ohio who had learned to read the papers was considered, but his age was
903 against him. In the midst of the discussion about a teacher, another
904 young coloured man from Ohio, who had been a soldier, in some way found
905 his way into town. It was soon learned that he possessed considerable
906 education, and he was engaged by the coloured people to teach their
907 first school. As yet no free schools had been started for coloured
908 people in that section, hence each family agreed to pay a certain
909 amount per month, with the understanding that the teacher was to "board
910 'round"--that is, spend a day with each family. This was not bad for the
911 teacher, for each family tried to provide the very best on the day the
912 teacher was to be its guest. I recall that I looked forward with an
913 anxious appetite to the "teacher's day" at our little cabin.
915 This experience of a whole race beginning to go to school for the
916 first time, presents one of the most interesting studies that has ever
917 occurred in connection with the development of any race. Few people who
918 were not right in the midst of the scenes can form any exact idea of the
919 intense desire which the people of my race showed for an education. As
920 I have stated, it was a whole race trying to go to school. Few were too
921 young, and none too old, to make the attempt to learn. As fast as any
922 kind of teachers could be secured, not only were day-schools filled, but
923 night-schools as well. The great ambition of the older people was to try
924 to learn to read the Bible before they died. With this end in view men
925 and women who were fifty or seventy-five years old would often be found
926 in the night-school. Some day-schools were formed soon after
927 freedom, but the principal book studied in the Sunday-school was the
928 spelling-book. Day-school, night-school, Sunday-school, were always
929 crowded, and often many had to be turned away for want of room.
931 The opening of the school in the Kanawha Valley, however, brought to me
932 one of the keenest disappointments that I ever experienced. I had been
933 working in a salt-furnace for several months, and my stepfather had
934 discovered that I had a financial value, and so, when the school opened,
935 he decided that he could not spare me from my work. This decision seemed
936 to cloud my every ambition. The disappointment was made all the more
937 severe by reason of the fact that my place of work was where I could see
938 the happy children passing to and from school mornings and afternoons.
939 Despite this disappointment, however, I determined that I would learn
940 something, anyway. I applied myself with greater earnestness than ever
941 to the mastering of what was in the "blue-back" speller.
943 My mother sympathized with me in my disappointment, and sought to
944 comfort me in all the ways she could, and to help me find a way to
945 learn. After a while I succeeded in making arrangements with the teacher
946 to give me some lessons at night, after the day's work was done. These
947 night lessons were so welcome that I think I learned more at night
948 than the other children did during the day. My own experiences in the
949 night-school gave me faith in the night-school idea, with which, in
950 after years, I had to do both at Hampton and Tuskegee. But my boyish
951 heart was still set upon going to the day-school, and I let no
952 opportunity slip to push my case. Finally I won, and was permitted to go
953 to the school in the day for a few months, with the understanding that
954 I was to rise early in the morning and work in the furnace till nine
955 o'clock, and return immediately after school closed in the afternoon for
956 at least two more hours of work.
958 The schoolhouse was some distance from the furnace, and as I had to work
959 till nine o'clock, and the school opened at nine, I found myself in
960 a difficulty. School would always be begun before I reached it, and
961 sometimes my class had recited. To get around this difficulty I yielded
962 to a temptation for which most people, I suppose, will condemn me; but
963 since it is a fact, I might as well state it. I have great faith in the
964 power and influence of facts. It is seldom that anything is permanently
965 gained by holding back a fact. There was a large clock in a little
966 office in the furnace. This clock, of course, all the hundred or more
967 workmen depended upon to regulate their hours of beginning and ending
968 the day's work. I got the idea that the way for me to reach school on
969 time was to move the clock hands from half-past eight up to the nine
970 o'clock mark. This I found myself doing morning after morning, till the
971 furnace "boss" discovered that something was wrong, and locked the clock
972 in a case. I did not mean to inconvenience anybody. I simply meant to
973 reach that schoolhouse in time.
975 When, however, I found myself at the school for the first time, I also
976 found myself confronted with two other difficulties. In the first place,
977 I found that all the other children wore hats or caps on their heads,
978 and I had neither hat nor cap. In fact, I do not remember that up to
979 the time of going to school I had ever worn any kind of covering upon
980 my head, nor do I recall that either I or anybody else had even thought
981 anything about the need of covering for my head. But, of course, when
982 I saw how all the other boys were dressed, I began to feel quite
983 uncomfortable. As usual, I put the case before my mother, and she
984 explained to me that she had no money with which to buy a "store hat,"
985 which was a rather new institution at that time among the members of my
986 race and was considered quite the thing for young and old to own,
987 but that she would find a way to help me out of the difficulty.
988 She accordingly got two pieces of "homespun" (jeans) and sewed them
989 together, and I was soon the proud possessor of my first cap.
991 The lesson that my mother taught me in this has always remained with me,
992 and I have tried as best as I could to teach it to others. I have
993 always felt proud, whenever I think of the incident, that my mother
994 had strength of character enough not to be led into the temptation
995 of seeming to be that which she was not--of trying to impress my
996 schoolmates and others with the fact that she was able to buy me a
997 "store hat" when she was not. I have always felt proud that she refused
998 to go into debt for that which she did not have the money to pay for.
999 Since that time I have owned many kinds of caps and hats, but never one
1000 of which I have felt so proud as of the cap made of the two pieces of
1001 cloth sewed together by my mother. I have noted the fact, but without
1002 satisfaction, I need not add, that several of the boys who began their
1003 careers with "store hats" and who were my schoolmates and used to join
1004 in the sport that was made of me because I had only a "homespun" cap,
1005 have ended their careers in the penitentiary, while others are not able
1006 now to buy any kind of hat.
1008 My second difficulty was with regard to my name, or rather A name.
1009 From the time when I could remember anything, I had been called simply
1010 "Booker." Before going to school it had never occurred to me that it
1011 was needful or appropriate to have an additional name. When I heard the
1012 school-roll called, I noticed that all of the children had at least two
1013 names, and some of them indulged in what seemed to me the extravagance
1014 of having three. I was in deep perplexity, because I knew that the
1015 teacher would demand of me at least two names, and I had only one.
1016 By the time the occasion came for the enrolling of my name, an idea
1017 occurred to me which I thought would make me equal to the situation; and
1018 so, when the teacher asked me what my full name was, I calmly told him
1019 "Booker Washington," as if I had been called by that name all my life;
1020 and by that name I have since been known. Later in my life I found that
1021 my mother had given me the name of "Booker Taliaferro" soon after I was
1022 born, but in some way that part of my name seemed to disappear and for a
1023 long while was forgotten, but as soon as I found out about it I revived
1024 it, and made my full name "Booker Taliaferro Washington." I think there
1025 are not many men in our country who have had the privilege of naming
1026 themselves in the way that I have.
1028 More than once I have tried to picture myself in the position of a boy
1029 or man with an honoured and distinguished ancestry which I could
1030 trace back through a period of hundreds of years, and who had not only
1031 inherited a name, but fortune and a proud family homestead; and yet I
1032 have sometimes had the feeling that if I had inherited these, and had
1033 been a member of a more popular race, I should have been inclined to
1034 yield to the temptation of depending upon my ancestry and my colour to
1035 do that for me which I should do for myself. Years ago I resolved that
1036 because I had no ancestry myself I would leave a record of which my
1037 children would be proud, and which might encourage them to still higher
1040 The world should not pass judgment upon the Negro, and especially the
1041 Negro youth, too quickly or too harshly. The Negro boy has obstacles,
1042 discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little known to
1043 those not situated as he is. When a white boy undertakes a task, it is
1044 taken for granted that he will succeed. On the other hand, people are
1045 usually surprised if the Negro boy does not fail. In a word, the Negro
1046 youth starts out with the presumption against him.
1048 The influence of ancestry, however, is important in helping forward any
1049 individual or race, if too much reliance is not placed upon it. Those
1050 who constantly direct attention to the Negro youth's moral weaknesses,
1051 and compare his advancement with that of white youths, do not consider
1052 the influence of the memories which cling about the old family
1053 homesteads. I have no idea, as I have stated elsewhere, who my
1054 grandmother was. I have, or have had, uncles and aunts and cousins,
1055 but I have no knowledge as to where most of them are. My case will
1056 illustrate that of hundreds of thousands of black people in every part
1057 of our country. The very fact that the white boy is conscious that, if
1058 he fails in life, he will disgrace the whole family record, extending
1059 back through many generations, is of tremendous value in helping him
1060 to resist temptations. The fact that the individual has behind and
1061 surrounding him proud family history and connection serves as a stimulus
1062 to help him to overcome obstacles when striving for success.
1064 The time that I was permitted to attend school during the day was short,
1065 and my attendance was irregular. It was not long before I had to stop
1066 attending day-school altogether, and devote all of my time again to
1067 work. I resorted to the night-school again. In fact, the greater part
1068 of the education I secured in my boyhood was gathered through the
1069 night-school after my day's work was done. I had difficulty often in
1070 securing a satisfactory teacher. Sometimes, after I had secured some one
1071 to teach me at night, I would find, much to my disappointment, that
1072 the teacher knew but little more than I did. Often I would have to walk
1073 several miles at night in order to recite my night-school lessons. There
1074 was never a time in my youth, no matter how dark and discouraging the
1075 days might be, when one resolve did not continually remain with me, and
1076 that was a determination to secure an education at any cost.
1078 Soon after we moved to West Virginia, my mother adopted into our family,
1079 notwithstanding our poverty, an orphan boy, to whom afterward we gave
1080 the name of James B. Washington. He has ever since remained a member of
1083 After I had worked in the salt-furnace for some time, work was secured
1084 for me in a coal-mine which was operated mainly for the purpose of
1085 securing fuel for the salt-furnace. Work in the coal-mine I always
1086 dreaded. One reason for this was that any one who worked in a coal-mine
1087 was always unclean, at least while at work, and it was a very hard job
1088 to get one's skin clean after the day's work was over. Then it was fully
1089 a mile from the opening of the coal-mine to the face of the coal, and
1090 all, of course, was in the blackest darkness. I do not believe that one
1091 ever experiences anywhere else such darkness as he does in a coal-mine.
1092 The mine was divided into a large number of different "rooms" or
1093 departments, and, as I never was able to learn the location of all
1094 these "rooms," I many times found myself lost in the mine. To add to the
1095 horror of being lost, sometimes my light would go out, and then, if I
1096 did not happen to have a match, I would wander about in the darkness
1097 until by chance I found some one to give me a light. The work was not
1098 only hard, but it was dangerous. There was always the danger of being
1099 blown to pieces by a premature explosion of powder, or of being crushed
1100 by falling slate. Accidents from one or the other of these causes were
1101 frequently occurring, and this kept me in constant fear. Many children
1102 of the tenderest years were compelled then, as is now true I fear, in
1103 most coal-mining districts, to spend a large part of their lives in
1104 these coal-mines, with little opportunity to get an education; and, what
1105 is worse, I have often noted that, as a rule, young boys who begin life
1106 in a coal-mine are often physically and mentally dwarfed. They soon lose
1107 ambition to do anything else than to continue as a coal-miner.
1109 In those days, and later as a young man, I used to try to picture in my
1110 imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with absolutely
1111 no limit placed upon his aspirations and activities. I used to envy
1112 the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a
1113 Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of
1114 his birth or race. I used to picture the way that I would act under such
1115 circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I
1116 reached the highest round of success.
1118 In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once
1119 did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the
1120 position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has
1121 overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I
1122 almost reached the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and
1123 connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life
1124 is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and
1125 must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure
1126 recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he
1127 is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses
1128 whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.
1130 From any point of view, I had rather be what I am, a member of the Negro
1131 race, than be able to claim membership with the most favoured of any
1132 other race. I have always been made sad when I have heard members of any
1133 race claiming rights or privileges, or certain badges of distinction,
1134 on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race,
1135 regardless of their own individual worth or attainments. I have been
1136 made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact
1137 that mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not
1138 permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth,
1139 and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not
1140 finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual
1141 merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation
1142 out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit,
1143 no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and
1144 rewarded. This I have said here, not to call attention to myself as an
1145 individual, but to the race to which I am proud to belong.
1149 Chapter III. The Struggle For An Education
1151 One day, while at work in the coal-mine, I happened to overhear two
1152 miners talking about a great school for coloured people somewhere in
1153 Virginia. This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about
1154 any kind of school or college that was more pretentious than the little
1155 coloured school in our town.
1157 In the darkness of the mine I noiselessly crept as close as I could to
1158 the two men who were talking. I heard one tell the other that not
1159 only was the school established for the members of any race, but the
1160 opportunities that it provided by which poor but worthy students could
1161 work out all or a part of the cost of a board, and at the same time be
1162 taught some trade or industry.
1164 As they went on describing the school, it seemed to me that it must
1165 be the greatest place on earth, and not even Heaven presented more
1166 attractions for me at that time than did the Hampton Normal and
1167 Agricultural Institute in Virginia, about which these men were talking.
1168 I resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where
1169 it was, or how many miles away, or how I was going to reach it; I
1170 remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and
1171 that was to go to Hampton. This thought was with me day and night.
1173 After hearing of the Hampton Institute, I continued to work for a few
1174 months longer in the coal-mine. While at work there, I heard of a vacant
1175 position in the household of General Lewis Ruffner, the owner of the
1176 salt-furnace and coal-mine. Mrs. Viola Ruffner, the wife of General
1177 Ruffner, was a "Yankee" woman from Vermont. Mrs. Ruffner had a
1178 reputation all through the vicinity for being very strict with her
1179 servants, and especially with the boys who tried to serve her. Few of
1180 them remained with her more than two or three weeks. They all left with
1181 the same excuse: she was too strict. I decided, however, that I would
1182 rather try Mrs. Ruffner's house than remain in the coal-mine, and so my
1183 mother applied to her for the vacant position. I was hired at a salary
1186 I had heard so much about Mrs. Ruffner's severity that I was almost
1187 afraid to see her, and trembled when I went into her presence. I had not
1188 lived with her many weeks, however, before I began to understand her. I
1189 soon began to learn that, first of all, she wanted everything kept clean
1190 about her, that she wanted things done promptly and systematically,
1191 and that at the bottom of everything she wanted absolute honesty and
1192 frankness. Nothing must be sloven or slipshod; every door, every fence,
1193 must be kept in repair.
1195 I cannot now recall how long I lived with Mrs. Ruffner before going to
1196 Hampton, but I think it must have been a year and a half. At any rate,
1197 I here repeat what I have said more than once before, that the lessons
1198 that I learned in the home of Mrs. Ruffner were as valuable to me as any
1199 education I have ever gotten anywhere else. Even to this day I never see
1200 bits of paper scattered around a house or in the street that I do not
1201 want to pick them up at once. I never see a filthy yard that I do not
1202 want to clean it, a paling off of a fence that I do not want to put it
1203 on, an unpainted or unwhitewashed house that I do not want to paint or
1204 whitewash it, or a button off one's clothes, or a grease-spot on them or
1205 on a floor, that I do not want to call attention to it.
1207 From fearing Mrs. Ruffner I soon learned to look upon her as one of
1208 my best friends. When she found that she could trust me she did so
1209 implicitly. During the one or two winters that I was with her she
1210 gave me an opportunity to go to school for an hour in the day during a
1211 portion of the winter months, but most of my studying was done at night,
1212 sometimes alone, sometimes under some one whom I could hire to teach me.
1213 Mrs. Ruffner always encouraged and sympathized with me in all my efforts
1214 to get an education. It was while living with her that I began to get
1215 together my first library. I secured a dry-goods box, knocked out one
1216 side of it, put some shelves in it, and began putting into it every kind
1217 of book that I could get my hands upon, and called it my "library."
1219 Notwithstanding my success at Mrs. Ruffner's I did not give up the idea
1220 of going to the Hampton Institute. In the fall of 1872 I determined
1221 to make an effort to get there, although, as I have stated, I had no
1222 definite idea of the direction in which Hampton was, or of what it would
1223 cost to go there. I do not think that any one thoroughly sympathized
1224 with me in my ambition to go to Hampton unless it was my mother, and she
1225 was troubled with a grave fear that I was starting out on a "wild-goose
1226 chase." At any rate, I got only a half-hearted consent from her that
1227 I might start. The small amount of money that I had earned had been
1228 consumed by my stepfather and the remainder of the family, with the
1229 exception of a very few dollars, and so I had very little with which to
1230 buy clothes and pay my travelling expenses. My brother John helped me
1231 all that he could, but of course that was not a great deal, for his work
1232 was in the coal-mine, where he did not earn much, and most of what he
1233 did earn went in the direction of paying the household expenses.
1235 Perhaps the thing that touched and pleased me most in connection with
1236 my starting for Hampton was the interest that many of the older coloured
1237 people took in the matter. They had spent the best days of their lives
1238 in slavery, and hardly expected to live to see the time when they would
1239 see a member of their race leave home to attend a boarding-school. Some
1240 of these older people would give me a nickel, others a quarter, or a
1243 Finally the great day came, and I started for Hampton. I had only a
1244 small, cheap satchel that contained a few articles of clothing I could
1245 get. My mother at the time was rather weak and broken in health. I
1246 hardly expected to see her again, and thus our parting was all the more
1247 sad. She, however, was very brave through it all. At that time there
1248 were no through trains connecting that part of West Virginia with
1249 eastern Virginia. Trains ran only a portion of the way, and the
1250 remainder of the distance was travelled by stage-coaches.
1252 The distance from Malden to Hampton is about five hundred miles. I had
1253 not been away from home many hours before it began to grow painfully
1254 evident that I did not have enough money to pay my fare to Hampton.
1255 One experience I shall long remember. I had been travelling over the
1256 mountains most of the afternoon in an old-fashion stage-coach, when,
1257 late in the evening, the coach stopped for the night at a common,
1258 unpainted house called a hotel. All the other passengers except myself
1259 were whites. In my ignorance I supposed that the little hotel existed
1260 for the purpose of accommodating the passengers who travelled on the
1261 stage-coach. The difference that the colour of one's skin would make I
1262 had not thought anything about. After all the other passengers had been
1263 shown rooms and were getting ready for supper, I shyly presented myself
1264 before the man at the desk. It is true I had practically no money in my
1265 pocket with which to pay for bed or food, but I had hoped in some way to
1266 beg my way into the good graces of the landlord, for at that season
1267 in the mountains of Virginia the weather was cold, and I wanted to get
1268 indoors for the night. Without asking as to whether I had any money, the
1269 man at the desk firmly refused to even consider the matter of providing
1270 me with food or lodging. This was my first experience in finding out
1271 what the colour of my skin meant. In some way I managed to keep warm by
1272 walking about, and so got through the night. My whole soul was so bent
1273 upon reaching Hampton that I did not have time to cherish any bitterness
1274 toward the hotel-keeper.
1276 By walking, begging rides both in wagons and in the cars, in some way,
1277 after a number of days, I reached the city of Richmond, Virginia, about
1278 eighty-two miles from Hampton. When I reached there, tired, hungry, and
1279 dirty, it was late in the night. I had never been in a large city,
1280 and this rather added to my misery. When I reached Richmond, I was
1281 completely out of money. I had not a single acquaintance in the place,
1282 and, being unused to city ways, I did not know where to go. I applied at
1283 several places for lodging, but they all wanted money, and that was what
1284 I did not have. Knowing nothing else better to do, I walked the streets.
1285 In doing this I passed by many food-stands where fried chicken and
1286 half-moon apple pies were piled high and made to present a most tempting
1287 appearance. At that time it seemed to me that I would have promised all
1288 that I expected to possess in the future to have gotten hold of one of
1289 those chicken legs or one of those pies. But I could not get either of
1290 these, nor anything else to eat.
1292 I must have walked the streets till after midnight. At last I became so
1293 exhausted that I could walk no longer. I was tired, I was hungry, I was
1294 everything but discouraged. Just about the time when I reached extreme
1295 physical exhaustion, I came upon a portion of a street where the board
1296 sidewalk was considerably elevated. I waited for a few minutes, till
1297 I was sure that no passers-by could see me, and then crept under the
1298 sidewalk and lay for the night upon the ground, with my satchel of
1299 clothing for a pillow. Nearly all night I could hear the tramp of feet
1300 over my head. The next morning I found myself somewhat refreshed, but
1301 I was extremely hungry, because it had been a long time since I had
1302 had sufficient food. As soon as it became light enough for me to see my
1303 surroundings I noticed that I was near a large ship, and that this ship
1304 seemed to be unloading a cargo of pig iron. I went at once to the vessel
1305 and asked the captain to permit me to help unload the vessel in order
1306 to get money for food. The captain, a white man, who seemed to be
1307 kind-hearted, consented. I worked long enough to earn money for my
1308 breakfast, and it seems to me, as I remember it now, to have been about
1309 the best breakfast that I have ever eaten.
1311 My work pleased the captain so well that he told me if I desired I could
1312 continue working for a small amount per day. This I was very glad to do.
1313 I continued working on this vessel for a number of days. After buying
1314 food with the small wages I received there was not much left to add on
1315 the amount I must get to pay my way to Hampton. In order to economize
1316 in every way possible, so as to be sure to reach Hampton in a reasonable
1317 time, I continued to sleep under the same sidewalk that gave me shelter
1318 the first night I was in Richmond. Many years after that the coloured
1319 citizens of Richmond very kindly tendered me a reception at which there
1320 must have been two thousand people present. This reception was held not
1321 far from the spot where I slept the first night I spent in the city, and
1322 I must confess that my mind was more upon the sidewalk that first gave
1323 me shelter than upon the recognition, agreeable and cordial as it was.
1325 When I had saved what I considered enough money with which to reach
1326 Hampton, I thanked the captain of the vessel for his kindness, and
1327 started again. Without any unusual occurrence I reached Hampton, with a
1328 surplus of exactly fifty cents with which to begin my education. To me
1329 it had been a long, eventful journey; but the first sight of the large,
1330 three-story, brick school building seemed to have rewarded me for all
1331 that I had undergone in order to reach the place. If the people who gave
1332 the money to provide that building could appreciate the influence the
1333 sight of it had upon me, as well as upon thousands of other youths, they
1334 would feel all the more encouraged to make such gifts. It seemed to me
1335 to be the largest and most beautiful building I had ever seen. The sight
1336 of it seemed to give me new life. I felt that a new kind of existence
1337 had now begun--that life would now have a new meaning. I felt that I had
1338 reached the promised land, and I resolved to let no obstacle prevent me
1339 from putting forth the highest effort to fit myself to accomplish the
1340 most good in the world.
1342 As soon as possible after reaching the grounds of the Hampton Institute,
1343 I presented myself before the head teacher for an assignment to a
1344 class. Having been so long without proper food, a bath, and a change of
1345 clothing, I did not, of course, make a very favourable impression upon
1346 her, and I could see at once that there were doubts in her mind about
1347 the wisdom of admitting me as a student. I felt that I could hardly
1348 blame her if she got the idea that I was a worthless loafer or tramp.
1349 For some time she did not refuse to admit me, neither did she decide in
1350 my favour, and I continued to linger about her, and to impress her
1351 in all the ways I could with my worthiness. In the meantime I saw her
1352 admitting other students, and that added greatly to my discomfort, for I
1353 felt, deep down in my heart, that I could do as well as they, if I could
1354 only get a chance to show what was in me.
1356 After some hours had passed, the head teacher said to me: "The adjoining
1357 recitation-room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it."
1359 It occurred to me at once that here was my chance. Never did I receive
1360 an order with more delight. I knew that I could sweep, for Mrs. Ruffner
1361 had thoroughly taught me how to do that when I lived with her.
1363 I swept the recitation-room three times. Then I got a dusting-cloth and
1364 dusted it four times. All the woodwork around the walls, every bench,
1365 table, and desk, I went over four times with my dusting-cloth. Besides,
1366 every piece of furniture had been moved and every closet and corner in
1367 the room had been thoroughly cleaned. I had the feeling that in a large
1368 measure my future depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher
1369 in the cleaning of that room. When I was through, I reported to the head
1370 teacher. She was a "Yankee" woman who knew just where to look for dirt.
1371 She went into the room and inspected the floor and closets; then she
1372 took her handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about the walls, and
1373 over the table and benches. When she was unable to find one bit of dirt
1374 on the floor, or a particle of dust on any of the furniture, she quietly
1375 remarked, "I guess you will do to enter this institution."
1377 I was one of the happiest souls on Earth. The sweeping of that room was
1378 my college examination, and never did any youth pass an examination for
1379 entrance into Harvard or Yale that gave him more genuine satisfaction. I
1380 have passed several examinations since then, but I have always felt that
1381 this was the best one I ever passed.
1383 I have spoken of my own experience in entering the Hampton Institute.
1384 Perhaps few, if any, had anything like the same experience that I had,
1385 but about the same period there were hundreds who found their way to
1386 Hampton and other institutions after experiencing something of the
1387 same difficulties that I went through. The young men and women were
1388 determined to secure an education at any cost.
1390 The sweeping of the recitation-room in the manner that I did it seems to
1391 have paved the way for me to get through Hampton. Miss Mary F. Mackie,
1392 the head teacher, offered me a position as janitor. This, of course, I
1393 gladly accepted, because it was a place where I could work out nearly
1394 all the cost of my board. The work was hard and taxing but I stuck to
1395 it. I had a large number of rooms to care for, and had to work late into
1396 the night, while at the same time I had to rise by four o'clock in the
1397 morning, in order to build the fires and have a little time in which to
1398 prepare my lessons. In all my career at Hampton, and ever since I have
1399 been out in the world, Miss Mary F. Mackie, the head teacher to whom I
1400 have referred, proved one of my strongest and most helpful friends. Her
1401 advice and encouragement were always helpful in strengthening to me in
1404 I have spoken of the impression that was made upon me by the buildings
1405 and general appearance of the Hampton Institute, but I have not spoken
1406 of that which made the greatest and most lasting impression on me, and
1407 that was a great man--the noblest, rarest human being that it has
1408 ever been my privilege to meet. I refer to the late General Samuel C.
1411 It has been my fortune to meet personally many of what are called great
1412 characters, both in Europe and America, but I do not hesitate to say
1413 that I never met any man who, in my estimation, was the equal of General
1414 Armstrong. Fresh from the degrading influences of the slave plantation
1415 and the coal-mines, it was a rare privilege for me to be permitted to
1416 come into direct contact with such a character as General Armstrong. I
1417 shall always remember that the first time I went into his presence he
1418 made the impression upon me of being a perfect man: I was made to
1419 feel that there was something about him that was superhuman. It was my
1420 privilege to know the General personally from the time I entered Hampton
1421 till he died, and the more I saw of him the greater he grew in my
1422 estimation. One might have removed from Hampton all the buildings,
1423 class-rooms, teachers, and industries, and given the men and women there
1424 the opportunity of coming into daily contact with General Armstrong, and
1425 that alone would have been a liberal education. The older I grow, the
1426 more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from
1427 books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten
1428 from contact with great men and women. Instead of studying books so
1429 constantly, how I wish that our schools and colleges might learn to
1430 study men and things!
1432 General Armstrong spent two of the last six months of his life in my
1433 home at Tuskegee. At that time he was paralyzed to the extent that
1434 he had lost control of his body and voice in a very large degree.
1435 Notwithstanding his affliction, he worked almost constantly night and
1436 day for the cause to which he had given his life. I never saw a man
1437 who so completely lost sight of himself. I do not believe he ever had
1438 a selfish thought. He was just as happy in trying to assist some other
1439 institution in the South as he was when working for Hampton. Although he
1440 fought the Southern white man in the Civil War, I never heard him
1441 utter a bitter word against him afterward. On the other hand, he was
1442 constantly seeking to find ways by which he could be of service to the
1445 It would be difficult to describe the hold that he had upon the students
1446 at Hampton, or the faith they had in him. In fact, he was worshipped by
1447 his students. It never occurred to me that General Armstrong could fail
1448 in anything that he undertook. There is almost no request that he could
1449 have made that would not have been complied with. When he was a guest at
1450 my home in Alabama, and was so badly paralyzed that he had to be wheeled
1451 about in an invalid's chair, I recall that one of the General's former
1452 students had occasion to push his chair up a long, steep hill that taxed
1453 his strength to the utmost. When the top of the hill was reached, the
1454 former pupil, with a glow of happiness on his face, exclaimed, "I am so
1455 glad that I have been permitted to do something that was real hard
1456 for the General before he dies!" While I was a student at Hampton, the
1457 dormitories became so crowded that it was impossible to find room for
1458 all who wanted to be admitted. In order to help remedy the difficulty,
1459 the General conceived the plan of putting up tents to be used as rooms.
1460 As soon as it became known that General Armstrong would be pleased if
1461 some of the older students would live in the tents during the winter,
1462 nearly every student in school volunteered to go.
1464 I was one of the volunteers. The winter that we spent in those tents
1465 was an intensely cold one, and we suffered severely--how much I am sure
1466 General Armstrong never knew, because we made no complaints. It was
1467 enough for us to know that we were pleasing General Armstrong, and
1468 that we were making it possible for an additional number of students to
1469 secure an education. More than once, during a cold night, when a stiff
1470 gale would be blowing, our tent was lifted bodily, and we would find
1471 ourselves in the open air. The General would usually pay a visit to the
1472 tents early in the morning, and his earnest, cheerful, encouraging voice
1473 would dispel any feeling of despondency.
1475 I have spoken of my admiration for General Armstrong, and yet he was but
1476 a type of that Christlike body of men and women who went into the Negro
1477 schools at the close of the war by the hundreds to assist in lifting
1478 up my race. The history of the world fails to show a higher, purer, and
1479 more unselfish class of men and women than those who found their way
1480 into those Negro schools.
1482 Life at Hampton was a constant revelation to me; was constantly taking
1483 me into a new world. The matter of having meals at regular hours, of
1484 eating on a tablecloth, using a napkin, the use of the bath-tub and of
1485 the tooth-brush, as well as the use of sheets upon the bed, were all new
1488 I sometimes feel that almost the most valuable lesson I got at the
1489 Hampton Institute was in the use and value of the bath. I learned there
1490 for the first time some of its value, not only in keeping the body
1491 healthy, but in inspiring self-respect and promoting virtue. In all my
1492 travels in the South and elsewhere since leaving Hampton I have always
1493 in some way sought my daily bath. To get it sometimes when I have been
1494 the guest of my own people in a single-roomed cabin has not always been
1495 easy to do, except by slipping away to some stream in the woods. I have
1496 always tried to teach my people that some provision for bathing should
1497 be a part of every house.
1499 For some time, while a student at Hampton, I possessed but a single pair
1500 of socks, but when I had worn these till they became soiled, I would
1501 wash them at night and hang them by the fire to dry, so that I might
1502 wear them again the next morning.
1504 The charge for my board at Hampton was ten dollars per month. I was
1505 expected to pay a part of this in cash and to work out the remainder. To
1506 meet this cash payment, as I have stated, I had just fifty cents when I
1507 reached the institution. Aside from a very few dollars that my brother
1508 John was able to send me once in a while, I had no money with which to
1509 pay my board. I was determined from the first to make my work as janitor
1510 so valuable that my services would be indispensable. This I succeeded in
1511 doing to such an extent that I was soon informed that I would be allowed
1512 the full cost of my board in return for my work. The cost of tuition was
1513 seventy dollars a year. This, of course, was wholly beyond my ability to
1514 provide. If I had been compelled to pay the seventy dollars for tuition,
1515 in addition to providing for my board, I would have been compelled to
1516 leave the Hampton school. General Armstrong, however, very kindly got
1517 Mr. S. Griffitts Morgan, of New Bedford, Mass., to defray the cost of
1518 my tuition during the whole time that I was at Hampton. After I finished
1519 the course at Hampton and had entered upon my lifework at Tuskegee, I
1520 had the pleasure of visiting Mr. Morgan several times.
1522 After having been for a while at Hampton, I found myself in difficulty
1523 because I did not have books and clothing. Usually, however, I got
1524 around the trouble about books by borrowing from those who were more
1525 fortunate than myself. As to clothes, when I reached Hampton I had
1526 practically nothing. Everything that I possessed was in a small hand
1527 satchel. My anxiety about clothing was increased because of the fact
1528 that General Armstrong made a personal inspection of the young men in
1529 ranks, to see that their clothes were clean. Shoes had to be polished,
1530 there must be no buttons off the clothing, and no grease-spots. To wear
1531 one suit of clothes continually, while at work and in the schoolroom,
1532 and at the same time keep it clean, was rather a hard problem for me to
1533 solve. In some way I managed to get on till the teachers learned that
1534 I was in earnest and meant to succeed, and then some of them were kind
1535 enough to see that I was partly supplied with second-hand clothing that
1536 had been sent in barrels from the North. These barrels proved a blessing
1537 to hundreds of poor but deserving students. Without them I question
1538 whether I should ever have gotten through Hampton.
1540 When I first went to Hampton I do not recall that I had ever slept in
1541 a bed that had two sheets on it. In those days there were not many
1542 buildings there, and room was very precious. There were seven other boys
1543 in the same room with me; most of them, however, students who had been
1544 there for some time. The sheets were quite a puzzle to me. The first
1545 night I slept under both of them, and the second night I slept on top
1546 of them; but by watching the other boys I learned my lesson in this, and
1547 have been trying to follow it ever since and to teach it to others.
1549 I was among the youngest of the students who were in Hampton at the
1550 time. Most of the students were men and women--some as old as forty
1551 years of age. As I now recall the scene of my first year, I do not
1552 believe that one often has the opportunity of coming into contact with
1553 three or four hundred men and women who were so tremendously in earnest
1554 as these men and women were. Every hour was occupied in study or work.
1555 Nearly all had had enough actual contact with the world to teach them
1556 the need of education. Many of the older ones were, of course, too old
1557 to master the text-books very thoroughly, and it was often sad to watch
1558 their struggles; but they made up in earnest much of what they lacked
1559 in books. Many of them were as poor as I was, and, besides having to
1560 wrestle with their books, they had to struggle with a poverty which
1561 prevented their having the necessities of life. Many of them had aged
1562 parents who were dependent upon them, and some of them were men who had
1563 wives whose support in some way they had to provide for.
1565 The great and prevailing idea that seemed to take possession of every
1566 one was to prepare himself to lift up the people at his home. No one
1567 seemed to think of himself. And the officers and teachers, what a rare
1568 set of human beings they were! They worked for the students night and
1569 day, in seasons and out of season. They seemed happy only when they were
1570 helping the students in some manner. Whenever it is written--and I hope
1571 it will be--the part that the Yankee teachers played in the education
1572 of the Negroes immediately after the war will make one of the most
1573 thrilling parts of the history off this country. The time is not far
1574 distant when the whole South will appreciate this service in a way that
1575 it has not yet been able to do.
1579 Chapter IV. Helping Others
1581 At the end of my first year at Hampton I was confronted with another
1582 difficulty. Most of the students went home to spend their vacation. I
1583 had no money with which to go home, but I had to go somewhere. In those
1584 days very few students were permitted to remain at the school during
1585 vacation. It made me feel very sad and homesick to see the other
1586 students preparing to leave and starting for home. I not only had no
1587 money with which to go home, but I had none with which to go anywhere.
1589 In some way, however, I had gotten hold of an extra, second-hand coat
1590 which I thought was a pretty valuable coat. This I decided to sell, in
1591 order to get a little money for travelling expenses. I had a good deal
1592 of boyish pride, and I tried to hide, as far as I could, from the other
1593 students the fact that I had no money and nowhere to go. I made it known
1594 to a few people in the town of Hampton that I had this coat to sell,
1595 and, after a good deal of persuading, one coloured man promised to come
1596 to my room to look the coat over and consider the matter of buying it.
1597 This cheered my drooping spirits considerably. Early the next morning my
1598 prospective customer appeared. After looking the garment over carefully,
1599 he asked me how much I wanted for it. I told him I thought it was worth
1600 three dollars. He seemed to agree with me as to price, but remarked in
1601 the most matter-of-fact way: "I tell you what I will do; I will take the
1602 coat, and will pay you five cents, cash down, and pay you the rest of
1603 the money just as soon as I can get it." It is not hard to imagine what
1604 my feelings were at the time.
1606 With this disappointment I gave up all hope of getting out of the town
1607 of Hampton for my vacation work. I wanted very much to go where I
1608 might secure work that would at least pay me enough to purchase some
1609 much-needed clothing and other necessities. In a few days practically
1610 all the students and teachers had left for their homes, and this served
1611 to depress my spirits even more.
1613 After trying for several days in and near the town of Hampton, I finally
1614 secured work in a restaurant at Fortress Monroe. The wages, however,
1615 were very little more than my board. At night, and between meals, I
1616 found considerable time for study and reading; and in this direction I
1617 improved myself very much during the summer.
1619 When I left school at the end of my first year, I owed the institution
1620 sixteen dollars that I had not been able to work out. It was my greatest
1621 ambition during the summer to save money enough with which to pay this
1622 debt. I felt that this was a debt of honour, and that I could hardly
1623 bring myself to the point of even trying to enter school again till it
1624 was paid. I economized in every way that I could think of--did my own
1625 washing, and went without necessary garments--but still I found my
1626 summer vacation ending and I did not have the sixteen dollars.
1628 One day, during the last week of my stay in the restaurant, I found
1629 under one of the tables a crisp, new ten-dollar bill. I could hardly
1630 contain myself, I was so happy. As it was not my place of business I
1631 felt it to be the proper thing to show the money to the proprietor. This
1632 I did. He seemed as glad as I was, but he coolly explained to me that,
1633 as it was his place of business, he had a right to keep the money, and
1634 he proceeded to do so. This, I confess, was another pretty hard blow
1635 to me. I will not say that I became discouraged, for as I now look
1636 back over my life I do not recall that I ever became discouraged over
1637 anything that I set out to accomplish. I have begun everything with
1638 the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the
1639 multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot
1640 succeed. I determined to face the situation just as it was. At the end
1641 of the week I went to the treasurer of the Hampton Institute, General
1642 J.F.B. Marshall, and told him frankly my condition. To my gratification
1643 he told me that I could reenter the institution, and that he would trust
1644 me to pay the debt when I could. During the second year I continued to
1647 The education that I received at Hampton out of the text-books was but
1648 a small part of what I learned there. One of the things that impressed
1649 itself upon me deeply, the second year, was the unselfishness of the
1650 teachers. It was hard for me to understand how any individuals could
1651 bring themselves to the point where they could be so happy in working
1652 for others. Before the end of the year, I think I began learning that
1653 those who are happiest are those who do the most for others. This lesson
1654 I have tried to carry with me ever since.
1656 I also learned a valuable lesson at Hampton by coming into contact with
1657 the best breeds of live stock and fowls. No student, I think, who
1658 has had the opportunity of doing this could go out into the world and
1659 content himself with the poorest grades.
1661 Perhaps the most valuable thing that I got out of my second year was an
1662 understanding of the use and value of the Bible. Miss Nathalie Lord, one
1663 of the teachers, from Portland, Me., taught me how to use and love the
1664 Bible. Before this I had never cared a great deal about it, but now I
1665 learned to love to read the Bible, not only for the spiritual help which
1666 it gives, but on account of it as literature. The lessons taught me in
1667 this respect took such a hold upon me that at the present time, when I
1668 am at home, no matter how busy I am, I always make it a rule to read a
1669 chapter or a portion of a chapter in the morning, before beginning the
1672 Whatever ability I may have as a public speaker I owe in a measure
1673 to Miss Lord. When she found out that I had some inclination in this
1674 direction, she gave me private lessons in the matter of breathing,
1675 emphasis, and articulation. Simply to be able to talk in public for the
1676 sake of talking has never had the least attraction to me. In fact,
1677 I consider that there is nothing so empty and unsatisfactory as mere
1678 abstract public speaking; but from my early childhood I have had a
1679 desire to do something to make the world better, and then to be able to
1680 speak to the world about that thing.
1682 The debating societies at Hampton were a constant source of delight to
1683 me. These were held on Saturday evening; and during my whole life at
1684 Hampton I do not recall that I missed a single meeting. I not only
1685 attended the weekly debating society, but was instrumental in organizing
1686 an additional society. I noticed that between the time when supper was
1687 over and the time to begin evening study there were about twenty minutes
1688 which the young men usually spent in idle gossip. About twenty of us
1689 formed a society for the purpose of utilizing this time in debate or in
1690 practice in public speaking. Few persons ever derived more happiness or
1691 benefit from the use of twenty minutes of time than we did in this way.
1693 At the end of my second year at Hampton, by the help of some money sent
1694 me by my mother and brother John, supplemented by a small gift from
1695 one of the teachers at Hampton, I was enabled to return to my home in
1696 Malden, West Virginia, to spend my vacation. When I reached home I found
1697 that the salt-furnaces were not running, and that the coal-mine was not
1698 being operated on account of the miners being out on "strike." This was
1699 something which, it seemed, usually occurred whenever the men got two or
1700 three months ahead in their savings. During the strike, of course, they
1701 spent all that they had saved, and would often return to work in debt at
1702 the same wages, or would move to another mine at considerable expense.
1703 In either case, my observations convinced me that the miners were worse
1704 off at the end of the strike. Before the days of strikes in that section
1705 of the country, I knew miners who had considerable money in the bank,
1706 but as soon as the professional labour agitators got control, the
1707 savings of even the more thrifty ones began disappearing.
1709 My mother and the other members of my family were, of course, much
1710 rejoiced to see me and to note the improvement that I had made during
1711 my two years' absence. The rejoicing on the part of all classes of the
1712 coloured people, and especially the older ones, over my return, was
1713 almost pathetic. I had to pay a visit to each family and take a meal
1714 with each, and at each place tell the story of my experiences at
1715 Hampton. In addition to this I had to speak before the church and
1716 Sunday-school, and at various other places. The thing that I was most in
1717 search of, though, work, I could not find. There was no work on account
1718 of the strike. I spent nearly the whole of the first month of my
1719 vacation in an effort to find something to do by which I could earn
1720 money to pay my way back to Hampton and save a little money to use after
1723 Toward the end of the first month, I went to a place a considerable
1724 distance from my home, to try to find employment. I did not succeed, and
1725 it was night before I got started on my return. When I had gotten within
1726 a mile or so of my home I was so completely tired out that I could not
1727 walk any farther, and I went into an old, abandoned house to spend the
1728 remainder of the night. About three o'clock in the morning my brother
1729 John found me asleep in this house, and broke to me, as gently as he
1730 could, the sad news that our dear mother had died during the night.
1732 This seemed to me the saddest and blankest moment in my life. For
1733 several years my mother had not been in good health, but I had no idea,
1734 when I parted from her the previous day, that I should never see her
1735 alive again. Besides that, I had always had an intense desire to be with
1736 her when she did pass away. One of the chief ambitions which spurred
1737 me on at Hampton was that I might be able to get to be in a position in
1738 which I could better make my mother comfortable and happy. She had so
1739 often expressed the wish that she might be permitted to live to see her
1740 children educated and started out in the world.
1742 In a very short time after the death of my mother our little home was
1743 in confusion. My sister Amanda, although she tried to do the best
1744 she could, was too young to know anything about keeping house, and my
1745 stepfather was not able to hire a housekeeper. Sometimes we had food
1746 cooked for us, and sometimes we did not. I remember that more than once
1747 a can of tomatoes and some crackers constituted a meal. Our clothing
1748 went uncared for, and everything about our home was soon in a
1749 tumble-down condition. It seems to me that this was the most dismal
1752 My good friend, Mrs. Ruffner, to whom I have already referred, always
1753 made me welcome at her home, and assisted me in many ways during this
1754 trying period. Before the end of the vacation she gave me some work, and
1755 this, together with work in a coal-mine at some distance from my home,
1756 enabled me to earn a little money.
1758 At one time it looked as if I would have to give up the idea of
1759 returning to Hampton, but my heart was so set on returning that I
1760 determined not to give up going back without a struggle. I was very
1761 anxious to secure some clothes for the winter, but in this I was
1762 disappointed, except for a few garments which my brother John secured
1763 for me. Notwithstanding my need of money and clothing, I was very
1764 happy in the fact that I had secured enough money to pay my travelling
1765 expenses back to Hampton. Once there, I knew that I could make myself
1766 so useful as a janitor that I could in some way get through the school
1769 Three weeks before the time for the opening of the term at Hampton, I
1770 was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from my good friend Miss
1771 Mary F. Mackie, the lady principal, asking me to return to Hampton two
1772 weeks before the opening of the school, in order that I might assist her
1773 in cleaning the buildings and getting things in order for the new school
1774 year. This was just the opportunity I wanted. It gave me a chance to
1775 secure a credit in the treasurer's office. I started for Hampton at
1778 During these two weeks I was taught a lesson which I shall never forget.
1779 Miss Mackie was a member of one of the oldest and most cultured families
1780 of the North, and yet for two weeks she worked by my side cleaning
1781 windows, dusting rooms, putting beds in order, and what not. She felt
1782 that things would not be in condition for the opening of school unless
1783 every window-pane was perfectly clean, and she took the greatest
1784 satisfaction in helping to clean them herself. The work which I have
1785 described she did every year that I was at Hampton.
1787 It was hard for me at this time to understand how a woman of her
1788 education and social standing could take such delight in performing such
1789 service, in order to assist in the elevation of an unfortunate race.
1790 Ever since then I have had no patience with any school for my race in
1791 the South which did not teach its students the dignity of labour.
1793 During my last year at Hampton every minute of my time that was not
1794 occupied with my duties as janitor was devoted to hard study. I was
1795 determined, if possible, to make such a record in my class as would
1796 cause me to be placed on the "honour roll" of Commencement speakers.
1797 This I was successful in doing. It was June of 1875 when I finished the
1798 regular course of study at Hampton. The greatest benefits that I got out
1799 of my my life at the Hampton Institute, perhaps, may be classified under
1802 First was contact with a great man, General S.C. Armstrong, who, I
1803 repeat, was, in my opinion, the rarest, strongest, and most beautiful
1804 character that it has ever been my privilege to meet.
1806 Second, at Hampton, for the first time, I learned what education was
1807 expected to do for an individual. Before going there I had a good deal
1808 of the then rather prevalent idea among our people that to secure an
1809 education meant to have a good, easy time, free from all necessity for
1810 manual labour. At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace
1811 to labour, but learned to love labour, not alone for its financial
1812 value, but for labour's own sake and for the independence and
1813 self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants
1814 done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant
1815 to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the
1816 happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and
1819 I was completely out of money when I graduated. In company with other
1820 Hampton students, I secured a place as a table waiter in a summer hotel
1821 in Connecticut, and managed to borrow enough money with which to get
1822 there. I had not been in this hotel long before I found out that I knew
1823 practically nothing about waiting on a hotel table. The head waiter,
1824 however, supposed that I was an accomplished waiter. He soon gave me
1825 charge of the table at which there sat four or five wealthy and rather
1826 aristocratic people. My ignorance of how to wait upon them was so
1827 apparent that they scolded me in such a severe manner that I became
1828 frightened and left their table, leaving them sitting there without
1829 food. As a result of this I was reduced from the position of waiter to
1830 that of a dish-carrier.
1832 But I determined to learn the business of waiting, and did so within
1833 a few weeks and was restored to my former position. I have had the
1834 satisfaction of being a guest in this hotel several times since I was a
1837 At the close of the hotel season I returned to my former home in Malden,
1838 and was elected to teach the coloured school at that place. This was the
1839 beginning of one of the happiest periods of my life. I now felt that I
1840 had the opportunity to help the people of my home town to a higher life.
1841 I felt from the first that mere book education was not all that the
1842 young people of that town needed. I began my work at eight o'clock in
1843 the morning, and, as a rule, it did not end until ten o'clock at night.
1844 In addition to the usual routine of teaching, I taught the pupils to
1845 comb their hair, and to keep their hands and faces clean, as well as
1846 their clothing. I gave special attention to teaching them the proper
1847 use of the tooth-brush and the bath. In all my teaching I have watched
1848 carefully the influence of the tooth-brush, and I am convinced
1849 that there are few single agencies of civilization that are more
1852 There were so many of the older boys and girls in the town, as well as
1853 men and women, who had to work in the daytime and still were craving an
1854 opportunity for an education, that I soon opened a night-school. From
1855 the first, this was crowded every night, being about as large as the
1856 school that I taught in the day. The efforts of some of the men and
1857 women, who in many cases were over fifty years of age, to learn, were in
1858 some cases very pathetic.
1860 My day and night school work was not all that I undertook. I established
1861 a small reading-room and a debating society. On Sundays I taught two
1862 Sunday-schools, one in the town of Malden in the afternoon, and the
1863 other in the morning at a place three miles distant from Malden. In
1864 addition to this, I gave private lessons to several young men whom I was
1865 fitting to send to the Hampton Institute. Without regard to pay and with
1866 little thought of it, I taught any one who wanted to learn anything that
1867 I could teach him. I was supremely happy in the opportunity of being
1868 able to assist somebody else. I did receive, however, a small salary
1869 from the public fund, for my work as a public-school teacher.
1871 During the time that I was a student at Hampton my older brother, John,
1872 not only assisted me all that he could, but worked all of the time in
1873 the coal-mines in order to support the family. He willingly neglected
1874 his own education that he might help me. It was my earnest wish to help
1875 him to prepare to enter Hampton, and to save money to assist him in his
1876 expenses there. Both of these objects I was successful in accomplishing.
1877 In three years my brother finished the course at Hampton, and he is
1878 now holding the important position of Superintendent of Industries at
1879 Tuskegee. When he returned from Hampton, we both combined our efforts
1880 and savings to send our adopted brother, James, through the Hampton
1881 Institute. This we succeeded in doing, and he is now the postmaster
1882 at the Tuskegee Institute. The year 1877, which was my second year of
1883 teaching in Malden, I spent very much as I did the first.
1885 It was while my home was at Malden that what was known as the "Ku Klux
1886 Klan" was in the height of its activity. The "Ku Klux" were bands of
1887 men who had joined themselves together for the purpose of regulating the
1888 conduct of the coloured people, especially with the object of preventing
1889 the members of the race from exercising any influence in politics. They
1890 corresponded somewhat to the "patrollers" of whom I used to hear a
1891 great deal during the days of slavery, when I was a small boy. The
1892 "patrollers" were bands of white men--usually young men--who were
1893 organized largely for the purpose of regulating the conduct of the
1894 slaves at night in such matters as preventing the slaves from going from
1895 one plantation to another without passes, and for preventing them from
1896 holding any kind of meetings without permission and without the presence
1897 at these meetings of at least one white man.
1899 Like the "patrollers" the "Ku Klux" operated almost wholly at night.
1900 They were, however, more cruel than the "patrollers." Their objects, in
1901 the main, were to crush out the political aspirations of the Negroes,
1902 but they did not confine themselves to this, because schoolhouses as
1903 well as churches were burned by them, and many innocent persons were
1904 made to suffer. During this period not a few coloured people lost their
1907 As a young man, the acts of these lawless bands made a great impression
1908 upon me. I saw one open battle take place at Malden between some of the
1909 coloured and white people. There must have been not far from a hundred
1910 persons engaged on each side; many on both sides were seriously injured,
1911 among them General Lewis Ruffner, the husband of my friend Mrs. Viola
1912 Ruffner. General Ruffner tried to defend the coloured people, and
1913 for this he was knocked down and so seriously wounded that he never
1914 completely recovered. It seemed to me as I watched this struggle between
1915 members of the two races, that there was no hope for our people in this
1916 country. The "Ku Klux" period was, I think, the darkest part of the
1917 Reconstruction days.
1919 I have referred to this unpleasant part of the history of the South
1920 simply for the purpose of calling attention to the great change that has
1921 taken place since the days of the "Ku Klux." To-day there are no such
1922 organizations in the South, and the fact that such ever existed is
1923 almost forgotten by both races. There are few places in the South now
1924 where public sentiment would permit such organizations to exist.
1928 Chapter V. The Reconstruction Period
1930 The years from 1867 to 1878 I think may be called the period of
1931 Reconstruction. This included the time that I spent as a student at
1932 Hampton and as a teacher in West Virginia. During the whole of the
1933 Reconstruction period two ideas were constantly agitating in the minds
1934 of the coloured people, or, at least, in the minds of a large part of
1935 the race. One of these was the craze for Greek and Latin learning, and
1936 the other was a desire to hold office.
1938 It could not have been expected that a people who had spent generations
1939 in slavery, and before that generations in the darkest heathenism, could
1940 at first form any proper conception of what an education meant. In every
1941 part of the South, during the Reconstruction period, schools, both
1942 day and night, were filled to overflowing with people of all ages and
1943 conditions, some being as far along in age as sixty and seventy
1944 years. The ambition to secure an education was most praiseworthy and
1945 encouraging. The idea, however, was too prevalent that, as soon as one
1946 secured a little education, in some unexplainable way he would be free
1947 from most of the hardships of the world, and, at any rate, could live
1948 without manual labour. There was a further feeling that a knowledge,
1949 however little, of the Greek and Latin languages would make one a very
1950 superior human being, something bordering almost on the supernatural. I
1951 remember that the first coloured man whom I saw who knew something about
1952 foreign languages impressed me at the time as being a man of all others
1955 Naturally, most of our people who received some little education became
1956 teachers or preachers. While among those two classes there were many
1957 capable, earnest, godly men and women, still a large proportion took
1958 up teaching or preaching as an easy way to make a living. Many became
1959 teachers who could do little more than write their names. I remember
1960 there came into our neighbourhood one of this class, who was in search
1961 of a school to teach, and the question arose while he was there as to
1962 the shape of the earth and how he could teach the children concerning
1963 the subject. He explained his position in the matter by saying that he
1964 was prepared to teach that the earth was either flat or round, according
1965 to the preference of a majority of his patrons.
1967 The ministry was the profession that suffered most--and still suffers,
1968 though there has been great improvement--on account of not only ignorant
1969 but in many cases immoral men who claimed that they were "called to
1970 preach." In the earlier days of freedom almost every coloured man who
1971 learned to read would receive "a call to preach" within a few days
1972 after he began reading. At my home in West Virginia the process of being
1973 called to the ministry was a very interesting one. Usually the "call"
1974 came when the individual was sitting in church. Without warning the one
1975 called would fall upon the floor as if struck by a bullet, and would lie
1976 there for hours, speechless and motionless. Then the news would spread
1977 all through the neighborhood that this individual had received a "call."
1978 If he were inclined to resist the summons, he would fall or be made to
1979 fall a second or third time. In the end he always yielded to the call.
1980 While I wanted an education badly, I confess that in my youth I had a
1981 fear that when I had learned to read and write very well I would receive
1982 one of these "calls"; but, for some reason, my call never came.
1984 When we add the number of wholly ignorant men who preached or "exhorted"
1985 to that of those who possessed something of an education, it can be seen
1986 at a glance that the supply of ministers was large. In fact, some time
1987 ago I knew a certain church that had a total membership of about two
1988 hundred, and eighteen of that number were ministers. But, I repeat, in
1989 many communities in the South the character of the ministry is being
1990 improved, and I believe that within the next two or three decades a very
1991 large proportion of the unworthy ones will have disappeared. The "calls"
1992 to preach, I am glad to say, are not nearly so numerous now as they were
1993 formerly, and the calls to some industrial occupation are growing more
1994 numerous. The improvement that has taken place in the character of the
1995 teachers is even more marked than in the case of the ministers.
1997 During the whole of the Reconstruction period our people throughout the
1998 South looked to the Federal Government for everything, very much as
1999 a child looks to its mother. This was not unnatural. The central
2000 government gave them freedom, and the whole Nation had been enriched for
2001 more than two centuries by the labour of the Negro. Even as a youth,
2002 and later in manhood, I had the feeling that it was cruelly wrong in
2003 the central government, at the beginning of our freedom, to fail to make
2004 some provision for the general education of our people in addition
2005 to what the states might do, so that the people would be the better
2006 prepared for the duties of citizenship.
2008 It is easy to find fault, to remark what might have been done, and
2009 perhaps, after all, and under all the circumstances, those in charge
2010 of the conduct of affairs did the only thing that could be done at the
2011 time. Still, as I look back now over the entire period of our freedom,
2012 I cannot help feeling that it would have been wiser if some plan could
2013 have been put in operation which would have made the possession of
2014 a certain amount of education or property, or both, a test for the
2015 exercise of the franchise, and a way provided by which this test should
2016 be made to apply honestly and squarely to both the white and black
2019 Though I was but little more than a youth during the period of
2020 Reconstruction, I had the feeling that mistakes were being made, and
2021 that things could not remain in the condition that they were in then
2022 very long. I felt that the Reconstruction policy, so far as it related
2023 to my race, was in a large measure on a false foundation, was artificial
2024 and forced. In many cases it seemed to me that the ignorance of my race
2025 was being used as a tool with which to help white men into office,
2026 and that there was an element in the North which wanted to punish the
2027 Southern white men by forcing the Negro into positions over the heads
2028 of the Southern whites. I felt that the Negro would be the one to suffer
2029 for this in the end. Besides, the general political agitation drew
2030 the attention of our people away from the more fundamental matters of
2031 perfecting themselves in the industries at their doors and in securing
2034 The temptations to enter political life were so alluring that I came
2035 very near yielding to them at one time, but I was kept from doing so
2036 by the feeling that I would be helping in a more substantial way by
2037 assisting in the laying of the foundation of the race through a generous
2038 education of the hand, head, and heart. I saw coloured men who were
2039 members of the state legislatures, and county officers, who, in some
2040 cases, could not read or write, and whose morals were as weak as their
2041 education. Not long ago, when passing through the streets of a certain
2042 city in the South, I heard some brick-masons calling out, from the
2043 top of a two-story brick building on which they were working, for the
2044 "Governor" to "hurry up and bring up some more bricks." Several times
2045 I heard the command, "Hurry up, Governor!" "Hurry up, Governor!" My
2046 curiosity was aroused to such an extent that I made inquiry as to who
2047 the "Governor" was, and soon found that he was a coloured man who at one
2048 time had held the position of Lieutenant-Governor of his state.
2050 But not all the coloured people who were in office during Reconstruction
2051 were unworthy of their positions, by any means. Some of them, like
2052 the late Senator B.K. Bruce, Governor Pinchback, and many others, were
2053 strong, upright, useful men. Neither were all the class designated as
2054 carpetbaggers dishonourable men. Some of them, like ex-Governor Bullock,
2055 of Georgia, were men of high character and usefulness.
2057 Of course the coloured people, so largely without education, and wholly
2058 without experience in government, made tremendous mistakes, just as many
2059 people similarly situated would have done. Many of the Southern whites
2060 have a feeling that, if the Negro is permitted to exercise his political
2061 rights now to any degree, the mistakes of the Reconstruction period will
2062 repeat themselves. I do not think this would be true, because the Negro
2063 is a much stronger and wiser man than he was thirty-five years ago, and
2064 he is fast learning the lesson that he cannot afford to act in a manner
2065 that will alienate his Southern white neighbours from him. More and more
2066 I am convinced that the final solution of the political end of our race
2067 problem will be for each state that finds it necessary to change the law
2068 bearing upon the franchise to make the law apply with absolute honesty,
2069 and without opportunity for double dealing or evasion, to both races
2070 alike. Any other course my daily observation in the South convinces me,
2071 will be unjust to the Negro, unjust to the white man, and unfair to the
2072 rest of the state in the Union, and will be, like slavery, a sin that at
2073 some time we shall have to pay for.
2075 In the fall of 1878, after having taught school in Malden for two years,
2076 and after I had succeeded in preparing several of the young men and
2077 women, besides my two brothers, to enter the Hampton Institute, I
2078 decided to spend some months in study at Washington, D.C. I remained
2079 there for eight months. I derived a great deal of benefit from the
2080 studies which I pursued, and I came into contact with some strong
2081 men and women. At the institution I attended there was no industrial
2082 training given to the students, and I had an opportunity of comparing
2083 the influence of an institution with no industrial training with that of
2084 one like the Hampton Institute, that emphasizes the industries. At this
2085 school I found the students, in most cases, had more money, were better
2086 dressed, wore the latest style of all manner of clothing, and in some
2087 cases were more brilliant mentally. At Hampton it was a standing rule
2088 that, while the institution would be responsible for securing some one
2089 to pay the tuition for the students, the men and women themselves must
2090 provide for their own board, books, clothing, and room wholly by work,
2091 or partly by work and partly in cash. At the institution at which I
2092 now was, I found that a large portion of the students by some means
2093 had their personal expenses paid for them. At Hampton the student was
2094 constantly making the effort through the industries to help himself,
2095 and that very effort was of immense value in character-building. The
2096 students at the other school seemed to be less self-dependent. They
2097 seemed to give more attention to mere outward appearances. In a word,
2098 they did not appear to me to be beginning at the bottom, on a real,
2099 solid foundation, to the extent that they were at Hampton. They knew
2100 more about Latin and Greek when they left school, but they seemed to
2101 know less about life and its conditions as they would meet it at their
2102 homes. Having lived for a number of years in the midst of comfortable
2103 surroundings, they were not as much inclined as the Hampton students to
2104 go into the country districts of the South, where there was little of
2105 comfort, to take up work for our people, and they were more inclined to
2106 yield to the temptation to become hotel waiters and Pullman-car porters
2109 During the time I was a student at Washington the city was crowded with
2110 coloured people, many of whom had recently come from the South. A large
2111 proportion of these people had been drawn to Washington because they
2112 felt that they could lead a life of ease there. Others had secured minor
2113 government positions, and still another large class was there in the
2114 hope of securing Federal positions. A number of coloured men--some of
2115 them very strong and brilliant--were in the House of Representatives
2116 at that time, and one, the Hon. B.K. Bruce, was in the Senate. All
2117 this tended to make Washington an attractive place for members of the
2118 coloured race. Then, too, they knew that at all times they could have
2119 the protection of the law in the District of Columbia. The public
2120 schools in Washington for coloured people were better then than they
2121 were elsewhere. I took great interest in studying the life of our people
2122 there closely at that time. I found that while among them there was
2123 a large element of substantial, worthy citizens, there was also a
2124 superficiality about the life of a large class that greatly alarmed me.
2125 I saw young coloured men who were not earning more than four dollars a
2126 week spend two dollars or more for a buggy on Sunday to ride up and down
2127 Pennsylvania Avenue in, in order that they might try to convince the
2128 world that they were worth thousands. I saw other young men who received
2129 seventy-five or one hundred dollars per month from the Government, who
2130 were in debt at the end of every month. I saw men who but a few months
2131 previous were members of Congress, then without employment and in
2132 poverty. Among a large class there seemed to be a dependence upon the
2133 Government for every conceivable thing. The members of this class had
2134 little ambition to create a position for themselves, but wanted the
2135 Federal officials to create one for them. How many times I wished then,
2136 and have often wished since, that by some power of magic I might remove
2137 the great bulk of these people into the county districts and plant them
2138 upon the soil, upon the solid and never deceptive foundation of Mother
2139 Nature, where all nations and races that have ever succeeded have gotten
2140 their start,--a start that at first may be slow and toilsome, but one
2141 that nevertheless is real.
2143 In Washington I saw girls whose mothers were earning their living by
2144 laundrying. These girls were taught by their mothers, in rather a crude
2145 way it is true, the industry of laundrying. Later, these girls entered
2146 the public schools and remained there perhaps six or eight years. When
2147 the public school course was finally finished, they wanted more costly
2148 dresses, more costly hats and shoes. In a word, while their wants
2149 have been increased, their ability to supply their wants had not been
2150 increased in the same degree. On the other hand, their six or eight
2151 years of book education had weaned them away from the occupation of
2152 their mothers. The result of this was in too many cases that the girls
2153 went to the bad. I often thought how much wiser it would have been to
2154 give these girls the same amount of maternal training--and I favour any
2155 kind of training, whether in the languages or mathematics, that gives
2156 strength and culture to the mind--but at the same time to give them the
2157 most thorough training in the latest and best methods of laundrying and
2158 other kindred occupations.
2162 Chapter VI. Black Race And Red Race
2164 During the year that I spent in Washington, and for some little time
2165 before this, there had been considerable agitation in the state of
2166 West Virginia over the question of moving the capital of the state
2167 from Wheeling to some other central point. As a result of this, the
2168 Legislature designated three cities to be voted upon by the citizens of
2169 the state as the permanent seat of government. Among these cities was
2170 Charleston, only five miles from Malden, my home. At the close of my
2171 school year in Washington I was very pleasantly surprised to receive,
2172 from a committee of three white people in Charleston, an invitation
2173 to canvass the state in the interests of that city. This invitation I
2174 accepted, and spent nearly three months in speaking in various parts of
2175 the state. Charleston was successful in winning the prize, and is now
2176 the permanent seat of government.
2178 The reputation that I made as a speaker during this campaign induced a
2179 number of persons to make an earnest effort to get me to enter political
2180 life, but I refused, still believing that I could find other service
2181 which would prove of more permanent value to my race. Even then I had a
2182 strong feeling that what our people most needed was to get a foundation
2183 in education, industry, and property, and for this I felt that they
2184 could better afford to strive than for political preferment. As for my
2185 individual self, it appeared to me to be reasonably certain that I could
2186 succeed in political life, but I had a feeling that it would be a rather
2187 selfish kind of success--individual success at the cost of failing to do
2188 my duty in assisting in laying a foundation for the masses.
2190 At this period in the progress of our race a very large proportion of
2191 the young men who went to school or to college did so with the expressed
2192 determination to prepare themselves to be great lawyers, or Congressmen,
2193 and many of the women planned to become music teachers; but I had a
2194 reasonably fixed idea, even at that early period in my life, that there
2195 was a need for something to be done to prepare the way for successful
2196 lawyers, Congressmen, and music teachers.
2198 I felt that the conditions were a good deal like those of an old
2199 coloured man, during the days of slavery, who wanted to learn how to
2200 play on the guitar. In his desire to take guitar lessons he applied to
2201 one of his young masters to teach him, but the young man, not having
2202 much faith in the ability of the slave to master the guitar at his age,
2203 sought to discourage him by telling him: "Uncle Jake, I will give you
2204 guitar lessons; but, Jake, I will have to charge you three dollars for
2205 the first lesson, two dollars for the second lesson, and one dollar for
2206 the third lesson. But I will charge you only twenty-five cents for the
2209 Uncle Jake answered: "All right, boss, I hires you on dem terms. But,
2210 boss! I wants yer to be sure an' give me dat las' lesson first."
2212 Soon after my work in connection with the removal of the capital was
2213 finished, I received an invitation which gave me great joy and which
2214 at the same time was a very pleasant surprise. This was a letter
2215 from General Armstrong, inviting me to return to Hampton at the next
2216 Commencement to deliver what was called the "post-graduate address."
2217 This was an honour which I had not dreamed of receiving. With much
2218 care I prepared the best address that I was capable of. I chose for my
2219 subject "The Force That Wins."
2221 As I returned to Hampton for the purpose of delivering this address,
2222 I went over much of the same ground--now, however, covered entirely by
2223 railroad--that I had traversed nearly six years before, when I first
2224 sought entrance into Hampton Institute as a student. Now I was able to
2225 ride the whole distance in the train. I was constantly contrasting this
2226 with my first journey to Hampton. I think I may say, without seeming
2227 egotism, that it is seldom that five years have wrought such a change in
2228 the life and aspirations of an individual.
2230 At Hampton I received a warm welcome from teachers and students. I found
2231 that during my absence from Hampton the institute each year had been
2232 getting closer to the real needs and conditions of our people; that the
2233 industrial teaching, as well as that of the academic department, had
2234 greatly improved. The plan of the school was not modelled after that of
2235 any other institution then in existence, but every improvement was made
2236 under the magnificent leadership of General Armstrong solely with the
2237 view of meeting and helping the needs of our people as they presented
2238 themselves at the time. Too often, it seems to me, in missionary
2239 and educational work among underdeveloped races, people yield to the
2240 temptation of doing that which was done a hundred years before, or is
2241 being done in other communities a thousand miles away. The temptation
2242 often is to run each individual through a certain educational
2243 mould, regardless of the condition of the subject or the end to be
2244 accomplished. This was not so at Hampton Institute.
2246 The address which I delivered on Commencement Day seems to have pleased
2247 every one, and many kind and encouraging words were spoken to me
2248 regarding it. Soon after my return to my home in West Virginia, where
2249 I had planned to continue teaching, I was again surprised to receive a
2250 letter from General Armstrong, asking me to return to Hampton partly as
2251 a teacher and partly to pursue some supplementary studies. This was
2252 in the summer of 1879. Soon after I began my first teaching in West
2253 Virginia I had picked out four of the brightest and most promising of my
2254 pupils, in addition to my two brothers, to whom I have already referred,
2255 and had given them special attention, with the view of having them go
2256 to Hampton. They had gone there, and in each case the teachers had found
2257 them so well prepared that they entered advanced classes. This fact, it
2258 seems, led to my being called back to Hampton as a teacher. One of
2259 the young men that I sent to Hampton in this way is now Dr. Samuel E.
2260 Courtney, a successful physician in Boston, and a member of the School
2263 About this time the experiment was being tried for the first time, by
2264 General Armstrong, of educating Indians at Hampton. Few people then had
2265 any confidence in the ability of the Indians to receive education and
2266 to profit by it. General Armstrong was anxious to try the experiment
2267 systematically on a large scale. He secured from the reservations in
2268 the Western states over one hundred wild and for the most part perfectly
2269 ignorant Indians, the greater proportion of whom were young men. The
2270 special work which the General desired me to do was to be a sort of "house
2271 father" to the Indian young men--that is, I was to live in the building
2272 with them and have the charge of their discipline, clothing, rooms, and
2273 so on. This was a very tempting offer, but I had become so much absorbed
2274 in my work in West Virginia that I dreaded to give it up. However, I
2275 tore myself away from it. I did not know how to refuse to perform any
2276 service that General Armstrong desired of me.
2278 On going to Hampton, I took up my residence in a building with about
2279 seventy-five Indian youths. I was the only person in the building who
2280 was not a member of their race. At first I had a good deal of doubt
2281 about my ability to succeed. I knew that the average Indian felt himself
2282 above the white man, and, of course, he felt himself far above the
2283 Negro, largely on account of the fact of the Negro having submitted to
2284 slavery--a thing which the Indian would never do. The Indians, in the
2285 Indian Territory, owned a large number of slaves during the days of
2286 slavery. Aside from this, there was a general feeling that the attempt
2287 to educate and civilize the red men at Hampton would be a failure.
2288 All this made me proceed very cautiously, for I felt keenly the great
2289 responsibility. But I was determined to succeed. It was not long before
2290 I had the complete confidence of the Indians, and not only this, but
2291 I think I am safe in saying that I had their love and respect. I found
2292 that they were about like any other human beings; that they responded
2293 to kind treatment and resented ill-treatment. They were continually
2294 planning to do something that would add to my happiness and comfort. The
2295 things that they disliked most, I think, were to have their long hair
2296 cut, to give up wearing their blankets, and to cease smoking; but no
2297 white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until
2298 he wears the white man's clothes, eats the white man's food, speaks the
2299 white man's language, and professes the white man's religion.
2301 When the difficulty of learning the English language was subtracted, I
2302 found that in the matter of learning trades and in mastering academic
2303 studies there was little difference between the coloured and Indian
2304 students. It was a constant delight to me to note the interest which
2305 the coloured students took in trying to help the Indians in every way
2306 possible. There were a few of the coloured students who felt that the
2307 Indians ought not to be admitted to Hampton, but these were in the
2308 minority. Whenever they were asked to do so, the Negro students gladly
2309 took the Indians as room-mates, in order that they might teach them to
2310 speak English and to acquire civilized habits.
2312 I have often wondered if there was a white institution in this country
2313 whose students would have welcomed the incoming of more than a hundred
2314 companions of another race in the cordial way that these black students
2315 at Hampton welcomed the red ones. How often I have wanted to say to
2316 white students that they lift themselves up in proportion as they help
2317 to lift others, and the more unfortunate the race, and the lower in the
2318 scale of civilization, the more does one raise one's self by giving the
2321 This reminds me of a conversation which I once had with the Hon.
2322 Frederick Douglass. At one time Mr. Douglass was travelling in the state
2323 of Pennsylvania, and was forced, on account of his colour, to ride in
2324 the baggage-car, in spite of the fact that he had paid the same price
2325 for his passage that the other passengers had paid. When some of the
2326 white passengers went into the baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and
2327 one of them said to him: "I am sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been
2328 degraded in this manner," Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on
2329 the box upon which he was sitting, and replied: "They cannot degrade
2330 Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I
2331 am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but
2332 those who are inflicting it upon me."
2334 In one part of the country, where the law demands the separation of
2335 the races on the railroad trains, I saw at one time a rather amusing
2336 instance which showed how difficult it sometimes is to know where the
2337 black begins and the white ends.
2339 There was a man who was well known in his community as a Negro, but who
2340 was so white that even an expert would have hard work to classify him as
2341 a black man. This man was riding in the part of the train set aside for
2342 the coloured passengers. When the train conductor reached him, he showed
2343 at once that he was perplexed. If the man was a Negro, the conductor did
2344 not want to send him to the white people's coach; at the same time, if
2345 he was a white man, the conductor did not want to insult him by asking
2346 him if he was a Negro. The official looked him over carefully, examining
2347 his hair, eyes, nose, and hands, but still seemed puzzled. Finally, to
2348 solve the difficulty, he stooped over and peeped at the man's feet. When
2349 I saw the conductor examining the feet of the man in question, I said to
2350 myself, "That will settle it;" and so it did, for the trainman promptly
2351 decided that the passenger was a Negro, and let him remain where he was.
2352 I congratulated myself that my race was fortunate in not losing one of
2355 My experience has been that the time to test a true gentleman is to
2356 observe him when he is in contact with individuals of a race that is
2357 less fortunate than his own. This is illustrated in no better way than
2358 by observing the conduct of the old-school type of Southern gentleman
2359 when he is in contact with his former slaves or their descendants.
2361 An example of what I mean is shown in a story told of George Washington,
2362 who, meeting a coloured man in the road once, who politely lifted his
2363 hat, lifted his own in return. Some of his white friends who saw
2364 the incident criticised Washington for his action. In reply to their
2365 criticism George Washington said: "Do you suppose that I am going to
2366 permit a poor, ignorant, coloured man to be more polite than I am?"
2368 While I was in charge of the Indian boys at Hampton, I had one or two
2369 experiences which illustrate the curious workings of caste in America.
2370 One of the Indian boys was taken ill, and it became my duty to take him
2371 to Washington, deliver him over to the Secretary of the Interior, and
2372 get a receipt for him, in order that he might be returned to his Western
2373 reservation. At that time I was rather ignorant of the ways of the
2374 world. During my journey to Washington, on a steamboat, when the bell
2375 rang for dinner, I was careful to wait and not enter the dining room
2376 until after the greater part of the passengers had finished their meal.
2377 Then, with my charge, I went to the dining saloon. The man in charge
2378 politely informed me that the Indian could be served, but that I could
2379 not. I never could understand how he knew just where to draw the colour
2380 line, since the Indian and I were of about the same complexion. The
2381 steward, however, seemed to be an expert in this manner. I had been
2382 directed by the authorities at Hampton to stop at a certain hotel in
2383 Washington with my charge, but when I went to this hotel the clerk
2384 stated that he would be glad to receive the Indian into the house, but
2385 said that he could not accommodate me.
2387 An illustration of something of this same feeling came under my
2388 observation afterward. I happened to find myself in a town in which
2389 so much excitement and indignation were being expressed that it seemed
2390 likely for a time that there would be a lynching. The occasion of the
2391 trouble was that a dark-skinned man had stopped at the local hotel.
2392 Investigation, however, developed the fact that this individual was a
2393 citizen of Morocco, and that while travelling in this country he spoke
2394 the English language. As soon as it was learned that he was not an
2395 American Negro, all the signs of indignation disappeared. The man who
2396 was the innocent cause of the excitement, though, found it prudent after
2397 that not to speak English.
2399 At the end of my first year with the Indians there came another opening
2400 for me at Hampton, which, as I look back over my life now, seems to
2401 have come providentially, to help to prepare me for my work at Tuskegee
2402 later. General Armstrong had found out that there was quite a number of
2403 young coloured men and women who were intensely in earnest in wishing to
2404 get an education, but who were prevented from entering Hampton Institute
2405 because they were too poor to be able to pay any portion of the cost of
2406 their board, or even to supply themselves with books. He conceived the
2407 idea of starting a night-school in connection with the Institute, into
2408 which a limited number of the most promising of these young men and
2409 women would be received, on condition that they were to work for ten
2410 hours during the day, and attend school for two hours at night. They
2411 were to be paid something above the cost of their board for their work.
2412 The greater part of their earnings was to be reserved in the school's
2413 treasury as a fund to be drawn on to pay their board when they had
2414 become students in the day-school, after they had spent one or two years
2415 in the night-school. In this way they would obtain a start in their
2416 books and a knowledge of some trade or industry, in addition to the
2417 other far-reaching benefits of the institution.
2419 General Armstrong asked me to take charge of the night-school, and I
2420 did so. At the beginning of this school there were about twelve strong,
2421 earnest men and women who entered the class. During the day the greater
2422 part of the young men worked in the school's sawmill, and the young
2423 women worked in the laundry. The work was not easy in either place,
2424 but in all my teaching I never taught pupils who gave me much genuine
2425 satisfaction as these did. They were good students, and mastered their
2426 work thoroughly. They were so much in earnest that only the ringing of
2427 the retiring-bell would make them stop studying, and often they would
2428 urge me to continue the lessons after the usual hour for going to bed
2431 These students showed so much earnestness, both in their hard work
2432 during the day, as well as in their application to their studies at
2433 night, that I gave them the name of "The Plucky Class"--a name which
2434 soon grew popular and spread throughout the institution. After a student
2435 had been in the night-school long enough to prove what was in him, I
2436 gave him a printed certificate which read something like this:--
2438 "This is to certify that James Smith is a member of The Plucky Class of
2439 the Hampton Institute, and is in good and regular standing."
2441 The students prized these certificates highly, and they added greatly to
2442 the popularity of the night-school. Within a few weeks this department
2443 had grown to such an extent that there were about twenty-five students
2444 in attendance. I have followed the course of many of these twenty-five
2445 men and women ever since then, and they are now holding important and
2446 useful positions in nearly every part of the South. The night-school at
2447 Hampton, which started with only twelve students, now numbers between
2448 three and four hundred, and is one of the permanent and most important
2449 features of the institution.
2453 Chapter VII. Early Days At Tuskegee
2455 During the time that I had charge of the Indians and the night-school
2456 at Hampton, I pursued some studies myself, under the direction of
2457 the instructors there. One of these instructors was the Rev. Dr. H.B.
2458 Frissell, the present Principal of the Hampton Institute, General
2459 Armstrong's successor.
2461 In May, 1881, near the close of my first year in teaching the
2462 night-school, in a way that I had not dared expect, the opportunity
2463 opened for me to begin my life-work. One night in the chapel, after the
2464 usual chapel exercises were over, General Armstrong referred to the fact
2465 that he had received a letter from some gentlemen in Alabama asking him
2466 to recommend some one to take charge of what was to be a normal school
2467 for the coloured people in the little town of Tuskegee in that state.
2468 These gentlemen seemed to take it for granted that no coloured man
2469 suitable for the position could be secured, and they were expecting the
2470 General to recommend a white man for the place. The next day General
2471 Armstrong sent for me to come to his office, and, much to my surprise,
2472 asked me if I thought I could fill the position in Alabama. I told him
2473 that I would be willing to try. Accordingly, he wrote to the people
2474 who had applied to him for the information, that he did not know of any
2475 white man to suggest, but if they would be willing to take a coloured
2476 man, he had one whom he could recommend. In this letter he gave them my
2479 Several days passed before anything more was heard about the matter.
2480 Some time afterward, one Sunday evening during the chapel exercises, a
2481 messenger came in and handed the general a telegram. At the end of the
2482 exercises he read the telegram to the school. In substance, these were
2483 its words: "Booker T. Washington will suit us. Send him at once."
2485 There was a great deal of joy expressed among the students and teachers,
2486 and I received very hearty congratulations. I began to get ready at once
2487 to go to Tuskegee. I went by way of my old home in West Virginia, where
2488 I remained for several days, after which I proceeded to Tuskegee. I
2489 found Tuskegee to be a town of about two thousand inhabitants, nearly
2490 one-half of whom were coloured. It was in what was known as the Black
2491 Belt of the South. In the county in which Tuskegee is situated the
2492 coloured people outnumbered the whites by about three to one. In some of
2493 the adjoining and near-by counties the proportion was not far from six
2494 coloured persons to one white.
2496 I have often been asked to define the term "Black Belt." So far as I can
2497 learn, the term was first used to designate a part of the country which
2498 was distinguished by the colour of the soil. The part of the country
2499 possessing this thick, dark, and naturally rich soil was, of course,
2500 the part of the South where the slaves were most profitable, and
2501 consequently they were taken there in the largest numbers. Later,
2502 and especially since the war, the term seems to be used wholly in a
2503 political sense--that is, to designate the counties where the black
2504 people outnumber the white.
2506 Before going to Tuskegee I had expected to find there a building and
2507 all the necessary apparatus ready for me to begin teaching. To my
2508 disappointment, I found nothing of the kind. I did find, though, that
2509 which no costly building and apparatus can supply,--hundreds of hungry,
2510 earnest souls who wanted to secure knowledge.
2512 Tuskegee seemed an ideal place for the school. It was in the midst of
2513 the great bulk of the Negro population, and was rather secluded, being
2514 five miles from the main line of railroad, with which it was connected
2515 by a short line. During the days of slavery, and since, the town had
2516 been a centre for the education of the white people. This was an added
2517 advantage, for the reason that I found the white people possessing
2518 a degree of culture and education that is not surpassed by many
2519 localities. While the coloured people were ignorant, they had not, as a
2520 rule, degraded and weakened their bodies by vices such as are common to
2521 the lower class of people in the large cities. In general, I found the
2522 relations between the two races pleasant. For example, the largest, and
2523 I think at that time the only hardware store in the town was owned and
2524 operated jointly by a coloured man and a white man. This copartnership
2525 continued until the death of the white partner.
2527 I found that about a year previous to my going to Tuskegee some of the
2528 coloured people who had heard something of the work of education being
2529 done at Hampton had applied to the state Legislature, through their
2530 representatives, for a small appropriation to be used in starting a
2531 normal school in Tuskegee. This request the Legislature had complied
2532 with to the extent of granting an annual appropriation of two thousand
2533 dollars. I soon learned, however, that this money could be used only for
2534 the payment of the salaries of the instructors, and that there was no
2535 provision for securing land, buildings, or apparatus. The task before me
2536 did not seem a very encouraging one. It seemed much like making bricks
2537 without straw. The coloured people were overjoyed, and were constantly
2538 offering their services in any way in which they could be of assistance
2539 in getting the school started.
2541 My first task was to find a place in which to open the school. After
2542 looking the town over with some care, the most suitable place that could
2543 be secured seemed to be a rather dilapidated shanty near the coloured
2544 Methodist church, together with the church itself as a sort of
2545 assembly-room. Both the church and the shanty were in about as bad
2546 condition as was possible. I recall that during the first months of
2547 school that I taught in this building it was in such poor repair that,
2548 whenever it rained, one of the older students would very kindly leave
2549 his lessons and hold an umbrella over me while I heard the recitations
2550 of the others. I remember, also, that on more than one occasion my
2551 landlady held an umbrella over me while I ate breakfast.
2553 At the time I went to Alabama the coloured people were taking
2554 considerable interest in politics, and they were very anxious that I
2555 should become one of them politically, in every respect. They seemed to
2556 have a little distrust of strangers in this regard. I recall that one
2557 man, who seemed to have been designated by the others to look after my
2558 political destiny, came to me on several occasions and said, with a
2559 good deal of earnestness: "We wants you to be sure to vote jes' like we
2560 votes. We can't read de newspapers very much, but we knows how to vote,
2561 an' we wants you to vote jes' like we votes." He added: "We watches de
2562 white man, and we keeps watching de white man till we finds out which
2563 way de white man's gwine to vote; an' when we finds out which way de
2564 white man's gwine to vote, den we votes 'xactly de other way. Den we
2567 I am glad to add, however, that at the present time the disposition
2568 to vote against the white man merely because he is white is largely
2569 disappearing, and the race is learning to vote from principle, for what
2570 the voter considers to be for the best interests of both races.
2572 I reached Tuskegee, as I have said, early in June, 1881. The first month
2573 I spent in finding accommodations for the school, and in travelling
2574 through Alabama, examining into the actual life of the people,
2575 especially in the court districts, and in getting the school advertised
2576 among the class of people that I wanted to have attend it. The most of
2577 my travelling was done over the country roads, with a mule and a cart
2578 or a mule and a buggy wagon for conveyance. I ate and slept with the
2579 people, in their little cabins. I saw their farms, their schools, their
2580 churches. Since, in the case of the most of these visits, there had
2581 been no notice given in advance that a stranger was expected, I had the
2582 advantage of seeing the real, everyday life of the people.
2584 In the plantation districts I found that, as a rule, the whole family
2585 slept in one room, and that in addition to the immediate family there
2586 sometimes were relatives, or others not related to the family, who slept
2587 in the same room. On more than one occasion I went outside the house
2588 to get ready for bed, or to wait until the family had gone to bed. They
2589 usually contrived some kind of a place for me to sleep, either on the
2590 floor or in a special part of another's bed. Rarely was there any place
2591 provided in the cabin where one could bathe even the face and hands, but
2592 usually some provision was made for this outside the house, in the yard.
2594 The common diet of the people was fat pork and corn bread. At times I
2595 have eaten in cabins where they had only corn bread and "black-eye peas"
2596 cooked in plain water. The people seemed to have no other idea than to
2597 live on this fat meat and corn bread,--the meat, and the meal of which
2598 the bread was made, having been bought at a high price at a store in
2599 town, notwithstanding the fact that the land all about the cabin homes
2600 could easily have been made to produce nearly every kind of garden
2601 vegetable that is raised anywhere in the country. Their one object
2602 seemed to be to plant nothing but cotton; and in many cases cotton was
2603 planted up to the very door of the cabin.
2605 In these cabin homes I often found sewing-machines which had been
2606 bought, or were being bought, on instalments, frequently at a cost of
2607 as much as sixty dollars, or showy clocks for which the occupants of
2608 the cabins had paid twelve or fourteen dollars. I remember that on one
2609 occasion when I went into one of these cabins for dinner, when I sat
2610 down to the table for a meal with the four members of the family, I
2611 noticed that, while there were five of us at the table, there was but
2612 one fork for the five of us to use. Naturally there was an awkward pause
2613 on my part. In the opposite corner of that same cabin was an organ
2614 for which the people told me they were paying sixty dollars in monthly
2615 instalments. One fork, and a sixty-dollar organ!
2617 In most cases the sewing-machine was not used, the clocks were so
2618 worthless that they did not keep correct time--and if they had, in nine
2619 cases out of ten there would have been no one in the family who could
2620 have told the time of day--while the organ, of course, was rarely used
2621 for want of a person who could play upon it.
2623 In the case to which I have referred, where the family sat down to the
2624 table for the meal at which I was their guest, I could see plainly that
2625 this was an awkward and unusual proceeding, and was done in my honour.
2626 In most cases, when the family got up in the morning, for example, the
2627 wife would put a piece of meat in a frying-pan and put a lump of dough
2628 in a "skillet," as they called it. These utensils would be placed on the
2629 fire, and in ten or fifteen minutes breakfast would be ready. Frequently
2630 the husband would take his bread and meat in his hand and start for the
2631 field, eating as he walked. The mother would sit down in a corner and
2632 eat her breakfast, perhaps from a plate and perhaps directly from the
2633 "skillet" or frying-pan, while the children would eat their portion of
2634 the bread and meat while running about the yard. At certain seasons of
2635 the year, when meat was scarce, it was rarely that the children who were
2636 not old enough or strong enough to work in the fields would have the
2639 The breakfast over, and with practically no attention given to the
2640 house, the whole family would, as a general thing, proceed to the
2641 cotton-field. Every child that was large enough to carry a hoe was put
2642 to work, and the baby--for usually there was at least one baby--would be
2643 laid down at the end of the cotton row, so that its mother could give
2644 it a certain amount of attention when she had finished chopping her
2645 row. The noon meal and the supper were taken in much the same way as the
2648 All the days of the family would be spent after much this same routine,
2649 except Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday the whole family would spent at
2650 least half a day, and often a whole day, in town. The idea in going to
2651 town was, I suppose, to do shopping, but all the shopping that the whole
2652 family had money for could have been attended to in ten minutes by one
2653 person. Still, the whole family remained in town for most of the day,
2654 spending the greater part of the time in standing on the streets, the
2655 women, too often, sitting about somewhere smoking or dipping snuff.
2656 Sunday was usually spent in going to some big meeting. With few
2657 exceptions, I found that the crops were mortgaged in the counties where
2658 I went, and that the most of the coloured farmers were in debt. The
2659 state had not been able to build schoolhouses in the country districts,
2660 and, as a rule, the schools were taught in churches or in log cabins.
2661 More than once, while on my journeys, I found that there was no
2662 provision made in the house used for school purposes for heating the
2663 building during the winter, and consequently a fire had to be built in
2664 the yard, and teacher and pupils passed in and out of the house as they
2665 got cold or warm. With few exceptions, I found the teachers in these
2666 country schools to be miserably poor in preparation for their work, and
2667 poor in moral character. The schools were in session from three to five
2668 months. There was practically no apparatus in the schoolhouses, except
2669 that occasionally there was a rough blackboard. I recall that one day I
2670 went into a schoolhouse--or rather into an abandoned log cabin that was
2671 being used as a schoolhouse--and found five pupils who were studying a
2672 lesson from one book. Two of these, on the front seat, were using
2673 the book between them; behind these were two others peeping over the
2674 shoulders of the first two, and behind the four was a fifth little
2675 fellow who was peeping over the shoulders of all four.
2677 What I have said concerning the character of the schoolhouses and
2678 teachers will also apply quite accurately as a description of the church
2679 buildings and the ministers.
2681 I met some very interesting characters during my travels. As
2682 illustrating the peculiar mental processes of the country people, I
2683 remember that I asked one coloured man, who was about sixty years old,
2684 to tell me something of his history. He said that he had been born in
2685 Virginia, and sold into Alabama in 1845. I asked him how many were sold
2686 at the same time. He said, "There were five of us; myself and brother
2689 In giving all these descriptions of what I saw during my month of travel
2690 in the country around Tuskegee, I wish my readers to keep in mind the
2691 fact that there were many encouraging exceptions to the conditions which
2692 I have described. I have stated in such plain words what I saw, mainly
2693 for the reason that later I want to emphasize the encouraging changes
2694 that have taken place in the community, not wholly by the work of the
2695 Tuskegee school, but by that of other institutions as well.
2699 Chapter VIII. Teaching School In A Stable And A Hen-House
2701 I confess that what I saw during my month of travel and investigation
2702 left me with a very heavy heart. The work to be done in order to lift
2703 these people up seemed almost beyond accomplishing. I was only one
2704 person, and it seemed to me that the little effort which I could put
2705 forth could go such a short distance toward bringing about results. I
2706 wondered if I could accomplish anything, and if it were worth while for
2709 Of one thing I felt more strongly convinced than ever, after spending
2710 this month in seeing the actual life of the coloured people, and that
2711 was that, in order to lift them up, something must be done more than
2712 merely to imitate New England education as it then existed. I saw more
2713 clearly than ever the wisdom of the system which General Armstrong had
2714 inaugurated at Hampton. To take the children of such people as I had
2715 been among for a month, and each day give them a few hours of mere book
2716 education, I felt would be almost a waste of time.
2718 After consultation with the citizens of Tuskegee, I set July 4, 1881,
2719 as the day for the opening of the school in the little shanty and church
2720 which had been secured for its accommodation. The white people, as well
2721 as the coloured, were greatly interested in the starting of the new
2722 school, and the opening day was looked forward to with much earnest
2723 discussion. There were not a few white people in the vicinity of
2724 Tuskegee who looked with some disfavour upon the project. They
2725 questioned its value to the coloured people, and had a fear that it
2726 might result in bringing about trouble between the races. Some had the
2727 feeling that in proportion as the Negro received education, in the same
2728 proportion would his value decrease as an economic factor in the state.
2729 These people feared the result of education would be that the Negroes
2730 would leave the farms, and that it would be difficult to secure them for
2733 The white people who questioned the wisdom of starting this new school
2734 had in their minds pictures of what was called an educated Negro, with a
2735 high hat, imitation gold eye-glasses, a showy walking-stick, kid gloves,
2736 fancy boots, and what not--in a word, a man who was determined to live
2737 by his wits. It was difficult for these people to see how education
2738 would produce any other kind of a coloured man.
2740 In the midst of all the difficulties which I encountered in getting
2741 the little school started, and since then through a period of nineteen
2742 years, there are two men among all the many friends of the school in
2743 Tuskegee upon whom I have depended constantly for advice and guidance;
2744 and the success of the undertaking is largely due to these men, from
2745 whom I have never sought anything in vain. I mention them simply as
2746 types. One is a white man and an ex-slaveholder, Mr. George W. Campbell;
2747 the other is a black man and an ex-slave, Mr. Lewis Adams. These were
2748 the men who wrote to General Armstrong for a teacher.
2750 Mr. Campbell is a merchant and banker, and had had little experience in
2751 dealing with matters pertaining to education. Mr. Adams was a
2752 mechanic, and had learned the trades of shoemaking, harness-making, and
2753 tinsmithing during the days of slavery. He had never been to school a
2754 day in his life, but in some way he had learned to read and write while
2755 a slave. From the first, these two men saw clearly what my plan of
2756 education was, sympathized with me, and supported me in every effort. In
2757 the days which were darkest financially for the school, Mr. Campbell was
2758 never appealed to when he was not willing to extend all the aid in his
2759 power. I do not know two men, one an ex-slaveholder, one an ex-slave,
2760 whose advice and judgment I would feel more like following in everything
2761 which concerns the life and development of the school at Tuskegee than
2762 those of these two men.
2764 I have always felt that Mr. Adams, in a large degree, derived his
2765 unusual power of mind from the training given his hands in the process
2766 of mastering well three trades during the days of slavery. If one
2767 goes to-day into any Southern town, and asks for the leading and most
2768 reliable coloured man in the community, I believe that in five cases
2769 out of ten he will be directed to a Negro who learned a trade during the
2772 On the morning that the school opened, thirty students reported for
2773 admission. I was the only teacher. The students were about equally
2774 divided between the sexes. Most of them lived in Macon County,
2775 the county in which Tuskegee is situated, and of which it is the
2776 county-seat. A great many more students wanted to enter the school, but
2777 it had been decided to receive only those who were above fifteen years
2778 of age, and who had previously received some education. The greater part
2779 of the thirty were public-school teachers, and some of them were nearly
2780 forty years of age. With the teachers came some of their former pupils,
2781 and when they were examined it was amusing to note that in several cases
2782 the pupil entered a higher class than did his former teacher. It was
2783 also interesting to note how many big books some of them had studied,
2784 and how many high-sounding subjects some of them claimed to have
2785 mastered. The bigger the book and the longer the name of the subject,
2786 the prouder they felt of their accomplishment. Some had studied Latin,
2787 and one or two Greek. This they thought entitled them to special
2790 In fact, one of the saddest things I saw during the month of travel
2791 which I have described was a young man, who had attended some high
2792 school, sitting down in a one-room cabin, with grease on his clothing,
2793 filth all around him, and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in
2794 studying a French grammar.
2796 The students who came first seemed to be fond of memorizing long and
2797 complicated "rules" in grammar and mathematics, but had little thought
2798 or knowledge of applying these rules to their everyday affairs of their
2799 life. One subject which they liked to talk about, and tell me that they
2800 had mastered, in arithmetic, was "banking and discount," but I soon
2801 found out that neither they nor almost any one in the neighbourhood in
2802 which they had lived had ever had a bank account. In registering the
2803 names of the students, I found that almost every one of them had one or
2804 more middle initials. When I asked what the "J" stood for, in the name
2805 of John J. Jones, it was explained to me that this was a part of his
2806 "entitles." Most of the students wanted to get an education because they
2807 thought it would enable them to earn more money as school-teachers.
2809 Notwithstanding what I have said about them in these respects, I have
2810 never seen a more earnest and willing company of young men and women
2811 than these students were. They were all willing to learn the right thing
2812 as soon as it was shown them what was right. I was determined to start
2813 them off on a solid and thorough foundation, so far as their books were
2814 concerned. I soon learned that most of them had the merest smattering of
2815 the high-sounding things that they had studied. While they could locate
2816 the Desert of Sahara or the capital of China on an artificial globe,
2817 I found out that the girls could not locate the proper places for the
2818 knives and forks on an actual dinner-table, or the places on which the
2819 bread and meat should be set.
2821 I had to summon a good deal of courage to take a student who had been
2822 studying cube root and "banking and discount," and explain to him
2823 that the wisest thing for him to do first was thoroughly master the
2824 multiplication table.
2826 The number of pupils increased each week, until by the end of the first
2827 month there were nearly fifty. Many of them, however, said that, as they
2828 could remain only for two or three months, they wanted to enter a high
2829 class and get a diploma the first year if possible.
2831 At the end of the first six weeks a new and rare face entered the school
2832 as a co-teacher. This was Miss Olivia A. Davidson, who later became
2833 my wife. Miss Davidson was born in Ohio, and received her preparatory
2834 education in the public schools of that state. When little more than a
2835 girl, she heard of the need of teachers in the South. She went to the
2836 state of Mississippi and began teaching there. Later she taught in the
2837 city of Memphis. While teaching in Mississippi, one of her pupils became
2838 ill with smallpox. Every one in the community was so frightened that no
2839 one would nurse the boy. Miss Davidson closed her school and remained by
2840 the bedside of the boy night and day until he recovered. While she was
2841 at her Ohio home on her vacation, the worst epidemic of yellow fever
2842 broke out in Memphis, Tenn., that perhaps has ever occurred in the
2843 South. When she heard of this, she at once telegraphed the Mayor of
2844 Memphis, offering her services as a yellow-fever nurse, although she had
2845 never had the disease.
2847 Miss Davidon's experience in the South showed her that the people needed
2848 something more than mere book-learning. She heard of the Hampton system
2849 of education, and decided that this was what she wanted in order to
2850 prepare herself for better work in the South. The attention of Mrs. Mary
2851 Hemenway, of Boston, was attracted to her rare ability. Through Mrs.
2852 Hemenway's kindness and generosity, Miss Davidson, after graduating
2853 at Hampton, received an opportunity to complete a two years' course of
2854 training at the Massachusetts State Normal School at Framingham.
2856 Before she went to Framingham, some one suggested to Miss Davidson
2857 that, since she was so very light in colour, she might find it more
2858 comfortable not to be known as a coloured women in this school in
2859 Massachusetts. She at once replied that under no circumstances and for
2860 no considerations would she consent to deceive any one in regard to her
2863 Soon after her graduation from the Framingham institution, Miss Davidson
2864 came to Tuskegee, bringing into the school many valuable and fresh ideas
2865 as to the best methods of teaching, as well as a rare moral character
2866 and a life of unselfishness that I think has seldom been equalled. No
2867 single individual did more toward laying the foundations of the Tuskegee
2868 Institute so as to insure the successful work that has been done there
2869 than Olivia A. Davidson.
2871 Miss Davidson and I began consulting as to the future of the school from
2872 the first. The students were making progress in learning books and in
2873 developing their minds; but it became apparent at once that, if we
2874 were to make any permanent impression upon those who had come to us
2875 for training we must do something besides teach them mere books. The
2876 students had come from homes where they had had no opportunities for
2877 lessons which would teach them how to care for their bodies. With few
2878 exceptions, the homes in Tuskegee in which the students boarded were
2879 but little improvement upon those from which they had come. We wanted
2880 to teach the students how to bathe; how to care for their teeth and
2881 clothing. We wanted to teach them what to eat, and how to eat it
2882 properly, and how to care for their rooms. Aside from this, we wanted to
2883 give them such a practical knowledge of some one industry, together with
2884 the spirit of industry, thrift, and economy, that they would be sure of
2885 knowing how to make a living after they had left us. We wanted to teach
2886 them to study actual things instead of mere books alone.
2888 We found that the most of our students came from the country districts,
2889 where agriculture in some form or other was the main dependence of
2890 the people. We learned that about eighty-five per cent of the coloured
2891 people in the Gulf states depended upon agriculture for their living.
2892 Since this was true, we wanted to be careful not to educate our students
2893 out of sympathy with agricultural life, so that they would be attracted
2894 from the country to the cities, and yield to the temptation of trying
2895 to live by their wits. We wanted to give them such an education as would
2896 fit a large proportion of them to be teachers, and at the same time
2897 cause them to return to the plantation districts and show the people
2898 there how to put new energy and new ideas into farming, as well as into
2899 the intellectual and moral and religious life of the people.
2901 All these ideas and needs crowded themselves upon us with a seriousness
2902 that seemed well-nigh overwhelming. What were we to do? We had only
2903 the little old shanty and the abandoned church which the good
2904 coloured people of the town of Tuskegee had kindly loaned us for the
2905 accommodation of the classes. The number of students was increasing
2906 daily. The more we saw of them, and the more we travelled through the
2907 country districts, the more we saw that our efforts were reaching, to
2908 only a partial degree, the actual needs of the people whom we wanted to
2909 lift up through the medium of the students whom we should educate and
2910 send out as leaders.
2912 The more we talked with the students, who were then coming to us from
2913 several parts of the state, the more we found that the chief ambition
2914 among a large proportion of them was to get an education so that they
2915 would not have to work any longer with their hands.
2917 This is illustrated by a story told of a coloured man in Alabama, who,
2918 one hot day in July, while he was at work in a cotton-field, suddenly
2919 stopped, and, looking toward the skies, said: "O Lawd, de cotton am
2920 so grassy, de work am so hard, and the sun am so hot dat I b'lieve dis
2921 darky am called to preach!"
2923 About three months after the opening of the school, and at the time when
2924 we were in the greatest anxiety about our work, there came into market
2925 for sale an old and abandoned plantation which was situated about a
2926 mile from the town of Tuskegee. The mansion house--or "big house," as
2927 it would have been called--which had been occupied by the owners during
2928 slavery, had been burned. After making a careful examination of the
2929 place, it seemed to be just the location that we wanted in order to make
2930 our work effective and permanent.
2932 But how were we to get it? The price asked for it was very little--only
2933 five hundred dollars--but we had no money, and we were strangers in the
2934 town and had no credit. The owner of the land agreed to let us occupy
2935 the place if we could make a payment of two hundred and fifty dollars
2936 down, with the understanding that the remaining two hundred and fifty
2937 dollars must be paid within a year. Although five hundred dollars was
2938 cheap for the land, it was a large sum when one did not have any part of
2941 In the midst of the difficulty I summoned a great deal of courage and
2942 wrote to my friend General J.F.B. Marshall, the Treasurer of the Hampton
2943 Institute, putting the situation before him and beseeching him to lend
2944 me the two hundred and fifty dollars on my own personal responsibility.
2945 Within a few days a reply came to the effect that he had no authority to
2946 lend me the money belonging to the Hampton Institute, but that he would
2947 gladly lend me the amount needed from his own personal funds.
2949 I confess that the securing of this money in this way was a great
2950 surprise to me, as well as a source of gratification. Up to that time I
2951 never had had in my possession so much money as one hundred dollars at
2952 a time, and the loan which I had asked General Marshall for seemed a
2953 tremendously large sum to me. The fact of my being responsible for the
2954 repaying of such a large amount of money weighed very heavily upon me.
2956 I lost no time in getting ready to move the school on to the new farm.
2957 At the time we occupied the place there were standing upon it a cabin,
2958 formerly used as a dining room, an old kitchen, a stable, and an old
2959 hen-house. Within a few weeks we had all of these structures in use. The
2960 stable was repaired and used as a recitation-room, and very presently
2961 the hen-house was utilized for the same purpose.
2963 I recall that one morning, when I told an old coloured man who lived
2964 near, and who sometimes helped me, that our school had grown so large
2965 that it would be necessary for us to use the hen-house for school
2966 purposes, and that I wanted him to help me give it a thorough cleaning
2967 out the next day, he replied, in the most earnest manner: "What
2968 you mean, boss? You sholy ain't gwine clean out de hen-house in de
2971 Nearly all the work of getting the new location ready for school
2972 purposes was done by the students after school was over in the
2973 afternoon. As soon as we got the cabins in condition to be used, I
2974 determined to clear up some land so that we could plant a crop. When I
2975 explained my plan to the young men, I noticed that they did not seem
2976 to take to it very kindly. It was hard for them to see the connection
2977 between clearing land and an education. Besides, many of them had been
2978 school-teachers, and they questioned whether or not clearing land would
2979 be in keeping with their dignity. In order to relieve them from any
2980 embarrassment, each afternoon after school I took my axe and led the way
2981 to the woods. When they saw that I was not afraid or ashamed to work,
2982 they began to assist with more enthusiasm. We kept at the work each
2983 afternoon, until we had cleared about twenty acres and had planted a
2986 In the meantime Miss Davidson was devising plans to repay the loan. Her
2987 first effort was made by holding festivals, or "suppers." She made a
2988 personal canvass among the white and coloured families in the town
2989 of Tuskegee, and got them to agree to give something, like a cake, a
2990 chicken, bread, or pies, that could be sold at the festival. Of course
2991 the coloured people were glad to give anything that they could spare,
2992 but I want to add that Miss Davidson did not apply to a single white
2993 family, so far as I now remember, that failed to donate something; and
2994 in many ways the white families showed their interest in the school.
2996 Several of these festivals were held, and quite a little sum of money
2997 was raised. A canvass was also made among the people of both races for
2998 direct gifts of money, and most of those applied to gave small sums. It
2999 was often pathetic to note the gifts of the older coloured people, most
3000 of whom had spent their best days in slavery. Sometimes they would give
3001 five cents, sometimes twenty-five cents. Sometimes the contribution was
3002 a quilt, or a quantity of sugarcane. I recall one old coloured women who
3003 was about seventy years of age, who came to see me when we were raising
3004 money to pay for the farm. She hobbled into the room where I was,
3005 leaning on a cane. She was clad in rags; but they were clean. She said:
3006 "Mr. Washin'ton, God knows I spent de bes' days of my life in slavery.
3007 God knows I's ignorant an' poor; but," she added, "I knows what you an'
3008 Miss Davidson is tryin' to do. I knows you is tryin' to make better men
3009 an' better women for de coloured race. I ain't got no money, but I wants
3010 you to take dese six eggs, what I's been savin' up, an' I wants you to
3011 put dese six eggs into the eddication of dese boys an' gals."
3013 Since the work at Tuskegee started, it has been my privilege to receive
3014 many gifts for the benefit of the institution, but never any, I think,
3015 that touched me so deeply as this one.
3019 Chapter IX. Anxious Days And Sleepless Nights
3021 The coming of Christmas, that first year of our residence in Alabama,
3022 gave us an opportunity to get a farther insight into the real life of
3023 the people. The first thing that reminded us that Christmas had arrived
3024 was the "foreday" visits of scores of children rapping at our doors,
3025 asking for "Chris'mus gifts! Chris'mus gifts!" Between the hours of two
3026 o'clock and five o'clock in the morning I presume that we must have had
3027 a half-hundred such calls. This custom prevails throughout this portion
3028 of the South to-day.
3030 During the days of slavery it was a custom quite generally observed
3031 throughout all the Southern states to give the coloured people a week of
3032 holiday at Christmas, or to allow the holiday to continue as long as the
3033 "yule log" lasted. The male members of the race, and often the female
3034 members, were expected to get drunk. We found that for a whole week
3035 the coloured people in and around Tuskegee dropped work the day before
3036 Christmas, and that it was difficult for any one to perform any service
3037 from the time they stopped work until after the New Year. Persons who at
3038 other times did not use strong drink thought it quite the proper thing
3039 to indulge in it rather freely during the Christmas week. There was
3040 a widespread hilarity, and a free use of guns, pistols, and gunpowder
3041 generally. The sacredness of the season seemed to have been almost
3042 wholly lost sight of.
3044 During this first Christmas vacation I went some distance from the town
3045 to visit the people on one of the large plantations. In their poverty
3046 and ignorance it was pathetic to see their attempts to get joy out of
3047 the season that in most parts of the country is so sacred and so dear to
3048 the heart. In one cabin I notice that all that the five children had to
3049 remind them of the coming of Christ was a single bunch of firecrackers,
3050 which they had divided among them. In another cabin, where there were
3051 at least a half-dozen persons, they had only ten cents' worth of
3052 ginger-cakes, which had been bought in the store the day before. In
3053 another family they had only a few pieces of sugarcane. In still another
3054 cabin I found nothing but a new jug of cheap, mean whiskey, which the
3055 husband and wife were making free use of, notwithstanding the fact that
3056 the husband was one of the local ministers. In a few instances I found
3057 that the people had gotten hold of some bright-coloured cards that had
3058 been designed for advertising purposes, and were making the most of
3059 these. In other homes some member of the family had bought a new pistol.
3060 In the majority of cases there was nothing to be seen in the cabin to
3061 remind one of the coming of the Saviour, except that the people had
3062 ceased work in the fields and were lounging about their homes. At night,
3063 during Christmas week, they usually had what they called a "frolic," in
3064 some cabin on the plantation. That meant a kind of rough dance, where
3065 there was likely to be a good deal of whiskey used, and where there
3066 might be some shooting or cutting with razors.
3068 While I was making this Christmas visit I met an old coloured man who
3069 was one of the numerous local preachers, who tried to convince me, from
3070 the experience Adam had in the Garden of Eden, that God had cursed all
3071 labour, and that, therefore, it was a sin for any man to work. For that
3072 reason this man sought to do as little work as possible. He seemed at
3073 that time to be supremely happy, because he was living, as he expressed
3074 it, through one week that was free from sin.
3076 In the school we made a special effort to teach our students the meaning
3077 of Christmas, and to give them lessons in its proper observance. In this
3078 we have been successful to a degree that makes me feel safe in saying
3079 that the season now has a new meaning, not only through all that
3080 immediate region, but, in a measure, wherever our graduates have gone.
3082 At the present time one of the most satisfactory features of the
3083 Christmas and Thanksgiving season at Tuskegee is the unselfish and
3084 beautiful way in which our graduates and students spend their time in
3085 administering to the comfort and happiness of others, especially the
3086 unfortunate. Not long ago some of our young men spent a holiday
3087 in rebuilding a cabin for a helpless coloured women who was about
3088 seventy-five years old. At another time I remember that I made it known
3089 in chapel, one night, that a very poor student was suffering from cold,
3090 because he needed a coat. The next morning two coats were sent to my
3093 I have referred to the disposition on the part of the white people in
3094 the town of Tuskegee and vicinity to help the school. From the first, I
3095 resolved to make the school a real part of the community in which it was
3096 located. I was determined that no one should have the feeling that it
3097 was a foreign institution, dropped down in the midst of the people, for
3098 which they had no responsibility and in which they had no interest.
3099 I noticed that the very fact that they had been asking to contribute
3100 toward the purchase of the land made them begin to feel as if it was
3101 going to be their school, to a large degree. I noted that just in
3102 proportion as we made the white people feel that the institution was
3103 a part of the life of the community, and that, while we wanted to make
3104 friends in Boston, for example, we also wanted to make white friends in
3105 Tuskegee, and that we wanted to make the school of real service to all
3106 the people, their attitude toward the school became favourable.
3108 Perhaps I might add right here, what I hope to demonstrate later, that,
3109 so far as I know, the Tuskegee school at the present time has no warmer
3110 and more enthusiastic friends anywhere than it has among the white
3111 citizens of Tuskegee and throughout the state of Alabama and the entire
3112 South. From the first, I have advised our people in the South to
3113 make friends in every straightforward, manly way with their next-door
3114 neighbour, whether he be a black man or a white man. I have also advised
3115 them, where no principle is at stake, to consult the interests of their
3116 local communities, and to advise with their friends in regard to their
3119 For several months the work of securing the money with which to pay for
3120 the farm went on without ceasing. At the end of three months enough was
3121 secured to repay the loan of two hundred and fifty dollars to General
3122 Marshall, and within two months more we had secured the entire five
3123 hundred dollars and had received a deed of the one hundred acres of
3124 land. This gave us a great deal of satisfaction. It was not only a
3125 source of satisfaction to secure a permanent location for the school,
3126 but it was equally satisfactory to know that the greater part of the
3127 money with which it was paid for had been gotten from the white and
3128 coloured people in the town of Tuskegee. The most of this money was
3129 obtained by holding festivals and concerts, and from small individual
3132 Our next effort was in the direction of increasing the cultivation of
3133 the land, so as to secure some return from it, and at the same time give
3134 the students training in agriculture. All the industries at Tuskegee
3135 have been started in natural and logical order, growing out of the needs
3136 of a community settlement. We began with farming, because we wanted
3139 Many of the students, also, were able to remain in school but a few
3140 weeks at a time, because they had so little money with which to pay
3141 their board. Thus another object which made it desirable to get an
3142 industrial system started was in order to make it available as a means
3143 of helping the students to earn money enough so that they might be able
3144 to remain in school during the nine months' session of the school year.
3146 The first animal that the school came into possession of was an old
3147 blind horse given us by one of the white citizens of Tuskegee. Perhaps
3148 I may add here that at the present time the school owns over two hundred
3149 horses, colts, mules, cows, calves, and oxen, and about seven hundred
3150 hogs and pigs, as well as a large number of sheep and goats.
3152 The school was constantly growing in numbers, so much so that, after we
3153 had got the farm paid for, the cultivation of the land begun, and the
3154 old cabins which we had found on the place somewhat repaired, we turned
3155 our attention toward providing a large, substantial building. After
3156 having given a good deal of thought to the subject, we finally had the
3157 plans drawn for a building that was estimated to cost about six thousand
3158 dollars. This seemed to us a tremendous sum, but we knew that the school
3159 must go backward or forward, and that our work would mean little unless
3160 we could get hold of the students in their home life.
3162 One incident which occurred about this time gave me a great deal of
3163 satisfaction as well as surprise. When it became known in the town that
3164 we were discussing the plans for a new, large building, a Southern white
3165 man who was operating a sawmill not far from Tuskegee came to me and
3166 said that he would gladly put all the lumber necessary to erect the
3167 building on the grounds, with no other guarantee for payment than my
3168 word that it would be paid for when we secured some money. I told the
3169 man frankly that at the time we did not have in our hands one dollar of
3170 the money needed. Notwithstanding this, he insisted on being allowed to
3171 put the lumber on the grounds. After we had secured some portion of the
3172 money we permitted him to do this.
3174 Miss Davidson again began the work of securing in various ways small
3175 contributions for the new building from the white and coloured people
3176 in and near Tuskegee. I think I never saw a community of people so happy
3177 over anything as were the coloured people over the prospect of this new
3178 building. One day, when we were holding a meeting to secure funds for
3179 its erection, an old, ante-bellum coloured man came a distance of twelve
3180 miles and brought in his ox-cart a large hog. When the meeting was in
3181 progress, he rose in the midst of the company and said that he had no
3182 money which he could give, but he had raised two fine hogs, and that
3183 he had brought one of them as a contribution toward the expenses of the
3184 building. He closed his announcement by saying: "Any nigger that's got
3185 any love for his race, or any respect for himself, will bring a hog
3186 to the next meeting." Quite a number of men in the community also
3187 volunteered to give several days' work, each, toward the erection of the
3190 After we had secured all the help that we could in Tuskegee, Miss
3191 Davidson decided to go North for the purpose of securing additional
3192 funds. For weeks she visited individuals and spoke in churches and
3193 before Sunday schools and other organizations. She found this work quite
3194 trying, and often embarrassing. The school was not known, but she was
3195 not long in winning her way into the confidence of the best people in
3198 The first gift from any Northern person was received from a New York
3199 lady whom Miss Davidson met on the boat that was bringing her North.
3200 They fell into a conversation, and the Northern lady became so much
3201 interested in the effort being made at Tuskegee that before they parted
3202 Miss Davidson was handed a check for fifty dollars. For some time before
3203 our marriage, and also after it, Miss Davidson kept up the work of
3204 securing money in the North and in the South by interesting people by
3205 personal visits and through correspondence. At the same time she kept in
3206 close touch with the work at Tuskegee, as lady principal and classroom
3207 teacher. In addition to this, she worked among the older people in and
3208 near Tuskegee, and taught a Sunday school class in the town. She was
3209 never very strong, but never seemed happy unless she was giving all
3210 of her strength to the cause which she loved. Often, at night, after
3211 spending the day in going from door to door trying to interest persons
3212 in the work at Tuskegee, she would be so exhausted that she could not
3213 undress herself. A lady upon whom she called, in Boston, afterward told
3214 me that at one time when Miss Davidson called her to see and send up her
3215 card the lady was detained a little before she could see Miss Davidson,
3216 and when she entered the parlour she found Miss Davidson so exhausted
3217 that she had fallen asleep.
3219 While putting up our first building, which was named Porter Hall, after
3220 Mr. A.H. Porter, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who gave a generous sum toward
3221 its erection, the need for money became acute. I had given one of our
3222 creditors a promise that upon a certain day he should be paid four
3223 hundred dollars. On the morning of that day we did not have a dollar.
3224 The mail arrived at the school at ten o'clock, and in this mail there
3225 was a check sent by Miss Davidson for exactly four hundred dollars.
3226 I could relate many instances of almost the same character. This four
3227 hundred dollars was given by two ladies in Boston. Two years later, when
3228 the work at Tuskegee had grown considerably, and when we were in the
3229 midst of a season when we were so much in need of money that the future
3230 looked doubtful and gloomy, the same two Boston ladies sent us
3231 six thousand dollars. Words cannot describe our surprise, or the
3232 encouragement that the gift brought to us. Perhaps I might add here that
3233 for fourteen years these same friends have sent us six thousand dollars
3236 As soon as the plans were drawn for the new building, the students began
3237 digging out the earth where the foundations were to be laid, working
3238 after the regular classes were over. They had not fully outgrown the
3239 idea that it was hardly the proper thing for them to use their hands,
3240 since they had come there, as one of them expressed it, "to be educated,
3241 and not to work." Gradually, though, I noted with satisfaction that a
3242 sentiment in favour of work was gaining ground. After a few weeks of
3243 hard work the foundations were ready, and a day was appointed for the
3244 laying of the corner-stone.
3246 When it is considered that the laying of this corner-stone took place in
3247 the heart of the South, in the "Black Belt," in the centre of that
3248 part of our country that was most devoted to slavery; that at that time
3249 slavery had been abolished only about sixteen years; that only sixteen
3250 years before no Negro could be taught from books without the teacher
3251 receiving the condemnation of the law or of public sentiment--when all
3252 this is considered, the scene that was witnessed on that spring day at
3253 Tuskegee was a remarkable one. I believe there are few places in the
3254 world where it could have taken place.
3256 The principal address was delivered by the Hon. Waddy Thompson, the
3257 Superintendent of Education for the county. About the corner-stone were
3258 gathered the teachers, the students, their parents and friends, the
3259 county officials--who were white--and all the leading white men in that
3260 vicinity, together with many of the black men and women whom the same
3261 white people but a few years before had held a title to as property. The
3262 members of both races were anxious to exercise the privilege of placing
3263 under the corner-stone some momento.
3265 Before the building was completed we passed through some very trying
3266 seasons. More than once our hearts were made to bleed, as it were,
3267 because bills were falling due that we did not have the money to meet.
3268 Perhaps no one who has not gone through the experience, month after
3269 month, of trying to erect buildings and provide equipment for a
3270 school when no one knew where the money was to come from, can properly
3271 appreciate the difficulties under which we laboured. During the first
3272 years at Tuskegee I recall that night after night I would roll and toss
3273 on my bed, without sleep, because of the anxiety and uncertainty which
3274 we were in regarding money. I knew that, in a large degree, we were
3275 trying an experiment--that of testing whether or not it was possible
3276 for Negroes to build up and control the affairs of a large education
3277 institution. I knew that if we failed it would injure the whole race.
3278 I knew that the presumption was against us. I knew that in the case of
3279 white people beginning such an enterprise it would be taken for granted
3280 that they were going to succeed, but in our case I felt that people
3281 would be surprised if we succeeded. All this made a burden which pressed
3282 down on us, sometimes, it seemed, at the rate of a thousand pounds to
3285 In all our difficulties and anxieties, however, I never went to a white
3286 or a black person in the town of Tuskegee for any assistance that was
3287 in their power to render, without being helped according to their means.
3288 More than a dozen times, when bills figuring up into the hundreds of
3289 dollars were falling due, I applied to the white men of Tuskegee for
3290 small loans, often borrowing small amounts from as many as a half-dozen
3291 persons, to meet our obligations. One thing I was determined to do from
3292 the first, and that was to keep the credit of the school high; and
3293 this, I think I can say without boasting, we have done all through these
3296 I shall always remember a bit of advice given me by Mr. George W.
3297 Campbell, the white man to whom I have referred to as the one who
3298 induced General Armstrong to send me to Tuskegee. Soon after I entered
3299 upon the work Mr. Campbell said to me, in his fatherly way: "Washington,
3300 always remember that credit is capital."
3302 At one time when we were in the greatest distress for money that we ever
3303 experienced, I placed the situation frankly before General Armstrong.
3304 Without hesitation he gave me his personal check for all the money which
3305 he had saved for his own use. This was not the only time that General
3306 Armstrong helped Tuskegee in this way. I do not think I have ever made
3307 this fact public before.
3309 During the summer of 1882, at the end of the first year's work of the
3310 school, I was married to Miss Fannie N. Smith, of Malden, W. Va. We
3311 began keeping house in Tuskegee early in the fall. This made a home for
3312 our teachers, who now had been increased to four in number. My wife was
3313 also a graduate of the Hampton Institute. After earnest and constant
3314 work in the interests of the school, together with her housekeeping
3315 duties, my wife passed away in May, 1884. One child, Portia M.
3316 Washington, was born during our marriage.
3318 From the first, my wife most earnestly devoted her thoughts and time to
3319 the work of the school, and was completely one with me in every interest
3320 and ambition. She passed away, however, before she had an opportunity of
3321 seeing what the school was designed to be.
3325 Chapter X. A Harder Task Than Making Bricks Without Straw
3327 From the very beginning, at Tuskegee, I was determined to have the
3328 students do not only the agricultural and domestic work, but to
3329 have them erect their own buildings. My plan was to have them, while
3330 performing this service, taught the latest and best methods of labour,
3331 so that the school would not only get the benefit of their efforts,
3332 but the students themselves would be taught to see not only utility in
3333 labour, but beauty and dignity; would be taught, in fact, how to lift
3334 labour up from mere drudgery and toil, and would learn to love work for
3335 its own sake. My plan was not to teach them to work in the old way,
3336 but to show them how to make the forces of nature--air, water, steam,
3337 electricity, horse-power--assist them in their labour.
3339 At first many advised against the experiment of having the buildings
3340 erected by the labour of the students, but I was determined to stick to
3341 it. I told those who doubted the wisdom of the plan that I knew that
3342 our first buildings would not be so comfortable or so complete in their
3343 finish as buildings erected by the experienced hands of outside workmen,
3344 but that in the teaching of civilization, self-help, and self-reliance,
3345 the erection of buildings by the students themselves would more than
3346 compensate for any lack of comfort or fine finish.
3348 I further told those who doubted the wisdom of this plan, that the
3349 majority of our students came to us in poverty, from the cabins of the
3350 cotton, sugar, and rice plantations of the South, and that while I knew
3351 it would please the students very much to place them at once in finely
3352 constructed buildings, I felt that it would be following out a more
3353 natural process of development to teach them how to construct their own
3354 buildings. Mistakes I knew would be made, but these mistakes would teach
3355 us valuable lessons for the future.
3357 During the now nineteen years' existence of the Tuskegee school, the
3358 plan of having the buildings erected by student labour has been adhered
3359 to. In this time forty buildings, counting small and large, have been
3360 built, and all except four are almost wholly the product of student
3361 labour. As an additional result, hundreds of men are now scattered
3362 throughout the South who received their knowledge of mechanics while
3363 being taught how to erect these buildings. Skill and knowledge are now
3364 handed down from one set of students to another in this way, until
3365 at the present time a building of any description or size can be
3366 constructed wholly by our instructors and students, from the drawing of
3367 the plans to the putting in of the electric fixtures, without going off
3368 the grounds for a single workman.
3370 Not a few times, when a new student has been led into the temptation of
3371 marring the looks of some building by leadpencil marks or by the cuts
3372 of a jack-knife, I have heard an old student remind him: "Don't do that.
3373 That is our building. I helped put it up."
3375 In the early days of the school I think my most trying experience was
3376 in the matter of brickmaking. As soon as we got the farm work reasonably
3377 well started, we directed our next efforts toward the industry of making
3378 bricks. We needed these for use in connection with the erection of our
3379 own buildings; but there was also another reason for establishing this
3380 industry. There was no brickyard in the town, and in addition to our own
3381 needs there was a demand for bricks in the general market.
3383 I had always sympathized with the "Children of Israel," in their task
3384 of "making bricks without straw," but ours was the task of making bricks
3385 with no money and no experience.
3387 In the first place, the work was hard and dirty, and it was difficult
3388 to get the students to help. When it came to brickmaking, their distaste
3389 for manual labour in connection with book education became especially
3390 manifest. It was not a pleasant task for one to stand in the mud-pit for
3391 hours, with the mud up to his knees. More than one man became disgusted
3392 and left the school.
3394 We tried several locations before we opened up a pit that furnished
3395 brick clay. I had always supposed that brickmaking was very simple, but
3396 I soon found out by bitter experience that it required special skill and
3397 knowledge, particularly in the burning of the bricks. After a good deal
3398 of effort we moulded about twenty-five thousand bricks, and put them
3399 into a kiln to be burned. This kiln turned out to be a failure, because
3400 it was not properly constructed or properly burned. We began at once,
3401 however, on a second kiln. This, for some reason, also proved a failure.
3402 The failure of this kiln made it still more difficult to get the
3403 students to take part in the work. Several of the teachers, however,
3404 who had been trained in the industries at Hampton, volunteered their
3405 services, and in some way we succeeded in getting a third kiln ready for
3406 burning. The burning of a kiln required about a week. Toward the latter
3407 part of the week, when it seemed as if we were going to have a good
3408 many thousand bricks in a few hours, in the middle of the night the kiln
3409 fell. For the third time we had failed.
3411 The failure of this last kiln left me without a single dollar with which
3412 to make another experiment. Most of the teachers advised the abandoning
3413 of the effort to make bricks. In the midst of my troubles I thought of
3414 a watch which had come into my possession years before. I took the watch
3415 to the city of Montgomery, which was not far distant, and placed it in a
3416 pawn-shop. I secured cash upon it to the amount of fifteen dollars, with
3417 which to renew the brickmaking experiment. I returned to Tuskegee, and,
3418 with the help of the fifteen dollars, rallied our rather demoralized and
3419 discouraged forces and began a fourth attempt to make bricks. This time,
3420 I am glad to say, we were successful. Before I got hold of any money,
3421 the time-limit on my watch had expired, and I have never seen it since;
3422 but I have never regretted the loss of it.
3424 Brickmaking has now become such an important industry at the school
3425 that last season our students manufactured twelve hundred thousand of
3426 first-class bricks, of a quality suitable to be sold in any market. Aside
3427 from this, scores of young men have mastered the brickmaking trade--both
3428 the making of bricks by hand and by machinery--and are now engaged in
3429 this industry in many parts of the South.
3431 The making of these bricks taught me an important lesson in regard to
3432 the relations of the two races in the South. Many white people who had
3433 had no contact with the school, and perhaps no sympathy with it, came to
3434 us to buy bricks because they found out that ours were good bricks.
3435 They discovered that we were supplying a real want in the community.
3436 The making of these bricks caused many of the white residents of the
3437 neighbourhood to begin to feel that the education of the Negro was not
3438 making him worthless, but that in educating our students we were adding
3439 something to the wealth and comfort of the community. As the people of
3440 the neighbourhood came to us to buy bricks, we got acquainted with them;
3441 they traded with us and we with them. Our business interests became
3442 intermingled. We had something which they wanted; they had something
3443 which we wanted. This, in a large measure, helped to lay the foundation
3444 for the pleasant relations that have continued to exist between us and
3445 the white people in that section, and which now extend throughout the
3448 Wherever one of our brickmakers has gone in the South, we find that
3449 he has something to contribute to the well-being of the community into
3450 which he has gone; something that has made the community feel that, in
3451 a degree, it is indebted to him, and perhaps, to a certain extent,
3452 dependent upon him. In this way pleasant relations between the races
3453 have been stimulated.
3455 My experience is that there is something in human nature which always
3456 makes an individual recognize and reward merit, no matter under what
3457 colour of skin merit is found. I have found, too, that it is the
3458 visible, the tangible, that goes a long ways in softening prejudices.
3459 The actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten
3460 times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought
3461 to build, or perhaps could build.
3463 The same principle of industrial education has been carried out in the
3464 building of our own wagons, carts, and buggies, from the first. We now
3465 own and use on our farm and about the school dozens of these vehicles,
3466 and every one of them has been built by the hands of the students. Aside
3467 from this, we help supply the local market with these vehicles. The
3468 supplying of them to the people in the community has had the same effect
3469 as the supplying of bricks, and the man who learns at Tuskegee to build
3470 and repair wagons and carts is regarded as a benefactor by both races in
3471 the community where he goes. The people with whom he lives and works are
3472 going to think twice before they part with such a man.
3474 The individual who can do something that the world wants done will,
3475 in the end, make his way regardless of race. One man may go into a
3476 community prepared to supply the people there with an analysis of Greek
3477 sentences. The community may not at the time be prepared for, or feel
3478 the need of, Greek analysis, but it may feel its need of bricks and
3479 houses and wagons. If the man can supply the need for those, then, it
3480 will lead eventually to a demand for the first product, and with the
3481 demand will come the ability to appreciate it and to profit by it.
3483 About the time that we succeeded in burning our first kiln of bricks
3484 we began facing in an emphasized form the objection of the students
3485 to being taught to work. By this time it had gotten to be pretty well
3486 advertised throughout the state that every student who came to Tuskegee,
3487 no matter what his financial ability might be, must learn some industry.
3488 Quite a number of letters came from parents protesting against their
3489 children engaging in labour while they were in the school. Other parents
3490 came to the school to protest in person. Most of the new students
3491 brought a written or a verbal request from their parents to the effect
3492 that they wanted their children taught nothing but books. The more
3493 books, the larger they were, and the longer the titles printed upon
3494 them, the better pleased the students and their parents seemed to be.
3496 I gave little heed to these protests, except that I lost no opportunity
3497 to go into as many parts of the state as I could, for the purpose
3498 of speaking to the parents, and showing them the value of industrial
3499 education. Besides, I talked to the students constantly on the subject.
3500 Notwithstanding the unpopularity of industrial work, the school
3501 continued to increase in numbers to such an extent that by the middle of
3502 the second year there was an attendance of about one hundred and fifty,
3503 representing almost all parts of the state of Alabama, and including a
3504 few from other states.
3506 In the summer of 1882 Miss Davidson and I both went North and engaged in
3507 the work of raising funds for the completion of our new building. On my
3508 way North I stopped in New York to try to get a letter of recommendation
3509 from an officer of a missionary organization who had become somewhat
3510 acquainted with me a few years previous. This man not only refused to
3511 give me the letter, but advised me most earnestly to go back home at
3512 once, and not make any attempt to get money, for he was quite sure that
3513 I would never get more than enough to pay my travelling expenses. I
3514 thanked him for his advice, and proceeded on my journey.
3516 The first place I went to in the North, was Northampton, Mass., where
3517 I spent nearly a half-day in looking for a coloured family with whom I
3518 could board, never dreaming that any hotel would admit me. I was
3519 greatly surprised when I found that I would have no trouble in being
3520 accommodated at a hotel.
3522 We were successful in getting money enough so that on Thanksgiving Day
3523 of that year we held our first service in the chapel of Porter Hall,
3524 although the building was not completed.
3526 In looking about for some one to preach the Thanksgiving sermon, I found
3527 one of the rarest men that it has ever been my privilege to know. This
3528 was the Rev. Robert C. Bedford, a white man from Wisconsin, who was then
3529 pastor of a little coloured Congregational church in Montgomery, Ala.
3530 Before going to Montgomery to look for some one to preach this sermon
3531 I had never heard of Mr. Bedford. He had never heard of me. He gladly
3532 consented to come to Tuskegee and hold the Thanksgiving service. It was
3533 the first service of the kind that the coloured people there had ever
3534 observed, and what a deep interest they manifested in it! The sight
3535 of the new building made it a day of Thanksgiving for them never to be
3538 Mr. Bedford consented to become one of the trustees of the school, and
3539 in that capacity, and as a worker for it, he has been connected with it
3540 for eighteen years. During this time he has borne the school upon his
3541 heart night and day, and is never so happy as when he is performing some
3542 service, no matter how humble, for it. He completely obliterates himself
3543 in everything, and looks only for permission to serve where service is
3544 most disagreeable, and where others would not be attracted. In all my
3545 relations with him he has seemed to me to approach as nearly to the
3546 spirit of the Master as almost any man I ever met.
3548 A little later there came into the service of the school another man,
3549 quite young at the time, and fresh from Hampton, without whose service
3550 the school never could have become what it is. This was Mr. Warren
3551 Logan, who now for seventeen years has been the treasurer of the
3552 Institute, and the acting principal during my absence. He has always
3553 shown a degree of unselfishness and an amount of business tact, coupled
3554 with a clear judgment, that has kept the school in good condition no
3555 matter how long I have been absent from it. During all the financial
3556 stress through which the school has passed, his patience and faith in
3557 our ultimate success have not left him.
3559 As soon as our first building was near enough to completion so that we
3560 could occupy a portion of it--which was near the middle of the second
3561 year of the school--we opened a boarding department. Students had begun
3562 coming from quite a distance, and in such increasing numbers that we
3563 felt more and more that we were merely skimming over the surface, in
3564 that we were not getting hold of the students in their home life.
3566 We had nothing but the students and their appetites with which to begin
3567 a boarding department. No provision had been made in the new building
3568 for a kitchen and dining room; but we discovered that by digging out a
3569 large amount of earth from under the building we could make a partially
3570 lighted basement room that could be used for a kitchen and dining room.
3571 Again I called on the students to volunteer for work, this time to
3572 assist in digging out the basement. This they did, and in a few weeks
3573 we had a place to cook and eat in, although it was very rough and
3574 uncomfortable. Any one seeing the place now would never believe that it
3575 was once used for a dining room.
3577 The most serious problem, though, was to get the boarding department
3578 started off in running order, with nothing to do with in the way of
3579 furniture, and with no money with which to buy anything. The merchants
3580 in the town would let us have what food we wanted on credit. In fact, in
3581 those earlier years I was constantly embarrassed because people seemed
3582 to have more faith in me than I had in myself. It was pretty hard to
3583 cook, however, without stoves, and awkward to eat without dishes. At
3584 first the cooking was done out-of-doors, in the old-fashioned, primitive
3585 style, in pots and skillets placed over a fire. Some of the carpenters'
3586 benches that had been used in the construction of the building were
3587 utilized for tables. As for dishes, there were too few to make it worth
3588 while to spend time in describing them.
3590 No one connected with the boarding department seemed to have any idea
3591 that meals must be served at certain fixed and regular hours, and this
3592 was a source of great worry. Everything was so out of joint and so
3593 inconvenient that I feel safe in saying that for the first two weeks
3594 something was wrong at every meal. Either the meat was not done or had
3595 been burnt, or the salt had been left out of the bread, or the tea had
3598 Early one morning I was standing near the dining-room door listening
3599 to the complaints of the students. The complaints that morning were
3600 especially emphatic and numerous, because the whole breakfast had been
3601 a failure. One of the girls who had failed to get any breakfast came out
3602 and went to the well to draw some water to drink and take the place of
3603 the breakfast which she had not been able to get. When she reached
3604 the well, she found that the rope was broken and that she could get no
3605 water. She turned from the well and said, in the most discouraged tone,
3606 not knowing that I was where I could hear her, "We can't even get
3607 water to drink at this school." I think no one remark ever came so near
3608 discouraging me as that one.
3610 At another time, when Mr. Bedford--whom I have already spoken of as one
3611 of our trustees, and a devoted friend of the institution--was visiting
3612 the school, he was given a bedroom immediately over the dining room.
3613 Early in the morning he was awakened by a rather animated discussion
3614 between two boys in the dining room below. The discussion was over the
3615 question as to whose turn it was to use the coffee-cup that morning. One
3616 boy won the case by proving that for three mornings he had not had an
3617 opportunity to use the cup at all.
3619 But gradually, with patience and hard work, we brought order out of
3620 chaos, just as will be true of any problem if we stick to it with
3621 patience and wisdom and earnest effort.
3623 As I look back now over that part of our struggle, I am glad to see
3624 that we had it. I am glad that we endured all those discomforts and
3625 inconveniences. I am glad that our students had to dig out the place for
3626 their kitchen and dining room. I am glad that our first boarding-place
3627 was in the dismal, ill-lighted, and damp basement. Had we started in a
3628 fine, attractive, convenient room, I fear we would have "lost our heads"
3629 and become "stuck up." It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a
3630 foundation which one has made for one's self.
3632 When our old students return to Tuskegee now, as they often do, and
3633 go into our large, beautiful, well-ventilated, and well-lighted dining
3634 room, and see tempting, well-cooked food--largely grown by the students
3635 themselves--and see tables, neat tablecloths and napkins, and vases of
3636 flowers upon the tables, and hear singing birds, and note that each meal
3637 is served exactly upon the minute, with no disorder, and with almost no
3638 complaint coming from the hundreds that now fill our dining room, they,
3639 too, often say to me that they are glad that we started as we did,
3640 and built ourselves up year by year, by a slow and natural process of
3645 Chapter XI. Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them
3647 A little later in the history of the school we had a visit from General
3648 J.F.B. Marshall, the Treasurer of the Hampton Institute, who had had
3649 faith enough to lend us the first two hundred and fifty dollars with
3650 which to make a payment down on the farm. He remained with us a week,
3651 and made a careful inspection of everything. He seemed well pleased
3652 with our progress, and wrote back interesting and encouraging reports to
3653 Hampton. A little later Miss Mary F. Mackie, the teacher who had given
3654 me the "sweeping" examination when I entered Hampton, came to see us,
3655 and still later General Armstrong himself came.
3657 At the time of the visits of these Hampton friends the number of
3658 teachers at Tuskegee had increased considerably, and the most of the new
3659 teachers were graduates of the Hampton Institute. We gave our Hampton
3660 friends, especially General Armstrong, a cordial welcome. They were all
3661 surprised and pleased at the rapid progress that the school had made
3662 within so short a time. The coloured people from miles around came to
3663 the school to get a look at General Armstrong, about whom they had heard
3664 so much. The General was not only welcomed by the members of my own
3665 race, but by the Southern white people as well.
3667 This first visit which General Armstrong made to Tuskegee gave me an
3668 opportunity to get an insight into his character such as I had not
3669 before had. I refer to his interest in the Southern white people. Before
3670 this I had had the thought that General Armstrong, having fought the
3671 Southern white man, rather cherished a feeling of bitterness toward the
3672 white South, and was interested in helping only the coloured man there.
3673 But this visit convinced me that I did not know the greatness and the
3674 generosity of the man. I soon learned, by his visits to the Southern
3675 white people, and from his conversations with them, that he was as
3676 anxious about the prosperity and the happiness of the white race as the
3677 black. He cherished no bitterness against the South, and was happy
3678 when an opportunity offered for manifesting his sympathy. In all my
3679 acquaintance with General Armstrong I never heard him speak, in public
3680 or in private, a single bitter word against the white man in the South.
3681 From his example in this respect I learned the lesson that great men
3682 cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.
3683 I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it
3684 strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.
3686 It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Armstrong,
3687 and resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might
3688 be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. With God's
3689 help, I believe that I have completely rid myself of any ill feeling
3690 toward the Southern white man for any wrong that he may have inflicted
3691 upon my race. I am made to feel just as happy now when I am rendering
3692 service to Southern white men as when the service is rendered to a
3693 member of my own race. I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual
3694 who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race
3697 The more I consider the subject, the more strongly I am convinced that
3698 the most harmful effect of the practice to which the people in certain
3699 sections of the South have felt themselves compelled to resort, in order
3700 to get rid of the force of the Negroes' ballot, is not wholly in the
3701 wrong done to the Negro, but in the permanent injury to the morals of
3702 the white man. The wrong to the Negro is temporary, but to the morals of
3703 the white man the injury is permanent. I have noted time and time again
3704 that when an individual perjures himself in order to break the force of
3705 the black man's ballot, he soon learns to practise dishonesty in other
3706 relations of life, not only where the Negro is concerned, but equally so
3707 where a white man is concerned. The white man who begins by cheating a
3708 Negro usually ends by cheating a white man. The white man who begins to
3709 break the law by lynching a Negro soon yields to the temptation to lynch
3710 a white man. All this, it seems to me, makes it important that the whole
3711 Nation lend a hand in trying to lift the burden of ignorance from the
3714 Another thing that is becoming more apparent each year in the
3715 development of education in the South is the influence of General
3716 Armstrong's idea of education; and this not upon the blacks alone, but
3717 upon the whites also. At the present time there is almost no Southern
3718 state that is not putting forth efforts in the direction of securing
3719 industrial education for its white boys and girls, and in most cases it
3720 is easy to trace the history of these efforts back to General Armstrong.
3722 Soon after the opening of our humble boarding department students began
3723 coming to us in still larger numbers. For weeks we not only had to
3724 contend with the difficulty of providing board, with no money, but also
3725 with that of providing sleeping accommodations. For this purpose we
3726 rented a number of cabins near the school. These cabins were in a
3727 dilapidated condition, and during the winter months the students who
3728 occupied them necessarily suffered from the cold. We charge the students
3729 eight dollars a month--all they were able to pay--for their board.
3730 This included, besides board, room, fuel, and washing. We also gave the
3731 students credit on their board bills for all the work which they did
3732 for the school which was of any value to the institution. The cost of
3733 tuition, which was fifty dollars a year for each student, we had to
3734 secure then, as now, wherever we could.
3736 This small charge in cash gave us no capital with which to start a
3737 boarding department. The weather during the second winter of our work
3738 was very cold. We were not able to provide enough bed-clothes to keep
3739 the students warm. In fact, for some time we were not able to provide,
3740 except in a few cases, bedsteads and mattresses of any kind. During the
3741 coldest nights I was so troubled about the discomfort of the students
3742 that I could not sleep myself. I recall that on several occasions I went
3743 in the middle of the night to the shanties occupied by the young men,
3744 for the purpose of confronting them. Often I found some of them sitting
3745 huddled around a fire, with the one blanket which we had been able to
3746 provide wrapped around them, trying in this way to keep warm. During the
3747 whole night some of them did not attempt to lie down. One morning,
3748 when the night previous had been unusually cold, I asked those of the
3749 students in the chapel who thought that they had been frostbitten during
3750 the night to raise their hands. Three hands went up. Notwithstanding
3751 these experiences, there was almost no complaining on the part of the
3752 students. They knew that we were doing the best that we could for them.
3753 They were happy in the privilege of being permitted to enjoy any kind of
3754 opportunity that would enable them to improve their condition. They
3755 were constantly asking what they might do to lighten the burdens of the
3758 I have heard it stated more than once, both in the North and in the
3759 South, that coloured people would not obey and respect each other when
3760 one member of the race is placed in a position of authority over others.
3761 In regard to this general belief and these statements, I can say that
3762 during the nineteen years of my experience at Tuskegee I never, either
3763 by word or act, have been treated with disrespect by any student
3764 or officer connected with the institution. On the other hand, I am
3765 constantly embarrassed by the many acts of thoughtful kindness. The
3766 students do not seem to want to see me carry a large book or a satchel
3767 or any kind of a burden through the grounds. In such cases more than one
3768 always offers to relieve me. I almost never go out of my office when
3769 the rain is falling that some student does not come to my side with an
3770 umbrella and ask to be allowed to hold it over me.
3772 While writing upon this subject, it is a pleasure for me to add that in
3773 all my contact with the white people of the South I have never received
3774 a single personal insult. The white people in and near Tuskegee, to
3775 an especial degree, seem to count it as a privilege to show me all the
3776 respect within their power, and often go out of their way to do this.
3778 Not very long ago I was making a journey between Dallas (Texas) and
3779 Houston. In some way it became known in advance that I was on the train.
3780 At nearly every station at which the train stopped, numbers of white
3781 people, including in most cases of the officials of the town, came
3782 aboard and introduced themselves and thanked me heartily for the work
3783 that I was trying to do for the South.
3785 On another occasion, when I was making a trip from Augusta, Georgia,
3786 to Atlanta, being rather tired from much travel, I rode in a Pullman
3787 sleeper. When I went into the car, I found there two ladies from Boston
3788 whom I knew well. These good ladies were perfectly ignorant, it seems,
3789 of the customs of the South, and in the goodness of their hearts
3790 insisted that I take a seat with them in their section. After some
3791 hesitation I consented. I had been there but a few minutes when one of
3792 them, without my knowledge, ordered supper to be served for the three
3793 of us. This embarrassed me still further. The car was full of Southern
3794 white men, most of whom had their eyes on our party. When I found that
3795 supper had been ordered, I tried to contrive some excuse that would
3796 permit me to leave the section, but the ladies insisted that I must eat
3797 with them. I finally settled back in my seat with a sigh, and said to
3798 myself, "I am in for it now, sure."
3800 To add further to the embarrassment of the situation, soon after the
3801 supper was placed on the table one of the ladies remembered that she had
3802 in her satchel a special kind of tea which she wished served, and as
3803 she said she felt quite sure the porter did not know how to brew it
3804 properly, she insisted upon getting up and preparing and serving it
3805 herself. At last the meal was over; and it seemed the longest one that I
3806 had ever eaten. When we were through, I decided to get myself out of the
3807 embarrassing situation and go to the smoking-room, where most of the men
3808 were by that time, to see how the land lay. In the meantime, however, it
3809 had become known in some way throughout the car who I was. When I went
3810 into the smoking-room I was never more surprised in my life than when
3811 each man, nearly every one of them a citizen of Georgia, came up and
3812 introduced himself to me and thanked me earnestly for the work that I
3813 was trying to do for the whole South. This was not flattery, because
3814 each one of these individuals knew that he had nothing to gain by trying
3817 From the first I have sought to impress the students with the idea that
3818 Tuskegee is not my institution, or that of the officers, but that it is
3819 their institution, and that they have as much interest in it as any of
3820 the trustees or instructors. I have further sought to have them feel
3821 that I am at the institution as their friend and adviser, and not as
3822 their overseer. It has been my aim to have them speak with directness
3823 and frankness about anything that concerns the life of the school.
3824 Two or three times a year I ask the students to write me a letter
3825 criticising or making complaints or suggestions about anything connected
3826 with the institution. When this is not done, I have them meet me in the
3827 chapel for a heart-to-heart talk about the conduct of the school. There
3828 are no meetings with our students that I enjoy more than these, and none
3829 are more helpful to me in planning for the future. These meetings, it
3830 seems to me, enable me to get at the very heart of all that concerns the
3831 school. Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility
3832 upon him, and to let him know that you trust him. When I have read of
3833 labour troubles between employers and employees, I have often thought
3834 that many strikes and similar disturbances might be avoided if
3835 the employers would cultivate the habit of getting nearer to their
3836 employees, of consulting and advising with them, and letting them feel
3837 that the interests of the two are the same. Every individual responds to
3838 confidence, and this is not more true of any race than of the Negroes.
3839 Let them once understand that you are unselfishly interested in them,
3840 and you can lead them to any extent.
3842 It was my aim from the first at Tuskegee to not only have the buildings
3843 erected by the students themselves, but to have them make their own
3844 furniture as far as was possible. I now marvel at the patience of the
3845 students while sleeping upon the floor while waiting for some kind of a
3846 bedstead to be constructed, or at their sleeping without any kind of a
3847 mattress while waiting for something that looked like a mattress to be
3850 In the early days we had very few students who had been used to handling
3851 carpenters' tools, and the bedsteads made by the students then were very
3852 rough and very weak. Not unfrequently when I went into the students'
3853 rooms in the morning I would find at least two bedsteads lying about on
3854 the floor. The problem of providing mattresses was a difficult one to
3855 solve. We finally mastered this, however, by getting some cheap cloth
3856 and sewing pieces of this together as to make large bags. These bags
3857 we filled with the pine straw--or, as it is sometimes called, pine
3858 needles--which we secured from the forests near by. I am glad to say
3859 that the industry of mattress-making has grown steadily since then, and
3860 has been improved to such an extent that at the present time it is an
3861 important branch of the work which is taught systematically to a
3862 number of our girls, and that the mattresses that now come out of the
3863 mattress-shop at Tuskegee are about as good as those bought in
3864 the average store. For some time after the opening of the boarding
3865 department we had no chairs in the students' bedrooms or in the dining
3866 rooms. Instead of chairs we used stools which the students constructed
3867 by nailing together three pieces of rough board. As a rule, the
3868 furniture in the students' rooms during the early days of the school
3869 consisted of a bed, some stools, and sometimes a rough table made by the
3870 students. The plan of having the students make the furniture is still
3871 followed, but the number of pieces in a room has been increased, and
3872 the workmanship has so improved that little fault can be found with the
3873 articles now. One thing that I have always insisted upon at Tuskegee
3874 is that everywhere there should be absolute cleanliness. Over and over
3875 again the students were reminded in those first years--and are reminded
3876 now--that people would excuse us for our poverty, for our lack of
3877 comforts and conveniences, but that they would not excuse us for dirt.
3879 Another thing that has been insisted upon at the school is the use of
3880 the tooth-brush. "The gospel of the tooth-brush," as General Armstrong
3881 used to call it, is part of our creed at Tuskegee. No student is
3882 permitted to retain who does not keep and use a tooth-brush. Several
3883 times, in recent years, students have come to us who brought with them
3884 almost no other article except a tooth-brush. They had heard from the
3885 lips of other students about our insisting upon the use of this, and
3886 so, to make a good impression, they brought at least a tooth-brush with
3887 them. I remember that one morning, not long ago, I went with the lady
3888 principal on her usual morning tour of inspection of the girls' rooms.
3889 We found one room that contained three girls who had recently arrived
3890 at the school. When I asked them if they had tooth-brushes, one of the
3891 girls replied, pointing to a brush: "Yes, sir. That is our brush. We
3892 bought it together, yesterday." It did not take them long to learn a
3895 It has been interesting to note the effect that the use of the
3896 tooth-brush has had in bringing about a higher degree of civilization
3897 among the students. With few exceptions, I have noticed that, if we can
3898 get a student to the point where, when the first or second tooth-brush
3899 disappears, he of his own motion buys another, I have not been
3900 disappointed in the future of that individual. Absolute cleanliness of
3901 the body has been insisted upon from the first. The students have been
3902 taught to bathe as regularly as to take their meals. This lesson we
3903 began teaching before we had anything in the shape of a bath-house.
3904 Most of the students came from plantation districts, and often we had
3905 to teach them how to sleep at night; that is, whether between the
3906 two sheets--after we got to the point where we could provide them two
3907 sheets--or under both of them. Naturally I found it difficult to teach
3908 them to sleep between two sheets when we were able to supply but one.
3909 The importance of the use of the night-gown received the same attention.
3911 For a long time one of the most difficult tasks was to teach the
3912 students that all the buttons were to be kept on their clothes, and that
3913 there must be no torn places or grease-spots. This lesson, I am pleased
3914 to be able to say, has been so thoroughly learned and so faithfully
3915 handed down from year to year by one set of students to another that
3916 often at the present time, when the students march out of the chapel in
3917 the evening and their dress is inspected, as it is every night, not one
3918 button is found to be missing.
3922 Chapter XII. Raising Money
3924 When we opened our boarding department, we provided rooms in the attic
3925 of Porter Hall, our first building, for a number of girls. But the
3926 number of students, of both sexes, continued to increase. We could find
3927 rooms outside the school grounds for many of the young men, but the
3928 girls we did not care to expose in this way. Very soon the problem
3929 of providing more rooms for the girls, as well as a larger boarding
3930 department for all the students, grew serious. As a result, we finally
3931 decided to undertake the construction of a still larger building--a
3932 building that would contain rooms for the girls and boarding
3933 accommodations for all.
3935 After having had a preliminary sketch of the needed building made, we
3936 found that it would cost about ten thousand dollars. We had no money
3937 whatever with which to begin; still we decided to give the needed
3938 building a name. We knew we could name it, even though we were in doubt
3939 about our ability to secure the means for its construction. We decided
3940 to call the proposed building Alabama Hall, in honour of the state in
3941 which we were labouring. Again Miss Davidson began making efforts to
3942 enlist the interest and help of the coloured and white people in and
3943 near Tuskegee. They responded willingly, in proportion to their means.
3944 The students, as in the case of our first building, Porter Hall, began
3945 digging out the dirt in order to allow the laying of the foundations.
3947 When we seemed at the end of our resources, so far as securing money
3948 was concerned, something occurred which showed the greatness of General
3949 Armstrong--something which proved how far he was above the ordinary
3950 individual. When we were in the midst of great anxiety as to where and
3951 how we were to get funds for the new building, I received a telegram
3952 from General Armstrong asking me if I could spend a month travelling
3953 with him through the North, and asking me, if I could do so, to come to
3954 Hampton at once. Of course I accepted General Armstrong's invitation,
3955 and went to Hampton immediately. On arriving there I found that the
3956 General had decided to take a quartette of singers through the North,
3957 and hold meetings for a month in important cities, at which meetings
3958 he and I were to speak. Imagine my surprise when the General told me,
3959 further, that these meetings were to be held, not in the interests
3960 of Hampton, but in the interests of Tuskegee, and that the Hampton
3961 Institute was to be responsible for all the expenses.
3963 Although he never told me so in so many words, I found that General
3964 Armstrong took this method of introducing me to the people of the North,
3965 as well as for the sake of securing some immediate funds to be used in
3966 the erection of Alabama Hall. A weak and narrow man would have reasoned
3967 that all the money which came to Tuskegee in this way would be just
3968 so much taken from the Hampton Institute; but none of these selfish or
3969 short-sighted feelings ever entered the breast of General Armstrong. He
3970 was too big to be little, too good to be mean. He knew that the people
3971 in the North who gave money gave it for the purpose of helping the whole
3972 cause of Negro civilization, and not merely for the advancement of any
3973 one school. The General knew, too, that the way to strengthen Hampton
3974 was to make it a centre of unselfish power in the working out of the
3975 whole Southern problem.
3977 In regard to the addresses which I was to make in the North, I recall
3978 just one piece of advice which the General gave me. He said: "Give them
3979 an idea for every word." I think it would be hard to improve upon this
3980 advice; and it might be made to apply to all public speaking. From that
3981 time to the present I have always tried to keep his advice in mind.
3983 Meetings were held in New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, and
3984 other large cities, and at all of these meetings General Armstrong
3985 pleaded, together with myself, for help, not for Hampton, but for
3986 Tuskegee. At these meetings an especial effort was made to secure help
3987 for the building of Alabama Hall, as well as to introduce the school to
3988 the attention of the general public. In both these respects the meetings
3991 After that kindly introduction I began going North alone to secure
3992 funds. During the last fifteen years I have been compelled to spend a
3993 large proportion of my time away from the school, in an effort to secure
3994 money to provide for the growing needs of the institution. In my efforts
3995 to get funds I have had some experiences that may be of interest to my
3996 readers. Time and time again I have been asked, by people who are
3997 trying to secure money for philanthropic purposes, what rule or rules
3998 I followed to secure the interest and help of people who were able to
3999 contribute money to worthy objects. As far as the science of what is
4000 called begging can be reduced to rules, I would say that I have had but
4001 two rules. First, always to do my whole duty regarding making our work
4002 known to individuals and organizations; and, second, not to worry about
4003 the results. This second rule has been the hardest for me to live up to.
4004 When bills are on the eve of falling due, with not a dollar in hand
4005 with which to meet them, it is pretty difficult to learn not to worry,
4006 although I think I am learning more and more each year that all worry
4007 simply consumes, and to no purpose, just so much physical and mental
4008 strength that might otherwise be given to effective work. After
4009 considerable experience in coming into contact with wealthy and noted
4010 men, I have observed that those who have accomplished the greatest
4011 results are those who "keep under the body"; are those who never grow
4012 excited or lose self-control, but are always calm, self-possessed,
4013 patient, and polite. I think that President William McKinley is the best
4014 example of a man of this class that I have ever seen.
4016 In order to be successful in any kind of undertaking, I think the
4017 main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets
4018 himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as
4019 one loses himself in the way, in the same degree does he get the highest
4020 happiness out of his work.
4022 My experience in getting money for Tuskegee has taught me to have no
4023 patience with those people who are always condemning the rich because
4024 they are rich, and because they do not give more to objects of charity.
4025 In the first place, those who are guilty of such sweeping criticisms
4026 do not know how many people would be made poor, and how much suffering
4027 would result, if wealthy people were to part all at once with any large
4028 proportion of their wealth in a way to disorganize and cripple great
4029 business enterprises. Then very few persons have any idea of the large
4030 number of applications for help that rich people are constantly being
4031 flooded with. I know wealthy people who receive as much as twenty calls
4032 a day for help. More than once when I have gone into the offices of rich
4033 men, I have found half a dozen persons waiting to see them, and all come
4034 for the same purpose, that of securing money. And all these calls in
4035 person, to say nothing of the applications received through the mails.
4036 Very few people have any idea of the amount of money given away by
4037 persons who never permit their names to be known. I have often heard
4038 persons condemned for not giving away money, who, to my own knowledge,
4039 were giving away thousands of dollars every year so quietly that the
4040 world knew nothing about it.
4042 As an example of this, there are two ladies in New York, whose names
4043 rarely appear in print, but who, in a quiet way, have given us the means
4044 with which to erect three large and important buildings during the last
4045 eight years. Besides the gift of these buildings, they have made other
4046 generous donations to the school. And they not only help Tuskegee, but
4047 they are constantly seeking opportunities to help other worthy causes.
4049 Although it has been my privilege to be the medium through which a
4050 good many hundred thousand dollars have been received for the work at
4051 Tuskegee, I have always avoided what the world calls "begging." I often
4052 tell people that I have never "begged" any money, and that I am not
4053 a "beggar." My experience and observation have convinced me that
4054 persistent asking outright for money from the rich does not, as a rule,
4055 secure help. I have usually proceeded on the principle that persons who
4056 possess sense enough to earn money have sense enough to know how to give
4057 it away, and that the mere making known of the facts regarding Tuskegee,
4058 and especially the facts regarding the work of the graduates, has been
4059 more effective than outright begging. I think that the presentation of
4060 facts, on a high, dignified plane, is all the begging that most rich
4063 While the work of going from door to door and from office to office
4064 is hard, disagreeable, and costly in bodily strength, yet it has some
4065 compensations. Such work gives one a rare opportunity to study human
4066 nature. It also has its compensations in giving one an opportunity to
4067 meet some of the best people in the world--to be more correct, I think
4068 I should say the best people in the world. When one takes a broad survey
4069 of the country, he will find that the most useful and influential people
4070 in it are those who take the deepest interest in institutions that exist
4071 for the purpose of making the world better.
4073 At one time, when I was in Boston, I called at the door of a rather
4074 wealthy lady, and was admitted to the vestibule and sent up my card.
4075 While I was waiting for an answer, her husband came in, and asked me in
4076 the most abrupt manner what I wanted. When I tried to explain the object
4077 of my call, he became still more ungentlemanly in his words and manner,
4078 and finally grew so excited that I left the house without waiting for
4079 a reply from the lady. A few blocks from that house I called to see a
4080 gentleman who received me in the most cordial manner. He wrote me his
4081 check for a generous sum, and then, before I had had an opportunity to
4082 thank him, said: "I am so grateful to you, Mr. Washington, for giving me
4083 the opportunity to help a good cause. It is a privilege to have a share
4084 in it. We in Boston are constantly indebted to you for doing our work."
4085 My experience in securing money convinces me that the first type of
4086 man is growing more rare all the time, and that the latter type is
4087 increasing; that is, that, more and more, rich people are coming to
4088 regard men and women who apply to them for help for worthy objects, not
4089 as beggars, but as agents for doing their work.
4091 In the city of Boston I have rarely called upon an individual for funds
4092 that I have not been thanked for calling, usually before I could get an
4093 opportunity to thank the donor for the money. In that city the donors
4094 seem to feel, in a large degree, that an honour is being conferred upon
4095 them in their being permitted to give. Nowhere else have I met with, in
4096 so large a measure, this fine and Christlike spirit as in the city of
4097 Boston, although there are many notable instances of it outside that
4098 city. I repeat my belief that the world is growing in the direction
4099 of giving. I repeat that the main rule by which I have been guided in
4100 collecting money is to do my full duty in regard to giving people who
4101 have money an opportunity for help.
4103 In the early years of the Tuskegee school I walked the streets or
4104 travelled country roads in the North for days and days without receiving
4105 a dollar. Often as it happened, when during the week I had been
4106 disappointed in not getting a cent from the very individuals from whom
4107 I most expected help, and when I was almost broken down and discouraged,
4108 that generous help has come from some one who I had had little idea
4111 I recall that on one occasion I obtained information that led me to
4112 believe that a gentleman who lived about two miles out in the country
4113 from Stamford, Conn., might become interested in our efforts at Tuskegee
4114 if our conditions and needs were presented to him. On an unusually cold
4115 and stormy day I walked the two miles to see him. After some difficulty
4116 I succeeded in securing an interview with him. He listened with some
4117 degree of interest to what I had to say, but did not give me anything.
4118 I could not help having the feeling that, in a measure, the three
4119 hours that I had spent in seeing him had been thrown away. Still, I had
4120 followed my usual rule of doing my duty. If I had not seen him, I should
4121 have felt unhappy over neglect of duty.
4123 Two years after this visit a letter came to Tuskegee from this man,
4124 which read like this: "Enclosed I send you a New York draft for ten
4125 thousand dollars, to be used in furtherance of your work. I had placed
4126 this sum in my will for your school, but deem it wiser to give it to you
4127 while I live. I recall with pleasure your visit to me two years ago."
4129 I can hardly imagine any occurrence which could have given me more
4130 genuine satisfaction than the receipt of this draft. It was by far
4131 the largest single donation which up to that time the school had ever
4132 received. It came at a time when an unusually long period had passed
4133 since we had received any money. We were in great distress because of
4134 lack of funds, and the nervous strain was tremendous. It is difficult
4135 for me to think of any situation that is more trying on the nerves than
4136 that of conducting a large institution, with heavy obligations to
4137 meet, without knowing where the money is to come from to meet these
4138 obligations from month to month.
4140 In our case I felt a double responsibility, and this made the anxiety
4141 all the more intense. If the institution had been officered by white
4142 persons, and had failed, it would have injured the cause of Negro
4143 education; but I knew that the failure of our institution, officered
4144 by Negroes, would not only mean the loss of a school, but would cause
4145 people, in a large degree, to lose faith in the ability of the entire
4146 race. The receipt of this draft for ten thousand dollars, under all
4147 these circumstances, partially lifted a burden that had been pressing
4148 down upon me for days.
4150 From the beginning of our work to the present I have always had the
4151 feeling, and lose no opportunity to impress our teachers with the same
4152 idea, that the school will always be supported in proportion as the
4153 inside of the institution is kept clean and pure and wholesome.
4155 The first time I ever saw the late Collis P. Huntington, the great
4156 railroad man, he gave me two dollars for our school. The last time I saw
4157 him, which was a few months before he died, he gave me fifty thousand
4158 dollars toward our endowment fund. Between these two gifts there were
4159 others of generous proportions which came every year from both Mr. and
4162 Some people may say that it was Tuskegee's good luck that brought to us
4163 this gift of fifty thousand dollars. No, it was not luck. It was hard
4164 work. Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the
4165 result of hard work. When Mr. Huntington gave me the first two dollars,
4166 I did not blame him for not giving me more, but made up my mind that
4167 I was going to convince him by tangible results that we were worthy of
4168 larger gifts. For a dozen years I made a strong effort to convince Mr.
4169 Huntington of the value of our work. I noted that just in proportion as
4170 the usefulness of the school grew, his donations increased. Never did
4171 I meet an individual who took a more kindly and sympathetic interest in
4172 our school than did Mr. Huntington. He not only gave money to us, but
4173 took time in which to advise me, as a father would a son, about the
4174 general conduct of the school.
4176 More than once I have found myself in some pretty tight places while
4177 collecting money in the North. The following incident I have never
4178 related but once before, for the reason that I feared that people would
4179 not believe it. One morning I found myself in Providence, Rhode Island,
4180 without a cent of money with which to buy breakfast. In crossing the
4181 street to see a lady from whom I hoped to get some money, I found a
4182 bright new twenty-five-cent piece in the middle of the street track. I
4183 not only had this twenty-five cents for my breakfast, but within a few
4184 minutes I had a donation from the lady on whom I had started to call.
4186 At one of our Commencements I was bold enough to invite the Rev. E.
4187 Winchester Donald, D.D., rector of Trinity Church, Boston, to preach the
4188 Commencement sermon. As we then had no room large enough to accommodate
4189 all who would be present, the place of meeting was under a large
4190 improvised arbour, built partly of brush and partly of rough boards.
4191 Soon after Dr. Donald had begun speaking, the rain came down in
4192 torrents, and he had to stop, while someone held an umbrella over him.
4194 The boldness of what I had done never dawned upon me until I saw the
4195 picture made by the rector of Trinity Church standing before that large
4196 audience under an old umbrella, waiting for the rain to cease so that he
4197 could go on with his address.
4199 It was not very long before the rain ceased and Dr. Donald finished his
4200 sermon; and an excellent sermon it was, too, in spite of the weather.
4201 After he had gone to his room, and had gotten the wet threads of his
4202 clothes dry, Dr. Donald ventured the remark that a large chapel at
4203 Tuskegee would not be out of place. The next day a letter came from two
4204 ladies who were then travelling in Italy, saying that they had decided
4205 to give us the money for such a chapel as we needed.
4207 A short time ago we received twenty thousand dollars from Mr. Andrew
4208 Carnegie, to be used for the purpose of erecting a new library building.
4209 Our first library and reading-room were in a corner of a shanty, and the
4210 whole thing occupied a space about five by twelve feet. It required ten
4211 years of work before I was able to secure Mr. Carnegie's interest and
4212 help. The first time I saw him, ten years ago, he seemed to take but
4213 little interest in our school, but I was determined to show him that
4214 we were worthy of his help. After ten years of hard work I wrote him a
4215 letter reading as follows:
4219 Mr. Andrew Carnegie, 5 W. Fifty-first St., New York.
4221 Dear Sir: Complying with the request which you made of me when I saw you
4222 at your residence a few days ago, I now submit in writing an appeal for
4223 a library building for our institution.
4225 We have 1100 students, 86 officers and instructors, together with their
4226 families, and about 200 coloured people living near the school, all of
4227 whom would make use of the library building.
4229 We have over 12,000 books, periodicals, etc., gifts from our friends,
4230 but we have no suitable place for them, and we have no suitable
4233 Our graduates go to work in every section of the South, and whatever
4234 knowledge might be obtained in the library would serve to assist in the
4235 elevation of the whole Negro race.
4237 Such a building as we need could be erected for about $20,000. All
4238 of the work for the building, such as brickmaking, brick-masonry,
4239 carpentry, blacksmithing, etc., would be done by the students. The
4240 money which you would give would not only supply the building, but
4241 the erection of the building would give a large number of students an
4242 opportunity to learn the building trades, and the students would use the
4243 money paid to them to keep themselves in school. I do not believe that
4244 a similar amount of money often could be made go so far in uplifting a
4247 If you wish further information, I shall be glad to furnish it.
4251 Booker T. Washington, Principal.
4254 The next mail brought back the following reply: "I will be very glad
4255 to pay the bills for the library building as they are incurred, to the
4256 extent of twenty thousand dollars, and I am glad of this opportunity to
4257 show the interest I have in your noble work."
4259 I have found that strict business methods go a long way in securing
4260 the interest of rich people. It has been my constant aim at Tuskegee to
4261 carry out, in our financial and other operations, such business methods
4262 as would be approved of by any New York banking house.
4264 I have spoken of several large gifts to the school; but by far the
4265 greater proportion of the money that has built up the institution has
4266 come in the form of small donations from persons of moderate means.
4267 It is upon these small gifts, which carry with them the interest of
4268 hundreds of donors, that any philanthropic work must depend largely for
4269 its support. In my efforts to get money I have often been surprised at
4270 the patience and deep interest of the ministers, who are besieged
4271 on every hand and at all hours of the day for help. If no other
4272 consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the
4273 Christlike work which the Church of all denominations in America has
4274 done during the last thirty-five years for the elevation of the black
4275 man would have made me a Christian. In a large degree it has been
4276 the pennies, the nickels, and the dimes which have come from the
4277 Sunday-schools, the Christian Endeavour societies, and the missionary
4278 societies, as well as from the church proper, that have helped to
4279 elevate the Negro at so rapid a rate.
4281 This speaking of small gifts reminds me to say that very few Tuskegee
4282 graduates fail to send us an annual contribution. These contributions
4283 range from twenty-five cents up to ten dollars.
4285 Soon after beginning our third year's work we were surprised to receive
4286 money from three special sources, and up to the present time we have
4287 continued to receive help from them. First, the State Legislature of
4288 Alabama increased its annual appropriation from two thousand dollars to
4289 three thousand dollars; I might add that still later it increased this
4290 sum to four thousand five hundred dollars a year. The effort to secure
4291 this increase was led by the Hon. M.F. Foster, the member of the
4292 Legislature from Tuskegee. Second, we received one thousand dollars from
4293 the John F. Slater Fund. Our work seemed to please the trustees of this
4294 fund, as they soon began increasing their annual grant. This has been
4295 added to from time to time until at present we receive eleven thousand
4296 dollars annually from the Fund. The other help to which I have referred
4297 came in the shape of an allowance from the Peabody Fund. This was at
4298 first five hundred dollars, but it has since been increased to fifteen
4301 The effort to secure help from the Slater and Peabody Funds brought me
4302 into contact with two rare men--men who have had much to do in shaping
4303 the policy for the education of the Negro. I refer to the Hon. J.L.M.
4304 Curry, of Washington, who is the general agent for these two funds, and
4305 Mr. Morris K. Jessup, of New York. Dr. Curry is a native of the South,
4306 an ex-Confederate soldier, yet I do not believe there is any man in
4307 the country who is more deeply interested in the highest welfare of the
4308 Negro than Dr. Curry, or one who is more free from race prejudice.
4309 He enjoys the unique distinction of possessing to an equal degree the
4310 confidence of the black man and the Southern white man. I shall never
4311 forget the first time I met him. It was in Richmond, Va., where he was
4312 then living. I had heard much about him. When I first went into his
4313 presence, trembling because of my youth and inexperience, he took me
4314 by the hand so cordially, and spoke such encouraging words, and gave me
4315 such helpful advice regarding the proper course to pursue, that I came
4316 to know him then, as I have known him ever since, as a high example
4317 of one who is constantly and unselfishly at work for the betterment of
4320 Mr. Morris K. Jessup, the treasurer of the Slater Fund, I refer to
4321 because I know of no man of wealth and large and complicated business
4322 responsibilities who gives not only money but his time and thought to
4323 the subject of the proper method of elevating the Negro to the extent
4324 that is true of Mr. Jessup. It is very largely through this effort
4325 and influence that during the last few years the subject of industrial
4326 education has assumed the importance that it has, and been placed on its
4331 Chapter XIII. Two Thousand Miles For A Five-Minute Speech
4333 Soon after the opening of our boarding department, quite a number of
4334 students who evidently were worthy, but who were so poor that they did
4335 not have any money to pay even the small charges at the school, began
4336 applying for admission. This class was composed of both men and women.
4337 It was a great trial to refuse admission to these applicants, and in
4338 1884 we established a night-school to accommodate a few of them.
4340 The night-school was organized on a plan similar to the one which I
4341 had helped to establish at Hampton. At first it was composed of about
4342 a dozen students. They were admitted to the night-school only when they
4343 had no money with which to pay any part of their board in the regular
4344 day-school. It was further required that they must work for ten hours
4345 during the day at some trade or industry, and study academic branches
4346 for two hours during the evening. This was the requirement for the first
4347 one or two years of their stay. They were to be paid something above the
4348 cost of their board, with the understanding that all of their earnings,
4349 except a very small part, were to be reserved in the school's treasury,
4350 to be used for paying their board in the regular day-school after they
4351 had entered that department. The night-school, started in this manner,
4352 has grown until there are at present four hundred and fifty-seven
4353 students enrolled in it alone.
4355 There could hardly be a more severe test of a student's worth than this
4356 branch of the Institute's work. It is largely because it furnishes such
4357 a good opportunity to test the backbone of a student that I place such
4358 high value upon our night-school. Any one who is willing to work ten
4359 hours a day at the brick-yard, or in the laundry, through one or two
4360 years, in order that he or she may have the privilege of studying
4361 academic branches for two hours in the evening, has enough bottom to
4362 warrant being further educated.
4364 After the student has left the night-school he enters the day-school,
4365 where he takes academic branches four days in a week, and works at his
4366 trade two days. Besides this he usually works at his trade during the
4367 three summer months. As a rule, after a student has succeeded in going
4368 through the night-school test, he finds a way to finish the regular
4369 course in industrial and academic training. No student, no matter how
4370 much money he may be able to command, is permitted to go through school
4371 without doing manual labour. In fact, the industrial work is now as
4372 popular as the academic branches. Some of the most successful men and
4373 women who have graduated from the institution obtained their start in
4376 While a great deal of stress is laid upon the industrial side of the
4377 work at Tuskegee, we do not neglect or overlook in any degree the
4378 religious and spiritual side. The school is strictly undenominational,
4379 but it is thoroughly Christian, and the spiritual training of the
4380 students is not neglected. Our preaching service, prayer-meetings,
4381 Sunday-school, Christian Endeavour Society, Young Men's Christian
4382 Association, and various missionary organizations, testify to this.
4384 In 1885, Miss Olivia Davidson, to whom I have already referred as being
4385 largely responsible for the success of the school during its early
4386 history, and I were married. During our married life she continued
4387 to divide her time and strength between our home and the work for the
4388 school. She not only continued to work in the school at Tuskegee, but
4389 also kept up her habit of going North to secure funds. In 1889 she died,
4390 after four years of happy married life and eight years of hard and happy
4391 work for the school. She literally wore herself out in her never ceasing
4392 efforts in behalf of the work that she so dearly loved. During our
4393 married life there were born to us two bright, beautiful boys, Booker
4394 Taliaferro and Ernest Davidson. The older of these, Booker, has already
4395 mastered the brick-maker's trade at Tuskegee.
4397 I have often been asked how I began the practice of public speaking.
4398 In answer I would say that I never planned to give any large part of my
4399 life to speaking in public. I have always had more of an ambition to DO
4400 things than merely to talk ABOUT doing them. It seems that when I went
4401 North with General Armstrong to speak at the series of public meetings
4402 to which I have referred, the President of the National Educational
4403 Association, the Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, was present at one of
4404 those meetings and heard me speak. A few days afterward he sent me an
4405 invitation to deliver an address at the next meeting of the Educational
4406 Association. This meeting was to be held in Madison, Wis. I accepted the
4407 invitation. This was, in a sense, the beginning of my public-speaking
4410 On the evening that I spoke before the Association there must have been
4411 not far from four thousand persons present. Without my knowing it, there
4412 were a large number of people present from Alabama, and some from the
4413 town of Tuskegee. These white people afterward frankly told me that they
4414 went to this meeting expecting to hear the South roundly abused, but
4415 were pleasantly surprised to find that there was no word of abuse in
4416 my address. On the contrary, the South was given credit for all the
4417 praiseworthy things that it had done. A white lady who was teacher in
4418 a college in Tuskegee wrote back to the local paper that she was
4419 gratified, as well as surprised, to note the credit which I gave the
4420 white people of Tuskegee for their help in getting the school started.
4421 This address at Madison was the first that I had delivered that in any
4422 large measure dealt with the general problem of the races. Those who
4423 heard it seemed to be pleased with what I said and with the general
4424 position that I took.
4426 When I first came to Tuskegee, I determined that I would make it my
4427 home, that I would take as much pride in the right actions of the people
4428 of the town as any white man could do, and that I would, at the same
4429 time, deplore the wrong-doing of the people as much as any white man. I
4430 determined never to say anything in a public address in the North that
4431 I would not be willing to say in the South. I early learned that it is
4432 a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this
4433 is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy
4434 actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done.
4436 While pursuing this policy I have not failed, at the proper time and
4437 in the proper manner, to call attention, in no uncertain terms, to the
4438 wrongs which any part of the South has been guilty of. I have found
4439 that there is a large element in the South that is quick to respond to
4440 straightforward, honest criticism of any wrong policy. As a rule, the
4441 place to criticise the South, when criticism is necessary, is in the
4442 South--not in Boston. A Boston man who came to Alabama to criticise
4443 Boston would not effect so much good, I think, as one who had his word
4444 of criticism to say in Boston.
4446 In this address at Madison I took the ground that the policy to be
4447 pursued with references to the races was, by every honourable means,
4448 to bring them together and to encourage the cultivation of friendly
4449 relations, instead of doing that which would embitter. I further
4450 contended that, in relation to his vote, the Negro should more and more
4451 consider the interests of the community in which he lived, rather than
4452 seek alone to please some one who lived a thousand miles away from him
4453 and from his interests.
4455 In this address I said that the whole future of the Negro rested largely
4456 upon the question as to whether or not he should make himself, through
4457 his skill, intelligence, and character, of such undeniable value to the
4458 community in which he lived that the community could not dispense with
4459 his presence. I said that any individual who learned to do something
4460 better than anybody else--learned to do a common thing in an uncommon
4461 manner--had solved his problem, regardless of the colour of his skin,
4462 and that in proportion as the Negro learned to produce what other people
4463 wanted and must have, in the same proportion would he be respected.
4465 I spoke of an instance where one of our graduates had produced two
4466 hundred and sixty-six bushels of sweet potatoes from an acre of ground,
4467 in a community where the average production had been only forty-nine
4468 bushels to the acre. He had been able to do this by reason of his
4469 knowledge of the chemistry of the soil and by his knowledge of improved
4470 methods of agriculture. The white farmers in the neighbourhood respected
4471 him, and came to him for ideas regarding the raising of sweet potatoes.
4472 These white farmers honoured and respected him because he, by his skill
4473 and knowledge, had added something to the wealth and the comfort of the
4474 community in which he lived. I explained that my theory of education
4475 for the Negro would not, for example, confine him for all time to farm
4476 life--to the production of the best and the most sweet potatoes--but
4477 that, if he succeeded in this line of industry, he could lay the
4478 foundations upon which his children and grand-children could grow to
4479 higher and more important things in life.
4481 Such, in brief, were some of the views I advocated in this first address
4482 dealing with the broad question of the relations of the two races, and
4483 since that time I have not found any reason for changing my views on any
4486 In my early life I used to cherish a feeling of ill will toward any one
4487 who spoke in bitter terms against the Negro, or who advocated measures
4488 that tended to oppress the black man or take from him opportunities
4489 for growth in the most complete manner. Now, whenever I hear any
4490 one advocating measures that are meant to curtail the development of
4491 another, I pity the individual who would do this. I know that the one
4492 who makes this mistake does so because of his own lack of opportunity
4493 for the highest kind of growth. I pity him because I know that he is
4494 trying to stop the progress of the world, and because I know that in
4495 time the development and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make him
4496 ashamed of his weak and narrow position. One might as well try to stop
4497 the progress of a mighty railroad train by throwing his body across the
4498 track, as to try to stop the growth of the world in the direction
4499 of giving mankind more intelligence, more culture, more skill, more
4500 liberty, and in the direction of extending more sympathy and more
4503 The address which I delivered at Madison, before the National
4504 Educational Association, gave me a rather wide introduction in the
4505 North, and soon after that opportunities began offering themselves for
4506 me to address audiences there.
4508 I was anxious, however, that the way might also be opened for me to
4509 speak directly to a representative Southern white audience. A partial
4510 opportunity of this kind, one that seemed to me might serve as an
4511 entering wedge, presented itself in 1893, when the international meeting
4512 of Christian Workers was held at Atlanta, Ga. When this invitation came
4513 to me, I had engagements in Boston that seemed to make it impossible for
4514 me to speak in Atlanta. Still, after looking over my list of dates and
4515 places carefully, I found that I could take a train from Boston that
4516 would get me into Atlanta about thirty minutes before my address was to
4517 be delivered, and that I could remain in that city before taking another
4518 train for Boston. My invitation to speak in Atlanta stipulated that
4519 I was to confine my address to five minutes. The question, then, was
4520 whether or not I could put enough into a five-minute address to make it
4521 worth while for me to make such a trip.
4523 I knew that the audience would be largely composed of the most
4524 influential class of white men and women, and that it would be a
4525 rare opportunity for me to let them know what we were trying to do at
4526 Tuskegee, as well as to speak to them about the relations of the races.
4527 So I decided to make the trip. I spoke for five minutes to an audience
4528 of two thousand people, composed mostly of Southern and Northern whites.
4529 What I said seemed to be received with favour and enthusiasm. The
4530 Atlanta papers of the next day commented in friendly terms on my
4531 address, and a good deal was said about it in different parts of the
4532 country. I felt that I had in some degree accomplished my object--that
4533 of getting a hearing from the dominant class of the South.
4535 The demands made upon me for public addresses continued to increase,
4536 coming in about equal numbers from my own people and from Northern
4537 whites. I gave as much time to these addresses as I could spare from the
4538 immediate work at Tuskegee. Most of the addresses in the North were
4539 made for the direct purpose of getting funds with which to support the
4540 school. Those delivered before the coloured people had for their
4541 main object the impressing upon them the importance of industrial and
4542 technical education in addition to academic and religious training.
4544 I now come to that one of the incidents in my life which seems to have
4545 excited the greatest amount of interest, and which perhaps went further
4546 than anything else in giving me a reputation that in a sense might be
4547 called National. I refer to the address which I delivered at the opening
4548 of the Atlanta Cotton states and International Exposition, at Atlanta,
4549 Ga., September 18, 1895.
4551 So much has been said and written about this incident, and so many
4552 questions have been asked me concerning the address, that perhaps I may
4553 be excused for taking up the matter with some detail. The five-minute
4554 address in Atlanta, which I came from Boston to deliver, was possibly
4555 the prime cause for an opportunity being given me to make the second
4556 address there. In the spring of 1895 I received a telegram from
4557 prominent citizens in Atlanta asking me to accompany a committee from
4558 that city to Washington for the purpose of appearing before a committee
4559 of Congress in the interest of securing Government help for the
4560 Exposition. The committee was composed of about twenty-five of the most
4561 prominent and most influential white men of Georgia. All the members of
4562 this committee were white men except Bishop Grant, Bishop Gaines, and
4563 myself. The Mayor and several other city and state officials spoke
4564 before the committee. They were followed by the two coloured bishops. My
4565 name was the last on the list of speakers. I had never before appeared
4566 before such a committee, nor had I ever delivered any address in the
4567 capital of the Nation. I had many misgivings as to what I ought to say,
4568 and as to the impression that my address would make. While I cannot
4569 recall in detail what I said, I remember that I tried to impress upon
4570 the committee, with all the earnestness and plainness of any language
4571 that I could command, that if Congress wanted to do something which
4572 would assist in ridding the South of the race question and making
4573 friends between the two races, it should, in every proper way, encourage
4574 the material and intellectual growth of both races. I said that the
4575 Atlanta Exposition would present an opportunity for both races to show
4576 what advance they had made since freedom, and would at the same time
4577 afford encouragement to them to make still greater progress.
4579 I tried to emphasize the fact that while the Negro should not be
4580 deprived by unfair means of the franchise, political agitation alone
4581 would not save him, and that back of the ballot he must have property,
4582 industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character, and that no
4583 race without these elements could permanently succeed. I said that in
4584 granting the appropriation Congress could do something that would prove
4585 to be of real and lasting value to both races, and that it was the first
4586 great opportunity of the kind that had been presented since the close of
4589 I spoke for fifteen or twenty minutes, and was surprised at the close
4590 of my address to receive the hearty congratulations of the Georgia
4591 committee and of the members of Congress who were present. The Committee
4592 was unanimous in making a favourable report, and in a few days the
4593 bill passed Congress. With the passing of this bill the success of the
4594 Atlanta Exposition was assured.
4596 Soon after this trip to Washington the directors of the Exposition
4597 decided that it would be a fitting recognition of the coloured race to
4598 erect a large and attractive building which should be devoted wholly to
4599 showing the progress of the Negro since freedom. It was further decided
4600 to have the building designed and erected wholly by Negro mechanics.
4601 This plan was carried out. In design, beauty, and general finish the
4602 Negro Building was equal to the others on the grounds.
4604 After it was decided to have a separate Negro exhibit, the question
4605 arose as to who should take care of it. The officials of the Exposition
4606 were anxious that I should assume this responsibility, but I declined
4607 to do so, on the plea that the work at Tuskegee at that time demanded
4608 my time and strength. Largely at my suggestion, Mr. I. Garland Penn, of
4609 Lynchburg, Va., was selected to be at the head of the Negro department.
4610 I gave him all the aid that I could. The Negro exhibit, as a whole,
4611 was large and creditable. The two exhibits in this department which
4612 attracted the greatest amount of attention were those from the Hampton
4613 Institute and the Tuskegee Institute. The people who seemed to be
4614 the most surprised, as well as pleased, at what they saw in the Negro
4615 Building were the Southern white people.
4617 As the day for the opening of the Exposition drew near, the Board of
4618 Directors began preparing the programme for the opening exercises.
4619 In the discussion from day to day of the various features of this
4620 programme, the question came up as to the advisability of putting a
4621 member of the Negro race on for one of the opening addresses, since the
4622 Negroes had been asked to take such a prominent part in the Exposition.
4623 It was argued, further, that such recognition would mark the good
4624 feeling prevailing between the two races. Of course there were those who
4625 were opposed to any such recognition of the rights of the Negro, but the
4626 Board of Directors, composed of men who represented the best and most
4627 progressive element in the South, had their way, and voted to invite a
4628 black man to speak on the opening day. The next thing was to decide upon
4629 the person who was thus to represent the Negro race. After the question
4630 had been canvassed for several days, the directors voted unanimously to
4631 ask me to deliver one of the opening-day addresses, and in a few days
4632 after that I received the official invitation.
4634 The receiving of this invitation brought to me a sense of responsibility
4635 that it would be hard for any one not placed in my position to
4636 appreciate. What were my feelings when this invitation came to me? I
4637 remembered that I had been a slave; that my early years had been spent
4638 in the lowest depths of poverty and ignorance, and that I had had little
4639 opportunity to prepare me for such a responsibility as this. It was only
4640 a few years before that time that any white man in the audience might
4641 have claimed me as his slave; and it was easily possible that some of my
4642 former owners might be present to hear me speak.
4644 I knew, too, that this was the first time in the entire history of the
4645 Negro that a member of my race had been asked to speak from the same
4646 platform with white Southern men and women on any important National
4647 occasion. I was asked now to speak to an audience composed of the
4648 wealth and culture of the white South, the representatives of my former
4649 masters. I knew, too, that while the greater part of my audience would
4650 be composed of Southern people, yet there would be present a large
4651 number of Northern whites, as well as a great many men and women of my
4654 I was determined to say nothing that I did not feel from the bottom of
4655 my heart to be true and right. When the invitation came to me, there
4656 was not one word of intimation as to what I should say or as to what
4657 I should omit. In this I felt that the Board of Directors had paid a
4658 tribute to me. They knew that by one sentence I could have blasted, in
4659 a large degree, the success of the Exposition. I was also painfully
4660 conscious of the fact that, while I must be true to my own race in my
4661 utterances, I had it in my power to make such an ill-timed address as
4662 would result in preventing any similar invitation being extended to a
4663 black man again for years to come. I was equally determined to be true
4664 to the North, as well as to the best element of the white South, in what
4667 The papers, North and South, had taken up the discussion of my coming
4668 speech, and as the time for it drew near this discussion became more and
4669 more widespread. Not a few of the Southern white papers were unfriendly
4670 to the idea of my speaking. From my own race I received many suggestions
4671 as to what I ought to say. I prepared myself as best I could for the
4672 address, but as the eighteenth of September drew nearer, the heavier my
4673 heart became, and the more I feared that my effort would prove a failure
4674 and a disappointment.
4676 The invitation had come at a time when I was very busy with my school
4677 work, as it was the beginning of our school year. After preparing my
4678 address, I went through it, as I usually do with those utterances
4679 which I consider particularly important, with Mrs. Washington, and she
4680 approved of what I intended to say. On the sixteenth of September, the
4681 day before I was to start for Atlanta, so many of the Tuskegee teachers
4682 expressed a desire to hear my address that I consented to read it to
4683 them in a body. When I had done so, and had heard their criticisms and
4684 comments, I felt somewhat relieved, since they seemed to think well of
4687 On the morning of September 17, together with Mrs. Washington and my
4688 three children, I started for Atlanta. I felt a good deal as I suppose
4689 a man feels when he is on his way to the gallows. In passing through the
4690 town of Tuskegee I met a white farmer who lived some distance out in the
4691 country. In a jesting manner this man said: "Washington, you have spoken
4692 before the Northern white people, the Negroes in the South, and to us
4693 country white people in the South; but Atlanta, to-morrow, you will have
4694 before you the Northern whites, the Southern whites, and the Negroes all
4695 together. I am afraid that you have got yourself in a tight place." This
4696 farmer diagnosed the situation correctly, but his frank words did not
4697 add anything to my comfort.
4699 In the course of the journey from Tuskegee to Atlanta both coloured
4700 and white people came to the train to point me out, and discussed with
4701 perfect freedom, in my hearings, what was going to take place the next
4702 day. We were met by a committee in Atlanta. Almost the first thing
4703 that I heard when I got off the train in that city was an expression
4704 something like this, from an old coloured man near by: "Dat's de man of
4705 my race what's gwine to make a speech at de Exposition to-morrow. I'se
4706 sho' gwine to hear him."
4708 Atlanta was literally packed, at the time, with people from all parts of
4709 the country, and with representatives of foreign governments, as well
4710 as with military and civic organizations. The afternoon papers had
4711 forecasts of the next day's proceedings in flaring headlines. All this
4712 tended to add to my burden. I did not sleep much that night. The next
4713 morning, before day, I went carefully over what I planned to say. I
4714 also kneeled down and asked God's blessing upon my effort. Right here,
4715 perhaps, I ought to add that I make it a rule never to go before an
4716 audience, on any occasion, without asking the blessing of God upon what
4719 I always make it a rule to make especial preparation for each separate
4720 address. No two audiences are exactly alike. It is my aim to reach
4721 and talk to the heart of each individual audience, taking it into my
4722 confidence very much as I would a person. When I am speaking to an
4723 audience, I care little for how what I am saying is going to sound in
4724 the newspapers, or to another audience, or to an individual. At the
4725 time, the audience before me absorbs all my sympathy, thought, and
4728 Early in the morning a committee called to escort me to my place in
4729 the procession which was to march to the Exposition grounds. In this
4730 procession were prominent coloured citizens in carriages, as well
4731 as several Negro military organizations. I noted that the Exposition
4732 officials seemed to go out of their way to see that all of the coloured
4733 people in the procession were properly placed and properly treated. The
4734 procession was about three hours in reaching the Exposition grounds, and
4735 during all of this time the sun was shining down upon us disagreeably
4736 hot. When we reached the grounds, the heat, together with my nervous
4737 anxiety, made me feel as if I were about ready to collapse, and to
4738 feel that my address was not going to be a success. When I entered the
4739 audience-room, I found it packed with humanity from bottom to top, and
4740 there were thousands outside who could not get in.
4742 The room was very large, and well suited to public speaking. When I
4743 entered the room, there were vigorous cheers from the coloured portion
4744 of the audience, and faint cheers from some of the white people. I had
4745 been told, while I had been in Atlanta, that while many white people
4746 were going to be present to hear me speak, simply out of curiosity,
4747 and that others who would be present would be in full sympathy with me,
4748 there was a still larger element of the audience which would consist of
4749 those who were going to be present for the purpose of hearing me make
4750 a fool of myself, or, at least, of hearing me say some foolish thing
4751 so that they could say to the officials who had invited me to speak, "I
4754 One of the trustees of the Tuskegee Institute, as well as my personal
4755 friend, Mr. William H. Baldwin, Jr. was at the time General Manager of
4756 the Southern Railroad, and happened to be in Atlanta on that day. He was
4757 so nervous about the kind of reception that I would have, and the effect
4758 that my speech would produce, that he could not persuade himself to
4759 go into the building, but walked back and forth in the grounds outside
4760 until the opening exercises were over.
4764 Chapter XIV. The Atlanta Exposition Address
4766 The Atlanta Exposition, at which I had been asked to make an address as
4767 a representative of the Negro race, as stated in the last chapter,
4768 was opened with a short address from Governor Bullock. After other
4769 interesting exercises, including an invocation from Bishop Nelson, of
4770 Georgia, a dedicatory ode by Albert Howell, Jr., and addresses by the
4771 President of the Exposition and Mrs. Joseph Thompson, the President of
4772 the Woman's Board, Governor Bullock introduce me with the words, "We
4773 have with us to-day a representative of Negro enterprise and Negro
4776 When I arose to speak, there was considerable cheering, especially from
4777 the coloured people. As I remember it now, the thing that was uppermost
4778 in my mind was the desire to say something that would cement the
4779 friendship of the races and bring about hearty cooperation between them.
4780 So far as my outward surroundings were concerned, the only thing that
4781 I recall distinctly now is that when I got up, I saw thousands of eyes
4782 looking intently into my face. The following is the address which I
4785 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and Citizens.
4787 One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No
4788 enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section
4789 can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest
4790 success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment
4791 of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value
4792 and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously
4793 recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every
4794 stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement
4795 the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of
4798 Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us
4799 a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is
4800 not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the
4801 top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state
4802 legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that
4803 the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than
4804 starting a dairy farm or truck garden.
4806 A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel.
4807 From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, "Water,
4808 water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once
4809 came back, "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the
4810 signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed
4811 vessel, and was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." And a
4812 third and fourth signal for water was answered, "Cast down your bucket
4813 where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heading
4814 the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh,
4815 sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my
4816 race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who
4817 underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the
4818 Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbour, I would say: "Cast
4819 down your bucket where you are"--cast it down in making friends in every
4820 manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.
4822 Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic
4823 service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to
4824 bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear,
4825 when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the
4826 Negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing
4827 is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our
4828 greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may
4829 overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions
4830 of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in
4831 proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour and put
4832 brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in
4833 proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the
4834 substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can
4835 prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field
4836 as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and
4837 not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our
4840 To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign
4841 birth and strange tongue and habits of the prosperity of the South, were
4842 I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race: "Cast down your
4843 bucket where you are." Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes
4844 whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days
4845 when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast
4846 down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour
4847 wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads
4848 and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth,
4849 and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress
4850 of the South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and
4851 encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education
4852 of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus
4853 land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your
4854 factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the
4855 past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient,
4856 faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen.
4857 As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, nursing your children,
4858 watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often
4859 following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future,
4860 in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no
4861 foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in
4862 defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and
4863 religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both
4864 races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate
4865 as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual
4868 There is no defence or security for any of us except in the highest
4869 intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts
4870 tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be
4871 turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and
4872 intelligent citizen. Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand per
4873 cent interest. These efforts will be twice blessed--"blessing him that
4874 gives and him that takes."
4876 There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable:--
4878 The laws of changeless justice bind
4879 Oppressor with oppressed;
4880 And close as sin and suffering joined
4881 We march to fate abreast.
4883 Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load
4884 upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall
4885 constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the
4886 South, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute
4887 one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we
4888 shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding
4889 every effort to advance the body politic.
4891 Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humble effort at
4892 an exhibition of our progress, you must not expect overmuch. Starting
4893 thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and
4894 pumpkins and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous sources), remember
4895 the path that has led from these to the inventions and production of
4896 agricultural implements, buggies, steam-engines, newspapers, books,
4897 statuary, carving, paintings, the management of drug-stores and banks,
4898 has not been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we
4899 take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we
4900 do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall
4901 far short of your expectations but for the constant help that has come
4902 to our education life, not only from the Southern states, but especially
4903 from Northern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant
4904 stream of blessing and encouragement.
4906 The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions
4907 of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the
4908 enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result
4909 of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No
4910 race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long
4911 in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges
4912 of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared
4913 for the exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar
4914 in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to
4915 spend a dollar in an opera-house.
4917 In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us
4918 more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to you of the white
4919 race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and here bending,
4920 as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles
4921 of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three
4922 decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and
4923 intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you
4924 shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only
4925 let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in
4926 these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory,
4927 letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material
4928 benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come,
4929 in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and
4930 suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a
4931 willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, this,
4932 coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South
4933 a new heaven and a new earth.
4936 The first thing that I remember, after I had finished speaking, was that
4937 Governor Bullock rushed across the platform and took me by the hand,
4938 and that others did the same. I received so many and such hearty
4939 congratulations that I found it difficult to get out of the building.
4940 I did not appreciate to any degree, however, the impression which my
4941 address seemed to have made, until the next morning, when I went into
4942 the business part of the city. As soon as I was recognized, I was
4943 surprised to find myself pointed out and surrounded by a crowd of men
4944 who wished to shake hands with me. This was kept up on every street on
4945 to which I went, to an extent which embarrassed me so much that I went
4946 back to my boarding-place. The next morning I returned to Tuskegee. At
4947 the station in Atlanta, and at almost all of the stations at which the
4948 train stopped between that city and Tuskegee, I found a crowd of people
4949 anxious to shake hands with me.
4951 The papers in all parts of the United States published the address
4952 in full, and for months afterward there were complimentary editorial
4953 references to it. Mr. Clark Howell, the editor of the Atlanta
4954 Constitution, telegraphed to a New York paper, among other words, the
4955 following, "I do not exaggerate when I say that Professor Booker T.
4956 Washington's address yesterday was one of the most notable speeches,
4957 both as to character and as to the warmth of its reception, ever
4958 delivered to a Southern audience. The address was a revelation. The
4959 whole speech is a platform upon which blacks and whites can stand with
4960 full justice to each other."
4962 The Boston Transcript said editorially: "The speech of Booker T.
4963 Washington at the Atlanta Exposition, this week, seems to have dwarfed
4964 all the other proceedings and the Exposition itself. The sensation that
4965 it has caused in the press has never been equalled."
4967 I very soon began receiving all kinds of propositions from lecture
4968 bureaus, and editors of magazines and papers, to take the lecture
4969 platform, and to write articles. One lecture bureau offered me fifty
4970 thousand dollars, or two hundred dollars a night and expenses, if I
4971 would place my services at its disposal for a given period. To all these
4972 communications I replied that my life-work was at Tuskegee; and that
4973 whenever I spoke it must be in the interests of Tuskegee school and my
4974 race, and that I would enter into no arrangements that seemed to place a
4975 mere commercial value upon my services.
4977 Some days after its delivery I sent a copy of my address to the
4978 President of the United States, the Hon. Grover Cleveland. I received
4979 from him the following autograph reply:--
4982 Gray Gables, Buzzard's Bay, Mass.,
4986 Booker T. Washington, Esq.:
4988 My Dear Sir: I thank you for sending me a copy of your address delivered
4989 at the Atlanta Exposition.
4991 I thank you with much enthusiasm for making the address. I have read
4992 it with intense interest, and I think the Exposition would be fully
4993 justified if it did not do more than furnish the opportunity for its
4994 delivery. Your words cannot fail to delight and encourage all who wish
4995 well for your race; and if our coloured fellow-citizens do not from your
4996 utterances gather new hope and form new determinations to gain every
4997 valuable advantage offered them by their citizenship, it will be strange
5005 Later I met Mr. Cleveland, for the first time, when, as President, he
5006 visited the Atlanta Exposition. At the request of myself and others he
5007 consented to spend an hour in the Negro Building, for the purpose
5008 of inspecting the Negro exhibit and of giving the coloured people in
5009 attendance an opportunity to shake hands with him. As soon as I met Mr.
5010 Cleveland I became impressed with his simplicity, greatness, and rugged
5011 honesty. I have met him many times since then, both at public functions
5012 and at his private residence in Princeton, and the more I see of him
5013 the more I admire him. When he visited the Negro Building in Atlanta he
5014 seemed to give himself up wholly, for that hour, to the coloured
5015 people. He seemed to be as careful to shake hands with some old coloured
5016 "auntie" clad partially in rags, and to take as much pleasure in doing
5017 so, as if he were greeting some millionaire. Many of the coloured people
5018 took advantage of the occasion to get him to write his name in a book or
5019 on a slip of paper. He was as careful and patient in doing this as if he
5020 were putting his signature to some great state document.
5022 Mr. Cleveland has not only shown his friendship for me in many personal
5023 ways, but has always consented to do anything I have asked of him for
5024 our school. This he has done, whether it was to make a personal donation
5025 or to use his influence in securing the donations of others. Judging
5026 from my personal acquaintance with Mr. Cleveland, I do not believe that
5027 he is conscious of possessing any colour prejudice. He is too great for
5028 that. In my contact with people I find that, as a rule, it is only
5029 the little, narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good
5030 books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to
5031 permit them to come into contact with other souls--with the great
5032 outside world. No man whose vision is bounded by colour can come into
5033 contact with what is highest and best in the world. In meeting men, in
5034 many places, I have found that the happiest people are those who do the
5035 most for others; the most miserable are those who do the least. I have
5036 also found that few things, if any, are capable of making one so blind
5037 and narrow as race prejudice. I often say to our students, in the course
5038 of my talks to them on Sunday evenings in the chapel, that the longer
5039 I live and the more experience I have of the world, the more I am
5040 convinced that, after all, the one thing that is most worth living
5041 for--and dying for, if need be--is the opportunity of making some one
5042 else more happy and more useful.
5044 The coloured people and the coloured newspapers at first seemed to be
5045 greatly pleased with the character of my Atlanta address, as well as
5046 with its reception. But after the first burst of enthusiasm began to
5047 die away, and the coloured people began reading the speech in cold type,
5048 some of them seemed to feel that they had been hypnotized. They seemed
5049 to feel that I had been too liberal in my remarks toward the Southern
5050 whites, and that I had not spoken out strongly enough for what they
5051 termed the "rights" of my race. For a while there was a reaction, so
5052 far as a certain element of my own race was concerned, but later these
5053 reactionary ones seemed to have been won over to my way of believing and
5056 While speaking of changes in public sentiment, I recall that about ten
5057 years after the school at Tuskegee was established, I had an experience
5058 that I shall never forget. Dr. Lyman Abbott, then the pastor of Plymouth
5059 Church, and also editor of the Outlook (then the Christian Union),
5060 asked me to write a letter for his paper giving my opinion of the exact
5061 condition, mental and moral, of the coloured ministers in the South, as
5062 based upon my observations. I wrote the letter, giving the exact facts
5063 as I conceived them to be. The picture painted was a rather black
5064 one--or, since I am black, shall I say "white"? It could not be
5065 otherwise with a race but a few years out of slavery, a race which had
5066 not had time or opportunity to produce a competent ministry.
5068 What I said soon reached every Negro minister in the country, I think,
5069 and the letters of condemnation which I received from them were not
5070 few. I think that for a year after the publication of this article every
5071 association and every conference or religious body of any kind, of my
5072 race, that met, did not fail before adjourning to pass a resolution
5073 condemning me, or calling upon me to retract or modify what I had said.
5074 Many of these organizations went so far in their resolutions as
5075 to advise parents to cease sending their children to Tuskegee. One
5076 association even appointed a "missionary" whose duty it was to warn the
5077 people against sending their children to Tuskegee. This missionary had
5078 a son in the school, and I noticed that, whatever the "missionary" might
5079 have said or done with regard to others, he was careful not to take his
5080 son away from the institution. Many of the coloured papers, especially
5081 those that were the organs of religious bodies, joined in the general
5082 chorus of condemnation or demands for retraction.
5084 During the whole time of the excitement, and through all the criticism,
5085 I did not utter a word of explanation or retraction. I knew that I was
5086 right, and that time and the sober second thought of the people would
5087 vindicate me. It was not long before the bishops and other church
5088 leaders began to make careful investigation of the conditions of the
5089 ministry, and they found out that I was right. In fact, the oldest and
5090 most influential bishop in one branch of the Methodist Church said that
5091 my words were far too mild. Very soon public sentiment began making
5092 itself felt, in demanding a purifying of the ministry. While this is
5093 not yet complete by any means, I think I may say, without egotism, and I
5094 have been told by many of our most influential ministers, that my words
5095 had much to do with starting a demand for the placing of a higher type
5096 of men in the pulpit. I have had the satisfaction of having many who
5097 once condemned me thank me heartily for my frank words.
5099 The change of the attitude of the Negro ministry, so far as regards
5100 myself, is so complete that at the present time I have no warmer friends
5101 among any class than I have among the clergymen. The improvement in the
5102 character and life of the Negro ministers is one of the most gratifying
5103 evidences of the progress of the race. My experience with them, as well
5104 as other events in my life, convince me that the thing to do, when one
5105 feels sure that he has said or done the right thing, and is condemned,
5106 is to stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it.
5108 In the midst of the discussion which was going on concerning my Atlanta
5109 speech, I received the letter which I give below, from Dr. Gilman, the
5110 President of Johns Hopkins University, who had been made chairman of the
5111 judges of award in connection with the Atlanta Exposition:--
5113 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
5115 President's Office, September 30, 1895.
5117 Dear Mr. Washington: Would it be agreeable to you to be one of the
5118 Judges of Award in the Department of Education at Atlanta? If so, I
5119 shall be glad to place your name upon the list. A line by telegraph will
5127 I think I was even more surprised to receive this invitation than I
5128 had been to receive the invitation to speak at the opening of the
5129 Exposition. It was to be a part of my duty, as one of the jurors, to
5130 pass not only upon the exhibits of the coloured schools, but also upon
5131 those of the white schools. I accepted the position, and spent a month
5132 in Atlanta in performance of the duties which it entailed. The board of
5133 jurors was a large one, containing in all of sixty members. It was about
5134 equally divided between Southern white people and Northern white people.
5135 Among them were college presidents, leading scientists and men of
5136 letters, and specialists in many subjects. When the group of jurors to
5137 which I was assigned met for organization, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, who
5138 was one of the number, moved that I be made secretary of that division,
5139 and the motion was unanimously adopted. Nearly half of our division
5140 were Southern people. In performing my duties in the inspection of the
5141 exhibits of white schools I was in every case treated with respect, and
5142 at the close of our labours I parted from my associates with regret.
5144 I am often asked to express myself more freely than I do upon the
5145 political condition and the political future of my race. These
5146 recollections of my experience in Atlanta give me the opportunity to do
5147 so briefly. My own belief is, although I have never before said so in so
5148 many words, that the time will come when the Negro in the South will
5149 be accorded all the political rights which his ability, character,
5150 and material possessions entitle him to. I think, though, that the
5151 opportunity to freely exercise such political rights will not come in
5152 any large degree through outside or artificial forcing, but will be
5153 accorded to the Negro by the Southern white people themselves, and that
5154 they will protect him in the exercise of those rights. Just as soon
5155 as the South gets over the old feeling that it is being forced by
5156 "foreigners," or "aliens," to do something which it does not want to
5157 do, I believe that the change in the direction that I have indicated
5158 is going to begin. In fact, there are indications that it is already
5159 beginning in a slight degree.
5161 Let me illustrate my meaning. Suppose that some months before the
5162 opening of the Atlanta Exposition there had been a general demand from
5163 the press and public platform outside the South that a Negro be given
5164 a place on the opening programme, and that a Negro be placed upon the
5165 board of jurors of award. Would any such recognition of the race have
5166 taken place? I do not think so. The Atlanta officials went as far as
5167 they did because they felt it to be a pleasure, as well as a duty, to
5168 reward what they considered merit in the Negro race. Say what we will,
5169 there is something in human nature which we cannot blot out, which makes
5170 one man, in the end, recognize and reward merit in another, regardless
5173 I believe it is the duty of the Negro--as the greater part of the race
5174 is already doing--to deport himself modestly in regard to political
5175 claims, depending upon the slow but sure influences that proceed from
5176 the possession of property, intelligence, and high character for the
5177 full recognition of his political rights. I think that the according
5178 of the full exercise of political rights is going to be a matter of
5179 natural, slow growth, not an over-night, gourd-vine affair. I do not
5180 believe that the Negro should cease voting, for a man cannot learn the
5181 exercise of self-government by ceasing to vote, any more than a boy can
5182 learn to swim by keeping out of the water, but I do believe that in his
5183 voting he should more and more be influenced by those of intelligence
5184 and character who are his next-door neighbours.
5186 I know coloured men who, through the encouragement, help, and advice of
5187 Southern white people, have accumulated thousands of dollars' worth of
5188 property, but who, at the same time, would never think of going to those
5189 same persons for advice concerning the casting of their ballots. This,
5190 it seems to me, is unwise and unreasonable, and should cease. In saying
5191 this I do not mean that the Negro should truckle, or not vote from
5192 principle, for the instant he ceases to vote from principle he loses the
5193 confidence and respect of the Southern white man even.
5195 I do not believe that any state should make a law that permits an
5196 ignorant and poverty-stricken white man to vote, and prevents a black
5197 man in the same condition from voting. Such a law is not only unjust,
5198 but it will react, as all unjust laws do, in time; for the effect of
5199 such a law is to encourage the Negro to secure education and property,
5200 and at the same time it encourages the white man to remain in
5201 ignorance and poverty. I believe that in time, through the operation of
5202 intelligence and friendly race relations, all cheating at the ballot-box
5203 in the South will cease. It will become apparent that the white man
5204 who begins by cheating a Negro out of his ballot soon learns to cheat a
5205 white man out of his, and that the man who does this ends his career of
5206 dishonesty by the theft of property or by some equally serious crime. In
5207 my opinion, the time will come when the South will encourage all of
5208 its citizens to vote. It will see that it pays better, from every
5209 standpoint, to have healthy, vigorous life than to have that political
5210 stagnation which always results when one-half of the population has no
5211 share and no interest in the Government.
5213 As a rule, I believe in universal, free suffrage, but I believe that in
5214 the South we are confronted with peculiar conditions that justify the
5215 protection of the ballot in many of the states, for a while at least,
5216 either by an education test, a property test, or by both combined; but
5217 whatever tests are required, they should be made to apply with equal and
5218 exact justice to both races.
5222 Chapter XV. The Secret Of Success In Public Speaking
5224 As to how my address at Atlanta was received by the audience in the
5225 Exposition building, I think I prefer to let Mr. James Creelman, the
5226 noted war correspondent, tell. Mr. Creelman was present, and telegraphed
5227 the following account to the New York World:--
5229 Atlanta, September 18.
5231 While President Cleveland was waiting at Gray Gables to-day, to send the
5232 electric spark that started the machinery of the Atlanta Exposition, a
5233 Negro Moses stood before a great audience of white people and delivered
5234 an oration that marks a new epoch in the history of the South; and a
5235 body of Negro troops marched in a procession with the citizen soldiery
5236 of Georgia and Louisiana. The whole city is thrilling to-night with a
5237 realization of the extraordinary significance of these two unprecedented
5238 events. Nothing has happened since Henry Grady's immortal speech before
5239 the New England society in New York that indicates so profoundly the
5240 spirit of the New South, except, perhaps, the opening of the Exposition
5243 When Professor Booker T. Washington, Principal of an industrial school
5244 for coloured people in Tuskegee, Ala. stood on the platform of the
5245 Auditorium, with the sun shining over the heads of his auditors into his
5246 eyes, and with his whole face lit up with the fire of prophecy, Clark
5247 Howell, the successor of Henry Grady, said to me, "That man's speech is
5248 the beginning of a moral revolution in America."
5250 It is the first time that a Negro has made a speech in the South on any
5251 important occasion before an audience composed of white men and women.
5252 It electrified the audience, and the response was as if it had come from
5253 the throat of a whirlwind.
5255 Mrs. Thompson had hardly taken her seat when all eyes were turned on
5256 a tall tawny Negro sitting in the front row of the platform. It was
5257 Professor Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee (Alabama)
5258 Normal and Industrial Institute, who must rank from this time forth
5259 as the foremost man of his race in America. Gilmore's Band played the
5260 "Star-Spangled Banner," and the audience cheered. The tune changed to
5261 "Dixie" and the audience roared with shrill "hi-yis." Again the music
5262 changed, this time to "Yankee Doodle," and the clamour lessened.
5264 All this time the eyes of the thousands present looked straight at the
5265 Negro orator. A strange thing was to happen. A black man was to speak
5266 for his people, with none to interrupt him. As Professor Washington
5267 strode to the edge of the stage, the low, descending sun shot fiery rays
5268 through the windows into his face. A great shout greeted him. He turned
5269 his head to avoid the blinding light, and moved about the platform for
5270 relief. Then he turned his wonderful countenance to the sun without a
5271 blink of the eyelids, and began to talk.
5273 There was a remarkable figure; tall, bony, straight as a Sioux chief,
5274 high forehead, straight nose, heavy jaws, and strong, determined mouth,
5275 with big white teeth, piercing eyes, and a commanding manner. The sinews
5276 stood out on his bronzed neck, and his muscular right arm swung high in
5277 the air, with a lead-pencil grasped in the clinched brown fist. His big
5278 feet were planted squarely, with the heels together and the toes turned
5279 out. His voice range out clear and true, and he paused impressively as
5280 he made each point. Within ten minutes the multitude was in an uproar of
5281 enthusiasm--handkerchiefs were waved, canes were flourished, hats were
5282 tossed in the air. The fairest women of Georgia stood up and cheered. It
5283 was as if the orator had bewitched them.
5285 And when he held his dusky hand high above his head, with the fingers
5286 stretched wide apart, and said to the white people of the South on
5287 behalf of his race, "In all things that are purely social we can be as
5288 separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential
5289 to mutual progress," the great wave of sound dashed itself against the
5290 walls, and the whole audience was on its feet in a delirium of applause,
5291 and I thought at that moment of the night when Henry Grady stood among
5292 the curling wreaths of tobacco-smoke in Delmonico's banquet-hall and
5293 said, "I am a Cavalier among Roundheads."
5295 I have heard the great orators of many countries, but not even Gladstone
5296 himself could have pleased a cause with most consummate power than did
5297 this angular Negro, standing in a nimbus of sunshine, surrounded by the
5298 men who once fought to keep his race in bondage. The roar might swell
5299 ever so high, but the expression of his earnest face never changed.
5301 A ragged, ebony giant, squatted on the floor in one of the aisles,
5302 watched the orator with burning eyes and tremulous face until the
5303 supreme burst of applause came, and then the tears ran down his face.
5304 Most of the Negroes in the audience were crying, perhaps without knowing
5307 At the close of the speech Governor Bullock rushed across the stage and
5308 seized the orator's hand. Another shout greeted this demonstration, and
5309 for a few minutes the two men stood facing each other, hand in hand.
5312 So far as I could spare the time from the immediate work at Tuskegee,
5313 after my Atlanta address, I accepted some of the invitations to speak
5314 in public which came to me, especially those that would take me into
5315 territory where I thought it would pay to plead the cause of my race,
5316 but I always did this with the understanding that I was to be free
5317 to talk about my life-work and the needs of my people. I also had it
5318 understood that I was not to speak in the capacity of a professional
5319 lecturer, or for mere commercial gain.
5321 In my efforts on the public platform I never have been able to
5322 understand why people come to hear me speak. This question I never can
5323 rid myself of. Time and time again, as I have stood in the street in
5324 front of a building and have seen men and women passing in large numbers
5325 into the audience room where I was to speak, I have felt ashamed that
5326 I should be the cause of people--as it seemed to me--wasting a valuable
5327 hour of their time. Some years ago I was to deliver an address before a
5328 literary society in Madison, Wis. An hour before the time set for me
5329 to speak, a fierce snow-storm began, and continued for several hours. I
5330 made up my mind that there would be no audience, and that I should not
5331 have to speak, but, as a matter of duty, I went to the church, and
5332 found it packed with people. The surprise gave me a shock that I did not
5333 recover from during the whole evening.
5335 People often ask me if I feel nervous before speaking, or else they
5336 suggest that, since I speak often, they suppose that I get used to it.
5337 In answer to this question I have to say that I always suffer intensely
5338 from nervousness before speaking. More than once, just before I was to
5339 make an important address, this nervous strain has been so great that
5340 I have resolved never again to speak in public. I not only feel nervous
5341 before speaking, but after I have finished I usually feel a sense of
5342 regret, because it seems to me as if I had left out of my address the
5343 main thing and the best thing that I had meant to say.
5345 There is a great compensation, though, for this preliminary nervous
5346 suffering, that comes to me after I have been speaking for about ten
5347 minutes, and have come to feel that I have really mastered my audience,
5348 and that we have gotten into full and complete sympathy with each other.
5349 It seems to me that there is rarely such a combination of mental and
5350 physical delight in any effort as that which comes to a public speaker
5351 when he feels that he has a great audience completely within his
5352 control. There is a thread of sympathy and oneness that connects a
5353 public speaker with his audience, that is just as strong as though it
5354 was something tangible and visible. If in an audience of a thousand
5355 people there is one person who is not in sympathy with my views, or is
5356 inclined to be doubtful, cold, or critical, I can pick him out. When
5357 I have found him I usually go straight at him, and it is a great
5358 satisfaction to watch the process of his thawing out. I find that the
5359 most effective medicine for such individuals is administered at first
5360 in the form of a story, although I never tell an anecdote simply for the
5361 sake of telling one. That kind of thing, I think, is empty and hollow,
5362 and an audience soon finds it out.
5364 I believe that one always does himself and his audience an injustice
5365 when he speaks merely for the sake of speaking. I do not believe that
5366 one should speak unless, deep down in his heart, he feels convinced that
5367 he has a message to deliver. When one feels, from the bottom of his feet
5368 to the top of his head, that he has something to say that is going
5369 to help some individual or some cause, then let him say it; and in
5370 delivering his message I do not believe that many of the artificial
5371 rules of elocution can, under such circumstances, help him very much.
5372 Although there are certain things, such as pauses, breathing, and pitch
5373 of voice, that are very important, none of these can take the place of
5374 soul in an address. When I have an address to deliver, I like to forget
5375 all about the rules for the proper use of the English language, and all
5376 about rhetoric and that sort of thing, and I like to make the audience
5377 forget all about these things, too.
5379 Nothing tends to throw me off my balance so quickly, when I am speaking,
5380 as to have some one leave the room. To prevent this, I make up my mind,
5381 as a rule, that I will try to make my address so interesting, will try
5382 to state so many interesting facts one after another, that no one can
5383 leave. The average audience, I have come to believe, wants facts rather
5384 than generalities or sermonizing. Most people, I think, are able to draw
5385 proper conclusions if they are given the facts in an interesting form on
5388 As to the kind of audience that I like best to talk to, I would put at
5389 the top of the list an organization of strong, wide-awake, business
5390 men, such, for example, as is found in Boston, New York, Chicago, and
5391 Buffalo. I have found no other audience so quick to see a point, and
5392 so responsive. Within the last few years I have had the privilege of
5393 speaking before most of the leading organizations of this kind in the
5394 large cities of the United States. The best time to get hold of an
5395 organization of business men is after a good dinner, although I think
5396 that one of the worst instruments of torture that was ever invented
5397 is the custom which makes it necessary for a speaker to sit through a
5398 fourteen-course dinner, every minute of the time feeling sure that his
5399 speech is going to prove a dismal failure and disappointment.
5401 I rarely take part in one of these long dinners that I do not wish that
5402 I could put myself back in the little cabin where I was a slave boy, and
5403 again go through the experience there--one that I shall never forget--of
5404 getting molasses to eat once a week from the "big house." Our usual
5405 diet on the plantation was corn bread and pork, but on Sunday morning
5406 my mother was permitted to bring down a little molasses from the "big
5407 house" for her three children, and when it was received how I did wish
5408 that every day was Sunday! I would get my tin plate and hold it up for
5409 the sweet morsel, but I would always shut my eyes while the molasses was
5410 being poured out into the plate, with the hope that when I opened them
5411 I would be surprised to see how much I had got. When I opened my eyes
5412 I would tip the plate in one direction and another, so as to make the
5413 molasses spread all over it, in the full belief that there would be more
5414 of it and that it would last longer if spread out in this way. So strong
5415 are my childish impressions of those Sunday morning feasts that it
5416 would be pretty hard for any one to convince me that there is not more
5417 molasses on a plate when it is spread all over the plate than when it
5418 occupies a little corner--if there is a corner in a plate. At any rate,
5419 I have never believed in "cornering" syrup. My share of the syrup was
5420 usually about two tablespoonfuls, and those two spoonfuls of molasses
5421 were much more enjoyable to me than is a fourteen-course dinner after
5422 which I am to speak.
5424 Next to a company of business men, I prefer to speak to an audience of
5425 Southern people, of either race, together or taken separately. Their
5426 enthusiasm and responsiveness are a constant delight. The "amens" and
5427 "dat's de truf" that come spontaneously from the coloured individuals
5428 are calculated to spur any speaker on to his best efforts. I think that
5429 next in order of preference I would place a college audience. It has
5430 been my privilege to deliver addresses at many of our leading colleges
5431 including Harvard, Yale, Williams, Amherst, Fisk University, the
5432 University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley, the University of Michigan,
5433 Trinity College in North Carolina, and many others.
5435 It has been a matter of deep interest to me to note the number of people
5436 who have come to shake hands with me after an address, who say that this
5437 is the first time they have ever called a Negro "Mister."
5439 When speaking directly in the interests of the Tuskegee Institute, I
5440 usually arrange, some time in advance, a series of meetings in important
5441 centres. This takes me before churches, Sunday-schools, Christian
5442 Endeavour Societies, and men's and women's clubs. When doing this I
5443 sometimes speak before as many as four organizations in a single day.
5445 Three years ago, at the suggestion of Mr. Morris K. Jessup, of New York,
5446 and Dr. J.L.M. Curry, the general agent of the fund, the trustees of
5447 the John F. Slater Fund voted a sum of money to be used in paying
5448 the expenses of Mrs. Washington and myself while holding a series
5449 of meetings among the coloured people in the large centres of Negro
5450 population, especially in the large cities of the ex-slaveholding
5451 states. Each year during the last three years we have devoted some weeks
5452 to this work. The plan that we have followed has been for me to speak
5453 in the morning to the ministers, teachers, and professional men. In the
5454 afternoon Mrs. Washington would speak to the women alone, and in the
5455 evening I spoke to a large mass-meeting. In almost every case the
5456 meetings have been attended not only by the coloured people in large
5457 numbers, but by the white people. In Chattanooga, Tenn., for example,
5458 there was present at the mass-meeting an audience of not less than three
5459 thousand persons, and I was informed that eight hundred of these were
5460 white. I have done no work that I really enjoyed more than this, or that
5461 I think has accomplished more good.
5463 These meetings have given Mrs. Washington and myself an opportunity to
5464 get first-hand, accurate information as to the real condition of
5465 the race, by seeing the people in their homes, their churches, their
5466 Sunday-schools, and their places of work, as well as in the prisons and
5467 dens of crime. These meetings also gave us an opportunity to see the
5468 relations that exist between the races. I never feel so hopeful about
5469 the race as I do after being engaged in a series of these meetings. I
5470 know that on such occasions there is much that comes to the surface that
5471 is superficial and deceptive, but I have had experience enough not to be
5472 deceived by mere signs and fleeting enthusiasms. I have taken pains
5473 to go to the bottom of things and get facts, in a cold, business-like
5476 I have seen the statement made lately, by one who claims to know what he
5477 is talking about, that, taking the whole Negro race into account, ninety
5478 per cent of the Negro women are not virtuous. There never was a baser
5479 falsehood uttered concerning a race, or a statement made that was less
5480 capable of being proved by actual facts.
5482 No one can come into contact with the race for twenty years, as I have
5483 done in the heart of the South, without being convinced that the race is
5484 constantly making slow but sure progress materially, educationally, and
5485 morally. One might take up the life of the worst element in New
5486 York City, for example, and prove almost anything he wanted to prove
5487 concerning the white man, but all will agree that this is not a fair
5490 Early in the year 1897 I received a letter inviting me to deliver an
5491 address at the dedication of the Robert Gould Shaw monument in Boston.
5492 I accepted the invitation. It is not necessary for me, I am sure, to
5493 explain who Robert Gould Shaw was, and what he did. The monument to
5494 his memory stands near the head of the Boston Common, facing the State
5495 House. It is counted to be the most perfect piece of art of the kind to
5496 be found in the country.
5498 The exercises connected with the dedication were held in Music Hall, in
5499 Boston, and the great hall was packed from top to bottom with one of
5500 the most distinguished audiences that ever assembled in the city. Among
5501 those present were more persons representing the famous old anti-slavery
5502 element that it is likely will ever be brought together in the country
5503 again. The late Hon. Roger Wolcott, then Governor of Massachusetts,
5504 was the presiding officer, and on the platform with him were many other
5505 officials and hundreds of distinguished men. A report of the meeting
5506 which appeared in the Boston Transcript will describe it better than any
5507 words of mine could do:--
5509 The core and kernel of yesterday's great noon meeting, in honour of the
5510 Brotherhood of Man, in Music Hall, was the superb address of the Negro
5511 President of Tuskegee. "Booker T. Washington received his Harvard A.M.
5512 last June, the first of his race," said Governor Wolcott, "to receive an
5513 honorary degree from the oldest university in the land, and this for
5514 the wise leadership of his people." When Mr. Washington rose in the
5515 flag-filled, enthusiasm-warmed, patriotic, and glowing atmosphere of
5516 Music Hall, people felt keenly that here was the civic justification of
5517 the old abolition spirit of Massachusetts; in his person the proof
5518 of her ancient and indomitable faith; in his strong thought and rich
5519 oratory, the crown and glory of the old war days of suffering and
5520 strife. The scene was full of historic beauty and deep significance.
5521 "Cold" Boston was alive with the fire that is always hot in her heart
5522 for righteousness and truth. Rows and rows of people who are seldom seen
5523 at any public function, whole families of those who are certain to be
5524 out of town on a holiday, crowded the place to overflowing. The city was
5525 at her birthright _fête_ in the persons of hundreds of her best citizens,
5526 men and women whose names and lives stand for the virtues that make for
5527 honourable civic pride.
5529 Battle-music had filled the air. Ovation after ovation, applause warm
5530 and prolonged, had greeted the officers and friends of Colonel Shaw,
5531 the sculptor, St. Gaudens, the memorial Committee, the Governor and his
5532 staff, and the Negro soldiers of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts as
5533 they came upon the platform or entered the hall. Colonel Henry Lee,
5534 of Governor Andrew's old staff, had made a noble, simple presentation
5535 speech for the committee, paying tribute to Mr. John M. Forbes, in whose
5536 stead he served. Governor Wolcott had made his short, memorable speech,
5537 saying, "Fort Wagner marked an epoch in the history of a race, and
5538 called it into manhood." Mayor Quincy had received the monument for the
5539 city of Boston. The story of Colonel Shaw and his black regiment had
5540 been told in gallant words, and then, after the singing of
5542 Mine eyes have seen the glory
5543 Of the coming of the Lord,
5545 Booker Washington arose. It was, of course, just the moment for him. The
5546 multitude, shaken out of its usual symphony-concert calm, quivered with
5547 an excitement that was not suppressed. A dozen times it had sprung to
5548 its feet to cheer and wave and hurrah, as one person. When this man of
5549 culture and voice and power, as well as a dark skin, began, and uttered
5550 the names of Stearns and of Andrew, feeling began to mount. You could
5551 see tears glisten in the eyes of soldiers and civilians. When the orator
5552 turned to the coloured soldiers on the platform, to the colour-bearer of
5553 Fort Wagner, who smilingly bore still the flag he had never lowered even
5554 when wounded, and said, "To you, to the scarred and scattered remnants
5555 of the Fifty-fourth, who, with empty sleeve and wanting leg, have
5556 honoured this occasion with your presence, to you, your commander is not
5557 dead. Though Boston erected no monument and history recorded no story,
5558 in you and in the loyal race which you represent, Robert Gould Shaw
5559 would have a monument which time could not wear away," then came the
5560 climax of the emotion of the day and the hour. It was Roger Wolcott, as
5561 well as the Governor of Massachusetts, the individual representative of
5562 the people's sympathy as well as the chief magistrate, who had sprung
5563 first to his feet and cried, "Three cheers to Booker T. Washington!"
5566 Among those on the platform was Sergeant William H. Carney, of New
5567 Bedford, Mass., the brave coloured officer who was the colour-bearer
5568 at Fort Wagner and held the American flag. In spite of the fact that a
5569 large part of his regiment was killed, he escaped, and exclaimed, after
5570 the battle was over, "The old flag never touched the ground."
5572 This flag Sergeant Carney held in his hands as he sat on the platform,
5573 and when I turned to address the survivors of the coloured regiment
5574 who were present, and referred to Sergeant Carney, he rose, as if by
5575 instinct, and raised the flag. It has been my privilege to witness
5576 a good many satisfactory and rather sensational demonstrations in
5577 connection with some of my public addresses, but in dramatic effect
5578 I have never seen or experienced anything which equalled this. For
5579 a number of minutes the audience seemed to entirely lose control of
5582 In the general rejoicing throughout the country which followed the close
5583 of the Spanish-American war, peace celebrations were arranged in several
5584 of the large cities. I was asked by President William R. Harper, of the
5585 University of Chicago, who was chairman of the committee of invitations
5586 for the celebration to be held in the city of Chicago, to deliver one of
5587 the addresses at the celebration there. I accepted the invitation, and
5588 delivered two addresses there during the Jubilee week. The first of
5589 these, and the principal one, was given in the Auditorium, on the
5590 evening of Sunday, October 16. This was the largest audience that I have
5591 ever addressed, in any part of the country; and besides speaking in
5592 the main Auditorium, I also addressed, that same evening, two overflow
5593 audiences in other parts of the city.
5595 It was said that there were sixteen thousand persons in the Auditorium,
5596 and it seemed to me as if there were as many more on the outside trying
5597 to get in. It was impossible for any one to get near the entrance
5598 without the aid of a policeman. President William McKinley attended this
5599 meeting, as did also the members of his Cabinet, many foreign ministers,
5600 and a large number of army and navy officers, many of whom had
5601 distinguished themselves in the war which had just closed. The speakers,
5602 besides myself, on Sunday evening, were Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, Father
5603 Thomas P. Hodnett, and Dr. John H. Barrows.
5605 The Chicago Times-Herald, in describing the meeting, said of my
5608 He pictured the Negro choosing slavery rather than extinction; recalled
5609 Crispus Attucks shedding his blood at the beginning of the American
5610 Revolution, that white Americans might be free, while black Americans
5611 remained in slavery; rehearsed the conduct of the Negroes with Jackson
5612 at New Orleans; drew a vivid and pathetic picture of the Southern slaves
5613 protecting and supporting the families of their masters while the latter
5614 were fighting to perpetuate black slavery; recounted the bravery of
5615 coloured troops at Port Hudson and Forts Wagner and Pillow, and praised
5616 the heroism of the black regiments that stormed El Caney and Santiago
5617 to give freedom to the enslaved people of Cuba, forgetting, for the time
5618 being, the unjust discrimination that law and custom make against them
5619 in their own country.
5621 In all of these things, the speaker declared, his race had chosen the
5622 better part. And then he made his eloquent appeal to the consciences of
5623 the white Americans: "When you have gotten the full story of the heroic
5624 conduct of the Negro in the Spanish-American war, have heard it from the
5625 lips of Northern soldier and Southern soldier, from ex-abolitionist and
5626 ex-masters, then decide within yourselves whether a race that is
5627 thus willing to die for its country should not be given the highest
5628 opportunity to live for its country."
5631 The part of the speech which seems to arouse the wildest and most
5632 sensational enthusiasm was that in which I thanked the President for his
5633 recognition of the Negro in his appointments during the Spanish-American
5634 war. The President was sitting in a box at the right of the stage. When
5635 I addressed him I turned toward the box, and as I finished the sentence
5636 thanking him for his generosity, the whole audience rose and cheered
5637 again and again, waving handkerchiefs and hats and canes, until the
5638 President arose in the box and bowed his acknowledgements. At that
5639 the enthusiasm broke out again, and the demonstration was almost
5642 One portion of my address at Chicago seemed to have been misunderstood
5643 by the Southern press, and some of the Southern papers took occasion
5644 to criticise me rather strongly. These criticisms continued for
5645 several weeks, until I finally received a letter from the editor of the
5646 Age-Herald, published in Birmingham, Ala., asking me if I would say just
5647 what I meant by this part of the address. I replied to him in a letter
5648 which seemed to satisfy my critics. In this letter I said that I had
5649 made it a rule never to say before a Northern audience anything that
5650 I would not say before an audience in the South. I said that I did not
5651 think it was necessary for me to go into extended explanations; if
5652 my seventeen years of work in the heart of the South had not been
5653 explanation enough, I did not see how words could explain. I said that
5654 I made the same plea that I had made in my address at Atlanta, for the
5655 blotting out of race prejudice in "commercial and civil relations." I
5656 said that what is termed social recognition was a question which I never
5657 discussed, and then I quoted from my Atlanta address what I had said
5658 there in regard to that subject.
5660 In meeting crowds of people at public gatherings, there is one type of
5661 individual that I dread. I mean the crank. I have become so accustomed
5662 to these people now that I can pick them out at a distance when I see
5663 them elbowing their way up to me. The average crank has a long beard,
5664 poorly cared for, a lean, narrow face, and wears a black coat. The front
5665 of his vest and coat are slick with grease, and his trousers bag at the
5668 In Chicago, after I had spoken at a meeting, I met one of these fellows.
5669 They usually have some process for curing all of the ills of the world
5670 at once. This Chicago specimen had a patent process by which he said
5671 Indian corn could be kept through a period of three or four years, and
5672 he felt sure that if the Negro race in the South would, as a whole,
5673 adopt his process, it would settle the whole race question. It mattered
5674 nothing that I tried to convince him that our present problem was to
5675 teach the Negroes how to produce enough corn to last them through one
5676 year. Another Chicago crank had a scheme by which he wanted me to join
5677 him in an effort to close up all the National banks in the country. If
5678 that was done, he felt sure it would put the Negro on his feet.
5680 The number of people who stand ready to consume one's time, to no
5681 purpose, is almost countless. At one time I spoke before a large
5682 audience in Boston in the evening. The next morning I was awakened by
5683 having a card brought to my room, and with it a message that some
5684 one was anxious to see me. Thinking that it must be something very
5685 important, I dressed hastily and went down. When I reached the hotel
5686 office I found a blank and innocent-looking individual waiting for me,
5687 who coolly remarked: "I heard you talk at a meeting last night. I rather
5688 liked your talk, and so I came in this morning to hear you talk some
5691 I am often asked how it is possible for me to superintend the work
5692 at Tuskegee and at the same time be so much away from the school. In
5693 partial answer to this I would say that I think I have learned, in some
5694 degree at least, to disregard the old maxim which says, "Do not get
5695 others to do that which you can do yourself." My motto, on the other
5696 hand, is, "Do not do that which others can do as well."
5698 One of the most encouraging signs in connection with the Tuskegee school
5699 is found in the fact that the organization is so thorough that the
5700 daily work of the school is not dependent upon the presence of any one
5701 individual. The whole executive force, including instructors and clerks,
5702 now numbers eighty-six. This force is so organized and subdivided that
5703 the machinery of the school goes on day by day like clockwork. Most of
5704 our teachers have been connected with the institutions for a number
5705 of years, and are as much interested in it as I am. In my absence, Mr.
5706 Warren Logan, the treasurer, who has been at the school seventeen years,
5707 is the executive. He is efficiently supported by Mrs. Washington, and by
5708 my faithful secretary, Mr. Emmett J. Scott, who handles the bulk of my
5709 correspondence and keeps me in daily touch with the life of the school,
5710 and who also keeps me informed of whatever takes place in the South that
5711 concerns the race. I owe more to his tact, wisdom, and hard work than I
5714 The main executive work of the school, whether I am at Tuskegee or not,
5715 centres in what we call the executive council. This council meets twice
5716 a week, and is composed of the nine persons who are at the head of the
5717 nine departments of the school. For example: Mrs. B.K. Bruce, the Lady
5718 Principal, the widow of the late ex-senator Bruce, is a member of the
5719 council, and represents in it all that pertains to the life of the girls
5720 at the school. In addition to the executive council there is a
5721 financial committee of six, that meets every week and decides upon the
5722 expenditures for the week. Once a month, and sometimes oftener, there
5723 is a general meeting of all the instructors. Aside from these there are
5724 innumerable smaller meetings, such as that of the instructors in
5725 the Phelps Hall Bible Training School, or of the instructors in the
5726 agricultural department.
5728 In order that I may keep in constant touch with the life of the
5729 institution, I have a system of reports so arranged that a record of the
5730 school's work reaches me every day of the year, no matter in what part
5731 of the country I am. I know by these reports even what students are
5732 excused from school, and why they are excused--whether for reasons of
5733 ill health or otherwise. Through the medium of these reports I know each
5734 day what the income of the school in money is; I know how many gallons
5735 of milk and how many pounds of butter come from the dairy; what the bill
5736 of fare for the teachers and students is; whether a certain kind of meat
5737 was boiled or baked, and whether certain vegetables served in the dining
5738 room were bought from a store or procured from our own farm. Human
5739 nature I find to be very much the same the world over, and it is
5740 sometimes not hard to yield to the temptation to go to a barrel of rice
5741 that has come from the store--with the grain all prepared to go in the
5742 pot--rather than to take the time and trouble to go to the field and dig
5743 and wash one's own sweet potatoes, which might be prepared in a manner
5744 to take the place of the rice.
5746 I am often asked how, in the midst of so much work, a large part of
5747 which is for the public, I can find time for any rest or recreation,
5748 and what kind of recreation or sports I am fond of. This is rather
5749 a difficult question to answer. I have a strong feeling that every
5750 individual owes it to himself, and to the cause which he is serving,
5751 to keep a vigorous, healthy body, with the nerves steady and strong,
5752 prepared for great efforts and prepared for disappointments and trying
5753 positions. As far as I can, I make it a rule to plan for each day's
5754 work--not merely to go through with the same routine of daily duties,
5755 but to get rid of the routine work as early in the day as possible, and
5756 then to enter upon some new or advance work. I make it a rule to clear
5757 my desk every day, before leaving my office, of all correspondence and
5758 memoranda, so that on the morrow I can begin a NEW day of work. I make
5759 it a rule never to let my work drive me, but to so master it, and keep
5760 it in such complete control, and to keep so far ahead of it, that I will
5761 be the master instead of the servant. There is a physical and mental
5762 and spiritual enjoyment that comes from a consciousness of being
5763 the absolute master of one's work, in all its details, that is very
5764 satisfactory and inspiring. My experience teaches me that, if one learns
5765 to follow this plan, he gets a freshness of body and vigour of mind out
5766 of work that goes a long way toward keeping him strong and healthy. I
5767 believe that when one can grow to the point where he loves his work,
5768 this gives him a kind of strength that is most valuable.
5770 When I begin my work in the morning, I expect to have a successful and
5771 pleasant day of it, but at the same time I prepare myself for unpleasant
5772 and unexpected hard places. I prepared myself to hear that one of our
5773 school buildings is on fire, or has burned, or that some disagreeable
5774 accident has occurred, or that some one has abused me in a public
5775 address or printed article, for something that I have done or omitted
5776 to do, or for something that he had heard that I had said--probably
5777 something that I had never thought of saying.
5779 In nineteen years of continuous work I have taken but one vacation. That
5780 was two years ago, when some of my friends put the money into my hands
5781 and forced Mrs. Washington and myself to spend three months in Europe. I
5782 have said that I believe it is the duty of every one to keep his body in
5783 good condition. I try to look after the little ills, with the idea that
5784 if I take care of the little ills the big ones will not come. When I
5785 find myself unable to sleep well, I know that something is wrong. If I
5786 find any part of my system the least weak, and not performing its duty,
5787 I consult a good physician. The ability to sleep well, at any time and
5788 in any place, I find of great advantage. I have so trained myself that
5789 I can lie down for a nap of fifteen or twenty minutes, and get up
5790 refreshed in body and mind.
5792 I have said that I make it a rule to finish up each day's work before
5793 leaving it. There is, perhaps, one exception to this. When I have an
5794 unusually difficult question to decide--one that appeals strongly to the
5795 emotions--I find it a safe rule to sleep over it for a night, or to
5796 wait until I have had an opportunity to talk it over with my wife and
5799 As to my reading; the most time I get for solid reading is when I am
5800 on the cars. Newspapers are to me a constant source of delight and
5801 recreation. The only trouble is that I read too many of them. Fiction
5802 I care little for. Frequently I have to almost force myself to read a
5803 novel that is on every one's lips. The kind of reading that I have the
5804 greatest fondness for is biography. I like to be sure that I am reading
5805 about a real man or a real thing. I think I do not go too far when I say
5806 that I have read nearly every book and magazine article that has been
5807 written about Abraham Lincoln. In literature he is my patron saint.
5809 Out of the twelve months in a year I suppose that, on an average, I
5810 spend six months away from Tuskegee. While my being absent from the
5811 school so much unquestionably has its disadvantages, yet there are at
5812 the same time some compensations. The change of work brings a certain
5813 kind of rest. I enjoy a ride of a long distance on the cars, when I am
5814 permitted to ride where I can be comfortable. I get rest on the cars,
5815 except when the inevitable individual who seems to be on every
5816 train approaches me with the now familiar phrase: "Isn't this Booker
5817 Washington? I want to introduce myself to you." Absence from the school
5818 enables me to lose sight of the unimportant details of the work, and
5819 study it in a broader and more comprehensive manner than I could do on
5820 the grounds. This absence also brings me into contact with the best
5821 work being done in educational lines, and into contact with the best
5822 educators in the land.
5824 But, after all this is said, the time when I get the most solid rest and
5825 recreation is when I can be at Tuskegee, and, after our evening meal is
5826 over, can sit down, as is our custom, with my wife and Portia and Baker
5827 and Davidson, my three children, and read a story, or each take turns in
5828 telling a story. To me there is nothing on earth equal to that, although
5829 what is nearly equal to it is to go with them for an hour or more, as we
5830 like to do on Sunday afternoons, into the woods, where we can live for
5831 a while near the heart of nature, where no one can disturb or vex us,
5832 surrounded by pure air, the trees, the shrubbery, the flowers, and the
5833 sweet fragrance that springs from a hundred plants, enjoying the chirp
5834 of the crickets and the songs of the birds. This is solid rest.
5836 My garden, also, what little time I can be at Tuskegee, is another
5837 source of rest and enjoyment. Somehow I like, as often as possible, to
5838 touch nature, not something that is artificial or an imitation, but
5839 the real thing. When I can leave my office in time so that I can spend
5840 thirty or forty minutes in spading the ground, in planting seeds, in
5841 digging about the plants, I feel that I am coming into contact with
5842 something that is giving me strength for the many duties and hard places
5843 that await me out in the big world. I pity the man or woman who has
5844 never learned to enjoy nature and to get strength and inspiration out of
5847 Aside from the large number of fowls and animals kept by the school, I
5848 keep individually a number of pigs and fowls of the best grades, and
5849 in raising these I take a great deal of pleasure. I think the pig is
5850 my favourite animal. Few things are more satisfactory to me than a
5851 high-grade Berkshire or Poland China pig.
5853 Games I care little for. I have never seen a game of football. In cards
5854 I do not know one card from another. A game of old-fashioned marbles
5855 with my two boys, once in a while, is all I care for in this direction.
5856 I suppose I would care for games now if I had had any time in my youth
5857 to give to them, but that was not possible.
5863 In 1893 I was married to Miss Margaret James Murray, a native of
5864 Mississippi, and a graduate of Fisk University, in Nashville, Tenn., who
5865 had come to Tuskegee as a teacher several years before, and at the time
5866 we were married was filling the position of Lady Principal. Not only is
5867 Mrs. Washington completely one with me in the work directly connected
5868 with the school, relieving me of many burdens and perplexities, but
5869 aside from her work on the school grounds, she carries on a mothers'
5870 meeting in the town of Tuskegee, and a plantation work among the women,
5871 children, and men who live in a settlement connected with a large
5872 plantation about eight miles from Tuskegee. Both the mothers' meeting
5873 and the plantation work are carried on, not only with a view to helping
5874 those who are directly reached, but also for the purpose of furnishing
5875 object-lessons in these two kinds of work that may be followed by our
5876 students when they go out into the world for their own life-work.
5878 Aside from these two enterprises, Mrs. Washington is also largely
5879 responsible for a woman's club at the school which brings together,
5880 twice a month, the women who live on the school grounds and those who
5881 live near, for the discussion of some important topic. She is also
5882 the President of what is known as the Federation of Southern Coloured
5883 Women's Clubs, and is Chairman of the Executive Committee of the
5884 National Federation of Coloured Women's Clubs.
5886 Portia, the oldest of my three children, has learned dressmaking. She
5887 has unusual ability in instrumental music. Aside from her studies at
5888 Tuskegee, she has already begun to teach there.
5890 Booker Taliaferro is my next oldest child. Young as he is, he has
5891 already nearly mastered the brickmason's trade. He began working at this
5892 trade when he was quite small, dividing his time between this and class
5893 work; and he has developed great skill in the trade and a fondness for
5894 it. He says that he is going to be an architect and brickmason. One of
5895 the most satisfactory letters that I have ever received from any one
5896 came to me from Booker last summer. When I left home for the summer, I
5897 told him that he must work at his trade half of each day, and that the
5898 other half of the day he could spend as he pleased. When I had been away
5899 from home two weeks, I received the following letter from him:
5903 My dear Papa: Before you left home you told me to work at my trade half
5904 of each day. I like my work so much that I want to work at my trade all
5905 day. Besides, I want to earn all the money I can, so that when I go to
5906 another school I shall have money to pay my expenses.
5913 My youngest child, Ernest Davidson Washington, says that he is going to
5914 be a physician. In addition to going to school, where he studies books
5915 and has manual training, he regularly spends a portion of his time in
5916 the office of our resident physician, and has already learned to do many
5917 of the duties which pertain to a doctor's office.
5919 The thing in my life which brings me the keenest regret is that my work
5920 in connection with public affairs keeps me for so much of the time away
5921 from my family, where, of all places in the world, I delight to be. I
5922 always envy the individual whose life-work is so laid that he can spend
5923 his evenings at home. I have sometimes thought that people who have this
5924 rare privilege do not appreciate it as they should. It is such a rest
5925 and relief to get away from crowds of people, and handshaking, and
5926 travelling, to get home, even if it be for but a very brief while.
5928 Another thing at Tuskegee out of which I get a great deal of pleasure
5929 and satisfaction is in the meeting with our students, and teachers, and
5930 their families, in the chapel for devotional exercises every evening at
5931 half-past eight, the last thing before retiring for the night. It is an
5932 inspiring sight when one stands on the platform there and sees before
5933 him eleven or twelve hundred earnest young men and women; and one cannot
5934 but feel that it is a privilege to help to guide them to a higher and
5937 In the spring of 1899 there came to me what I might describe as almost
5938 the greatest surprise of my life. Some good ladies in Boston arranged
5939 a public meeting in the interests of Tuskegee, to be held in the Hollis
5940 Street Theatre. This meeting was attended by large numbers of the best
5941 people of Boston, of both races. Bishop Lawrence presided. In addition
5942 to an address made by myself, Mr. Paul Lawrence Dunbar read from his
5943 poems, and Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois read an original sketch.
5945 Some of those who attended this meeting noticed that I seemed unusually
5946 tired, and some little time after the close of the meeting, one of the
5947 ladies who had been interested in it asked me in a casual way if I had
5948 ever been to Europe. I replied that I never had. She asked me if I had
5949 ever thought of going, and I told her no; that it was something entirely
5950 beyond me. This conversation soon passed out of my mind, but a few days
5951 afterward I was informed that some friends in Boston, including Mr.
5952 Francis J. Garrison, had raised a sum of money sufficient to pay all the
5953 expenses of Mrs. Washington and myself during a three or four months'
5954 trip to Europe. It was added with emphasis that we MUST go. A year
5955 previous to this Mr. Garrison had attempted to get me to promise to go
5956 to Europe for a summer's rest, with the understanding that he would be
5957 responsible for raising the money among his friends for the expenses
5958 of the trip. At that time such a journey seemed so entirely foreign to
5959 anything that I should ever be able to undertake that I did confess I
5960 did not give the matter very serious attention; but later Mr. Garrison
5961 joined his efforts to those of the ladies whom I have mentioned, and
5962 when their plans were made known to me Mr. Garrison not only had the
5963 route mapped out, but had, I believe, selected the steamer upon which we
5966 The whole thing was so sudden and so unexpected that I was completely
5967 taken off my feet. I had been at work steadily for eighteen years in
5968 connection with Tuskegee, and I had never thought of anything else but
5969 ending my life in that way. Each day the school seemed to depend upon
5970 me more largely for its daily expenses, and I told these Boston friends
5971 that, while I thanked them sincerely for their thoughtfulness and
5972 generosity, I could not go to Europe, for the reason that the school
5973 could not live financially while I was absent. They then informed me
5974 that Mr. Henry L. Higginson, and some other good friends who I know do
5975 not want their names made public, were then raising a sum of money which
5976 would be sufficient to keep the school in operation while I was away. At
5977 this point I was compelled to surrender. Every avenue of escape had been
5980 Deep down in my heart the whole thing seemed more like a dream than
5981 like reality, and for a long time it was difficult for me to make myself
5982 believe that I was actually going to Europe. I had been born and largely
5983 reared in the lowest depths of slavery, ignorance, and poverty. In my
5984 childhood I had suffered for want of a place to sleep, for lack of food,
5985 clothing, and shelter. I had not had the privilege of sitting down to a
5986 dining-table until I was quite well grown. Luxuries had always seemed to
5987 me to be something meant for white people, not for my race. I had always
5988 regarded Europe, and London, and Paris, much as I regarded heaven. And
5989 now could it be that I was actually going to Europe? Such thoughts as
5990 these were constantly with me.
5992 Two other thoughts troubled me a good deal. I feared that people who
5993 heard that Mrs. Washington and I were going to Europe might not know all
5994 the circumstances, and might get the idea that we had become, as some
5995 might say, "stuck up," and were trying to "show off." I recalled that
5996 from my youth I had heard it said that too often, when people of my
5997 race reached any degree of success, they were inclined to unduly exalt
5998 themselves; to try and ape the wealthy, and in so doing to lose their
5999 heads. The fear that people might think this of us haunted me a good
6000 deal. Then, too, I could not see how my conscience would permit me to
6001 spare the time from my work and be happy. It seemed mean and selfish in
6002 me to be taking a vacation while others were at work, and while there
6003 was so much that needed to be done. From the time I could remember, I
6004 had always been at work, and I did not see how I could spend three or
6005 four months in doing nothing. The fact was that I did not know how to
6008 Mrs. Washington had much the same difficulty in getting away, but she
6009 was anxious to go because she thought that I needed the rest. There
6010 were many important National questions bearing upon the life of the race
6011 which were being agitated at that time, and this made it all the harder
6012 for us to decide to go. We finally gave our Boston friends our promise
6013 that we would go, and then they insisted that the date of our departure
6014 be set as soon as possible. So we decided upon May 10. My good friend
6015 Mr. Garrison kindly took charge of all the details necessary for the
6016 success of the trip, and he, as well as other friends, gave us a great
6017 number of letters of introduction to people in France and England, and
6018 made other arrangements for our comfort and convenience abroad. Good-bys
6019 were said at Tuskegee, and we were in New York May 9, ready to sail
6020 the next day. Our daughter Portia, who was then studying in South
6021 Framingham, Mass., came to New York to see us off. Mr. Scott, my
6022 secretary, came with me to New York, in order that I might clear up the
6023 last bit of business before I left. Other friends also came to New York
6024 to see us off. Just before we went on board the steamer another pleasant
6025 surprise came to us in the form of a letter from two generous ladies,
6026 stating that they had decided to give us the money with which to erect a
6027 new building to be used in properly housing all our industries for girls
6030 We were to sail on the Friesland, of the Red Star Line, and a beautiful
6031 vessel she was. We went on board just before noon, the hour of sailing.
6032 I had never before been on board a large ocean steamer, and the feeling
6033 which took possession of me when I found myself there is rather hard
6034 to describe. It was a feeling, I think, of awe mingled with delight. We
6035 were agreeably surprised to find that the captain, as well as several of
6036 the other officers, not only knew who we were, but was expecting us and
6037 gave us a pleasant greeting. There were several passengers whom we
6038 knew, including Senator Sewell, of New Jersey, and Edward Marshall, the
6039 newspaper correspondent. I had just a little fear that we would not be
6040 treated civilly by some of the passengers. This fear was based upon
6041 what I had heard other people of my race, who had crossed the ocean, say
6042 about unpleasant experiences in crossing the ocean in American vessels.
6043 But in our case, from the captain down to the most humble servant, we
6044 were treated with the greatest kindness. Nor was this kindness confined
6045 to those who were connected with the steamer; it was shown by all the
6046 passengers also. There were not a few Southern men and women on board,
6047 and they were as cordial as those from other parts of the country.
6049 As soon as the last good-bys were said, and the steamer had cut loose
6050 from the wharf, the load of care, anxiety, and responsibility which I
6051 had carried for eighteen years began to lift itself from my shoulders at
6052 the rate, it seemed to me, of a pound a minute. It was the first time in
6053 all those years that I had felt, even in a measure, free from care; and
6054 my feeling of relief it is hard to describe on paper. Added to this was
6055 the delightful anticipation of being in Europe soon. It all seemed more
6056 like a dream than like a reality.
6058 Mr. Garrison had thoughtfully arranged to have us have one of the most
6059 comfortable rooms on the ship. The second or third day out I began
6060 to sleep, and I think that I slept at the rate of fifteen hours a day
6061 during the remainder of the ten days' passage. Then it was that I began
6062 to understand how tired I really was. These long sleeps I kept up for a
6063 month after we landed on the other side. It was such an unusual feeling
6064 to wake up in the morning and realize that I had no engagements; did not
6065 have to take a train at a certain hour; did not have an appointment to
6066 meet some one, or to make an address, at a certain hour. How different
6067 all this was from the experiences that I have been through when
6068 travelling, when I have sometimes slept in three different beds in a
6071 When Sunday came, the captain invited me to conduct the religious
6072 services, but, not being a minister, I declined. The passengers,
6073 however, began making requests that I deliver an address to them in the
6074 dining-saloon some time during the voyage, and this I consented to do.
6075 Senator Sewell presided at this meeting. After ten days of delightful
6076 weather, during which I was not seasick for a day, we landed at the
6077 interesting old city of Antwerp, in Belgium.
6079 The next day after we landed happened to be one of those numberless
6080 holidays which the people of those countries are in the habit of
6081 observing. It was a bright, beautiful day. Our room in the hotel faced
6082 the main public square, and the sights there--the people coming in
6083 from the country with all kinds of beautiful flowers to sell, the women
6084 coming in with their dogs drawing large, brightly polished cans filled
6085 with milk, the people streaming into the cathedral--filled me with a
6086 sense of newness that I had never before experienced.
6088 After spending some time in Antwerp, we were invited to go with a part
6089 of a half-dozen persons on a trip through Holland. This party included
6090 Edward Marshall and some American artists who had come over on the
6091 same steamer with us. We accepted the invitation, and enjoyed the trip
6092 greatly. I think it was all the more interesting and instructive
6093 because we went for most of the way on one of the slow, old-fashioned
6094 canal-boats. This gave us an opportunity of seeing and studying the real
6095 life of the people in the country districts. We went in this way as far
6096 as Rotterdam, and later went to The Hague, where the Peace Conference
6097 was then in session, and where we were kindly received by the American
6100 The thing that impressed itself most on me in Holland was the
6101 thoroughness of the agriculture and the excellence of the Holstein
6102 cattle. I never knew, before visiting Holland, how much it was possible
6103 for people to get out of a small plot of ground. It seemed to me that
6104 absolutely no land was wasted. It was worth a trip to Holland, too, just
6105 to get a sight of three or four hundred fine Holstein cows grazing in
6106 one of those intensely green fields.
6108 From Holland we went to Belgium, and made a hasty trip through that
6109 country, stopping at Brussels, where we visited the battlefield of
6110 Waterloo. From Belgium we went direct to Paris, where we found that Mr.
6111 Theodore Stanton, the son of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had kindly
6112 provided accommodations for us. We had barely got settled in Paris
6113 before an invitation came to me from the University Club of Paris to be
6114 its guest at a banquet which was soon to be given. The other guests were
6115 ex-President Benjamin Harrison and Archbishop Ireland, who were in Paris
6116 at the time. The American Ambassador, General Horace Porter, presided at
6117 the banquet. My address on this occasion seemed to give satisfaction to
6118 those who heard it. General Harrison kindly devoted a large portion
6119 of his remarks at dinner to myself and to the influence of the work at
6120 Tuskegee on the American race question. After my address at this banquet
6121 other invitations came to me, but I declined the most of them, knowing
6122 that if I accepted them all, the object of my visit would be defeated.
6123 I did, however, consent to deliver an address in the American chapel the
6124 following Sunday morning, and at this meeting General Harrison, General
6125 Porter, and other distinguished Americans were present.
6127 Later we received a formal call from the American Ambassador, and were
6128 invited to attend a reception at his residence. At this reception we
6129 met many Americans, among them Justices Fuller and Harlan, of the United
6130 States Supreme Court. During our entire stay of a month in Paris,
6131 both the American Ambassador and his wife, as well as several other
6132 Americans, were very kind to us.
6134 While in Paris we saw a good deal of the now famous American Negro
6135 painter, Mr. Henry O. Tanner, whom we had formerly known in America. It
6136 was very satisfactory to find how well known Mr. Tanner was in the field
6137 of art, and to note the high standing which all classes accorded to him.
6138 When we told some Americans that we were going to the Luxembourg Palace
6139 to see a painting by an American Negro, it was hard to convince them
6140 that a Negro had been thus honoured. I do not believe that they were
6141 really convinced of the fact until they saw the picture for themselves.
6142 My acquaintance with Mr. Tanner reenforced in my mind the truth which
6143 I am constantly trying to impress upon our students at Tuskegee--and on
6144 our people throughout the country, as far as I can reach them with
6145 my voice--that any man, regardless of colour, will be recognized and
6146 rewarded just in proportion as he learns to do something well--learns to
6147 do it better than some one else--however humble the thing may be. As
6148 I have said, I believe that my race will succeed in proportion as it
6149 learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner; learns to do a thing
6150 so thoroughly that no one can improve upon what it has done; learns
6151 to make its services of indispensable value. This was the spirit
6152 that inspired me in my first effort at Hampton, when I was given the
6153 opportunity to sweep and dust that schoolroom. In a degree I felt that
6154 my whole future life depended upon the thoroughness with which I cleaned
6155 that room, and I was determined to do it so well that no one could find
6156 any fault with the job. Few people ever stopped, I found, when looking
6157 at his pictures, to inquire whether Mr. Tanner was a Negro painter, a
6158 French painter, or a German painter. They simply knew that he was able
6159 to produce something which the world wanted--a great painting--and the
6160 matter of his colour did not enter into their minds. When a Negro girl
6161 learns to cook, to wash dishes, to sew, or write a book, or a Negro boy
6162 learns to groom horses, or to grow sweet potatoes, or to produce butter,
6163 or to build a house, or to be able to practise medicine, as well or
6164 better than some one else, they will be rewarded regardless of race or
6165 colour. In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any
6166 difference in race, religion, or previous history will not long keep the
6167 world from what it wants.
6169 I think that the whole future of my race hinges on the question as to
6170 whether or not it can make itself of such indispensable value that the
6171 people in the town and the state where we reside will feel that our
6172 presence is necessary to the happiness and well-being of the community.
6173 No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual,
6174 and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is long left without
6175 proper reward. This is a great human law which cannot be permanently
6178 The love of pleasure and excitement which seems in a large measure to
6179 possess the French people impressed itself upon me. I think they are
6180 more noted in this respect than is true of the people of my own race. In
6181 point of morality and moral earnestness I do not believe that the French
6182 are ahead of my own race in America. Severe competition and the great
6183 stress of life have led them to learn to do things more thoroughly and
6184 to exercise greater economy; but time, I think, will bring my race to
6185 the same point. In the matter of truth and high honour I do not believe
6186 that the average Frenchman is ahead of the American Negro; while so far
6187 as mercy and kindness to dumb animals go, I believe that my race is far
6188 ahead. In fact, when I left France, I had more faith in the future of
6189 the black man in America than I had ever possessed.
6191 From Paris we went to London, and reached there early in July, just
6192 about the height of the London social season. Parliament was in session,
6193 and there was a great deal of gaiety. Mr. Garrison and other friends had
6194 provided us with a large number of letters of introduction, and they
6195 had also sent letters to other persons in different parts of the United
6196 Kingdom, apprising these people of our coming. Very soon after reaching
6197 London we were flooded with invitations to attend all manner of social
6198 functions, and a great many invitations came to me asking that I deliver
6199 public addresses. The most of these invitations I declined, for the
6200 reason that I wanted to rest. Neither were we able to accept more than
6201 a small proportion of the other invitations. The Rev. Dr. Brooke
6202 Herford and Mrs. Herford, whom I had known in Boston, consulted with
6203 the American Ambassador, the Hon. Joseph Choate, and arranged for me to
6204 speak at a public meeting to be held in Essex Hall. Mr. Choate kindly
6205 consented to preside. The meeting was largely attended. There were many
6206 distinguished persons present, among them several members of Parliament,
6207 including Mr. James Bryce, who spoke at the meeting. What the American
6208 Ambassador said in introducing me, as well as a synopsis of what I said,
6209 was widely published in England and in the American papers at the time.
6210 Dr. and Mrs. Herford gave Mrs. Washington and myself a reception,
6211 at which we had the privilege of meeting some of the best people in
6212 England. Throughout our stay in London Ambassador Choate was most kind
6213 and attentive to us. At the Ambassador's reception I met, for the first
6216 We were the guests several times of Mrs. T. Fisher Unwin, the daughter
6217 of the English statesman, Richard Cobden. It seemed as if both Mr. and
6218 Mrs. Unwin could not do enough for our comfort and happiness. Later, for
6219 nearly a week, we were the guests of the daughter of John Bright, now
6220 Mrs. Clark, of Street, England. Both Mr. and Mrs. Clark, with their
6221 daughter, visited us at Tuskegee the next year. In Birmingham, England,
6222 we were the guests for several days of Mr. Joseph Sturge, whose father
6223 was a great abolitionist and friend of Whittier and Garrison. It was
6224 a great privilege to meet throughout England those who had known and
6225 honoured the late William Lloyd Garrison, the Hon. Frederick Douglass,
6226 and other abolitionists. The English abolitionists with whom we came
6227 in contact never seemed to tire of talking about these two Americans.
6228 Before going to England I had had no proper conception of the deep
6229 interest displayed by the abolitionists of England in the cause of
6230 freedom, nor did I realize the amount of substantial help given by them.
6232 In Bristol, England, both Mrs. Washington and I spoke at the Women's
6233 Liberal Club. I was also the principal speaker at the Commencement
6234 exercises of the Royal College for the Blind. These exercises were held
6235 in the Crystal Palace, and the presiding officer was the late Duke of
6236 Westminster, who was said to be, I believe, the richest man in England,
6237 if not in the world. The Duke, as well as his wife and their daughter,
6238 seemed to be pleased with what I said, and thanked me heartily. Through
6239 the kindness of Lady Aberdeen, my wife and I were enabled to go with a
6240 party of those who were attending the International Congress of Women,
6241 then in session in London, to see Queen Victoria, at Windsor Castle,
6242 where, afterward, we were all the guests of her Majesty at tea. In our
6243 party was Miss Susan B. Anthony, and I was deeply impressed with the
6244 fact that one did not often get an opportunity to see, during the same
6245 hour, two women so remarkable in different ways as Susan B. Anthony and
6248 In the House of Commons, which we visited several times, we met Sir
6249 Henry M. Stanley. I talked with him about Africa and its relation to the
6250 American Negro, and after my interview with him I became more convinced
6251 than ever that there was no hope of the American Negro's improving his
6252 condition by emigrating to Africa.
6254 On various occasions Mrs. Washington and I were the guests of Englishmen
6255 in their country homes, where, I think, one sees the Englishman at his
6256 best. In one thing, at least, I feel sure that the English are ahead of
6257 Americans, and that is, that they have learned how to get more out of
6258 life. The home life of the English seems to me to be about as perfect as
6259 anything can be. Everything moves like clockwork. I was impressed,
6260 too, with the deference that the servants show to their "masters" and
6261 "mistresses,"--terms which I suppose would not be tolerated in America.
6262 The English servant expects, as a rule, to be nothing but a servant, and
6263 so he perfects himself in the art to a degree that no class of servants
6264 in America has yet reached. In our country the servant expects to
6265 become, in a few years, a "master" himself. Which system is preferable?
6266 I will not venture an answer.
6268 Another thing that impressed itself upon me throughout England was the
6269 high regard that all classes have for law and order, and the ease and
6270 thoroughness with which everything is done. The Englishmen, I found,
6271 took plenty of time for eating, as for everything else. I am not
6272 sure if, in the long run, they do not accomplish as much or more than
6273 rushing, nervous Americans do.
6275 My visit to England gave me a higher regard for the nobility than I had
6276 had. I had no idea that they were so generally loved and respected by
6277 the classes, nor had I any correct conception of how much time and
6278 money they spent in works of philanthropy, and how much real heart they
6279 put into this work. My impression had been that they merely spent money
6280 freely and had a "good time."
6282 It was hard for me to get accustomed to speaking to English audiences.
6283 The average Englishman is so serious, and is so tremendously in earnest
6284 about everything, that when I told a story that would have made an
6285 American audience roar with laughter, the Englishmen simply looked me
6286 straight in the face without even cracking a smile.
6288 When the Englishman takes you into his heart and friendship, he binds
6289 you there as with cords of steel, and I do not believe that there are
6290 many other friendships that are so lasting or so satisfactory. Perhaps
6291 I can illustrate this point in no better way than by relating the
6292 following incident. Mrs. Washington and I were invited to attend a
6293 reception given by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, at Stafford
6294 House--said to be the finest house in London; I may add that I believe
6295 the Duchess of Sutherland is said to be the most beautiful woman in
6296 England. There must have been at least three hundred persons at this
6297 reception. Twice during the evening the Duchess sought us out for a
6298 conversation, and she asked me to write her when we got home, and tell
6299 her more about the work at Tuskegee. This I did. When Christmas came
6300 we were surprised and delighted to receive her photograph with her
6301 autograph on it. The correspondence has continued, and we now feel that
6302 in the Duchess of Sutherland we have one of our warmest friends.
6304 After three months in Europe we sailed from Southampton in the steamship
6305 St. Louis. On this steamer there was a fine library that had been
6306 presented to the ship by the citizens of St. Louis, Mo. In this library
6307 I found a life of Frederick Douglass, which I began reading. I became
6308 especially interested in Mr. Douglass's description of the way he was
6309 treated on shipboard during his first or second visit to England. In
6310 this description he told how he was not permitted to enter the cabin,
6311 but had to confine himself to the deck of the ship. A few minutes after
6312 I had finished reading this description I was waited on by a committee
6313 of ladies and gentlemen with the request that I deliver an address at
6314 a concert which was to begin the following evening. And yet there are
6315 people who are bold enough to say that race feeling in America is not
6316 growing less intense! At this concert the Hon. Benjamin B. Odell, Jr.,
6317 the present governor of New York, presided. I was never given a more
6318 cordial hearing anywhere. A large proportion of the passengers were
6319 Southern people. After the concert some of the passengers proposed that
6320 a subscription be raised to help the work at Tuskegee, and the money to
6321 support several scholarships was the result.
6323 While we were in Paris I was very pleasantly surprised to receive the
6324 following invitation from the citizens of West Virginia and of the city
6325 near which I had spent my boyhood days:--
6327 Charleston, W. Va., May 16, 1899.
6329 Professor Booker T. Washington, Paris, France:
6331 Dear Sir: Many of the best citizens of West Virginia have united in
6332 liberal expressions of admiration and praise of your worth and work, and
6333 desire that on your return from Europe you should favour them with
6334 your presence and with the inspiration of your words. We must sincerely
6335 indorse this move, and on behalf of the citizens of Charleston extend
6336 to your our most cordial invitation to have you come to us, that we may
6337 honour you who have done so much by your life and work to honour us.
6343 The Common Council of the City of Charleston,
6345 By W. Herman Smith, Mayor.
6348 This invitation from the City Council of Charleston was accompanied by
6351 Professor Booker T. Washington, Paris, France:
6353 Dear Sir: We, the citizens of Charleston and West Virginia, desire to
6354 express our pride in you and the splendid career that you have thus
6355 far accomplished, and ask that we be permitted to show our pride and
6356 interest in a substantial way.
6358 Your recent visit to your old home in our midst awoke within us the
6359 keenest regret that we were not permitted to hear you and render some
6360 substantial aid to your work, before you left for Europe.
6362 In view of the foregoing, we earnestly invite you to share the
6363 hospitality of our city upon your return from Europe, and give us the
6364 opportunity to hear you and put ourselves in touch with your work in a
6365 way that will be most gratifying to yourself, and that we may receive
6366 the inspiration of your words and presence.
6368 An early reply to this invitation, with an indication of the time you
6369 may reach our city, will greatly oblige,
6371 Yours very respectfully,
6373 The Charleston Daily Gazette, The Daily Mail-Tribune; G.W. Atkinson,
6374 Governor; E.L. Boggs, Secretary to Governor; Wm. M.O. Dawson, Secretary
6375 of State; L.M. La Follette, Auditor; J.R. Trotter, Superintendent of
6376 Schools; E.W. Wilson, ex-Governor; W.A. MacCorkle, ex-Governor; John
6377 Q. Dickinson, President Kanawha Valley Bank; L. Prichard, President
6378 Charleston National Bank; Geo. S. Couch, President Kanawha National
6379 Bank; Ed. Reid, Cashier Kanawha National Bank; Geo. S. Laidley,
6380 Superintended City Schools; L.E. McWhorter, President Board of
6381 Education; Chas. K. Payne, wholesale merchant; and many others.
6384 This invitation, coming as it did from the City Council, the state
6385 officers, and all the substantial citizens of both races of the
6386 community where I had spent my boyhood, and from which I had gone a
6387 few years before, unknown, in poverty and ignorance, in quest of an
6388 education, not only surprised me, but almost unmanned me. I could not
6389 understand what I had done to deserve it all.
6391 I accepted the invitation, and at the appointed day was met at the
6392 railway station at Charleston by a committee headed by ex-Governor W.A.
6393 MacCorkle, and composed of men of both races. The public reception was
6394 held in the Opera-House at Charleston. The Governor of the state, the
6395 Hon. George W. Atkinson, presided, and an address of welcome was made
6396 by ex-Governor MacCorkle. A prominent part in the reception was taken by
6397 the coloured citizens. The Opera-House was filled with citizens of both
6398 races, and among the white people were many for whom I had worked when
6399 I was a boy. The next day Governor and Mrs. Atkinson gave me a public
6400 reception at the State House, which was attended by all classes.
6402 Not long after this the coloured people in Atlanta, Georgia, gave me
6403 a reception at which the Governor of the state presided, and a similar
6404 reception was given me in New Orleans, which was presided over by the
6405 Mayor of the city. Invitations came from many other places which I was
6410 Chapter XVII. Last Words
6412 Before going to Europe some events came into my life which were
6413 great surprises to me. In fact, my whole life has largely been one of
6414 surprises. I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant,
6415 unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his
6416 level best each day of his life--that is, tries to make each day reach
6417 as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful
6418 living. I pity the man, black or white, who has never experienced the
6419 joy and satisfaction that come to one by reason of an effort to assist
6420 in making some one else more useful and more happy.
6422 Six months before he died, and nearly a year after he had been stricken
6423 with paralysis, General Armstrong expressed a wish to visit Tuskegee
6424 again before he passed away. Notwithstanding the fact that he had lost
6425 the use of his limbs to such an extent that he was practically helpless,
6426 his wish was gratified, and he was brought to Tuskegee. The owners of
6427 the Tuskegee Railroad, white men living in the town, offered to run a
6428 special train, without cost, out of the main station--Chehaw, five miles
6429 away--to meet him. He arrived on the school grounds about nine o'clock
6430 in the evening. Some one had suggested that we give the General a
6431 "pine-knot torchlight reception." This plan was carried out, and the
6432 moment that his carriage entered the school grounds he began passing
6433 between two lines of lighted and waving "fat pine" wood knots held by
6434 over a thousand students and teachers. The whole thing was so novel and
6435 surprising that the General was completely overcome with happiness. He
6436 remained a guest in my home for nearly two months, and, although almost
6437 wholly without the use of voice or limb, he spent nearly every hour in
6438 devising ways and means to help the South. Time and time again he said
6439 to me, during this visit, that it was not only the duty of the country
6440 to assist in elevating the Negro of the South, but the poor white man
6441 as well. At the end of his visit I resolved anew to devote myself more
6442 earnestly than ever to the cause which was so near his heart. I said
6443 that if a man in his condition was willing to think, work, and act, I
6444 should not be wanting in furthering in every possible way the wish of
6447 The death of General Armstrong, a few weeks later, gave me the privilege
6448 of getting acquainted with one of the finest, most unselfish, and most
6449 attractive men that I have ever come in contact with. I refer to the
6450 Rev. Dr. Hollis B. Frissell, now the Principal of the Hampton Institute,
6451 and General Armstrong's successor. Under the clear, strong, and
6452 almost perfect leadership of Dr. Frissell, Hampton has had a career of
6453 prosperity and usefulness that is all that the General could have wished
6454 for. It seems to be the constant effort of Dr. Frissell to hide his own
6455 great personality behind that of General Armstrong--to make himself of
6456 "no reputation" for the sake of the cause.
6458 More than once I have been asked what was the greatest surprise that
6459 ever came to me. I have little hesitation in answering that question. It
6460 was the following letter, which came to me one Sunday morning when I was
6461 sitting on the veranda of my home at Tuskegee, surrounded by my wife and
6464 Harvard University, Cambridge, May 28, 1896.
6466 President Booker T. Washington,
6468 My Dear Sir: Harvard University desired to confer on you at the
6469 approaching Commencement an honorary degree; but it is our custom to
6470 confer degrees only on gentlemen who are present. Our Commencement
6471 occurs this year on June 24, and your presence would be desirable
6472 from about noon till about five o'clock in the afternoon. Would it be
6473 possible for you to be in Cambridge on that day?
6475 Believe me, with great regard,
6482 This was a recognition that had never in the slightest manner entered
6483 into my mind, and it was hard for me to realize that I was to be
6484 honoured by a degree from the oldest and most renowned university in
6485 America. As I sat upon my veranda, with this letter in my hand, tears
6486 came into my eyes. My whole former life--my life as a slave on the
6487 plantation, my work in the coal-mine, the times when I was without food
6488 and clothing, when I made my bed under a sidewalk, my struggles for an
6489 education, the trying days I had had at Tuskegee, days when I did
6490 not know where to turn for a dollar to continue the work there, the
6491 ostracism and sometimes oppression of my race,--all this passed before
6492 me and nearly overcame me.
6494 I had never sought or cared for what the world calls fame. I have always
6495 looked upon fame as something to be used in accomplishing good. I have
6496 often said to my friends that if I can use whatever prominence may have
6497 come to me as an instrument with which to do good, I am content to have
6498 it. I care for it only as a means to be used for doing good, just as
6499 wealth may be used. The more I come into contact with wealthy people,
6500 the more I believe that they are growing in the direction of looking
6501 upon their money simply as an instrument which God has placed in their
6502 hand for doing good with. I never go to the office of Mr. John D.
6503 Rockefeller, who more than once has been generous to Tuskegee, without
6504 being reminded of this. The close, careful, and minute investigation
6505 that he always makes in order to be sure that every dollar that he gives
6506 will do the most good--an investigation that is just as searching as if
6507 he were investing money in a business enterprise--convinces me that the
6508 growth in this direction is most encouraging.
6510 At nine o'clock, on the morning of June 24, I met President Eliot, the
6511 Board of Overseers of Harvard University, and the other guests, at the
6512 designated place on the university grounds, for the purpose of being
6513 escorted to Sanders Theatre, where the Commencement exercises were to be
6514 held and degrees conferred. Among others invited to be present for the
6515 purpose of receiving a degree at this time were General Nelson A. Miles,
6516 Dr. Bell, the inventor of the Bell telephone, Bishop Vincent, and the
6517 Rev. Minot J. Savage. We were placed in line immediately behind the
6518 President and the Board of Overseers, and directly afterward the
6519 Governor of Massachusetts, escorted by the Lancers, arrived and took his
6520 place in the line of march by the side of President Eliot. In the line
6521 there were also various other officers and professors, clad in cap and
6522 gown. In this order we marched to Sanders Theatre, where, after the
6523 usual Commencement exercises, came the conferring of the honorary
6524 degrees. This, it seems, is always considered the most interesting
6525 feature at Harvard. It is not known, until the individuals appear, upon
6526 whom the honorary degrees are to be conferred, and those receiving these
6527 honours are cheered by the students and others in proportion to
6528 their popularity. During the conferring of the degrees excitement and
6529 enthusiasm are at the highest pitch.
6531 When my name was called, I rose, and President Eliot, in beautiful and
6532 strong English, conferred upon me the degree of Master of Arts. After
6533 these exercises were over, those who had received honorary degrees were
6534 invited to lunch with the President. After the lunch we were formed in
6535 line again, and were escorted by the Marshal of the day, who that year
6536 happened to be Bishop William Lawrence, through the grounds, where, at
6537 different points, those who had been honoured were called by name and
6538 received the Harvard yell. This march ended at Memorial Hall, where
6539 the alumni dinner was served. To see over a thousand strong men,
6540 representing all that is best in State, Church, business, and
6541 education, with the glow and enthusiasm of college loyalty and college
6542 pride,--which has, I think, a peculiar Harvard flavour,--is a sight that
6543 does not easily fade from memory.
6545 Among the speakers after dinner were President Eliot, Governor Roger
6546 Wolcott, General Miles, Dr. Minot J. Savage, the Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge,
6547 and myself. When I was called upon, I said, among other things:--
6549 It would in some measure relieve my embarrassment if I could, even in
6550 a slight degree, feel myself worthy of the great honour which you do me
6551 to-day. Why you have called me from the Black Belt of the South, from
6552 among my humble people, to share in the honours of this occasion, is not
6553 for me to explain; and yet it may not be inappropriate for me to suggest
6554 that it seems to me that one of the most vital questions that touch
6555 our American life is how to bring the strong, wealthy, and learned into
6556 helpful touch with the poorest, most ignorant, and humblest, and at the
6557 same time make one appreciate the vitalizing, strengthening influence of
6558 the other. How shall we make the mansion on yon Beacon Street feel
6559 and see the need of the spirits in the lowliest cabin in Alabama
6560 cotton-fields or Louisiana sugar-bottoms? This problem Harvard
6561 University is solving, not by bringing itself down, but by bringing the
6566 If my life in the past has meant anything in the lifting up of my people
6567 and the bringing about of better relations between your race and mine, I
6568 assure you from this day it will mean doubly more. In the economy of God
6569 there is but one standard by which an individual can succeed--there is
6570 but one for a race. This country demands that every race shall measure
6571 itself by the American standard. By it a race must rise or fall, succeed
6572 or fail, and in the last analysis mere sentiment counts for little.
6573 During the next half-century and more, my race must continue passing
6574 through the severe American crucible. We are to be tested in our
6575 patience, our forbearance, our perseverance, our power to endure wrong,
6576 to withstand temptations, to economize, to acquire and use skill; in our
6577 ability to compete, to succeed in commerce, to disregard the superficial
6578 for the real, the appearance for the substance, to be great and yet
6579 small, learned and yet simple, high and yet the servant of all.
6582 As this was the first time that a New England university had conferred
6583 an honorary degree upon a Negro, it was the occasion of much newspaper
6584 comment throughout the country. A correspondent of a New York paper
6587 When the name of Booker T. Washington was called, and he arose to
6588 acknowledge and accept, there was such an outburst of applause as
6589 greeted no other name except that of the popular soldier patriot,
6590 General Miles. The applause was not studied and stiff, sympathetic and
6591 condoling; it was enthusiasm and admiration. Every part of the audience
6592 from pit to gallery joined in, and a glow covered the cheeks of those
6593 around me, proving sincere appreciation of the rising struggle of an
6594 ex-slave and the work he has accomplished for his race.
6597 A Boston paper said, editorially:--
6599 In conferring the honorary degree of Master of Arts upon the Principal
6600 of Tuskegee Institute, Harvard University has honoured itself as well
6601 as the object of this distinction. The work which Professor Booker T.
6602 Washington has accomplished for the education, good citizenship,
6603 and popular enlightenment in his chosen field of labour in the South
6604 entitles him to rank with our national benefactors. The university which
6605 can claim him on its list of sons, whether in regular course or honoris
6606 causa, may be proud.
6608 It has been mentioned that Mr. Washington is the first of his race
6609 to receive an honorary degree from a New England university. This, in
6610 itself, is a distinction. But the degree was not conferred because Mr.
6611 Washington is a coloured man, or because he was born in slavery, but
6612 because he has shown, by his work for the elevation of the people of the
6613 Black Belt of the South, a genius and a broad humanity which count for
6614 greatness in any man, whether his skin be white or black.
6617 Another Boston paper said:--
6619 It is Harvard which, first among New England colleges, confers an
6620 honorary degree upon a black man. No one who has followed the history of
6621 Tuskegee and its work can fail to admire the courage, persistence, and
6622 splendid common sense of Booker T. Washington. Well may Harvard honour
6623 the ex-slave, the value of whose services, alike to his race and
6624 country, only the future can estimate.
6627 The correspondent of the New York Times wrote:--
6629 All the speeches were enthusiastically received, but the coloured man
6630 carried off the oratorical honours, and the applause which broke out
6631 when he had finished was vociferous and long-continued.
6634 Soon after I began work at Tuskegee I formed a resolution, in the secret
6635 of my heart, that I would try to build up a school that would be of
6636 so much service to the country that the President of the United States
6637 would one day come to see it. This was, I confess, rather a bold
6638 resolution, and for a number of years I kept it hidden in my own
6639 thoughts, not daring to share it with any one.
6641 In November, 1897, I made the first move in this direction, and that was
6642 in securing a visit from a member of President McKinley's Cabinet,
6643 the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. He came to deliver
6644 an address at the formal opening of the Slater-Armstrong Agricultural
6645 Building, our first large building to be used for the purpose of giving
6646 training to our students in agriculture and kindred branches.
6648 In the fall of 1898 I heard that President McKinley was likely to visit
6649 Atlanta, Georgia, for the purpose of taking part in the Peace Jubilee
6650 exercises to be held there to commemorate the successful close of the
6651 Spanish-American war. At this time I had been hard at work, together
6652 with our teachers, for eighteen years, trying to build up a school that
6653 we thought would be of service to the Nation, and I determined to make
6654 a direct effort to secure a visit from the President and his Cabinet. I
6655 went to Washington, and I was not long in the city before I found my way
6656 to the White House. When I got there I found the waiting rooms full of
6657 people, and my heart began to sink, for I feared there would not be much
6658 chance of my seeing the President that day, if at all. But, at any rate,
6659 I got an opportunity to see Mr. J. Addison Porter, the secretary to the
6660 President, and explained to him my mission. Mr. Porter kindly sent my
6661 card directly to the President, and in a few minutes word came from Mr.
6662 McKinley that he would see me.
6664 How any man can see so many people of all kinds, with all kinds of
6665 errands, and do so much hard work, and still keep himself calm, patient,
6666 and fresh for each visitor in the way that President McKinley does, I
6667 cannot understand. When I saw the President he kindly thanked me for the
6668 work which we were doing at Tuskegee for the interests of the country. I
6669 then told him, briefly, the object of my visit. I impressed upon him the
6670 fact that a visit from the Chief Executive of the Nation would not only
6671 encourage our students and teachers, but would help the entire race. He
6672 seemed interested, but did not make a promise to go to Tuskegee, for the
6673 reason that his plans about going to Atlanta were not then fully made;
6674 but he asked me to call the matter to his attention a few weeks later.
6676 By the middle of the following month the President had definitely
6677 decided to attend the Peace Jubilee at Atlanta. I went to Washington
6678 again and saw him, with a view of getting him to extend his trip to
6679 Tuskegee. On this second visit Mr. Charles W. Hare, a prominent white
6680 citizen of Tuskegee, kindly volunteered to accompany me, to reenforce my
6681 invitation with one from the white people of Tuskegee and the vicinity.
6683 Just previous to my going to Washington the second time, the country
6684 had been excited, and the coloured people greatly depressed, because of
6685 several severe race riots which had occurred at different points in the
6686 South. As soon as I saw the President, I perceived that his heart was
6687 greatly burdened by reason of these race disturbances. Although there
6688 were many people waiting to see him, he detained me for some time,
6689 discussing the condition and prospects of the race. He remarked several
6690 times that he was determined to show his interest and faith in the race,
6691 not merely in words, but by acts. When I told him that I thought that
6692 at that time scarcely anything would go farther in giving hope and
6693 encouragement to the race than the fact that the President of the Nation
6694 would be willing to travel one hundred and forty miles out of his way to
6695 spend a day at a Negro institution, he seemed deeply impressed.
6697 While I was with the President, a white citizen of Atlanta, a Democrat
6698 and an ex-slaveholder, came into the room, and the President asked his
6699 opinion as to the wisdom of his going to Tuskegee. Without hesitation
6700 the Atlanta man replied that it was the proper thing for him to do. This
6701 opinion was reenforced by that friend of the race, Dr. J.L.M. Curry.
6702 The President promised that he would visit our school on the 16th of
6705 When it became known that the President was going to visit our school,
6706 the white citizens of the town of Tuskegee--a mile distant from the
6707 school--were as much pleased as were our students and teachers. The
6708 white people of this town, including both men and women, began arranging
6709 to decorate the town, and to form themselves into committees for the
6710 purpose of cooperating with the officers of our school in order that the
6711 distinguished visitor might have a fitting reception. I think I never
6712 realized before this how much the white people of Tuskegee and vicinity
6713 thought of our institution. During the days when we were preparing for
6714 the President's reception, dozens of these people came to me and said
6715 that, while they did not want to push themselves into prominence, if
6716 there was anything they could do to help, or to relieve me personally,
6717 I had but to intimate it and they would be only too glad to assist. In
6718 fact, the thing that touched me almost as deeply as the visit of the
6719 President itself was the deep pride which all classes of citizens in
6720 Alabama seemed to take in our work.
6722 The morning of December 16th brought to the little city of Tuskegee
6723 such a crowd as it had never seen before. With the President came Mrs.
6724 McKinley and all of the Cabinet officers but one; and most of them
6725 brought their wives or some members of their families. Several prominent
6726 generals came, including General Shafter and General Joseph Wheeler, who
6727 were recently returned from the Spanish-American war. There was also a
6728 host of newspaper correspondents. The Alabama Legislature was in session
6729 in Montgomery at this time. This body passed a resolution to adjourn
6730 for the purpose of visiting Tuskegee. Just before the arrival of the
6731 President's party the Legislature arrived, headed by the governor and
6732 other state officials.
6734 The citizens of Tuskegee had decorated the town from the station to
6735 the school in a generous manner. In order to economize in the matter
6736 of time, we arranged to have the whole school pass in review before the
6737 President. Each student carried a stalk of sugar-cane with some open
6738 bolls of cotton fastened to the end of it. Following the students the
6739 work of all departments of the school passed in review, displayed on
6740 "floats" drawn by horses, mules, and oxen. On these floats we tried
6741 to exhibit not only the present work of the school, but to show the
6742 contrasts between the old methods of doing things and the new. As an
6743 example, we showed the old method of dairying in contrast with the
6744 improved methods, the old methods of tilling the soil in contrast with
6745 the new, the old methods of cooking and housekeeping in contrast with
6746 the new. These floats consumed an hour and a half of time in passing.
6748 In his address in our large, new chapel, which the students had recently
6749 completed, the President said, among other things:--
6751 To meet you under such pleasant auspices and to have the opportunity
6752 of a personal observation of your work is indeed most gratifying. The
6753 Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute is ideal in its conception, and
6754 has already a large and growing reputation in the country, and is
6755 not unknown abroad. I congratulate all who are associated in this
6756 undertaking for the good work which it is doing in the education of its
6757 students to lead lives of honour and usefulness, thus exalting the race
6758 for which it was established.
6760 Nowhere, I think, could a more delightful location have been chosen for
6761 this unique educational experiment, which has attracted the attention
6762 and won the support even of conservative philanthropists in all sections
6765 To speak of Tuskegee without paying special tribute to Booker T.
6766 Washington's genius and perseverance would be impossible. The inception
6767 of this noble enterprise was his, and he deserves high credit for it.
6768 His was the enthusiasm and enterprise which made its steady progress
6769 possible and established in the institution its present high standard
6770 of accomplishment. He has won a worthy reputation as one of the great
6771 leaders of his race, widely known and much respected at home and abroad
6772 as an accomplished educator, a great orator, and a true philanthropist.
6775 The Hon. John D. Long, the Secretary of the Navy, said in part:--
6777 I cannot make a speech to-day. My heart is too full--full of hope,
6778 admiration, and pride for my countrymen of both sections and both
6779 colours. I am filled with gratitude and admiration for your work, and
6780 from this time forward I shall have absolute confidence in your progress
6781 and in the solution of the problem in which you are engaged.
6783 The problem, I say, has been solved. A picture has been presented to-day
6784 which should be put upon canvas with the pictures of Washington and
6785 Lincoln, and transmitted to future time and generations--a picture which
6786 the press of the country should spread broadcast over the land, a most
6787 dramatic picture, and that picture is this: The President of the United
6788 States standing on this platform; on one side the Governor of Alabama,
6789 on the other, completing the trinity, a representative of a race only a
6790 few years ago in bondage, the coloured President of the Tuskegee Normal
6791 and Industrial Institute.
6793 God bless the President under whose majesty such a scene as that is
6794 presented to the American people. God bless the state of Alabama, which
6795 is showing that it can deal with this problem for itself. God bless the
6796 orator, philanthropist, and disciple of the Great Master--who, if he
6797 were on earth, would be doing the same work--Booker T. Washington.
6800 Postmaster General Smith closed the address which he made with these
6803 We have witnessed many spectacles within the last few days. We have seen
6804 the magnificent grandeur and the magnificent achievements of one of the
6805 great metropolitan cities of the South. We have seen heroes of the war
6806 pass by in procession. We have seen floral parades. But I am sure
6807 my colleagues will agree with me in saying that we have witnessed no
6808 spectacle more impressive and more encouraging, more inspiring for our
6809 future, than that which we have witnessed here this morning.
6812 Some days after the President returned to Washington I received the
6813 letter which follows:--
6815 Executive Mansion, Washington, Dec. 23, 1899.
6817 Dear Sir: By this mail I take pleasure in sending you engrossed copies
6818 of the souvenir of the visit of the President to your institution.
6819 These sheets bear the autographs of the President and the members of the
6820 Cabinet who accompanied him on the trip. Let me take this opportunity of
6821 congratulating you most heartily and sincerely upon the great success
6822 of the exercises provided for and entertainment furnished us under your
6823 auspices during our visit to Tuskegee. Every feature of the programme
6824 was perfectly executed and was viewed or participated in with the
6825 heartiest satisfaction by every visitor present. The unique exhibition
6826 which you gave of your pupils engaged in their industrial vocations was
6827 not only artistic but thoroughly impressive. The tribute paid by the
6828 President and his Cabinet to your work was none too high, and forms
6829 a most encouraging augury, I think, for the future prosperity of your
6830 institution. I cannot close without assuring you that the modesty shown
6831 by yourself in the exercises was most favourably commented upon by all
6832 the members of our party.
6834 With best wishes for the continued advance of your most useful and
6835 patriotic undertaking, kind personal regards, and the compliments of the
6836 season, believe me, always,
6838 Very sincerely yours,
6840 John Addison Porter,
6842 Secretary to the President.
6844 To President Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
6845 Institute, Tuskegee, Ala.
6849 Twenty years have now passed since I made the first humble effort at
6850 Tuskegee, in a broken-down shanty and an old hen-house, without owning
6851 a dollar's worth of property, and with but one teacher and thirty
6852 students. At the present time the institution owns twenty-three hundred
6853 acres of land, one thousand of which are under cultivation each year,
6854 entirely by student labour. There are now upon the grounds, counting
6855 large and small, sixty-six buildings; and all except four of these have
6856 been almost wholly erected by the labour of our students. While the
6857 students are at work upon the land and in erecting buildings, they are
6858 taught, by competent instructors, the latest methods of agriculture and
6859 the trades connected with building.
6861 There are in constant operation at the school, in connection with
6862 thorough academic and religious training, thirty industrial departments.
6863 All of these teach industries at which our men and women can find
6864 immediate employment as soon as they leave the institution. The only
6865 difficulty now is that the demand for our graduates from both white and
6866 black people in the South is so great that we cannot supply more than
6867 one-half the persons for whom applications come to us. Neither have we
6868 the buildings nor the money for current expenses to enable us to admit
6869 to the school more than one-half the young men and women who apply to us
6872 In our industrial teaching we keep three things in mind: first, that the
6873 student shall be so educated that he shall be enabled to meet conditions
6874 as they exist now, in the part of the South where he lives--in a word,
6875 to be able to do the thing which the world wants done; second, that
6876 every student who graduates from the school shall have enough skill,
6877 coupled with intelligence and moral character, to enable him to make a
6878 living for himself and others; third, to send every graduate out feeling
6879 and knowing that labour is dignified and beautiful--to make each
6880 one love labour instead of trying to escape it. In addition to the
6881 agricultural training which we give to young men, and the training
6882 given to our girls in all the usual domestic employments, we now train
6883 a number of girls in agriculture each year. These girls are taught
6884 gardening, fruit-growing, dairying, bee-culture, and poultry-raising.
6886 While the institution is in no sense denominational, we have a
6887 department known as the Phelps Hall Bible Training School, in which
6888 a number of students are prepared for the ministry and other forms
6889 of Christian work, especially work in the country districts. What is
6890 equally important, each one of the students works half of each day at
6891 some industry, in order to get skill and the love of work, so that when
6892 he goes out from the institution he is prepared to set the people with
6893 whom he goes to labour a proper example in the matter of industry.
6895 The value of our property is now over $700,000. If we add to this our
6896 endowment fund, which at present is $1,000,000, the value of the total
6897 property is now $1,700,000. Aside from the need for more buildings and
6898 for money for current expenses, the endowment fund should be increased
6899 to at least $3,000,000. The annual current expenses are now about
6900 $150,000. The greater part of this I collect each year by going from
6901 door to door and from house to house. All of our property is free from
6902 mortgage, and is deeded to an undenominational board of trustees who
6903 have the control of the institution.
6905 From thirty students the number has grown to fourteen hundred, coming
6906 from twenty-seven states and territories, from Africa, Cuba, Porto Rico,
6907 Jamaica, and other foreign countries. In our departments there are one
6908 hundred and ten officers and instructors; and if we add the families of
6909 our instructors, we have a constant population upon our grounds of not
6910 far from seventeen hundred people.
6912 I have often been asked how we keep so large a body of people together,
6913 and at the same time keep them out of mischief. There are two answers:
6914 that the men and women who come to us for an education are in earnest;
6915 and that everybody is kept busy. The following outline of our daily work
6916 will testify to this:--
6918 5 a.m., rising bell; 5.50 a.m., warning breakfast bell; 6 a.m.,
6919 breakfast bell; 6.20 a.m., breakfast over; 6.20 to 6.50 a.m., rooms
6920 are cleaned; 6.50, work bell; 7.30, morning study hours; 8.20, morning
6921 school bell; 8.25, inspection of young men's toilet in ranks; 8.40,
6922 devotional exercises in chapel; 8.55, "five minutes with the daily
6923 news;" 9 a.m., class work begins; 12, class work closes; 12.15 p.m.,
6924 dinner; 1 p.m., work bell; 1.30 p.m., class work begins; 3.30 p.m.,
6925 class work ends; 5.30 p.m., bell to "knock off" work; 6 p.m., supper;
6926 7.10 p.m., evening prayers; 7.30 p.m., evening study hours; 8.45 p.m.,
6927 evening study hour closes; 9.20 p.m., warning retiring bell; 9.30 p.m.,
6930 We try to keep constantly in mind the fact that the worth of the school
6931 is to be judged by its graduates. Counting those who have finished
6932 the full course, together with those who have taken enough training to
6933 enable them to do reasonably good work, we can safely say that at least
6934 six thousand men and women from Tuskegee are now at work in different
6935 parts of the South; men and women who, by their own example or by
6936 direct efforts, are showing the masses of our race now to improve their
6937 material, educational, and moral and religious life. What is equally
6938 important, they are exhibiting a degree of common sense and self-control
6939 which is causing better relations to exist between the races, and is
6940 causing the Southern white man to learn to believe in the value of
6941 educating the men and women of my race. Aside from this, there is the
6942 influence that is constantly being exerted through the mothers' meeting
6943 and the plantation work conducted by Mrs. Washington.
6945 Wherever our graduates go, the changes which soon begin to appear in the
6946 buying of land, improving homes, saving money, in education, and in
6947 high moral characters are remarkable. Whole communities are fast being
6948 revolutionized through the instrumentality of these men and women.
6950 Ten years ago I organized at Tuskegee the first Negro Conference. This
6951 is an annual gathering which now brings to the school eight or nine
6952 hundred representative men and women of the race, who come to spend
6953 a day in finding out what the actual industrial, mental, and moral
6954 conditions of the people are, and in forming plans for improvement. Out
6955 from this central Negro Conference at Tuskegee have grown numerous state
6956 and local conferences which are doing the same kind of work. As a result
6957 of the influence of these gatherings, one delegate reported at the last
6958 annual meeting that ten families in his community had bought and paid
6959 for homes. On the day following the annual Negro Conference, there is
6960 the "Workers' Conference." This is composed of officers and teachers who
6961 are engaged in educational work in the larger institutions in the South.
6962 The Negro Conference furnishes a rare opportunity for these workers to
6963 study the real condition of the rank and file of the people.
6965 In the summer of 1900, with the assistance of such prominent coloured
6966 men as Mr. T. Thomas Fortune, who has always upheld my hands in every
6967 effort, I organized the National Negro Business League, which held its
6968 first meeting in Boston, and brought together for the first time a large
6969 number of the coloured men who are engaged in various lines of trade
6970 or business in different parts of the United States. Thirty states were
6971 represented at our first meeting. Out of this national meeting grew
6972 state and local business leagues.
6974 In addition to looking after the executive side of the work at Tuskegee,
6975 and raising the greater part of the money for the support of the school,
6976 I cannot seem to escape the duty of answering at least a part of the
6977 calls which come to me unsought to address Southern white audiences and
6978 audiences of my own race, as well as frequent gatherings in the North.
6979 As to how much of my time is spent in this way, the following clipping
6980 from a Buffalo (N.Y.) paper will tell. This has reference to an occasion
6981 when I spoke before the National Educational Association in that city.
6983 Booker T. Washington, the foremost educator among the coloured people of
6984 the world, was a very busy man from the time he arrived in the city the
6985 other night from the West and registered at the Iroquois. He had hardly
6986 removed the stains of travel when it was time to partake of supper.
6987 Then he held a public levee in the parlours of the Iroquois until eight
6988 o'clock. During that time he was greeted by over two hundred eminent
6989 teachers and educators from all parts of the United States. Shortly
6990 after eight o'clock he was driven in a carriage to Music Hall, and in
6991 one hour and a half he made two ringing addresses, to as many as five
6992 thousand people, on Negro education. Then Mr. Washington was taken in
6993 charge by a delegation of coloured citizens, headed by the Rev. Mr.
6994 Watkins, and hustled off to a small informal reception, arranged in
6995 honour of the visitor by the people of his race.
6998 Nor can I, in addition to making these addresses, escape the duty
6999 of calling the attention of the South and of the country in general,
7000 through the medium of the press, to matters that pertain to the
7001 interests of both races. This, for example, I have done in regard to
7002 the evil habit of lynching. When the Louisiana State Constitutional
7003 Convention was in session, I wrote an open letter to that body pleading
7004 for justice for the race. In all such efforts I have received warm and
7005 hearty support from the Southern newspapers, as well as from those in
7006 all other parts of the country.
7008 Despite superficial and temporary signs which might lead one to
7009 entertain a contrary opinion, there was never a time when I felt more
7010 hopeful for the race than I do at the present. The great human law that
7011 in the end recognizes and rewards merit is everlasting and universal.
7012 The outside world does not know, neither can it appreciate, the struggle
7013 that is constantly going on in the hearts of both the Southern white
7014 people and their former slaves to free themselves from racial prejudice;
7015 and while both races are thus struggling they should have the sympathy,
7016 the support, and the forbearance of the rest of the world.
7019 As I write the closing words of this autobiography I find myself--not
7020 by design--in the city of Richmond, Virginia: the city which only a
7021 few decades ago was the capital of the Southern Confederacy, and where,
7022 about twenty-five years ago, because of my poverty I slept night after
7023 night under a sidewalk.
7025 This time I am in Richmond as the guest of the coloured people of the
7026 city; and came at their request to deliver an address last night to both
7027 races in the Academy of Music, the largest and finest audience room in
7028 the city. This was the first time that the coloured people had ever
7029 been permitted to use this hall. The day before I came, the City Council
7030 passed a vote to attend the meeting in a body to hear me speak. The
7031 state Legislature, including the House of Delegates and the Senate, also
7032 passed a unanimous vote to attend in a body. In the presence of hundreds
7033 of coloured people, many distinguished white citizens, the City Council,
7034 the state Legislature, and state officials, I delivered my message,
7035 which was one of hope and cheer; and from the bottom of my heart I
7036 thanked both races for this welcome back to the state that gave me
7043 End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Up From Slavery: An Autobiography, by
7044 Booker T. Washington
7046 *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UP FROM SLAVERY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
7048 ***** This file should be named 2376.txt or 2376.zip *****
7049 This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
7050 http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/7/2376/
7052 Produced by Internet Wiretap, An Anonymous Project Gutenberg
7053 Volunteer, and Dan Muller
7056 Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
7059 Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
7060 one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
7061 (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
7062 permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
7063 set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
7064 copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
7065 protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
7066 Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
7067 charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
7068 do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
7069 rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
7070 such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
7071 research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
7072 practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
7073 subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
7078 *** START: FULL LICENSE ***
7080 THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
7081 PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
7083 To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
7084 distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
7085 (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
7086 Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
7087 Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
7088 http://gutenberg.org/license).
7091 Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
7094 1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
7095 electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
7096 and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
7097 (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
7098 the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
7099 all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
7100 If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
7101 Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
7102 terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
7103 entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
7105 1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
7106 used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
7107 agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
7108 things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
7109 even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
7110 paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
7111 Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
7112 and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
7113 works. See paragraph 1.E below.
7115 1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
7116 or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
7117 Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
7118 collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
7119 individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
7120 located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
7121 copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
7122 works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
7123 are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
7124 Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
7125 freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
7126 this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
7127 the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
7128 keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
7129 Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
7131 1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
7132 what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
7133 a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
7134 the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
7135 before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
7136 creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
7137 Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
7138 the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
7141 1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
7143 1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
7144 access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
7145 whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
7146 phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
7147 Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
7148 copied or distributed:
7150 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
7151 almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
7152 re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
7153 with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
7155 1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
7156 from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
7157 posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
7158 and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
7159 or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
7160 with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
7161 work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
7162 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
7163 Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
7166 1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
7167 with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
7168 must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
7169 terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
7170 to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
7171 permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
7173 1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
7174 License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
7175 work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
7177 1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
7178 electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
7179 prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
7180 active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
7181 Gutenberg-tm License.
7183 1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
7184 compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
7185 word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
7186 distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
7187 "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
7188 posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
7189 you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
7190 copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
7191 request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
7192 form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
7193 License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
7195 1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
7196 performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
7197 unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
7199 1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
7200 access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
7203 - You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
7204 the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
7205 you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
7206 owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
7207 has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
7208 Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
7209 must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
7210 prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
7211 returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
7212 sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
7213 address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
7214 the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
7216 - You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
7217 you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
7218 does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
7219 License. You must require such a user to return or
7220 destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
7221 and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
7222 Project Gutenberg-tm works.
7224 - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
7225 money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
7226 electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
7227 of receipt of the work.
7229 - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
7230 distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
7232 1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
7233 electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
7234 forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
7235 both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
7236 Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
7237 Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
7241 1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
7242 effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
7243 public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
7244 collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
7245 works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
7246 "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
7247 corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
7248 property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
7249 computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
7252 1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
7253 of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
7254 Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
7255 Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
7256 Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
7257 liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
7258 fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
7259 LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
7260 PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
7261 TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
7262 LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
7263 INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
7266 1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
7267 defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
7268 receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
7269 written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
7270 received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
7271 your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
7272 the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
7273 refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
7274 providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
7275 receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
7276 is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
7277 opportunities to fix the problem.
7279 1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
7280 in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
7281 WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
7282 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
7284 1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
7285 warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
7286 If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
7287 law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
7288 interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
7289 the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
7290 provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
7292 1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
7293 trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
7294 providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
7295 with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
7296 promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
7297 harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
7298 that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
7299 or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
7300 work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
7301 Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
7304 Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
7306 Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
7307 electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
7308 including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
7309 because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
7310 people in all walks of life.
7312 Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
7313 assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
7314 goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
7315 remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
7316 Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
7317 and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
7318 To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
7319 and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
7320 and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
7323 Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
7326 The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
7327 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
7328 state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
7329 Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
7330 number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
7331 http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
7332 Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
7333 permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
7335 The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
7336 Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
7337 throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
7338 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
7339 business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
7340 information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
7341 page at http://pglaf.org
7343 For additional contact information:
7344 Dr. Gregory B. Newby
7345 Chief Executive and Director
7349 Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
7350 Literary Archive Foundation
7352 Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
7353 spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
7354 increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
7355 freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
7356 array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
7357 ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
7358 status with the IRS.
7360 The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
7361 charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
7362 States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
7363 considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
7364 with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
7365 where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
7366 SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
7367 particular state visit http://pglaf.org
7369 While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
7370 have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
7371 against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
7372 approach us with offers to donate.
7374 International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
7375 any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
7376 outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
7378 Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
7379 methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
7380 ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
7381 To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
7384 Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
7387 Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
7388 concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
7389 with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
7390 Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
7393 Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
7394 editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
7395 unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
7396 keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
7399 Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
7401 http://www.gutenberg.org
7403 This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
7404 including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
7405 Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
7406 subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
