By Booker T Washington
Copyright 1900, 1901 by
Booker Washington
all rights reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY,
N.Y.
This volume is dedicated to my Wife
MARGARET JAMES WASHINGTON
And to my Brother
JOHN H. WASHINGTON
Whose patience, fidelity and hard work have gone far
to make the work at Tuskegee successful
THIS volume is the outgrowth of a series of articles, dealing with incidents in my life, which were published consecutively in the Outlook. While they were appearing in that magazine I was constantly surprised at the number of requests which came to me from all parts of the country, asking that the articles be permanently preserved in book form. I am most grateful to the Outlook for permission to gratify these requests.
I have tried to tell a simple, straightforward story, with no attempt at embellishment. My regret is that what I have attempted to do has been done so imperfectly. The greater part of my time and strength is required for the executive work connected with the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, and in securing the money necessary for the support of the institution. Much of what I have said has been written on board trains, or at hotels or railroad stations while I have been waiting
for trains, or during the moments that I could spare from my work while at Tuskegee. Without the painstaking and generous assistance of Mr. Max Bennett Thrasher I could not have succeeded in any satisfactory degree.
I WAS born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. I am not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but at any rate I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time. As nearly as I have been able to learn, I was born near a cross-roads post-office called Hale's Ford, and the year was 1858 or 1859. I do not know the month or the day. The earliest impressions I can now recall are of the plantation and the slave quarters -- the latter being the part of the plantation where the slaves had their cabins.
My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate, and discouraging surroundings. This was so, however, not because my owners were especially cruel, for they were not, as compared with many others. I was born in a typical
log cabin, about fourteen by sixteen feet square. In this cabin I lived with my mother and a brother and sister till after the Civil War, when we were all declared free.
Of my ancestry I know almost nothing. In the slave quarters, and even later, I heard whispered conversations among the coloured people of the tortures which the slaves, including, no doubt, my ancestors on my mother's side, suffered in the middle passage of the slave ship while being conveyed from Africa to America. I have been unsuccessful in securing any information that would throw any accurate light upon the history of my family beyond my mother. She, I remember, had a half-brother and a half-sister. In the days of slavery not very much attention was given to family history and family records - that is, black family records. My mother, I suppose, attracted the attention of a purchaser who was afterward my owner and hers. Her addition to the slave family attracted about as much attention as the purchase of a new horse or cow. Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not even know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white man who lived on one of the near-by plantations. Whoever he was, I never heard of his taking the least interest in me or providing in any way for my rearing. But I do not
find especial fault with him. He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time.
The cabin was not only our living-place, but was also used as the kitchen for the plantation. My mother was the plantation cook. The cabin was without glass windows; it had only openings in the side which let in the light, and also the cold, chilly air of winter. There was a door to the cabin - that is, something that was called a door - but the uncertain hinges by which it was hung, and the large cracks in it, to say nothing of the fact that it was too small, made the room a very uncomfortable one. In addition to these openings there was, in the lower right-hand corner of the room, the "cat-hole," - a contrivance which almost every mansion or cabin in Virginia possessed during the ante-bellum period. The "cat-hole" was a square opening, about seven by eight inches, provided for the purpose of letting the cat pass in and out of the house at will during the night. In the case of our particular cabin I could never understand the necessity for this convenience, since there were at least a half-dozen other places in the cabin that would have accommodated the cats. There was no wooden floor in our cabin, the naked earth being used as a floor.
In the centre of the earthen floor there was a large, deep opening covered with boards, which was used as a place in which to store sweet potatoes during the winter. An impression of this potato-hole is very distinctly engraved upon my memory, because I recall that during the process of putting the potatoes in or taking them out I would often come into possession of one or two, which I roasted and thoroughly enjoyed. There was no cooking-stove on our plantation, and all the cooking for the whites and slaves my mother had to do over an open fireplace, mostly in pots and "skillets." While the poorly built cabin caused us to suffer with cold in the winter, the heat from the open fire-place in summer was equally trying.
The early years of my life, which were spent in the little cabin, were not very different from those of thousands of other slaves. My mother, of course, had little time in which to give attention to the training of her children during the day. She snatched a few moments for our care in the early morning before her work began, and at night after the day's work was done. One of my earliest recollections is that of my mother cooking a chicken late at night, and awakening her children for the purpose of feeding them. How or where she got it I do not know. I presume, however, it was
procured from our owner's farm. Some people may call this theft. If such a thing were to happen now, I should condemn it as theft myself. But taking place at the time it did, and for the reason that it did, no one could ever make me believe that my mother was guilty of thieving. She was simply a victim of the system of slavery. I cannot remember having slept in a bed until after our family was declared free by the Emancipation Proclamation. Three children - John, my older brother, Amanda, my sister, and myself - had a pallet on the dirt floor, or, to be more correct, we slept in and on a bundle of filthy rags laid upon the dirt floor.
I was asked not long ago to tell something about the sports and pastimes that I engaged in during my youth. Until that question was asked it had never occurred to me that there was no period of my life that was devoted to play. From the time that I can remember anything, almost every day of my life has been occupied in some kind of labour; though I think I would now be a more useful man if I had had time for sports. During the period that I spent in slavery I was not large enough to be of much service, still I was occupied most of the time in cleaning the yards, carrying water to the men in the fields, or going to the mill,
to which I used to take the corn, once a week, to be ground. The mill was about three miles from the plantation. This work I always dreaded. The heavy bag of corn would be thrown across the back of the horse, and the corn divided about evenly on each side; but in some way, almost without exception, on these trips, the corn would so shift as to become unbalanced and would fall off the horse, and often I would fall with it. As I was not strong enough to reload the corn upon the horse, I would have to wait, sometimes for many hours, till a chance passer-by came along who would help me out of my trouble. The hours while waiting for some one were usually spent in crying. The time consumed in this way made me late in reaching the mill, and by the time I got my corn ground and reached home it would be far into the night. The road was a lonely one, and often led through dense forests. I was always frightened. The woods were said to be full of soldiers who had deserted from the army, and I had been told that the first thing a deserter did to a Negro boy when he found him alone was to cut off his ears. Besides, when I was late in getting home I knew I would always get a severe scolding or a flogging.
I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave, though I remember on several occasions I went as
far as the schoolhouse door with one of my young mistresses to carry her books. The picture of several dozen boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.
So far as I can now recall, the first knowledge that I got of the fact that we were slaves, and that freedom of the slaves was being discussed, was early one morning before day, when I was awakened by my mother kneeling over her children and fervently praying that Lincoln and his armies might be successful, and that one day she and her children might be free. In this connection I have never been able to understand how the slaves throughout the South, completely ignorant as were the masses so far as books or newspapers were concerned, were able to keep themselves so accurately and completely informed about the great National questions that were agitating the country. From the time that Garrison, Lovejoy, and others began to agitate for freedom, the slaves throughout the South kept in close touch with the progress of the movement. Though I was a mere child during the preparation for the Civil War and during the war itself, I now recall the many late-at-night
whispered discussions that I heard my mother and the other slaves on the plantation indulge in. These discussions showed that they understood the situation, and that they kept themselves informed of events by what was termed the "grape-vine" telegraph.
During the campaign when Lincoln was first a candidate for the Presidency, the slaves on our far-off plantation, miles from any railroad or large city or daily newspaper, knew what the issues involved were. When war was begun between the North and the South, every slave on our plantation felt and knew that, though other issues were discussed, the primal one was that of slavery. Even the most ignorant members of my race on the remote plantations felt in their hearts, with a certainty that admitted of no doubt, that the freedom of the slaves would be the one great result of the war, if the Northern armies conquered. Every success of the Federal armies and every defeat of the Confederate forces was watched with the keenest and most intense interest. Often the slaves got knowledge of the results of great battles before the white people received it. This news was usually gotten from the coloured man who was sent to the post-office for the mail. In our case the post-office was about three miles from the plantation and the mail came once or twice a week. The
man who was sent to the office would linger about the place long enough to get the drift of the conversation from the group of white people who naturally congregated there, after receiving their mail, to discuss the latest news. The mail-carrier on his way back to our master's house would as naturally retail the news that he had secured among the slaves, and in this way they often heard of important events before the white people at the "big house," as the master's house was called.
I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together, and God's blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in a civilized manner. On the plantation in Virginia, and even later, meals were gotten by the children very much as dumb animals get theirs. It was a piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at another. Sometimes a portion of our family would eat out of the skillet or pot, while some one else would eat from a tin plate held on the knees, and often using nothing but the hands with which to hold the food. When I had grown to sufficient size, I was required to go to the "big house" at meal-times to fan the flies from the table by means of a large set of paper fans operated by a pulley. Naturally much of the
conversation of the white people turned upon the subject of freedom and the war, and I absorbed a good deal of it. I remember that at one time I saw two of my young mistresses and some lady visitors eating ginger-cakes, in the yard. At that time those cakes seemed to me to be absolutely the most tempting and desirable things that I had ever seen; and I then and there resolved that, if I ever got free, the height of my ambition would be reached if I could get to the point where I could secure and eat ginger-cakes in the way that I saw those ladies doing.
Of course as the war was prolonged the white people, in many cases, often found it difficult to secure food for themselves. I think the slaves felt the deprivation less than the whites, because the usual diet for the slaves was corn bread and pork, and these could be raised on the plantation; but coffee, tea, sugar, and other articles which the whites had been accustomed to use could not be raised on the plantation, and the conditions brought about by the war frequently made it impossible to secure these things. The whites were often in great straits. Parched corn was used for coffee, and a kind of black molasses was used instead of sugar. Many times nothing was used to sweeten the so-called tea and coffee.
The first pair of shoes that I recall wearing were wooden ones. They had rough leather on the top, but the bottoms, which were about an inch thick, were of wood. When I walked they made a fearful noise, and besides this they were very inconvenient since there was no yielding to the natural pressure of the foot. In wearing them one presented an exceedingly awkward appearance. The most trying ordeal that I was forced to endure as a slave boy, however, was the wearing of a flax shirt. In the portion of Virginia where I lived it was common to use flax as part of the clothing for the slaves. That part of the flax from which our clothing was made was largely the refuse, which of course was the cheapest and roughest part. I can scarcely imagine any torture, except, perhaps, the pulling of a tooth, that is equal to that caused by putting on a new flax shirt for the first time. It is almost equal to the feeling that one would experience if he had a dozen or more chestnut burrs, or a hundred small pin-points, in contact with his flesh. Even to this day I can recall accurately the tortures that I underwent when putting on one of these garments. The fact that my flesh was soft and tender added to the pain. But I had no choice. I had to wear the flax shirt or none; and had it been left to me to choose, I should have chosen to wear no covering.
In connection with the flax shirt, my brother John, who is several years older than I am, performed one of the most generous acts that I ever heard of one slave relative doing for another. On several occasions when I was being forced to wear a new flax shirt, he generously agreed to put it on in my stead and wear it for several days, till it was "broken in." Until I had grown to be quite a youth this single garment was all that I wore.
One may get the idea, from what I have said, that there was bitter feeling toward the white people on the part of my race, because of the fact that most of the white population was away fighting in a war which would result in keeping the Negro in slavery if the South was successful. In the case of the slaves on our place this was not true, and it was not true of any large portion of the slave population in the South where the Negro was treated with anything like decency. During the Civil War one of my young masters was killed, and two were severely wounded. I recall the feeling of sorrow which existed among the slaves when they heard of the death of "Mars' Billy." It was no sham sorrow, but real. Some of the slaves had nursed "Mars' Billy"; others had played with him when he was a child. "Mars' Billy" had begged for mercy in the case of others when the overseer or master was
thrashing them. The sorrow in the slave quarter was only second to that in the "big house." When the two young masters were brought home wounded the sympathy of the slaves was shown in many ways. They were just as anxious to assist in the nursing as the family relatives of the wounded. Some of the slaves would even beg for the privilege of sitting up at night to nurse their wounded masters. This tenderness and sympathy on the part of those held in bondage was a result of their kindly and generous nature. In order to defend and protect the women and children who were left on the plantations when the white males went to war, the slaves would have laid down their lives. The slave who was selected to sleep in the "big house" during the absence of the males was considered to have the place of honour. Any one attempting to harm "young Mistress" or "old Mistress" during the night would have had to cross the dead body of the slave to do so. I do not know how many have noticed it, but I think that it will be found to be true that there are few instances, either in slavery or freedom, in which a member of my race has been known to betray a specific trust.
As a rule, not only did the members of my race entertain no feelings of bitterness against the whites before and during the war, but there are many
instances of Negroes tenderly caring for their former masters and mistresses who for some reason have become poor and dependent since the war. I know of instances where the former masters of slaves have for years been supplied with money by their former slaves to keep them from suffering. I have known of still other cases in which the former slaves have assisted in the education of the descendants of their former owners. I know of a case on a large plantation in the South in which a young white man, the son of the former owner of the estate, has become so reduced in purse and self-control by reason of drink that he is a pitiable creature; and yet, notwithstanding the poverty of the coloured people themselves on this plantation, they have for years supplied this young white man with the necessities of life. One sends him a little coffee or sugar, another a little meat, and so on. Nothing that the coloured people possess is too good for the son of "old Mars' Tom," who will perhaps never be permitted to suffer while any remain on the place who knew directly or indirectly of "old Mars' Tom."
I have said that there are few instances of a member of my race betraying a specific trust. One of the best illustrations of this which I know of is in the case of an ex-slave from Virginia
whom I met not long ago in a little town in the state of Ohio. I found that this man had made a contract with his master, two or three years previous to the Emancipation Proclamation, to the effect that the slave was to be permitted to buy himself, by paying so much per year for his body; and while he was paying for himself, he was to be permitted to labour where and for whom he pleased. Finding that he could secure better wages in Ohio, he went there. When freedom came, he was still in debt to his master some three hundred dollars. Notwithstanding that the Emancipation Proclamation freed him from any obligation to his master, this black man walked the greater portion of the distance back to where his old master lived in Virginia, and placed the last dollar, with interest, in his hands. In talking to me about this, the man told me that he knew that he did not have to pay the debt, but that he had given his word to his master, and his word he had never broken. He felt that he could not enjoy his freedom till he had fulfilled his promise.
From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.
I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery. I have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race. No one section of our country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and, besides, it was recognized and protected for years by the General Government. Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution. Then, when we rid ourselves of prejudice, or racial feeling, and look facts in the face, we must acknowledge that, notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe. This is so to such an extent that Negroes in this country, who themselves or whose forefathers went through the school of slavery, are constantly returning to Africa as missionaries to enlighten those who remained in the fatherland. This I say, not to justify slavery - on the other hand, I
condemn it as an institution, as we all know that in America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not from a missionary motive - but to call attention to a fact, and to show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose. When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the wilderness through which and out of which, a good Providence has already led us.
Ever since I have been old enough to think for myself, I have entertained the idea that, notwithstanding the cruel wrongs inflicted upon us, the black man got nearly as much out of slavery as the white man did. The hurtful influences of the institution were not by any means confined to the Negro. This was fully illustrated by the life upon our own plantation. The whole machinery of slavery was so constructed as to cause labour, as a rule, to be looked upon as a badge of degradation, of inferiority. Hence labour was something that both races on the slave plantation sought to escape. The slave system on our place, in a large measure, took the spirit of self-reliance and self-help out of the white people. My old master had many boys and girls, but not one, so far as I know, ever mastered
a single trade or special line of productive industry. The girls were not taught to cook, sew, or to take care of the house. All of this was left to the slaves. The slaves, of course, had little personal interest in the life of the plantation, and their ignorance prevented them from learning how to do things in the most improved and thorough manner. As a result of the system, fences were out of repair, gates were hanging half off the hinges, doors creaked, window-panes were out, plastering had fallen but was not replaced, weeds grew in the yard. As a rule, there was food for whites and blacks, but inside the house, and on the dining room table, there was wanting that delicacy and refinement of touch and finish which can make a home the most convenient, comfortable, and attractive place in the world. Withal there was a waste of food and other materials which was sad. When freedom came, the slaves were almost as well fitted to begin life anew as the master, except in the matter of book-learning and ownership of property. The slave owner and his sons had mastered no special industry. They unconsciously had imbibed the feeling that manual labour was not the proper thing for them. On the other hand, the slaves, in many cases, had mastered some handicraft, and none were ashamed, and few unwilling, to labour.
Finally the war closed, and the day of freedom came. It was a momentous and eventful day to all upon our plantation. We had been expecting it. Freedom was in the air, and had been for months. Deserting soldiers returning to their homes were to be seen every day. Others who had been discharged, or whose regiments had been paroled, were constantly passing near our place. The "grape-vine telegraph" was kept busy night and day. The news and mutterings of great events were swiftly carried from one plantation to another. In the fear of "Yankee" invasions, the silverware and other valuables were taken from the "big house," buried in the woods, and guarded by trusted slaves. Woe be to any one who would have attempted to disturb the buried treasure. The slaves would give the Yankee soldiers food, drink, clothing - anything but that which had been specifically intrusted to their care and honour. As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom. True, they had sung those same verses before, but they had been careful to explain that the "freedom" in these songs referred to the next world, and had no connection
with life in this world. Now they gradually threw off the mask, and were not afraid to let it be known that the "freedom" in their songs meant freedom of the body in this world. The night before the eventful day, word was sent to the slave quarters to the effect that something unusual was going to take place at the "big house" the next morning. There was little, if any, sleep that night. All was excitement and expectancy. Early the next morning word was sent to all the slaves, old and young, to gather at the house. In company with my mother, brother, and sister, and a large number of other slaves, I went to the master's house. All of our master's family were either standing or seated on the veranda of the house, where they could see what was to take place and hear what was said. There was a feeling of deep interest, or perhaps sadness, on their faces, but not bitterness. As I now recall the impression they made upon me, they did not at the moment seem to be sad because of the loss of property, but rather because of parting with those whom they had reared and who were in many ways very close to them. The most distinct thing that I now recall in connection with the scene was that some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper -
the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see.
For some minutes there was great rejoicing, and thanksgiving, and wild scenes of ecstasy. But there was no feeling of bitterness. In fact, there was pity among the slaves for our former owners. The wild rejoicing on the part of the emancipated coloured people lasted but for a brief period, for I noticed that by the time they returned to their cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of them. It was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years out into the world to provide for himself. In a few hours the great questions with which the Anglo-Saxon race had been grappling for centuries had been thrown upon these people to be solved. These were the questions of a home, a living, the rearing of children,
education, citizenship, and the establishment and support of churches. Was it any wonder that within a few hours the wild rejoicing ceased and a feeling of deep gloom seemed to pervade the slave quarters? To some it seemed that, now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected to find it. Some of the slaves were seventy or eighty years old; their best days were gone. They had no strength with which to earn a living in a strange place and among strange people, even if they had been sure where to find a new place of abode. To this class the problem seemed especially hard. Besides, deep down in their hearts there was a strange and peculiar attachment to "old Marster" and "old Missus," and to their children, which they found it hard to think of breaking off. With these they had spent in some cases nearly a half-century, and it was no light thing to think of parting. Gradually, one by one, stealthily at first, the older slaves began to wander from the slave quarters back to the "big house" to have a whispered conversation with their former owners as to the future.
AFTER the coming of freedom there were two points upon which practically all the people on our place were agreed, and I find that this was generally true throughout the South: that they must change their names, and that they must leave the old plantation for at least a few days or weeks in order that they might really feel sure that they were free.
In some way a feeling got among the coloured people that it was far from proper for them to bear the surname of their former owners, and a great many of them took other surnames. This was one of the first signs of freedom. When they were slaves, a coloured person was simply called "John" or "Susan." There was seldom occasion for more than the use of the one name. If "John" or "Susan" belonged to a white man by the name of "Hatcher," sometimes he was called "John Hatcher," or as often "Hatcher's John." But there was a feeling that "John Hatcher" or "Hatcher's
John" was not the proper title by which to denote a freeman; and so in many cases "John Hatcher" was changed to "John S. Lincoln" or "John S. Sherman," the initial "S" standing for no name, it being simply a part of what the coloured man proudly called his "entitles."
As I have stated, most of the coloured people left the old plantation for a short while at least, so as to be sure, it seemed, that they could leave and try their freedom on to see how it felt. After they had remained away for a time, many of the older slaves, especially, returned to their old homes and made some kind of contract with their former owners by which they remained on the estate.
My mother's husband, who was the stepfather of my brother John and myself, did not belong to the same owners as did my mother. In fact, he seldom came to our plantation. I remember seeing him there perhaps once a year, that being about Christmas time. In some way, during the war, by running away and following the Federal soldiers, it seems, he found his way into the new state of West Virginia. As soon as freedom was declared, he sent for my mother to come to the Kanawha Valley, in West Virginia. At that time a journey from Virginia over the mountains to West Virginia was rather a tedious and in some cases a painful
undertaking. What little clothing and few household goods we had were placed in a cart, but the children walked the greater portion of the distance, which was several hundred miles.
I do not think any of us ever had been very far from the plantation, and the taking of a long journey into another state was quite an event. The parting from our former owners and the members of our own race on the plantation was a serious occasion. From the time of our parting till their death we kept up a correspondence with the older members of the family, and in later years we have kept in touch with those who were the younger members. We were several weeks making the trip, and most of the time we slept in the open air and did our cooking over a log fire out-of-doors. One night I recall that we camped near an abandoned log cabin, and my mother decided to build a fire in that for cooking, and afterward to make a "pallet" on the floor for our sleeping. Just as the fire had gotten well started a large black snake fully a yard and a half long dropped down the chimney and ran out on the floor. Of course we at once abandoned that cabin. Finally we reached our destination - a little town called Malden, which is about five miles from Charleston, the present capital of the state.
At that time salt-mining was the great industry in
that part of West Virginia, and the little town of Malden was right in the midst of the salt-furnaces. My stepfather had already secured a job at a salt-furnace and he had also secured a little cabin for us to live in. Our new house was no better than the one we had left on the old plantation in Virginia. In fact, in one respect it was worse. Notwithstanding the poor condition of our plantation cabin, we were at all times sure of pure air. Our new home was in the midst of a cluster of cabins crowded closely together, and as there were no sanitary regulations, the filth about the cabins was often intolerable. Some of our neighbours were coloured people, and some were the poorest and most ignorant and degraded white people. It was a motley mixture. Drinking, gambling, quarrels, fights, and shockingly immoral practices were frequent. All who lived in the little town were in one way or another connected with the salt business. Though I was a mere child, my stepfather put me and my brother at work in one of the furnaces. Often I began work as early as four o'clock in the morning.
The first thing I ever learned in the way of book knowledge was while working in this salt-furnace. Each salt-packer had his barrels marked with a certain number. The number allotted to my stepfather was "18." At the close of the day's work
the boss of the packers would come around and put "18" on each of our barrels, and I soon learned to recognize that figure wherever I saw it, and after a while got to the point where I could make that figure though I knew nothing about any other figures or letters.
From the time that I can remember having any thoughts about anything, I recall that I had an intense longing to learn to read. I determined, when quite a small child, that, if I accomplished nothing else in life, I would in some way get enough education to enable me to read common books and newspapers. Soon after we got settled in some manner in our new cabin in West Virginia, I induced my mother to get hold of a book for me. How or where she got it I do not know, but in some way she procured an old copy of Webster's "blue-back" spelling-book, which contained the alphabet, followed by such meaningless words as "ab," "ba," "ca," "da." I began at once to devour this book, and I think that it was the first one I ever had in my hands. I had learned from somebody that the way to begin to read was to learn the alphabet, so I tried in all the ways I could think of to learn it, - all of course without a teacher, for I could find no one to teach me. At that time there was not a single member of my race anywhere near us who could read,
and I was too timid to approach any of the white people. In some way, within a few weeks, I mastered the greater portion of the alphabet. In all my efforts to learn to read my mother shared full my ambition, and sympathized with me and aided me in every way that she could. Though she was totally ignorant, so far as mere book knowledge was concerned, she had high ambitions for her children, and a large fund of good hard, common sense which seemed to enable her to meet and master every situation. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.
In the midst of my struggles and longing for an education, a young coloured boy who had learned to read in the state of Ohio came to Malden. As soon as the coloured people found out that he could read, a newspaper was secured, and at the close of nearly every day's work this young man would be surrounded by a group of men and women who were anxious to hear him read the news contained in the papers. How I used to envy this man! He seemed to me to be the one young man in all the world who ought to be satisfied with his attainments.
About this time the question of having some kind of a school opened for the coloured children in the village began to be discussed by members of the
race. As it would be the first school for Negro children that had ever been opened in that part of Virginia, it was, of course, to be a great event, and the discussion excited the widest interest. The most perplexing question was where to find a teacher. The young man from Ohio who had learned to read the papers was considered, but his age was against him. In the midst of the discussion about a teacher, another young coloured man from Ohio, who had been a soldier, in some way found his way into town. It was soon learned that he possessed considerable education, and he was engaged by the coloured people to teach their first school. As yet no free schools had been started for coloured people in that section, hence each family agreed to pay a certain amount per month, with the understanding that the teacher was to "board 'round" - that is, spend a day with each family. This was not bad for the teacher, for each family tried to provide the very best on the day the teacher was to be its guest. I recall that I looked forward with an anxious appetite to the "teacher's day" at our little cabin.
This experience of a whole race beginning to go to school for the first time, presents one of the most interesting studies that has ever occurred in connection with the development of any race. Few people who were not right in the midst of the scenes
can form any exact idea of the intense desire which the people of my race showed for an education. As I have stated, it was a whole race trying to go to school. Few were too young, and none too old, to make the attempt to learn. As fast as any kind of teachers could be secured, not only were day-schools filled, but night-schools as well. The great ambition of the older people was to try to learn to read the Bible before they died. With this end in view, men and women who were fifty or seventy-five years old would often be found in the night-school. Sunday-schools were formed soon after freedom, but the principal book studied in the Sunday-school was the spelling-book. Day-school, night-school, Sunday-school, were always crowded, and often many had to be turned away for want of room.
The opening of the school in the Kanawha Valley, however, brought to me one of the keenest disappointments that I ever experienced. I had been working in a salt-furnace for several months, and my stepfather had discovered that I had a financial value and so, when the school opened, he decided that he could not spare me from my work. This decision seemed to cloud my every ambition. The disappointment was made all the more severe by reason of the fact that my place of work was where I could see the happy children passing to and from school,
mornings and afternoons. Despite this disappointment, however, I determined that I would learn something, anyway. I applied myself with greater earnestness than ever to the mastering of what was in the "blue-back" speller.
My mother sympathized with me in my disappointment, and sought to comfort me in all the ways she could, and to help me find a way to learn. After a while I succeeded in making arrangements with the teacher to give me some lessons at night, after the day's work was done. These night lessons were so welcome that I think I learned more at night than the other children did during the day. My own experiences in the night-school gave me faith in the night-school idea, with which, in after years, I had to do both at Hampton and Tuskegee. But my boyish heart was still set upon going to the day-school, and I let no opportunity slip to push my case. Finally I won, and was permitted to go to the school in the day for a few months, with the understanding that I was to rise early in the morning and work in the furnace till nine o'clock, and return immediately after school closed in the afternoon for at least two more hours of work.
The schoolhouse was some distance from the furnace, and as I had to work till nine o'clock, and the school opened at nine, I found myself in a difficulty.
School would always be begun before I reached it, and sometimes my class had recited. To get around this difficulty I yielded to a temptation for which most people, I suppose, will condemn me; but since it is a fact, I might as well state it. I have great faith in the power and influence of facts. It is seldom that anything is permanently gained by holding back a fact. There was a large clock in a little office in the furnace. This clock, of course, all the hundred or more workmen depended upon to regulate their hours of beginning and ending the day's work. I got the idea that the way for me to reach school on time was to move the clock hands from half-past eight up to the nine o'clock mark. This I found myself doing morning after morning, till the furnace "boss" discovered that something was wrong, and locked the clock in a case. I did not mean to inconvenience anybody. I simply meant to reach that schoolhouse in time.
When, however, I found myself at the school for the first time, I also found myself confronted with two other difficulties. In the first place, I found that all of the other children wore hats or caps on their heads, and I had neither hat nor cap. In fact, I do not remember that up to the time of going to school I had ever worn any kind of covering upon my head, nor do I recall that either I
or anybody else had even thought anything about the need of covering for my head. But, of course, when I saw how all the other boys were dressed, I began to feel quite uncomfortable. As usual, I put the case before my mother, and she explained to me that she had no money with which to buy a "store hat," which was a rather new institution at that time among the members of my race and was considered quite the thing for young and old to own, but that she would find a way to help me out of the difficulty. She accordingly got two pieces of "homespun" (jeans) and sewed them together, and I was soon the proud possessor of my first cap.
The lesson that my mother taught me in this has always remained with me, and I have tried as best I could to teach it to others. I have always felt proud, whenever I think of the incident, that my mother had strength of character enough not to be fed into the temptation of seeming to be that which she was not - of trying to impress my schoolmates and others with the fact that she was able to buy me a "store hat" when she was not. I have always felt proud that she refused to go into debt for that which she did not have the money to pay for. Since that time I have owned many kinds of caps and hats, but never one of which I have felt so
proud as of the cap made of the two pieces of cloth sewed together by my mother. I have noted the fact, but without satisfaction, I need not add, that several of the boys who began their careers with "store hats" and who were my schoolmates and used to join in the sport that was made of me because I had only a "homespun" cap, have ended their careers in the penitentiary, while others are not able now to buy any kind of hat.
My second difficulty was with regard to my name, or rather a name. From the time when I could remember anything, I had been called simply "Booker." Before going to school it had never occurred to me that it was needful or appropriate to have an additional name. When I heard the school-roll called, I noticed that all of the children had at least two names, and some of them indulged in what seemed to me the extravagance of having three. I was in deep perplexity, because I knew that the teacher would demand of me at least two names, and I had only one. By the time the occasion came for the enrolling of my name, an idea occurred to me which I thought would make me equal to the situation; and so, when the teacher asked me what my full name was, I calmly told him "Booker Washington," as if I had been called by that name all my life; and by that name I have
since been known. Later in my life I found that my mother had given me the name of "Booker Taliaferro" soon after I was born, but in some way that part of my name seemed to disappear and for a long while was forgotten, but as soon as I found out about it I revived it, and made my full name "Booker Taliaferro Washington." I think there are not many men in our country who have had the privilege of naming themselves in the way that I have.
More than once I have tried to picture myself in the position of a boy or man with an honoured and distinguished ancestry which I could trace back through a period of hundreds of years, and who had not only inherited a name, but fortune and a proud family homestead; and yet I have sometimes had the feeling that if I had inherited these, and had been a member of a more popular race, I should have been inclined to yield to the temptation of depending upon my ancestry and my colour to do that for me which I should do for myself. Years ago I resolved that because I had no ancestry myself I would leave a record of which my children would be proud, and which might encourage them to still higher effort.
The world should not pass judgment upon the Negro, and especially the Negro youth, too quickly
or too harshly. The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little known to those not situated as he is. When a white boy undertakes a task, it is taken for granted that he will succeed. On the other hand, people are usually surprised if the Negro boy does not fail. In a word, the Negro youth starts out with the presumption against him.
The influence of ancestry, however, is important in helping forward any individual or race, if too much reliance is not placed upon it. Those who constantly direct attention to the Negro youth's moral weaknesses, and compare his advancement with that of white youths, do not consider the influence of the memories which cling about the old family homesteads. I have no idea, as I have stated elsewhere, who my grandmother was. I have, or have had, uncles and aunts and cousins, but I have no knowledge as to where most of them are. My case will illustrate that of hundreds of thousands of black people in every part of our country. The very fact that the white boy is conscious that, if he fails in life, he will disgrace the whole family record, extending back through many generations, is of tremendous value in helping him to resist temptations. The fact that the individual has behind and surrounding him proud family
history and connection serves as a stimulus to help him to overcome obstacles when striving for success.
The time that I was permitted to attend school during the day was short, and my attendance was irregular. It was not long before I had to stop attending day-school altogether, and devote all of my time again to work. I resorted to the night-school again. In fact, the greater part of the education I secured in my boyhood was gathered through the night-school after my day's work was done. I had difficulty often in securing a satisfactory teacher. Sometimes, after I had secured some one to teach me at night, I would find, much to my disappointment, that the teacher knew but little more than I did. Often I would have to walk several miles at night in order to recite my night-school lessons. There was never a time in my youth, no matter how dark and discouraging the days might be, when one resolve did not continually remain with me, and that was a determination to secure an education at any cost.
Soon after we moved to West Virginia, my mother adopted into our family, notwithstanding our poverty, an orphan boy, to whom afterward we gave the name of James B. Washington. He has ever since remained a member of the family.
After I had worked in the salt-furnace for some time, work was secured for me in a coal-mine which was operated mainly for the purpose of securing fuel for the salt-furnace. Work in the coal-mine I always dreaded. One reason for this was that any one who worked in a coal-mine was always unclean, at least while at work, and it was a very hard job to get one's skin clean after the day's work was over. Then it was fully a mile from the opening of the coal-mine to the face of the coal, and all, of course, was in the blackest darkness. I do not believe that one ever experiences anywhere else such darkness as he does in a coal-mine. The mine was divided into a large number of different "rooms" or departments, and, as I never was able to learn the location of all these "rooms," I many times found myself lost in the mine. To add to the horror of being lost, sometimes my light would go out, and then, if I did not happen to have a match, I would wander about in the darkness until by chance I found some one to give me a light. The work was not only hard, but it was dangerous. There was always the danger of being blown to pieces by a premature explosion of powder, or of being crushed by falling slate. Accidents from one or the other of these causes were frequently occurring, and this kept me in constant fear. Many children of the
tenderest years were compelled then, as is now true, I fear, in most coal-mining districts, to spend a large part of their lives in these coal-mines, with little opportunity to get an education; and, what is worse, I have often noted that, as a rule, young boys who begin life in a coal-mine are often physically and mentally dwarfed. They soon lose ambition to do anything else than to continue as a coal-miner.
In those days, and later as a young man, I used to try to picture in my imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with absolutely no limit placed upon his aspirations and activities. I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race. I used to picture the way that I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.
In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reach the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection
with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his task even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.
From any point of view, I had rather be what I am, a member of the Negro race, than be able to claim membership with the most favoured of any other race. I have always been made sad when I have heard members of any race claiming rights and privileges, or certain badges of distinction, on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race, regardless of their own individual worth or attainments. I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what is known as a race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal
and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded. This I have said here, not to call attention to myself as an individual, but to the race to which I am proud to belong.
ONE day, while at work in the coal-mine, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for coloured people somewhere in Virginia. This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college that was more pretentious than the little coloured school in our town.
In the darkness of the mine I noiselessly crept as close as I could to the two men who were talking. I heard one tell the other that not only was the school established for the members of my race, but that opportunities were provided by which poor but worthy students could work out all or a part of the cost of board, and at the same time be taught some trade or industry.
As they went on describing the school, it seemed to me that it must be the greatest place on earth, and not even Heaven presented more attractions for me at that time than did the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, about which these
men were talking. I resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where it was, or how many miles away, or how I was going to reach it; I remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and that was to go to Hampton. This thought was with me day and night.
After hearing of the Hampton Institute, I continued to work for a few months longer in the coal-mine. While at work there, I heard of a vacant position in the household of General Lewis Ruffner, the owner of the salt-furnace and coal-mine. Mrs. Viola Ruffner, the wife of General Ruffner, was a "Yankee" woman from Vermont. Mrs. Ruffner had a reputation all through the vicinity for being very strict with her servants, and especially with the boys who tried to serve her. Few of them had remained with her more than two or three weeks. They all left with the same excuse: she was too strict. I decided, however, that I would rather try Mrs. Ruffner's house than remain in the coal-mine, and so my mother applied to her for the vacant position. I was hired at a salary of $5 per month.
I had heard so much about Mrs. Ruffner's severity that I was almost afraid to see her, and trembled when I went into her presence. I had not lived with her many weeks, however, before I began to understand her. I soon began to learn
that, first of all, she wanted everything kept clean about her, that she wanted things done promptly and systematically, and that at the bottom of everything she wanted absolute honesty and frankness. Nothing must be sloven or slipshod; every door, every fence, must be kept in repair.
I cannot now recall how long I lived with Mrs. Ruffner before going to Hampton, but I think it must have been a year and a half. At any rate, I here repeat what I have said more than once before, that the lessons that I learned in the home of Mrs. Ruffner were as valuable to me as any education I have ever gotten anywhere since. Even to this day I never see bits of paper scattered around a house or in the street that I do not want to pick them up at once. I never see a filthy yard that I do not want to clean it, a paling off of a fence that I do not want to put it on, an unpainted or unwhitewashed house that I do not want to paint or whitewash it, or a button off one's clothes, or a grease-spot on them or on a floor, that I do not want to call attention to it.
From fearing Mrs. Ruffner I soon learned to look upon her as one of my best friends. When she found that she could trust me she did so implicitly. During the one or two winters that at I was with her she gave me an opportunity to go to
school for an hour in the day during a portion of the winter months, but most of my studying was done at night, sometimes alone, sometimes under some one whom I could hire to teach me. Mrs. Ruffner always encouraged and sympathized with me in all my efforts to get an education. It was while living with her that I began to get together my first library. I secured a dry-goods box, knocked out one side of it, put some shelves in it, and began putting into it every kind of book that I could get my hands upon, and called it my "library."
Notwithstanding my success at Mrs. Ruffner's I did not give up the idea of going to the Hampton Institute. In the fall of 1872 I determined to make an effort to get there, although, as I have stated, I had no definite idea of the direction in which Hampton was, or of what it would cost to go there. I do not think that any one thoroughly sympathized with me in my ambition to go to Hampton unless it was my mother, and she was troubled with a grave fear that I was starting out on a "wild-goose chase." At any rate, I got only a half-hearted consent from her that I might start. The small amount of money that I had earned had been consumed by my stepfather and the remainder of the family, with the exception of a very few dollars, and so I had very little with which to buy
clothes and pay my travelling expenses. My brother John helped me all that he could, but of course that was not a great deal, for his work was in the coal-mine, where he did not earn much, an most of what he did earn went in the direction of paying the household expenses.
Perhaps the thing that touched and pleased me most in connection with my starting for Hampton was the interest that many of the older coloured people took in the matter. They had spent the best days of their lives in slavery, and hardly expected to live to see the time when they would see a member of their race leave home to attend a boarding-school. Some of these older people would give me a nickel, others a quarter, or a handkerchief.
Finally the great day came, and I started for Hampton. I had only a small, cheap satchel that contained what few articles of clothing I could get. My mother at the time was rather weak and broken in health. I hardly expected to see her again, and thus our parting was all the more sad. She, however, was very brave through it all. At that time there were no through trains connecting that part of West Virginia with eastern Virginia. Trains ran only a portion of the way, and the remainder of the distance was travelled by stage-coaches.
The distance from Malden to Hampton is about five hundred miles. I had not been away from home many hours before it began to grow painfully evident that I did not have enough money to pay my fare to Hampton. One experience I shall long remember. I had been travelling over the mountains most of the afternoon in an old-fashioned stage-coach, when, late in the evening, the coach stopped for the night at a common, unpainted house called a hotel. All the other passengers except myself were whites. In my ignorance I supposed that the little hotel existed for the purpose of accommodating the passengers who travelled on the stage-coach. The difference that the colour of one's skin would make I had not thought anything about. After all the other passengers had been shown rooms and were getting ready for supper, I shyly presented myself before the man at the desk. It is true I had practically no money in my pocket with which to pay for bed or food, but I had hoped in some way to beg my way into the good graces of the landlord, for at that season in the mountains of Virginia the weather was cold, and I wanted to get indoors for the night. Without asking as to whether I had any money, the man at the desk firmly refused to even consider the matter of providing me with food or lodging. This was
my first experience in finding out what the colour of my skin meant. In some way I managed to keep warm by walking about, and so got through the night. My whole soul was so bent upon reaching Hampton that I did not have time to cherish any bitterness toward the hotel-keeper.
By walking, begging rides both in wagons and in the cars, in some way, after a number of days, I reached the city of Richmond, Virginia, about eighty-two miles from Hampton. When I reached there, tired, hungry, and dirty, it was late in the night. I had never been in a large city, and this rather added to my misery. When I reached Richmond, I was completely out of money. I had not a single acquaintance in the place, and, being unused to city ways, I did not know where to go. I applied at several places for lodging, but they all wanted money, and that was what I did not have. Knowing nothing else better to do, I walked the streets. In doing this I passed by many food-stands where fried chicken and half-moon apple pies were piled high and made to present a most tempting appearance. At that time it seemed to me that I would have promised all that I expected to possess in the future to have gotten hold of one of those chicken legs or one of those pies. But I could not get either of these, nor anything else to eat.
I must have walked the streets till after midnight. At last I became so exhausted that I could walk no longer. I was tired, I was hungry, I was everything but discouraged. Just about the time when I reached extreme physical exhaustion, I came upon a portion of a street where the board sidewalk was considerably elevated. I waited for a few minutes, till I was sure that no passers-by could see me, and then crept under the sidewalk and lay for the night upon the ground, with my satchel of clothing for a pillow. Nearly all night I could hear the tramp of feet over my head. The next morning I found myself somewhat refreshed, but I was extremely hungry, because it had been a long time since I had had sufficient food. As soon as it became light enough for me to see my surroundings I noticed that I was near a large ship, and that this ship seemed to be unloading a cargo of pig iron. I went at once to the vessel and asked the captain to permit me to help unload the vessel in order to get money for food. The captain, a white man, who seemed to be kind-hearted, consented. I worked long enough to earn money for my breakfast, and it seems to me, as I remember it now, to have been about the best breakfast that I have ever eaten.
My work pleased the captain so well that he told
me if I desired I could continue working for a small amount per day. This I was very glad to do. I continued working on this vessel for a number of days. After buying food with the small wages I received there was not much left to add to the amount I must get to pay my way to Hampton. In order to economize in every way possible, so as to be sure to reach Hampton in a reasonable time, I continued to sleep under the same sidewalk that gave me shelter the first night I was in Richmond. Many years after that the coloured citizens of Richmond very kindly tendered me a reception, at which there must have been two thousand people present. This reception was held not far from the spot where I slept the first night I spent in that city, and I must confess that my mind was more upon the sidewalk that first gave me shelter than upon the reception, agreeable and cordial as it was.
When I had saved what I considered enough money with which to reach Hampton, I thanked the captain of the vessel for his kindness, and started again. Without any unusual occurrence I reached Hampton, with a surplus of exactly fifty cents with which to begin my education. To me it had been a long, eventful journey; but the first sight of the large, three-story, brick school building
seemed to have rewarded me for all that I had undergone in order to reach the place. If the people who gave the money to provide that building could appreciate the influence the sight of it had upon me, as well as upon thousands of other youths, they would feel all the more encouraged to make such gifts. It seemed to me to be the largest and most beautiful building I had ever seen. The sight of it seemed to give me new life. I felt that a new kind of existence had now begun - that life would now have a new meaning. I felt that I had reached the promised land, and I resolved to let no obstacle prevent me from putting forth the highest effort to fit myself to accomplish the most good in the world.
As soon as possible after reaching the grounds of the Hampton Institute, I presented myself before the head teacher for assignment to a class. Having been so long without proper food, a bath, and change of clothing, I did not, of course, make a very favourable impression upon her, and I could see at once that there were doubts in her mind about the wisdom of admitting me as a student. I felt that I could hardly blame her if she got the idea that I was a worthless loafer or tramp. For some time she did not refuse to admit me, neither did she decide in my favour, and I continued to
linger about her, and to impress her in all the ways I could with my worthiness. In the meantime I saw her admitting other students, and that added greatly to my discomfort, for I felt, deep down in my heart, that I could do as well as they, if I could only get a chance to show what was in me.
After some hours had passed, the head teacher said to me: "The adjoining recitation-room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it."
It occurred to me at once that here was my chance. Never did I receive an order with more delight. I knew that I could sweep, for Mrs. Ruffner had thoroughly taught me how to do that when I lived with her.
I swept the recitation-room three times. Then I
got a dusting-cloth and I dusted it four times. All
the woodwork around the walls, every bench, table,
and desk, I went over four times with my dusting-cloth.
Besides, every piece of furniture had been
moved and every closet and corner in the room had
been thoroughly cleaned. I had the feeling that
in a large measure my future depended upon the
impression I made upon the teacher in the cleaning
of that room. When I was through, I reported to
the head teacher. She was a "Yankee" woman who
knew just where to look for dirt. She went into
the room and inspected the floor and closets; then
she took her handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about the walls, and over the table and benches. When she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the floor, or a particle of dust on any of the furniture, she quietly remarked, "I guess you will do to enter this institution."
I was one of the happiest souls on earth. The sweeping of that room was my college examination, and never did any youth pass an examination for entrance into Harvard or Yale that gave him more genuine satisfaction. I have passed several examinations since then, but I have always felt that this was the best one I ever passed.
I have spoken of my own experience in entering the Hampton Institute. Perhaps few, if any, had anything like the same experience that I had, but about that same period there were hundreds who found their way to Hampton and other institutions after experiencing something of the same difficulties that I went through. The young men and women were determined to secure an education at any cost.
The sweeping of the recitation-room in the manner that I did it seems to have paved the way for me to get through Hampton. Miss Mary F. Mackie, the head teacher, offered me a position as janitor. This, of course, I gladly accepted, because it was a place where I could work out nearly all the
cost of my board. The work was hard and taxing, but I stuck to it. I had a large number of rooms to care for, and had to work late into the night, while at the same time I had to rise by four o'clock in the morning, in order to build the fires and have a little time in which to prepare my lessons. In all my career at Hampton, and ever since I have been out in the world, Miss Mary F. Mackie, the head teacher to whom I have referred, proved one of my strongest and most helpful friends. Her advice and encouragement were always helpful and strengthening to me in the darkest hour.
I have spoken of the impression that was made upon me by the buildings and general appearance of the Hampton Institute, but I have not spoken of that which made the greatest and most lasting impression upon me, and that was a great man - the noblest, rarest human being that it has ever been my privilege to meet. I refer to the late General Samuel C. Armstrong.
It has been my fortune to meet personally many of what are called great characters, both in Europe and America, but I do not hesitate to say that I never met any man who, in my estimation, was the equal of General Armstrong. Fresh from the degrading influences of the slave plantation and the coal-mines, it was a rare privilege for me to be
permitted to come into direct contact with such a character as General Armstrong. I shall always remember that the first time I went into his presence he made the impression upon me of being a perfect man: I was made to feel that there was something about him that was superhuman. It was my privilege to know the General personally from the time I entered Hampton till he died, and the more I saw of him the greater he grew in my estimation. One might have removed from Hampton all the buildings, class-rooms, teachers, and industries, and given the men and women there the opportunity of coming into daily contact with General Armstrong, and that alone would have been a liberal education. The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women. Instead of studying books so constantly, how I wish that our schools and colleges might learn to study men and things!
General Armstrong spent two of the last six months of his life in my home at Tuskegee. At that time he was paralyzed to the extent that he had lost control of his body and voice in a very large degree. Notwithstanding his affliction, he worked almost constantly night and day for the cause to
which he had given his life. I never saw a man who so completely lost sight of himself. I do not believe he ever had a selfish thought. He was just as happy in trying to assist some other institution in the South as he was when working for Hampton. Although he fought the Southern white man in the Civil War, I never heard him utter a bitter word against him afterward. On the other hand, he was constantly seeking to find ways by which he could be of service to the Southern whites.
It would be difficult to describe the hold that he had upon the students at Hampton, or the faith they had in him. In fact, he was worshipped by his students. It never occurred to me that General Armstrong could fail in anything that he undertook. There is almost no request that he could have made that would not have been complied with. When he was a guest at my home in Alabama, and was so badly paralyzed that he had to be wheeled about in an invalid's chair, I recall that one of the General's former students had occasion to push his chair up a long, steep hill that taxed his strength to the utmost. When the top of the hill was reached, the former pupil, with a glow of happiness on his face, exclaimed, "I am so glad that I have been permitted to do something that was real hard for the General before he dies!" While I was a student at Hampton,
the dormitories became so crowded that it was impossible to find room for all who wanted to be admitted. In order to help remedy the difficulty, the General conceived the plan of putting up tents to be used as rooms. As soon as it became known that General Armstrong would be pleased if some of the older students would live in the tents during the winter, nearly every student in school volunteered to go.
I was one of the volunteers. The winter that we spent in those tents was an intensely cold one, and we suffered severely - how much I am sure General Armstrong never knew, because we made no complaints. It was enough for us to know that we were pleasing General Armstrong, and that we were making it possible for an additional number of students to secure an education. More than once, during a cold night, when a stiff gale would be blowing, our tent was lifted bodily, and we would find ourselves in the open air. The General would usually pay a visit to the tents early in the morning, and his earnest, cheerful, encouraging voice would dispel any feeling of despondency.
I have spoken of my admiration for General Armstrong, and yet he was but a type of that Christlike body of men and women who went into the Negro schools at the close of the war by the
hundreds to assist in lifting up my race. The history the world fails to show a higher, purer, and more unselfish class of men and women than those who found their way into those Negro schools.
Life at Hampton was a constant revelation to me; was constantly taking me into a new world. The matter of having meals at regular hours, of eating on a tablecloth, using a napkin, the use of the bath-tub and of the tooth-brush, as well as the use of sheets upon the bed, were all new to me.
I sometimes feel that almost the most valuable lesson I got at the Hampton Institute was in the use and value of the bath. I learned there for the first time some of its value, not only in keeping the body healthy, but in inspiring self-respect and promoting virtue. In all my travels in the South and elsewhere since leaving Hampton I have always in some way sought my daily bath. To get it sometimes when I have been the guest of my own people in a single-roomed cabin has not always been easy to do, except by slipping away to some stream in the woods. I have always tried to teach my people that some provision for bathing should be a part of every house.
For some time, while a student at Hampton, I possessed but a single pair of socks, but when I had worn these till they became soiled, I would wash
them at night and hang them by the fire to dry, so that I might wear them again the next morning.
The charge for my board at Hampton was ten dollars per month. I was expected to pay a part of this in cash and to work out the remainder. To meet this cash payment, as I have stated, I had just fifty cents when I reached the institution. Aside from a very few dollars that my brother John was able to send me once in a while, I had no money with which to pay my board. I was determined from the first to make my work as janitor so valuable that my services would be indispensable. This I succeeded in doing to such an extent that I was soon informed that I would be allowed the full cost of my board in return for my work. The cost of tuition was seventy dollars a year. This, of course, was wholly beyond my ability to provide. If I had been compelled to pay the seventy dollars for tuition, in addition to providing for my board, I would have been compelled to leave the Hampton school. General Armstrong, however, very kindly got Mr. S. Griffitts Morgan, of New Bedford, Mass., to defray the cost of my tuition during the whole time that I was at Hampton. After I finished the course at Hampton and had entered upon my lifework at Tuskegee, I had the pleasure of visiting Mr. Morgan several times.
After having been for a while at Hampton, I found myself in difficulty because I did not have books and clothing. Usually, however, I got around the trouble about books by borrowing from those who were more fortunate than myself. As to clothes, when I reached Hampton I had practically nothing. Everything that I possessed was in a small hand satchel. My anxiety about clothing was increased because of the fact that General Armstrong made a personal inspection of the young men in ranks, to see that their clothes were clean. Shoes had to be polished, there must be no buttons off the clothing, and no grease-spots. To wear one suit of clothes continually, while at work and in the schoolroom, and at the same time keep it clean, was rather a hard problem for me to solve. In some way I managed to get on till the teachers learned that I was in earnest and meant to succeed, and then some of them were kind enough to see that I was partly supplied with second-hand clothing that had been sent in barrels from the North. These barrels proved a blessing to hundreds of poor but deserving students. Without them I question whether I should ever have gotten through Hampton.
When I first went to Hampton I do not recall that I had ever slept in a bed that had two sheets
on it. In those days there were not many buildings there, and room was very precious. There were seven other boys in the same room with me; most of them, however, students who had been there for some time. The sheets were quite a puzzle to me. The first night I slept under both of them, and the second night I slept on top of both of them; but by watching the other boys I learned my lesson in this, and have been trying to follow it ever since and to teach it to others.
I was among the youngest of the students who were in Hampton at that time. Most of the students were men and women - some as old as forty years of age. As I now recall the scene of my first year, I do not believe that one often has the opportunity of coming into contact with three or four hundred men and women who were so tremendously in earnest as these men and women were. Every hour was occupied in study or work. Nearly all had had enough actual contact with the world to teach them the need of education. Many of the older ones were, of course, too old to master the text-books very thoroughly, and it was often sad to watch their struggles; but they made up in earnestness much of what they lacked in books. Many of them were as poor as I was, and, besides having to wrestle with their books, they had to
struggle with a poverty which prevented their having the necessities of life. Many of them had aged parents who were dependent upon them, and some of them were men who had wives whose support in some way they had to provide for.
The great and prevailing idea that seemed to take possession of every one was to prepare himself to lift up the people at his home. No one seemed to think of himself. And the officers and teachers, what a rare set of human beings they were! They worked for the students night and day, in season and out of season. They seemed happy only when they were helping the students in some manner. Whenever it is written - and I hope it will be - the part that the Yankee teachers played in the education of the Negroes immediately after the war will make one of the most thrilling parts of the history of this country. The time is not far distant when the whole South will appreciate this service in a way that it has not yet been able to do.
AT THE end of my first year at Hampton I was confronted with another difficulty. Most of the students went home to spend their vacation. I had no money with which to go home, but I had to go somewhere. In those days very few students were permitted to remain at the school during vacation. It made me feel very sad and homesick to see the other students preparing to leave and starting for home. I not only had no money with which to go home, but I had none with which to go anywhere.
In some way, however, I had gotten hold of an extra, second-hand coat which I thought was a pretty valuable coat. This I decided to sell, in order to get a little money for travelling expenses. I had a good deal of boyish pride, and I tried to hide, as far as I could, from the other students the fact that I had no money and nowhere to go. I made it known to a few people in the town of Hampton that I had this coat to sell, and, after a
good deal of persuading, one coloured man promised to come to my room to look the coat over and consider the matter of buying it. This cheered my drooping spirits considerably. Early the next morning my prospective customer appeared. After looking the garment over carefully, he asked me how much I wanted for it. I told him I thought it was worth three dollars. He seemed to agree with me as to price, but remarked in the most matter-of-fact way: "I tell you what I will do; I will take the coat, and I will pay you five cents, cash down, and pay you the rest of the money just as soon as I can get it." It is not hard to imagine what my feelings were at the time.
With this disappointment I gave up all hope of getting out of the town of Hampton for my vacation work. I wanted very much to go where I might secure work that would at least pay me enough to purchase some much-needed clothing and other necessities. In a few days practically all the students and teachers had left for their homes, and this served to depress my spirits even more.
After trying for several days in and near the town of Hampton, I finally secured work in a restaurant at Fortress Monroe. The wages, however, were very little more than my board. At night, and between meals, I found considerable time for study
and reading; and in this direction I improved myself very much during the summer.
When I left school at the end of my first year, I owed the institution sixteen dollars that I had not been able to work out. It was my greatest ambition during the summer to save money enough with which to pay this debt. I felt that this was a debt of honour, and that I could hardly bring myself to the point of even trying to enter school again till it was paid. I economized in every way that I could think of - did my own washing, and went without necessary garments - but still I found my summer vacation ending and I did not have the sixteen dollars.
One day, during the last week of my stay in the restaurant, I found under one of the tables a crisp, new ten-dollar bill. I could hardly contain myself, I was so happy. As it was not my place of business I felt it to be the proper thing to show the money to the proprietor. This I did. He seemed as glad as I was, but he coolly explained to me that, as it was his place of business, he had a right to keep the money, and he proceeded to do so. This, I confess, was another pretty hard blow to me. I will not say that I became discouraged, for as I now look back over my life I do not recall that I ever became discouraged over anything that I set
out to accomplish. I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed. I have always had a high regard for the man who could tell me how to succeed. I determined to face the situation just as it was. At the end of the week I went to the treasurer of the Hampton Institute, General J. F. B. Marshall, and told him frankly my condition. To my gratification he told me that I could reënter the institution, and that he would trust me to pay the debt when I could. During the second year I continued to work as a janitor.
The education that I received at Hampton out of the text-books was but a small part of what I learned there. One of the things that impressed itself upon me deeply, the second year, was the unselfishness of the teachers. It was hard for me to understand how any individuals could bring themselves to the point where they could be so happy in working for others. Before the end of the year, I think I began learning that those who are happiest are those who do the most for others. This lesson I have tried to carry with me ever since.
I also learned a valuable lesson at Hampton by coming into contact with the best breeds of live stock and fowls. No student, I think, who has had
the opportunity of doing this could go out into the world and content himself with the poorest grades.
Perhaps the most valuable thing that I got out of my second year was an understanding of the use and value of the Bible. Miss Nathalie Lord, one of the teachers, from Portland, Me., taught me how to use and love the Bible. Before this I had never cared a great deal about it, but now I learned to love to read the Bible, not only for the spiritual help which it gives, but on account of it as literature. The lessons taught me in this respect took such a hold upon me that at the present time, when I am at home, no matter how busy I am, I always make it a rule to read a chapter or a portion of a chapter in the morning, before beginning the work of the day.
Whatever ability I may have as a public speaker I owe in a measure to Miss Lord. When she found out that I had some inclination in this direction, she gave me private lessons in the matter of breathing, emphasis, and articulation. Simply to be able to talk in public for the sake of talking has never had the least attraction for me. In fact, I consider that there is nothing so empty and unsatisfactory as mere abstract public speaking; but from my early childhood I have had a desire to do something to make the world better and then to be able to speak to the world about that thing.
The debating societies at Hampton were a constant source of delight to me. These were held on Saturday evening; and during my whole life at Hampton I do not recall that I missed a single meeting. I not only attended the weekly debating society, but was instrumental in organizing an additional society. I noticed that between the time when supper was over and the time to begin evening study there were about twenty minutes which the young men usually spent in idle gossip. About twenty of us formed a society for the purpose of utilizing this time in debate or in practice in public speaking. Few persons ever derived more happiness or benefit from the use of twenty minutes of time than we did in this way.
At the end of my second year at Hampton, by the help of some money sent me by my mother and brother John, supplemented by a small gift from one of the teachers at Hampton, I was enabled to return to my home in Malden, West Virginia, to spend my vacation. When I reached home I found that the salt-furnaces were not running, and that the coal-mine was not being operated on account of the miners being out on a "strike." This was something which, it seemed, usually occurred whenever the men got two or three months ahead in their savings. During the strike, of course, they
spent all that they had saved, and would often return to work in debt at the same wages, or would move to another mine at considerable expense. In either case, my observations convinced me that the miners were worse off at the end of a strike. Before the days of strikes in that section of the country, I knew miners who had considerable money in the bank, but as soon as the professional labour agitators got control, the savings of even the more thrifty ones began disappearing.
My mother and the other members of the family were, of course, much rejoiced to see me and to note the improvement that I had made during my two years' absence. The rejoicing on the part of all classes of the coloured people, and especially the older ones, over my return, was almost pathetic. I had to pay a visit to each family and take a meal with each, and at each place tell the story of my experiences at Hampton. In addition to this I had to speak before the church and Sunday-school, and at various other places. The thing that I was most in search of, though, work, I could not find. There was no work on account of the strike. I spent nearly the whole of the first month of my vacation in an effort to find something to do by which I could earn money to pay my way back to Hampton and save a little money to use after reaching there.
Toward the end of the first month, I went to a place a considerable distance from my home, to try to find employment. I did not succeed, and it was night before I got started on my return. When I had gotten within a mile or so of my home I was so completely tired out that I could not walk any farther, and I went into an old, abandoned house to spend the remainder of the night. About three o'clock in morning my brother John found me asleep in this house, and broke to me, as gently as he could, the sad news that our dear mother had died during the night.
This seemed to me the saddest and blankest moment in my life. For several years my mother had not been in good health, but I had no idea, when I parted from her the previous day, that I should never see her alive again. Besides that, I had always had an intense desire to be with her when she did pass away. One of the chief ambitions which spurred me on at Hampton was that I might be able to be in a position in which I could better make my mother comfortable and happy. She had so often expressed the wish that she might be permitted to live to see her children educated and started out into the world.
In a very short time after the death of my mother our little home was in confusion. My
sister Amanda, although she tried to do the best she could, was too young to know anything about keeping house, and my stepfather was not able to hire a housekeeper. Sometimes we had food cooked for us, and sometimes we did not. I remember that more than once a can of tomatoes and some crackers constituted a meal. Our clothing went uncared for, and everything about our home was soon in a tumble-down condition. It seems to me that this was the most dismal period of my life.
My good friend Mrs. Ruffner, to whom I have already referred, always made me welcome at her home, and assisted me in many ways during this trying period. Before the end of the vacation she gave me some work, and this, together with work in a coal-mine at some distance from my home, enabled me to earn a little money.
At one time it looked as if I would have to give up the idea of returning to Hampton, but my heart was so set on returning that I determined not to give up going back without a struggle. I was very anxious to secure some clothes for the winter, but in this I was disappointed, except for a few garments which my brother John secured for me. Notwithstanding my need of money and clothing, I was very happy in the fact that I had secured enough money to pay my travelling expenses back to Hampton.
Once there, I knew that I could make myself so useful as a janitor that I could in some way get through the school year.
Three weeks before the time for the opening of the term at Hampton, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from my good friend Miss Mary F. Mackie, the lady principal, asking me to return to Hampton two weeks before the opening of the school, in order that I might assist her in cleaning the buildings and getting things in order for the new school year. This was just the opportunity I wanted. It gave me a chance to secure a credit in the treasurer's office. I started for Hampton at once.
During these two weeks I was taught a lesson which I shall never forget. Miss Mackie was a member of one of the oldest and most cultured families of the North, and yet for two weeks she worked by my side cleaning windows, dusting rooms, putting beds in order, and what not. She felt that things would not be in condition for the opening of school unless every window-pane was perfectly clean, and she took the greatest satisfaction in helping to clean them herself. The work which I have described she did every year that I was at Hampton.
It was hard for me at this time to understand how a woman of her education and social standing could take such delight in performing such service, in order
to assist in the elevation of an unfortunate race. Ever since then I have had no patience with any school for my race in the South which did not teach its students the dignity of labour.
During my last year at Hampton every minute of my time that was not occupied with my duties as janitor was devoted to hard study. I was determined, if possible, to make such a record in my class as would cause me to be placed on the "honour roll" of Commencement speakers. This I was successful in doing. It was June of 1875 when I finished the regular course of study at Hampton. The greatest benefits that I got out of my life at the Hampton Institute, perhaps, may be classified under two heads: -
First was contact with a great man, General S. C. Armstrong, who, I repeat, was, in my opinion, the rarest, strongest, and most beautiful character that it has ever been my privilege to meet.
Second, at Hampton, for the first time, I learned what education was expected to do for an individual. Before going there I had a good deal of the then rather prevalent idea among our people that to secure an education meant to have a good, easy time, free from all necessity for manual labour. At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labour, but learned to love labour, not alone for its
financial value, but for labour's own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.
I was completely out of money when I graduated. In company with other Hampton students, I secured a place as a table waiter in a summer hotel in Connecticut, and managed to borrow enough money with which to get there. I had not been in this hotel long before I found out that I knew practically nothing about waiting on a hotel table. The head waiter, however, supposed that I was an accomplished waiter. He soon gave me charge of a table at which there sat four or five wealthy and rather aristocratic people. My ignorance of how to wait upon them was so apparent that they scolded me in such a severe manner that I became frightened and left their table, leaving them sitting there without food. As a result of this I was reduced from the position of waiter to that of a dish-carrier.
But I determined to learn the business of waiting, and did so within a few weeks and was restored to my former position. I have had the satisfaction
of being a guest in this hotel several times since I was a waiter there.
At the close of the hotel season I returned to my former home in Malden, and was elected to teach the coloured school at that place. This was the beginning of one of the happiest periods of my life. I now felt that I had the opportunity to help the people of my home town to a higher life. I felt from the first that mere book education was not all that the young people of that town needed. I began my work at eight o'clock in the morning, and, as a rule, it did not end until ten o'clock at night. In addition to the usual routine of teaching, I taught the pupils to comb their hair, and to keep their hands and faces clean, as well as their clothing. I gave special attention to teaching them the proper use of the tooth-brush and the bath. In all my teaching I have watched carefully the influence of the tooth-brush, and I am convinced that there are few single agencies of civilization that are more far-reaching.
There were so many of the older boys and girls in the town, as well as men and women, who had to work in the daytime but still were craving an opportunity for some education, that I soon opened a night-school. From the first, this was crowded every night, being about as large as the school that I taught in the day. The efforts of some of
the men and women, who in many cases were over fifty years of age, to learn, were in some cases very pathetic.
My day and night school work was not all that I undertook. I established a small reading-room and a debating society. On Sundays I taught two Sunday-schools, one in the town of Malden in the afternoon, and the other in the morning at a place three miles distant from Malden. In addition to this, I gave private lessons to several young men whom I was fitting to send to the Hampton Institute. Without regard to pay and with little thought of it, I taught any one who wanted to learn anything that I could teach him. I was supremely happy in the opportunity of being able to assist somebody else. I did receive, however, a small salary from the public fund, for my work as a public-school teacher.
During the time that I was a student at Hampton my older brother, John, not only assisted me all that he could, but worked all of the time in the coal-mines in order to support the family. He willingly neglected his own education that he might help me. It was my earnest wish to help him to prepare to enter Hampton, and to save money to assist him in his expenses there. Both of these objects I was successful in accomplishing. In three years my
brother finished the course at Hampton, and he is now holding the important position of Superintendent of Industries at Tuskegee. When he returned from Hampton, we both combined our efforts and savings to send our adopted brother, James, through the Hampton Institute. This we succeeded in doing, and he is now the postmaster at the Tuskegee Institute. The year 1877, which was my second year of teaching in Malden, I spent very much as I did the first.
It was while my home was at Malden that what was known as the "Ku Klux Klan" was in the height of its activity. The "Ku Klux" were bands of men who had joined themselves together for the purpose of regulating the conduct of the coloured people, especially with the object of preventing the members of the race from exercising any influence in politics. They corresponded somewhat to the "patrollers" of whom I used to hear a great deal during the days of slavery, when I was a small boy. The "patrollers" were bands of white men - usually young men - who were organized largely for the purpose of regulating the conduct of the slaves at night in such matters as preventing the slaves from going from one plantation to another without passes, and for preventing them from holding any kind of meetings without permission and
without the presence at these meetings of at least one white man.
Like the "patrollers" the "Ku Klux" operated almost wholly at night. They were, however, more cruel than the "patrollers." Their objects, in the main, were to crush out the political aspirations of the Negroes, but they did not confine themselves to this, because schoolhouses as well as churches were burned by them, and many innocent persons were made to suffer. During this period not a few coloured people lost their lives.
As a young man, the acts of these lawless bands made a great impression upon me. I saw one open battle take place at Malden between some of the coloured and white people. There must have been not far from a hundred persons engaged on each side; many on both sides were seriously injured, among them being General Lewis Ruffner, the husband of my friend Mrs. Viola Ruffner. General Ruffner tried to defend the coloured people, and for this he was knocked down and so seriously wounded that he never completely recovered. It seemed to me as I watched this struggle between members of the two races, that there was no hope for our people in this country. The "Ku Klux" period was, I think, the darkest part of the Reconstruction days.
I have referred to this unpleasant part of the
history of the South simply for the purpose of calling attention to the great change that has taken place since the days of the "Ku Klux." To-day there are no such organizations in the South, and the fact that such ever existed is almost forgotten by both races. There are few places in the South now where public sentiment would permit such organizations to exist.
THE years from 1867 to 1878 I think may be called the period of Reconstruction. This included the time that I spent as a student at Hampton and as a teacher in West Virginia. During the whole of the Reconstruction period two ideas were constantly agitating the minds of the coloured people, or, at least, the minds of a large part of the race. One of these was the craze for Greek and Latin learning, and the other was a desire to hold office.
It could not have been expected that a people who had spent generations in slavery, and before that generations in the darkest heathenism, could at first form any proper conception of what an education meant. In every part of the South, during the Reconstruction period, schools, both day and night, were filled to overflowing with people of all ages and conditions, some being as far along in age as sixty and seventy years. The ambition to secure an education was most praiseworthy and encouraging. The
idea, however, was too prevalent that, as soon as one secured a little education, in some unexplainable way he would be free from most of the hardships of the world, and, at any rate, could live without manual labour. There was a further feeling that a knowledge, however little, of the Greek and Latin languages would make one a very superior human being, something bordering almost on the supernatural. I remember that the first coloured man whom I saw who knew something about foreign languages impressed me at that time as being a man of all others to be envied.
Naturally, most of our people who received some little education became teachers or preachers. While among these two classes there were many capable, earnest, godly men and women, still a large proportion took up teaching or preaching as an easy way to make a living. Many became teachers who could do little more than write their names. I remember there came into our neighbourhood one of this class, who was in search of a school to teach, and the question arose while he was there as to the shape of the earth and how he would teach the children concerning this subject. He explained his position in the matter by saying that he was prepared to teach that the earth was either flat or round, according to the preference of a majority of his patrons.
The ministry was the profession that suffered
most - and still suffers, though there has been great improvement - on account of not only ignorant but in many cases immoral men who claimed that they were "called to preach." In the earlier days of freedom almost every coloured man who learned to read would receive "a call to preach" within a few days after he began reading. At my home in West Virginia the process of being called to the ministry was a very interesting one. Usually the "call" came when the individual was sitting in church. Without warning the one called would fall upon the floor as if struck by a bullet, and would lie there for hours, speechless and motionless. Then the news would spread all through the neighbourhood that this individual had received a "call." If he were inclined to resist the summons, he would fall or be made to fall a second or third time. In the end he always yielded to the call. While I wanted an education badly, I confess that in my youth I had a fear that when I had learned to read and write well I would receive one of these "calls"; but, for some reason, my call never came.
When we add the number of wholly ignorant men who preached or "exhorted" to that of those who possessed something of an education, it can be seen at a glance that the supply of ministers was large. In fact, some time ago I knew a certain church that
had a total membership of about two hundred, and eighteen of that number were ministers. But, I repeat, in many communities in the South the character of the ministry is being improved, and I believe that within the next two or three decades a very large proportion of the unworthy ones will have disappeared. The "calls" to preach, I am glad to say, are not nearly so numerous now as they were formerly, and the calls to some industrial occupation are growing more numerous. The improvement that has taken place in the character of the teachers is even more marked than in the case of the ministers.
During the whole of the Reconstruction period our people throughout the South looked to the Federal Government for everything, very much as a child looks to its mother. This was not unnatural. The central government gave them freedom, and the whole Nation had been enriched for more than two centuries by the labour of the Negro. Even as a youth, and later in manhood, I had the feeling that it was cruelly wrong in the central government, at the beginning of our freedom, to fail to make some provision for the general education of our people in addition to what the states might do, so that the people would be the better prepared for the duties of citizenship.
It is easy to find fault, to remark what might have
been done, and perhaps, after all, and under all the circumstances, those in charge of the conduct of affairs did the only thing that could be done at the time. Still, as I look back now over the entire period of our freedom, I cannot help feeling that it would have been wiser if some plan could have been put in operation which would have made the possession of a certain amount of education or property, or both, a test for the exercise of the franchise, and a way provided by which this test should be made to apply honestly and squarely to both the white and black races.
Though I was but little more than a youth during
the period of Reconstruction, I had the feeling
that mistakes were being made, and that things could
not remain in the condition that they were in then
very long. I felt that the Reconstruction policy, so
far as it related to my race, was in a large measure
on a false foundation, was artificial and forced. In
many cases it seemed to me that the ignorance of
my race was being used as a tool with which to help
white men into office, and that there was an element
in the North which wanted to punish the Southern
white men by forcing the Negro into positions
over the heads of the Southern whites. I felt that
the Negro would be the one to suffer for this in the
end. Besides, the general political agitation drew
the attention of our people away from the more fundamental matters of perfecting themselves in the industries at their doors and in securing property.
The temptations to enter political life were so alluring that I came very near yielding to them at one time, but I was kept from doing so by the feeling that I would be helping in a more substantial way by assisting in the laying of the foundation of the race through a generous education of the hand, head, and heart. I saw coloured men who were members of the state legislatures, and county officers, who, in some cases, could not read or write, and whose morals were as weak as their education. Not long ago, when passing through the streets of a certain city in the South, I heard some brick-masons calling out, from the top of a two-story brick building on which they were working, for the "Governor" to "hurry up and bring up some more bricks." Several times I heard the command, "Hurry up, Governor!" "Hurry up, Governor!" My curiosity was aroused to such an extent that I made inquiry as to who the "Governor" was, and soon found that he was a coloured man who at one time had held the position of Lieutenant-Governor of his state.
But not all the coloured people who were in office during Reconstruction were unworthy of their positions, by any means. Some of them, like the
late Senator B. K. Bruce, Governor Pinchback, and many others, were strong, upright, useful men. Neither were all the class designated as carpetbaggers dishonourable men. Some of them, like ex-Governor Bullock, of Georgia, were men of high character and usefulness.
Of course the coloured people, so largely without education, and wholly without experience in government, made tremendous mistakes, just as any people similarly situated would have done. Many of the Southern whites have a feeling that, if the Negro is permitted to exercise his political rights now to any degree, the mistakes of the Reconstruction period will repeat themselves. I do not think this would be true, because the Negro is a much stronger and wiser man than he was thirty-five years ago, and he is fast learning the lesson that he cannot afford to act in a manner that will alienate his Southern white neighbours from him. More and more I am convinced that the final solution of the political end of our race problem will be for each state that finds it necessary to change the law bearing upon the franchise to make the law apply with absolute honesty, and without opportunity for double dealing or evasion, to both races alike. Any other course my daily observation in the South convinces me, will be unjust to the Negro, unjust
to the white man, and unfair to the rest of the states in the Union, and will be, like slavery, a sin that at some time we shall have to pay for.
In the fall of 1878, after having taught school in Malden for two years, and after I had succeeded in preparing several of the young men and women, besides my two brothers, to enter the Hampton Institute, I decided to spend some months in study at Washington D.C. I remained there for eight months. I derived a great deal of benefit from the studies which I pursued, and I came into contact with some strong men and women. At the institution I attended there was no industrial training given to the students, and I had an opportunity of comparing the influence of an institution with no industrial training with that of one like the Hampton Institute, that emphasized the industries. At this school I found the students, in most cases, had more money, were better dressed, wore the latest style of all manner of clothing, and in some cases were more brilliant mentally. At Hampton it was a standing rule that, while the institution would be responsible for securing some one to pay the tuition for the students, the men and women themselves must provide for their own board, books, clothing, and room wholly by work, or partly by work and partly in cash. At the institution at which I now was, I
found that a large proportion of the students by some means had their personal expenses paid for them. At Hampton the student was constantly making the effort through the industries to help himself, and that very effort was of immense value in character-building. The students at the other school seemed to be less self-dependent. They seemed to give more attention to mere outward appearances. In a word, they did not appear to me to be beginning at the bottom, on a real, solid foundation, to the extent that they were at Hampton. They knew more about Latin and Greek when they left school, but they seemed to know less about life and its conditions as they would meet it at their homes. Having lived for a number of years in the midst of comfortable surroundings, they were not as much inclined as the Hampton students to go into the country districts of the South, where there was little of comfort, to take up work for our people, and they were more inclined to yield to the temptation to become hotel waiters and Pullman-car porters as their life-work.
During the time I was a student in Washington the city was crowded with coloured people, many of whom had recently come from the South. A large proportion of these people had been drawn to Washington because they felt that they could lead
a life of ease there. Others had secured minor government positions, and still another large class was there in the hope of securing Federal positions. A number of coloured men - some of them very strong and brilliant - were in the House of Representatives at that time, and one, the Hon. B. K. Bruce, was in the Senate. All this tended to make Washington an attractive place for members of the coloured race. Then, too, they knew that at all times they could have the protection of the law in the District of Columbia. The public schools in Washington for coloured people were better then than they were elsewhere. I took great interest in studying the life of our people there closely at that time. I found that while among them there was a large element of substantial, worthy citizens, there was also a superficiality about the life of a large class that greatly alarmed me. I saw young coloured men who were not earning more than four dollars a week spend two dollars or more for a buggy on Sunday to ride up and down Pennsylvania Avenue in, in order that they might try to convince the world that they were worth thousands. I saw other young men who received seventy-five or one hundred dollars per month from the Government, who were in debt at the end of every month. I saw men who but a few months previous were members
of Congress, then without employment and in poverty. Among a large class there seemed to be a dependence upon the Government for every conceivable thing. The members of this class had little ambition to create a position for themselves, but wanted the Federal officials to create one for them. How many times I wished then, and have often wished since, that by some power of magic I might remove the great bulk of these people into the country districts and plant them upon the soil, upon the solid and never deceptive foundation of Mother Nature, where all nations and races that have ever succeeded have gotten their start, - a start that at first may be slow and toilsome, but one that nevertheless is real.
In Washington I saw girls whose mothers were earning their living by laundrying. These girls were taught by their mothers, in rather a crude way it is true, the industry of laundrying. Later, these girls entered the public schools and remained there perhaps six or eight years. When the public school course was finally finished, they wanted more costly dresses, more costly hats and shoes. In a word, while their wants had been increased, their ability to supply their wants had not been increased in the same degree. On the other hand, their six or eight years of book education had weaned them
away from the occupation of their mothers. The result of this was in too many cases that the girls went to the bad. I often thought how much wiser it would have been to give these girls the same amount of mental training - and I favour any kind of training, whether in the languages or mathematics, that gives strength and culture to the mind - but at the same time to give them the most thorough training in the latest and best methods of laundrying and other kindred occupations.
DURING the year that I spent in Washington, and for some little time before this, there had been considerable agitation in the state of West Virginia over the question of moving the capital of the state from Wheeling to some other central point. As a result of this, the Legislature designated three cities to be voted upon by the citizens of the state as the permanent seat of government. Among these cities was Charleston, only five miles from Malden, my home. At the close of my school year in Washington I was very pleasantly surprised to receive, from a committee of white people in Charleston, an invitation to canvass the state in the interests of that city. This invitation I accepted, and spent nearly three months in speaking in various parts of the state. Charleston was successful in winning the prize, and is now the permanent seat of government.
The reputation that I made as a speaker during this campaign induced a number of persons to
make an earnest effort to get me to enter political life, but I refused, still believing that I could find other service which would prove of more permanent value to my race. Even then I had a strong feeling that what our people most needed was to get a foundation in education, industry, and property, and for this I felt that they could better afford to strive than for political preferment. As for my individual self, it appeared to me to be reasonably certain that I could succeed in political life, but I had a feeling that it would be a rather selfish kind of success - individual success at the cost of failing to do my duty in assisting in laying a foundation for the masses.
At this period in the progress of our race a very large proportion of the young men who went to school or to college did so with the expressed determination to prepare themselves to be great lawyers, or Congressmen, and many of the women planned to become music teachers; but I had a reasonably fixed idea, even at that early period in my life, that there was need for something to be done to prepare the way for successful lawyers, Congressmen, and music teachers.
I felt that the conditions were a good deal like those of an old coloured man, during the days of slavery, who wanted to learn how to play on the
guitar. In his desire to take guitar lessons he applied to one of his young masters to teach him, but the young man, not having much faith in the ability of the slave to master the guitar at his age, sought to discourage him by telling him: "Uncle Jake, I will give you guitar lessons; but, Jake, I will have to charge you three dollars for the first lesson, two dollars for the second lesson, and one dollar for the third lesson. But I will charge you only twenty-five cents for the last lesson."
Uncle Jake answered: "All right, boss, I hires you on dem terms. But, boss! I wants yer to be sure an' give me dat las' lesson first."
Soon after my work in connection with the removal of the capital was finished, I received an invitation which gave me great joy and which at the same time was a very pleasant surprise. This was a letter from General Armstrong, inviting me to return to Hampton at the next Commencement to deliver what was called the "post-graduate address." This was an honour which I had not dreamed of receiving. With much care I prepared the best address that I was capable of. I chose for my subject "The Force That Wins."
As I returned to Hampton for the purpose of delivering this address, I went over much of the same ground - now, however, covered entirely by
railroad - that I had traversed nearly six years before, when I first sought entrance into Hampton Institute as a student. Now I was able to ride the whole distance in the train. I was constantly contrasting this with my first journey to Hampton. I think I may say, without seeming egotism, that it is seldom that five years have wrought such a change in the life and aspirations of an individual.
At Hampton I received a warm welcome from teachers and students. I found that during my absence from Hampton the institute each year had been getting closer to the real needs and conditions of our people; that the industrial teaching, as well as that of the academic department, had greatly improved. The plan of the school was not modelled after that of any other institution then in existence, but every improvement was made under the magnificent leadership of General Armstrong solely with the view of meeting and helping the needs of our people as they presented themselves at the time. Too often, it seems to me, in missionary and educational work among undeveloped races, people yield to the temptation of doing that which was done a hundred years before, or is being done in other communities a thousand miles away. The temptation often is to run each individual through a certain educational mould,
regardless of the condition of the subject or the end to be accomplished. This was not so at Hampton Institute.
The address which I delivered on Commencement Day seems to have pleased every one, and many kind and encouraging words were spoken to me regarding it. Soon after my return to my home in West Virginia, where I had planned to continue teaching, I was again surprised to receive a letter from General Armstrong, asking me to return to Hampton partly as a teacher and partly to pursue some supplementary studies. This was in the summer of 1879. Soon after I began my first teaching in West Virginia I had picked out four of the brightest and most promising of my pupils, in addition to my two brothers, to whom I have already referred, and had given them special attention, with the view of having them go to Hampton. They had gone there, and in each case the teachers had found them so well prepared that they entered advanced classes. This fact, it seems, led to my being called back to Hampton as a teacher. One of the young men that I sent to Hampton in this way is now Dr. Samuel E. Courtney, a successful physician in Boston, and a member of the School Board of that city.
About this time the experiment was being tried
for the first time, by General Armstrong, of educating Indians at Hampton. Few people then had any confidence in the ability of the Indians to receive education and to profit by it. General Armstrong was anxious to try the experiment systematically on a large scale. He secured from the reservations in the Western states over one hundred wild and for the most part perfectly ignorant Indians, the greater proportion of whom were young men. The special work which the General desired me to do was to be a sort of "house father" to the Indian young men - that is, I was to live in the building with them and have the charge of their discipline, clothing, rooms, and so on. This was a very tempting offer, but I had become so much absorbed in my work in West Virginia that I dreaded to give it up. However, I tore myself away from it. I did not know how to refuse to perform any service that General Armstrong desired of me.
On going to Hampton, I took up my residence in a building with about seventy-five Indian youths. I was the only person in the building who was not a member of their race. At first I had a good deal of doubt about my ability to succeed. I knew that the average Indian felt himself above the white man, and, of course, he felt himself far above the
Negro, largely on account of the fact of the Negro having submitted to slavery - a thing which the Indian would never do. The Indians, in the Indian Territory, owned a large number of slaves during the days of slavery. Aside from this, there was a general feeling that the attempt to educate and civilize the red men at Hampton would be a failure. All this made me proceed very cautiously, for I felt keenly the great responsibility. But I was determined to succeed. It was not long before I had the complete confidence of the Indians, and not only this, but I think I am safe in saying that I had their love and respect. I found that they were about like any other human beings; that they responded to kind treatment and resented ill-treatment. They were continually planning to do something that would add to my happiness and comfort. The things that they disliked most, I think, were to have their long hair cut, to give up wearing their blankets, and to cease smoking; but no white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man's clothes, eats the white man's food, speaks the white man's language, and professes the white man's religion.
When the difficulty of learning the English language was subtracted, I found that in the matter
of learning trades and in mastering academic studies there was little difference between the coloured and Indian students. It was a constant delight to me to note the interest which the coloured students took in trying to help the Indians in every way possible. There were a few of the coloured students who felt that the Indians ought not to be admitted to Hampton, but these were in the minority. Whenever they were asked to do so, the Negro students gladly took the Indians as room-mates, in order that they might teach them to speak English and to acquire civilized habits.
I have often wondered if there was a white institution in this country whose students would have welcomed the incoming of more than a hundred companions of another race in the cordial way that these black students at Hampton welcomed the red ones. How often I have wanted to say to white students that they lift themselves up in proportion as they help to lift others, and the more unfortunate the race, and the lower in the scale of civilization, the more does one raise one's self by giving the assistance.
This reminds me of a conversation which I once had with the Hon. Frederick Douglass. At one time Mr. Douglass was travelling in the state of Pennsylvania, and was forced, on account of his
colour, to ride in the baggage-car, in spite of the fact that he had paid the same price for his passage that the other passengers had paid. When some of the white passengers went into the baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and one of them said to him: "I am sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been degraded in this manner," Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on the box upon which he was sitting, and replied: "They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me."
In one part of our country, where the law demands the separation of the races on the railroad trains, I saw at one time a rather amusing instance which showed how difficult it sometimes is to know where the black begins and the white ends.
There was a man who was well known in his community as a Negro, but who was so white that even an expert would have hard work to classify him as a black man. This man was riding in the part of the train set aside for the coloured passengers. When the train conductor reached him, he showed at once that he was perplexed. If the man was a Negro, the conductor did not want to send him into the white people's coach; at the
same time, if he was a white man, the conductor did not want to insult him by asking him if he was a Negro. The official looked him over carefully, examining his hair, eyes, nose, and hands, but still seemed puzzled. Finally, to solve the difficulty, he stooped over and peeped at the man's feet. When I saw the conductor examining the feet of the man in question, I said to myself, "That will settle it;" and so it did, for the trainman promptly decided that the passenger was a Negro, and let him remain where he was. I congratulated myself that my race was fortunate in not losing one of its members.
My experience has been that the time to test a true gentleman is to observe him when he is in contact with individuals of a race that is less fortunate than his own. This is illustrated in no better way than by observing the conduct of the old-school type of Southern gentleman when he is in contact with his former slaves or their descendants.
An example of what I mean is shown in a story told of George Washington, who, meeting a colored man in the road once, who politely lifted his hat, lifted his own in return. Some of his white friends who saw the incident criticised Washington for his action. In reply to their criticism George Washington said: "Do you suppose that I am going to
permit a poor, ignorant, coloured man to be more polite than I am?"
While I was in charge of the Indian boys at Hampton I had one or two experiences which illustrate the curious workings of caste in America. One of the Indian boys was taken ill, and it became my duty to take him to Washington, deliver him over to the Secretary of the Interior, and get a receipt for him, in order that he might be returned to his Western reservation. At that time I was rather ignorant of the ways of the world. During my journey to Washington, on a steamboat, when the bell rang for dinner, I was careful to wait and not enter the dining room until after the greater part of the passengers had finished their meal. Then, with my charge, I went to the dining saloon. The man in charge politely informed me that the Indian could be served, but that I could not. I never could understand how he knew just where to draw the colour line, since the Indian and I were of about the same complexion. The steward, however, seemed to be an expert in this matter. I had been directed by the authorities at Hampton to stop at a certain hotel in Washington with my charge, but when I went to this hotel the clerk stated that he would be glad to receive the Indian into the house, but said that he could not accommodate me.
An illustration of something of this same feeling came under my observation afterward. I happened to find myself in a town in which so much excitement and indignation were being expressed that it seemed likely for a time that there would be a lynching. The occasion of the trouble was that a dark-skinned man had stopped at the local hotel. Investigation, however, developed the fact that this individual was a citizen of Morocco, and that while travelling in this country he spoke the English language. As soon as it was learned that he was not an American Negro, all the signs of indignation disappeared. The man who was the innocent cause of the excitement, though, found it prudent after that not to speak English.
At the end of my first year with the Indians there came another opening for me at Hampton, which, as I look back over my life now, seems to have come providentially, to help to prepare me for my work at Tuskegee later. General Armstrong had found out that there was quite a number of young coloured men and women who were intensely in earnest in wishing to get an education, but who were prevented from entering Hampton Institute because they were too poor to be able to pay any portion of the cost of their board, or even to supply themselves with books. He conceived the idea of
starting a night-school in connection with the Institute, into which a limited number of the most promising of these young men and women would be received, on condition that they were to work for ten hours during the day, and attend school for two hours at night. They were to be paid something above the cost of their board for their work. The greater part of their earnings was to be reserved in the school's treasury as a fund to be drawn on to pay their board when they had become students in the day-school, after they had spent one or two years in the night-school. In this way they would obtain a start in their books and a knowledge of some trade or industry, in addition to the other far-reaching benefits of the institution.
General Armstrong asked me to take charge of the night-school, and I did so. At the beginning of this school there were about twelve strong, earnest men and women who entered the class. During the day the greater part of the young men worked in the school's sawmill, and the young women worked in the laundry. The work was not easy in either place, but in all my teaching I never taught pupils who gave me such genuine satisfaction as these did. They were good students, and mastered their work thoroughly. They were so much in earnest that only the ringing of the retiring-bell would make
them stop studying, and often they would urge me to continue the lessons after the usual hour for going to bed had come.
These students showed so much earnestness, both in their hard work during the day, as well as in their application to their studies at night, that I gave them the name of "The Plucky Class" - a name which soon grew popular and spread throughout the institution. After a student had been in the night-school long enough to prove what was in him, I gave him a printed certificate which read something like this: -
"This is to certify that James Smith is a member of The Plucky Class of the Hampton Institute, and is in good and regular standing."
The students prized these certificates highly, and they added greatly to the popularity of the night-school. Within a few weeks this department had grown to such an extent that there were about twenty-five students in attendance. I have followed the course of many of these twenty-five men and women ever since then, and they are now holding important and useful positions in nearly every part of the South. The night-school at Hampton, which started with only twelve students, now numbers between three and four hundred, and is one of the permanent and most important features of the institution.
DURING the time that I had charge of the Indians and the night-school at Hampton, I pursued some studies myself, under the direction of the instructors there. One of these instructors was the Rev. Dr. H. B. Frissell, the present Principal of the Hampton Institute, General Armstrong's successor.
In May, 1881, near the close of my first year in teaching the night-school, in a way that I had not dared expect, the opportunity opened for me to begin my life-work. One night in the chapel, after the usual chapel exercises were over, General Armstrong referred to the fact that he had received a letter from some gentlemen in Alabama asking him to recommend some one to take charge of what was to be a normal school for the coloured people in the little town of Tuskegee in that state. These gentlemen seemed to take it for granted that no coloured man suitable for the position could be secured, and they were expecting the General to recommend a
white man for the place. The next day General Armstrong sent for me to come to his office, and, much to my surprise, asked me if I thought I could fill the position in Alabama. I told him that I would be willing to try. Accordingly, he wrote to the people who had applied to him for the information, that he did not know of any white man to suggest, but if they would be willing to take a coloured man, he had one whom he could recommend. In this letter he gave them my name.
Several days passed before anything more was heard about the matter. Some time afterward, one Sunday evening during the chapel exercises, a messenger came in and handed the general a telegram. At the end of the exercises he read the telegram to the school. In substance, these were its words: "Booker T. Washington will suit us. Send him at once."
There was a great deal of joy expressed among the students and teachers, and I received very hearty congratulations. I began to get ready at once to go to Tuskegee. I went by way of my old home in West Virginia, where I remained for several days, after which I proceeded to Tuskegee. I found Tuskegee to be a town of about two thousand inhabitants, nearly one-half of whom were coloured. It was in what was known as the Black Belt of the South. In
the county in which Tuskegee is situated the coloured people outnumbered the whites by about three to one. In some of the adjoining and near-by counties the proportion was not far from six coloured persons to one white.
I have often been asked to define the term "Black Belt." So far as I can learn, the term was first used to designate a part of the country which was distinguished by the colour of the soil. The part of the country possessing this thick, dark, and naturally rich soil was, of course, the part of the South where the slaves were most profitable, and consequently they were taken there in the largest numbers. Later, and especially since the war, the term seems to be used wholly in a political sense - that is, to designate the counties where the black people outnumber the white.
Before going to Tuskegee I had expected to find there a building and all the necessary apparatus ready for me to begin teaching. To my disappointment, I found nothing of the kind. I did find, though, that which no costly building and apparatus can supply, - hundreds of hungry, earnest souls who wanted to secure knowledge.
Tuskegee seemed an ideal place for the school. It was in the midst of the great bulk of the Negro population, and was rather secluded, being five miles
from the main line of railroad, with which it was connected by a short line. During the days of slavery, and since, the town had been a centre for the education of the white people. This was an added advantage, for the reason that I found the white people possessing a degree of culture and education that is not surpassed by many localities. While the coloured people were ignorant, they had not, as a rule, degraded and weakened their bodies by vices such as are common to the lower class of people in the large cities. In general, I found the relations between the two races pleasant. For example, the largest, and I think at that time the only hardware store in the town was owned and operated jointly by a coloured man and a white man. This copartnership continued until the death of the white partner.
I found that about a year previous to my going to Tuskegee some of the coloured people who had heard something of the work of education being done a Hampton had applied to the state Legislature, through their representatives, for a small appropriation to be used in starting a normal school in Tuskegee. This request the Legislature had complied with to the extent of granting an annual appropriation of two thousand dollars. I soon learned, however, that this money could be used only for the payment of the salaries of the instructors, and that
there was no provision for securing land, buildings, or apparatus. The task before me did not seem a very encouraging one. It seemed much like making bricks without straw. The coloured people were overjoyed, and were constantly offering their services in any way in which they could be of assistance in getting the school started.
My first task was to find a place in which to open the school. After looking the town over with some care, the most suitable place that could be secured seemed to be a rather dilapidated shanty near the coloured Methodist church, together with the church itself as a sort of assembly-room. Both the church and the shanty were in about as bad condition as was possible. I recall that during the first months of school that I taught in this building it was in such poor repair that, whenever it rained, one of the older students would very kindly leave his lessons and hold an umbrella over me while I heard the recitations of the others. I remember, also, that on more than one occasion my landlady held an umbrella over me while I ate breakfast.
At the time I went to Alabama the coloured people were taking considerable interest in politics, and they were very anxious that I should become one of them politically, in every respect. They seemed to have a little distrust of strangers in this regard. I
recall that one man, who seemed to have been designated by the others to look after my political destiny, came to me on several occasions and said, with a good deal of earnestness: "We wants you to be sure to vote jes' like we votes. We can't read de newspapers very much, but we knows how to vote, an' we wants you to vote jes' like we votes." He added: "We watches de white man, and we keeps watching de white man till we finds out which way de white man's gwine to vote; an' when we finds out which way de white man's gwine to vote, den we votes 'xactly de other way. Den we knows we's right."
I am glad to add, however, that at the present time the disposition to vote against the white man merely because he is white is largely disappearing, and the race is learning to vote from principle, for what the voter considers to be for the best interests of both races.
I reached Tuskegee, as I have said, early in June, 1881. The first month I spent in finding accommodations for the school, and in travelling through Alabama, examining into the actual life of the people, especially in the country districts, and in getting the school advertised among the class of people that I wanted to have attend it. The most of my travelling was done over the country roads, with a mule
and a cart or a mule and a buggy wagon for conveyance. I ate and slept with the people, in their little cabins. I saw their farms, their schools, their churches. Since, in the case of the most of these visits, there had been no notice given in advance that a stranger was expected, I had the advantage of seeing the real, everyday life of the people.
In the plantation districts I found that, as a rule, the whole family slept in one room, and that in addition to the immediate family there sometimes were relatives, or others not related to the family, who slept in the same room. On more than one occasion I went outside the house to get ready for bed, or to wait until the family had gone to bed. They usually contrived some kind of a place for me to sleep, either on the floor or in a special part of another's bed. Rarely was there any place provided in the cabin where one could bathe even the face and hands, but usually some provision was made for this outside the house, in the yard.
The common diet of the people was fat pork and corn bread. At times I have eaten in cabins where they had only corn bread and "black-eye peas" cooked in plain water. The people seemed to have no other idea than to live on this fat meat and corn bread, - the meat, and the meal of which the bread was made, having been bought at a high price at a
store in town, notwithstanding the fact that the land all about the cabin homes could easily have been made to produce nearly every kind of garden vegetable that is raised anywhere in the country. Their one object seemed to be to plant nothing but cotton; and in many cases cotton was planted up to the very door of the cabin.
In these cabin homes I often found sewing-machines which had been bought, or were being bought, on instalments, frequently at a cost of as much as sixty dollars, or showy clocks for which the occupants of the cabins had paid twelve or fourteen dollars. I remember that on one occasion when I went into one of these cabins for dinner, when I sat down to the table for a meal with the four members of the family, I noticed that, while there were five of us at the table, there was but one fork for the five of us to use. Naturally there was an awkward pause on my part. In the opposite corner of that same cabin was an organ for which the people told me they were paying sixty dollars in monthly instalments. One fork, and a sixty-dollar organ!
In most cases the sewing-machine was not used, the clocks were so worthless that they did not keep correct time - and if they had, in nine cases out of ten there would have been no one in the family who could have told the time of day - while the organ,
of course, was rarely used for want of a person who could play upon it.
In the case to which I have referred, where the family sat down to the table for the meal at which I was their guest, I could see plainly that this was an awkward and unusual proceeding, and was done in my honour. In most cases, when the family got up in the morning, for example, the wife would put a piece of meat in a frying-pan and put a lump of dough in a "skillet," as they called it. These utensils would be placed on the fire, and in ten or fifteen minutes breakfast would be ready. Frequently the husband would take his bread and meat in his hand and start for the field, eating as he walked. The mother would sit down in a corner and eat her breakfast, perhaps from a plate and perhaps directly from the "skillet" or frying-pan, while the children would eat their portion of the bread and meat while running about the yard. At certain seasons of the year, when meat was scarce, it was rarely that the children who were not old enough or strong enough to work in the fields would have the luxury of meat.
The breakfast over, and with practically no attention given to the house, the whole family would, as a general thing, proceed to the cotton-field. Every child that was large enough to carry a hoe was put to work, and the baby - for usually there was at
least one baby - would be laid down at the end of the cotton row, so that its mother could give it a certain amount of attention when she had finished chopping her row. The noon meal and the supper were taken in much the same way as the breakfast.
All the days of the family would be spent after much this same routine, except Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday the whole family would spend at least half a day, and often a whole day, in town. The idea in going to town was, I suppose, to do shopping, but all the shopping that the whole family had money for could have been attended to in ten minutes by one person. Still, the whole family remained in town for most of the day, spending the greater part of the time in standing on the streets, the women, too often, sitting about somewhere smoking or dipping snuff. Sunday was usually spent in going to some big meeting. With few exceptions, I found that the crops were mortgaged in the counties where I went, and that the most of the coloured farmers were in debt. The state had not been able to build schoolhouses in the country districts, and, as a rule, the schools were taught in churches or in log cabins. More than once, while on my journeys, I found that there was no provision made in the house used for school purposes for heating the building during the winter, and
consequently a fire had to be built in the yard, and teacher and pupils passed in and out of the house as they got cold or warm. With few exceptions, I found the teachers in these country schools to be miserably poor in preparation for their work, and poor in moral character. The schools were in session from three to five months. There was practically no apparatus in the schoolhouses, except that occasionally there was a rough blackboard. I recall that one day I went into a schoolhouse - or rather into an abandoned log cabin that was being used as a schoolhouse - and found five pupils who were studying a lesson from one book. Two of these, on the front seat, were using the book between them; behind these were two others peeping over the shoulders of the first two, and behind the four was a fifth little fellow who was peeping over the shoulders of all four.
What I have said concerning the character of the schoolhouses and teachers will also apply quite accurately as a description of the church buildings and the ministers.
I met some very interesting characters during my
travels. As illustrating the peculiar mental processes
of the country people, I remember that I asked one
coloured man, who was about sixty years old, to tell
me something of his history. He said that he had
been born in Virginia, and sold into Alabama in 1845. I asked him how many were sold at the same time. He said, "There were five of us; myself and brother and three mules."
In giving all these descriptions of what I saw during my month of travel in the country around Tuskegee, I wish my readers to keep in mind the fact that there were many encouraging exceptions to the conditions which I have described. I have stated in such plain words what I saw, mainly for the reason that later I want to emphasize the encouraging changes that have taken place in the community, not wholly by the work of the Tuskegee school, but by that of other institutions as well.
I CONFESS that what I saw during my month of travel and investigation left me with a very heavy heart. The work to be done in order to lift these people up seemed almost beyond accomplishing. I was only one person, and it seemed to me that the little effort which I could put forth could go such a short distance toward bringing about results. I wondered if I could accomplish anything, and if it were worth while for me to try.
Of one thing I felt more strongly convinced than ever, after spending this month in seeing the actual life of the coloured people, and that was that, in order to lift them up, something must be done more than merely to imitate New England education as it then existed. I saw more clearly than ever the wisdom of the system which General Armstrong had inaugurated at Hampton. To take the children of such people as I had been among for a month, and each day give them a few hours of mere book education, I felt would be almost a waste of time.
After consultation with the citizens of Tuskegee, I set July 4, 1881, as the day for the opening of the school in the little shanty and church which had been secured for its accommodation. The white people, as well as the coloured, were greatly interested in the starting of the new school, and the opening day was looked forward to with much earnest discussion. There were not a few white people in the vicinity of Tuskegee who looked with some disfavour upon the project. They questioned its value to the coloured people, and had a fear that it might result in bringing about trouble between the races. Some had the feeling that in proportion as the Negro received education, in the same proportion would his value decrease as an economic factor in the state. These people feared the result of education would be that the Negroes would leave the farms, and that it would be difficult to secure them for domestic service.
The white people who questioned the wisdom of starting this new school had in their minds pictures of what was called an educated Negro, with a high hat, imitation gold eye-glasses, a showy walking-stick, kid gloves, fancy boots, and what not - in a word, a man who was determined to live by his wits. It was difficult for these people to see
how education would produce any other kind of a coloured man.
In the midst of all the difficulties which I encountered in getting the little school started, and since then through a period of nineteen years, there are two men among all the many friends of the school in Tuskegee upon whom I have depended constantly for advice and guidance; and the success of the undertaking is largely due to these men, from whom I have never sought anything in vain. I mention them simply as types. One is a white man and an ex-slaveholder, Mr. George W. Campbell; the other is a black man and an ex-slave, Mr. Lewis Adams. These were the men who wrote to General Armstrong for a teacher.
Mr. Campbell is a merchant and banker, and had had little experience in dealing with matters pertaining to education. Mr. Adams was a mechanic, and had learned the trades of shoemaking, harnessmaking, and tinsmithing during the days of slavery. He had never been to school a day in his life, but in some way he had learned to read and write while a slave. From the first, these two men saw clearly what my plan of education was, sympathized with me, and supported me in every effort. In the days which were darkest financially for the school, Mr. Campbell was never appealed to when he was not
willing to extend all the aid in his power. I do not know two men, one an ex-slaveholder, one an ex-slave, whose advice and judgment I would feel more like following in everything which concerns the life and development of the school at Tuskegee than those of these two men.
I have always felt that Mr. Adams, in a large degree, derived his unusual power of mind from the training given his hands in the process of mastering well three trades during the days of slavery. If one goes to day into any Southern town, and asks for the leading and most reliable coloured man in the community, I believe that in five cases out of ten he will be directed to a Negro who learned a trade during the days of slavery.
On the morning that the school opened, thirty students reported for admission. I was the only teacher. The students were about equally divided between the sexes. Most of them lived in Macon County, the county in which Tuskegee is situated, and of which it is the county-seat. A great many more students wanted to enter the school, but it had been decided to receive only those who were above fifteen years of age, and who had previously received some education. The greater part of the thirty were public-school teachers, and some of them were nearly forty years of age. With the teachers came
some of their former pupils, and when they were examined it was amusing to note that in several cases the pupil entered a higher class than did his former teacher. It was also interesting to note how many big books some of them had studied, and how many high-sounding subjects some of them claimed to have mastered. The bigger the book and the longer the name of the subject, the prouder they felt of their accomplishment. Some had studied Latin, and one or two Greek. This they thought entitled them to special distinction.
In fact, one of the saddest things I saw during the month of travel which I have described was a young man, who had attended some high school, sitting down in a one-room cabin, with grease on his clothing, filth all around him, and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in studying a French grammar.
The students who came first seemed to be fond of memorizing long and complicated "rules" in grammar and mathematics, but had little thought or knowledge of applying these rules to the everyday affairs of their life. One subject which they liked to talk about, and tell me that they had mastered, in arithmetic, was "banking and discount," but I soon found out that neither they not almost any one in the neighbourhood in which they
lived had ever had a bank account. In registering the names of the students, I found that almost every one of them had one or more middle initials. When I asked what the "J" stood for, in the name of John J. Jones, it was explained to me that this was a part of his "entitles." Most of the students wanted to get an education because they thought it would enable them to earn more money as school-teachers.
Notwithstanding what I have said about them in these respects, I have never seen a more earnest and willing company of young men and women than these students were. They were all willing to learn the right thing as soon as it was shown them what was right. I was determined to start them off on a solid and thorough foundation, so far as their books were concerned. I soon learned that most of them had the merest smattering of the high-sounding things that they had studied. While they could locate the Desert of Sahara or the capital of China on an artificial globe, I found out that the girls could not locate the proper places for the knives and forks on an actual dinner-table, or the places on which the bread and meat should be set.
I had to summon a good deal of courage to take a student who had been studying cube root and "banking and discount", and explain to him that
the wisest thing for him to do first was thoroughly to master the multiplication table.
The number of pupils increased each week, until by the end of the first month there were nearly fifty. Many of them, however, said that, as they could remain only for two or three months, they wanted to enter a high class and get a diploma the first year if possible.
At the end of the first six weeks a new and rare face entered the school as a co-teacher. This was Miss Olive A. Davidson, who later became my wife. Miss Davidson was born in Ohio, and received her preparatory education in the public schools of that state. When little more than a girl, she heard of the need of teachers in the South. She went to the state of Mississippi and began teaching there. Later she taught in the city of Memphis. While teaching in Mississippi, one of her pupils became ill with smallpox. Every one in the community was so frightened that no one would nurse the boy. Miss Davidson closed her school and remained by the bedside of the boy night and day until he recovered. While she was at her Ohio home on her vacation, the worst epidemic of yellow fever broke out in Memphis, Tenn. that perhaps has ever occurred in the South. When she heard of this, she at once telegraphed the Mayor of Memphis, offering
her services as a yellow-fever nurse, although she had never had the disease.
Miss Davidson's experience in the South showed her that the people needed something more than mere book-learning. She heard of the Hampton system of education, and decided that this was what she wanted in order to prepare herself for better work in the South. The attention of Mrs. Mary Hemenway, of Boston, was attracted to her rare ability. Through Mrs. Hemenway's kindness and generosity, Miss Davidson, after graduating at Hampton, received an opportunity to complete a two years' course of training at the Massachusetts State Normal School at Framingham.
Before she went to Framingham, some one suggested to Miss Davidson that, since she was so very light in colour, she might find it more comfortable not to be known as a coloured woman in this school in Massachusetts. She at once replied that under no circumstances and for no considerations would she consent to deceive any one in regard to her racial identity.
Soon after her graduation from the Framingham institution, Miss Davidson came to Tuskegee, bringing into the school many valuable and fresh ideas as to the best methods of teaching, as well as a rare moral character and a life of unselfishness that I
think has seldom been equalled. No single individual did more toward laying the foundations of the Tuskegee Institute so as to insure the successful work that has been done there than Olivia A. Davidson.
Miss Davidson and I began consulting as to the future of the school from the first. The students were making progress in learning books and in developing their minds; but it became apparent at once that, if we were to make any permanent impression upon those who had come to us for training, we must do something besides teach them mere books. The students had come from homes where they had had no opportunities for lessons which would teach them how to care for their bodies. With few exceptions, the homes in Tuskegee in which the students boarded were but little improvement upon those from which they had come. We wanted to teach the students how to bathe; how to care for their teeth and clothing. We wanted to teach them what to eat, and how to eat it properly, and how to care for their rooms. Aside from this, we wanted to give them such a practical knowledge of some one industry, together with the spirit of industry, thrift, and economy, that they would be sure of knowing how to make a living after they had left us. We wanted to teach them to study actual things instead of mere books alone.
We found that the most of our students came from the country districts, where agriculture in some form or other was the main dependence of the people. We learned that about eighty-five per cent of the coloured people in the Gulf states depended upon agriculture for their living. Since this was true, we wanted to be careful not to educate our students out of sympathy with agricultural life, so that they would be attracted from the country to the cities, and yield to the temptation of trying to live by their wits. We wanted to give them such an education as would fit a large proportion of them to be teachers, and at the same time cause them to return to the plantation districts and show the people there how to put new energy and new ideas into farming, as well as into the intellectual and moral and religious life of the people.
All these ideas and needs crowded themselves upon us with a seriousness that seemed well-nigh overwhelming. What were we to do? We had only the little old shanty and the abandoned church which the good coloured people of the town of Tuskegee had kindly loaned us for the accommodation of the classes. The number of students was increasing daily. The more we saw of them, and the more we travelled through the country districts, the more we saw that our efforts were reaching, to
only a partial degree, the actual needs of the people whom we wanted to lift up through the medium of the students whom we should educate and send out as leaders.
The more we talked with the students, who were then coming to us from several parts of the state, the more we found that the chief ambition among a large proportion of them was to get an education so that they would not have to work any longer with their hands.
This is illustrated by a story told of a coloured man in Alabama, who, one hot day in July, while he was at work in a cotton-field, suddenly stopped, and, looking toward the skies, said: "O Lawd, de cotton am so grassy, de work am so hard, and the sun am so hot dat I b'lieve dis darky am called to preach!"
About three months after the opening of the school, and at the time when we were in the greatest anxiety about our work, there came into the market for sale an old and abandoned plantation which was situated about a mile from the town of Tuskegee. The mansion house - or "big house," as it would have been called - which had been occupied by the owners during slavery, had been burned. After making a careful examination of this
place, it seemed to be just the location that we wanted in order to make our work effective and permanent.
But how were we to get it? The price asked for it was very little - only five hundred dollars - but we had no money, and we were strangers in the town and had no credit. The owner of the land agreed to let us occupy the place if we could make a payment of two hundred and fifty dollars down, with the understanding that the remaining two hundred and fifty dollars must be paid within a year. Although five hundred dollars was cheap for the land, it was a large sum when one did not have any part of it.
In the midst of the difficulty I summoned a great deal of courage and wrote to my friend General J. F. B. Marshall, the Treasurer of the Hampton Institute, putting the situation before him and beseeching him to lend me the two hundred and fifty dollars on my own personal responsibility. Within a few days a reply came to the effect that he had no authority to lend me money belonging to the Hampton Institute, but that he would gladly lend me the amount needed from his own personal funds.
I confess that the securing of this money in this way was a great surprise to me, as well as a source of gratification. Up to that time I never had had in my possession so much money as one hundred dollars at a time, and the loan which I had asked
General Marshall for seemed a tremendously large sum to me. The fact of my being responsible for the repaying of such a large amount of money weighed very heavily upon me.
I lost no time in getting ready to move the school on to the new farm. At the time we occupied the place there were standing upon it a cabin, formerly used as the dining room, an old kitchen, a stable, and an old hen-house. Within a few weeks we had all of these structures in use. The stable was repaired and used as a recitation room, and very presently the hen-house was utilized for the same purpose.
I recall that one morning, when I told an old coloured man who lived near, and who sometimes helped me, that our school had grown so large that it would be necessary for us to use the hen-house for school purposes, and that I wanted him to help me give it a thorough cleaning out the next day, he replied, in the most earnest manner: "What you mean, boss? You sholy ain't gwine clean out de hen-house in de day-time?"
Nearly all the work of getting the new location ready for school purposes was done by the students after school was over in the afternoon. As soon as we got the cabins in condition to be used, I determined to clear up some land so that we could plant
a crop. When I explained my plan to the young men, I noticed that they did not seem to take to it very kindly. It was hard for them to see the connection between clearing land and an education. Besides, many of them had been school-teachers, and they questioned whether or not clearing land would be in keeping with their dignity. In order to relieve them from any embarrassment, each afternoon after school I took my axe and led the way to the woods. When they saw that I was not afraid or ashamed to work, they began to assist with more enthusiasm. We kept at the work each afternoon, until we had cleared about twenty acres and had planted a crop.
In the meantime Miss Davidson was devising plans to repay the loan. Her first effort was made by holding festivals, or "suppers." She made a personal canvass among the white and coloured families in the town of Tuskegee, and got them to agree to give something, like a cake, a chicken, bread, or pies, that could be sold at the festival. Of course the coloured people were glad to give anything that they could spare, but I want to add that Miss Davidson did not apply to a single white family, so far as I now remember, that failed to donate something; and in many ways the white families showed their interest in the school.
Several of these festivals were held, and quite a little sum of money was raised. A canvass was also made among the people of both races for direct gifts of money, and most of those applied to gave small sums. It was often pathetic to note the gifts of the older coloured people, most of whom had spent their best days in slavery. Sometimes they would give five cents, sometimes twenty-five cents. Sometimes the contribution was a quilt, or a quantity of sugarcane. I recall one old coloured woman who was about seventy years of age, who came to see me when we were raising money to pay for the farm. She hobbled into the room where I was, leaning on a cane. She was clad in rags; but they were clean. She said: "Mr. Washin'ton, God knows I spent de bes' days of my life in slavery. God knows I's ignorant an' poor; but," she added, "I knows what you an' Miss Davidson is tryin' to do. I knows you is tryin' to make better men an' better women for de coloured race. I ain't got no money, but I wants you to take dese six eggs, what I's been savin' up, an' I wants you to put dese six eggs into de eddication of dese boys an' gals."
Since the work at Tuskegee started, it has been my privilege to receive many gifts for the benefit of the institution, but never any, I think, that touched me so deeply as this one.
THE coming of Christmas, that first year of our residence in Alabama, gave us an opportunity to get a farther insight into the real life of the people. The first thing that reminded us that Christmas had arrived was the "foreday" visits of scores of children rapping at our doors, asking for "Chris'mus gifts! Chris'mus gifts!" Between the hours of two o'clock and five o'clock in the morning I presume that we must have had a half-hundred such calls. This custom prevails throughout this portion of the South to-day.
During the days of slavery it was a custom quite generally observed throughout all the Southern states to give the coloured people a week of holiday at Christmas, or to allow the holiday to continue as long as the "yule log" lasted. The male members of the race, and often the female members, were expected to get drunk. We found that for a whole week the coloured people in and around Tuskegee
dropped work the day before Christmas, and that it was difficult to get any one to perform any service from the time they stopped work until after the New Year. Persons who at other times did not use strong drink thought it quite the proper thing to indulge in it rather freely during the Christmas week. There was a widespread hilarity, and a free use of guns, pistols, and gunpowder generally. The sacredness of the season seemed to have been almost wholly lost sight of.
During this first Christmas vacation I went some distance from the town to visit the people on one of the large plantations. In their poverty and ignorance it was pathetic to see their attempts to get joy out of the season that in most parts of the country is so sacred and so dear to the heart. In one cabin I noticed that all that the five children had to remind them of the coming of Christ was a single bunch of firecrackers, which they had divided among them. In another cabin, where there were at least a half-dozen persons, they had only ten cents' worth of ginger-cakes, which had been bought in the store the day before. In another family they had only a few pieces of sugarcane. In still another cabin I found nothing but a new jug of cheap, mean whiskey, which the husband and wife were making free use of, notwithstanding the fact
that the husband was one of the local ministers. In a few instances I found that the people had gotten hold of some bright-coloured cards that had been designed for advertising purposes, and were making the most of those. In other homes some member of the family had bought a new pistol. In the majority of cases there was nothing to be seen in the cabin to remind one of the coming of the Saviour, except that the people had ceased work in the fields and were lounging about their homes. At night, during Christmas week, they usually had what they called a "frolic," in some cabin on the plantation. This meant a kind of rough dance where there was likely to be a good deal of whiskey used, and where there might be some shooting or cutting with razors.
While I was making this Christmas visit I met an old coloured man who was one of the numerous local preachers, who tried to convince me, from the experience Adam had in the Garden of Eden, that God had cursed all labour, and that, therefore, it was a sin for any man to work. For that reason this man sought to do as little work as possible. He seemed at that time to be supremely happy, because he was living, as he expressed it, through one week that was free from sin.
In the school we made a special effort to teach
our students the meaning of Christmas, and to give them lessons in its proper observance. In this we have been successful to a degree that makes me feel safe in saying that the season now has a new meaning, not only through all that immediate region, but, in a measure, wherever our graduates have gone.
At the present time one of the most satisfactory features of the Christmas and Thanksgiving seasons at Tuskegee is the unselfish and beautiful way in which our graduates and students spend their time in administering to the comfort and happiness of others, especially the unfortunate. Not long ago some of our young men spent a holiday in rebuilding a cabin for a helpless coloured woman who is about seventy-five years old. At another time I remember that I made it known in chapel, one night, that a very poor student was suffering from cold, because he needed a coat. The next morning two coats were sent to my office for him.
I have referred to the disposition on the part of the white people in the town of Tuskegee and vicinity to help the school. From the first, I resolved to make the school a real part of the community in which it was located. I was determined that no one should have the feeling that it was a foreign institution, dropped down in the midst of
the people, for which they had no responsibility and in which they had no interest. I noticed that the very fact that they had been asked to contribute toward the purchase of the land made them begin to feel as if it was going to be their school, to a large degree. I noted that just in proportion as we made the white people feel that the institution was a part of the life of the community, and that, while we wanted to make friends in Boston, for example, we also wanted to make white friends in Tuskegee, and that we wanted to make the school of real service to all the people, their attitude toward the school became favourable.
Perhaps I might add right here, what I hope to demonstrate later, that, so far as I know, the Tuskegee school at the present time has no warmer and more enthusiastic friends anywhere than it has among the white citizens of Tuskegee and throughout the state of Alabama and the entire South. From the first, I have advised our people in the South to make friends in every straightforward, manly way with their next-door neighbour, whether he be a black man or a white man. I have also advised them, where no principle is at stake, to consult the interests of their local communities, and to advise with their friends in regard to their voting.
For several months the work of securing the
money with which to pay for the farm went on without ceasing. At the end of three months enough was secured to repay the loan of two hundred and fifty dollars to General Marshall, and within two months more we had secured the entire five hundred dollars and had received a deed of the one hundred acres of land. This gave us a great deal of satisfaction. It was not only a source of satisfaction to secure a permanent location for the school, but it was equally satisfactory to know that the greater part of the money with which it was paid for had been gotten from the white and coloured people in the town of Tuskegee. The most of this money was obtained by holding festivals and concerts, and from small individual donations.
Our next effort was in the direction of increasing the cultivation of the land, so as to secure some return from it, and at the same time give the students training in agriculture. All the industries at Tuskegee have been started in natural and logical order, growing out of the needs of a community settlement. We began with farming, because we wanted something to eat.
Many of the students, also, were able to remain in school but a few weeks at a time, because they had so little money with which to pay their board. Thus another object which made it desirable to get
an industrial system started was in order to make it available as a means of helping the students to earn money enough so that they might be able to remain in school during the nine months' session of the school year.
The first animal that the school came into possession of was an old blind horse given us by one of the white citizens of Tuskegee. Perhaps I may add here that at the present time the school owns over two hundred horses, colts, mules, cows, calves, and oxen, and about seven hundred hogs and pigs, as well as a large number of sheep and goats.
The school was constantly growing in numbers, so much so that, after we had got the farm paid for, the cultivation of the land begun, and the old cabins which we had found on the place somewhat repaired, we turned our attention toward providing a large substantial building. After having given a good deal of thought to the subject, we finally had the plans drawn for a building that was estimated to cost about six thousand dollars. This seemed to us a tremendous sum, but we knew that the school must go backward or forward, and that our work would mean little unless we could get hold of the students in their home life.
One incident which occurred about this time gave me a great deal of satisfaction as well as surprise.
When it became known in the town that we were discussing the plans for a new, large building, a Southern white man who was operating a sawmill not far from Tuskegee came to me and said that he would gladly put all the lumber necessary to erect the building on the grounds, with no other guarantee for payment than my word that it would be paid for when we secured some money. I told the man frankly that at the time we did not have in our hands one dollar of the money needed. Notwithstanding this, he insisted on being allowed to put the lumber on the grounds. After we had secured some portion of the money we permitted him to do this.
Miss Davidson again began the work of securing in various ways small contributions for the new building from the white and coloured people in and near Tuskegee. I think I never saw a community of people so happy over anything as were the coloured people over the prospect of this new building. One day, when we were holding a meeting to secure funds for its erection, an old, ante-bellum coloured man came a distance of twelve miles and brought in his ox-cart a large hog. When the meeting was in progress, he rose in the midst of the company and said that he had no money which he could give, but that he had raised two fine hogs, and that he had
brought one of them as a contribution toward the expenses of the building. He closed his announcement by saying: "Any nigger that's got any love for his race, or any respect for himself, will bring a hog to the next meeting." Quite a number of men in the community also volunteered to give several days' work, each, toward the erection of the building.
After we had secured all the help that we could in Tuskegee, Miss Davidson decided to go North for the purpose of securing additional funds. For weeks she visited individuals and spoke in churches and before Sunday schools and other organizations. She found this work quite trying, and often embarrassing. The school was not known, but she was not long in winning her way into the confidence of the best people in the North.
The first gift from any Northern person was received from a New York lady whom Miss Davidson met on the boat that was bringing her North. They fell into a conversation, and the Northern lady became so much interested in the effort being made at Tuskegee that before they parted Miss Davidson was handed a check for fifty dollars. For some time before our marriage, and also after it, Miss Davidson kept up the work of securing money in the North and in the South by interesting people
by personal visits and through correspondence. At the same time she kept in close touch with the work at Tuskegee, as lady principal and classroom teacher. In addition to this, she worked among the older people in and near Tuskegee, and taught a Sunday school class in the town. She was never very strong, but never seemed happy unless she was giving all of her strength to the cause which she loved. Often, at night, after spending the day in going from door to door trying to interest persons in the work at Tuskegee, she would be so exhausted that she could not undress herself. A lady upon whom she called, in Boston, afterward told me that at one time when Miss Davidson called to see her and sent up her card the lady was detained a little before she could see Miss Davidson, and when she entered the parlour she found Miss Davidson so exhausted that she had fallen asleep.
While putting up our first building, which was named Porter Hall, after Mr. A. H. Porter, of Brooklyn, N. Y., who gave a generous sum toward its erection, the need for money became acute. I had given one of our creditors a promise that upon a certain day he should be paid four hundred dollars. On the morning of that day we did not have a dollar. The mail arrived at the school at ten o'clock, and in this mail there was a check sent by
Miss Davidson for exactly four hundred dollars. I could relate many instances of almost the same character. This four hundred dollars was given by two ladies in Boston. Two years later, when the work at Tuskegee had grown considerably, and when we were in the midst of a season when we were so much in need of money that the future looked doubtful and gloomy, the same two Boston ladies sent us six thousand dollars. Words cannot describe our surprise, or the encouragement that the gift brought to us. Perhaps I might add here that for fourteen years these same friends have sent us six thousand dollars each year.
As soon as the plans were drawn for the new building, the students began digging out the earth where the foundations were to be laid, working after the regular classes were over. They had not fully outgrown the idea that it was hardly the proper thing for them to use their hands, since they had come there, as one of them expressed it, "to be educated, and not to work." Gradually, though, I noted with satisfaction that a sentiment in favour of work was gaining ground. After a few weeks of hard work the foundations were ready, and a day was appointed for the laying of the corner-stone.
When it is considered that the laying of this corner-stone took place in the heart of the South,
in the "Black Belt," in the centre of that part of our country that was most devoted to slavery; that at that time slavery had been abolished only about sixteen years; that only sixteen years before that no Negro could be taught from books without the teacher receiving the condemnation of the law or of public sentiment - when all this is considered, the scene that was witnessed on that spring day at Tuskegee was a remarkable one. I believe there are few places in the world where it could have taken place.
The principal address was delivered by the Hon. Waddy Thompson, the Superintendent of Education for the county. About the corner-stone were gathered the teachers, the students, their parents and friends, the county officials - who were white - and all the leading white men in that vicinity, together with many of the black men and women whom these same white people but a few years before had held a title to as property. The members of both races were anxious to exercise the privilege of placing under the corner-stone some memento.
Before the building was completed we passed through some very trying seasons. More than once our hearts were made to bleed, as it were, because bills were falling due that we did not have the money to meet. Perhaps no one who has not gone
through the experience, month after month, of trying to erect buildings and provide equipment for a school when no one knew where the money was to come from, can properly appreciate the difficulties under which we laboured. During the first years at Tuskegee I recall that night after night I would roll and toss on my bed, without sleep, because of the anxiety and uncertainty which we were in regarding money. I knew that, in a large degree, we were trying an experiment - that of testing whether or not it was possible for Negroes to build up and control the affairs of a large educational institution. I knew that if we failed it would injure the whole race. I knew that the presumption was against us. I knew that in the case of white people beginning such an enterprise it would be taken for granted that they were going to succeed, but in our case I felt that people would be surprised if we succeeded. All this made a burden which pressed down on us, sometimes, it seemed, at the rate of a thousand pounds to the square inch.
In all our difficulties and anxieties, however, I never went to a white or a black person in the town of Tuskegee for any assistance that was in their power to render, without being helped according to their means. More than a dozen times, when bills figuring up into the hundreds of dollars were falling
due, I applied to the white men of Tuskegee for small loans, often borrowing small amounts from as many as a half-dozen persons, to meet our obligations. One thing I was determined to do from the first, and that was to keep the credit of the school high; and this, I think I can say without boasting, we have done all through these years.
I shall always remember a bit of advice given me by Mr. George W. Campbell, the white man to whom I have referred as the one who induced General Armstrong to send me to Tuskegee. Soon after I entered upon the work Mr. Campbell said to me, in his fatherly way: "Washington, always remember that credit is capital."
At one time when we were in the greatest distress for money that we ever experienced, I placed the situation frankly before General Armstrong. Without hesitation he gave me his personal check for all the money which he had saved for his own use. This was not the only time that General Armstrong helped Tuskegee in this way. I do not think I have ever made this fact public before.
During the summer of 1882, at the end of the first year's work of the school, I was married to Miss Fannie N. Smith, of Malden, W. Va. We began keeping house in Tuskegee early in the fall. This made a home for our teachers, who now
had been increased to four in number. My wife was also a graduate of the Hampton Institute. After earnest and constant work in the interests of the school, together with her housekeeping duties, my wife passed away in May, 1884. One child, Portia M. Washington, was born during our marriage.
From the first, my wife most earnestly devoted her thoughts and time to the work of the school, and was completely one with me in every interest and ambition. She passed away, however, before she had an opportunity of seeing what the school was designed to be.
FROM the very beginning, at Tuskegee, I was determined to have the students do not only the agricultural and domestic work, but to have them erect their own buildings. My plan was to have them, while performing this service, taught the latest and best methods of labour, so that the school would not only get the benefit of their efforts, but the students themselves would be taught to see not only utility in labour, but beauty and dignity; would be taught, in fact, how to lift labour up from mere drudgery and toil, and would learn to love work for its own sake. My plan was not to teach them to work in the old way, but to show them how to make the forces of nature - air, water, steam, electricity, horse-power - assist them in their labour.
At first many advised against the experiment of
having the buildings erected by the labour of the
students, but I was determined to stick to it. I told
those who doubted the wisdom of the plan that I
knew that our first buildings would not be so
comfortable or so complete in their finish as buildings erected by the experienced hands of outside workmen, but that in the teaching of civilization, self-help, and self-reliance, the erection of the buildings by the students themselves would more than compensate for any lack of comfort or fine finish.
I further told those who doubted the wisdom of this plan, that the majority of our students came to us in poverty, from the cabins of the cotton, sugar, and rice plantations of the South, and that while I knew it would please the students very much to place them at once in finely constructed buildings, I felt that it would be following out a more natural process of development to teach them how to construct their own buildings. Mistakes I knew would be made, but these mistakes would teach us valuable lessons for the future.
During the now nineteen years' existence of the Tuskegee school, the plan of having the buildings erected by student labour has been adhered to. In this time forty buildings, counting small and large, have been built, and all except four are almost wholly the product of student labour. As an additional result, hundreds of men are now scattered throughout the South who received their knowledge of mechanics while being taught how to erect these buildings. Skill and knowledge are now
handed down from one set of students to another in this way, until at the present time a building of any description or size can be constructed wholly by our instructors and students, from the drawing of the plans to the putting in of the electric fixtures, without going off the grounds for a single workman.
Not a few times, when a new student has been led into the temptation of marring the looks of some building by leadpencil marks or by the cuts of a jack-knife, I have heard an old student remind him: "Don't do that. That is our building. I helped put it up."
In the early days of the school I think my most trying experience was in the matter of brickmaking. As soon as we got the farm work reasonably well started, we directed our next efforts toward the industry of making bricks. We needed these for use in connection with the erection of our own buildings; but there was also another reason for establishing this industry. There was no brickyard in the town, and in addition to our own needs there was a demand for bricks in the general market.
I had always sympathized with the "Children of Israel," in their task of "making bricks without straw," but ours was the task of making bricks with no money and no experience.
In the first place, the work was hard and dirty, and it was difficult to get the students to help. When it came to brickmaking, their distaste for manual labour in connection with book education became especially manifest. It was not a pleasant task for one to stand in the mud-pit for hours, with the mud up to his knees. More than one man became disgusted and left the school.
We tried several locations before we opened up a pit that furnished brick clay. I had always supposed that brickmaking was very simple, but I soon found out by bitter experience that it required special skill and knowledge, particularly in the burning of the bricks. After a good deal of effort we moulded about twenty-five thousand bricks, and put them into a kiln to be burned. This kiln turned out to be a failure, because it was not properly constructed or properly burned. We began at once, however, on a second kiln. This, for some reason, also proved a failure. The failure of this kiln made it still more difficult to get the students to take any part in the work. Several of the teachers, however, who had been trained in the industries at Hampton, volunteered their services, and in some way we succeeded in getting a third kiln ready for burning. The burning of a kiln required about a week. Toward the latter
part of the week, when it seemed as if we were going to have a good many thousand bricks in a few hours, in the middle of the night the kiln fell. For the third time we had failed.
The failure of this last kiln left me without a single dollar with which to make another experiment. Most of the teachers advised the abandoning of the effort to make bricks. In the midst of my troubles I thought of a watch which had come into my possession years before. I took this watch to the city of Montgomery, which was not far distant, and placed it in a pawn-shop. I secured cash upon it to the amount of fifteen dollars, with which to renew the brickmaking experiment. I returned to Tuskegee, and, with the help of the fifteen dollars, rallied our rather demoralized and discouraged forces and began a fourth attempt to make bricks. This time, I am glad to say, we were successful. Before I got hold of any money, the time-limit on my watch had expired, and I have never seen it since; but I have never regretted the loss of it.
Brickmaking has now become such an important industry at the school that last season our students manufactured twelve hundred thousand of first-class bricks, of a quality suitable to be sold in any market. Aside from this, scores of young men have
mastered the brickmaking trade - both the making of bricks by hand and by machinery - and are now engaged in this industry in many parts of the South.
The making of these bricks taught me an important lesson in regard to the relations of the two races in the South. Many white people who had had no contact with the school, and perhaps no sympathy with it, came to us to buy bricks because they found out that ours were good bricks. They discovered that we were supplying a real want in the community. The making of these bricks caused many of the white residents of the neighbourhood to begin to feel that the education of the Negro was not making him worthless, but that in educating our students we were adding something to the wealth and comfort of the community. As the people of the neighbourhood came to us to buy bricks, we got acquainted with them; they traded with us and we with them. Our business interests became intermingled. We had something which they wanted; they had something which we wanted. This, in a large measure, helped to lay the foundation for the pleasant relations that have continued to exist between us and the white people in that section, and which now extend throughout the South.
Wherever one of our brickmakers has gone in the South, we find that he has something to contribute to the well-being of the community into which he has gone; something that has made the community feel that, in a degree, it is indebted to him, and perhaps, to a certain extent, dependent upon him. In this way pleasant relations between the races have been stimulated.
My experience is that there is something in human nature which always makes an individual recognize and reward merit, no matter under what colour of skin merit is found. I have found, too, that it is the visible, the tangible, that goes a long ways in softening prejudices. The actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could build.
The same principle of industrial education has been carried out in the building of our own wagons, carts, and buggies, from the first. We now own and use on our farm and about the school dozens of these vehicles, and every one of them has been built by the hands of the students. Aside from this, we help supply the local market with these vehicles. The supplying of them to the people in the community has had the same effect as the supplying of bricks, and the man who learns at Tuskegee
to build and repair wagons and carts is regarded as a benefactor by both races in the community where he goes. The people with whom he lives and works are going to think twice before they part with such a man.
The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race. One man may go into a community prepared to supply the people there with an analysis of Greek sentences. The community may not at that time be prepared for, or feel the need of, Greek analysis, but it may feel its need of bricks and houses and wagons. If the man can supply the need for those, then, it will lead eventually to a demand for the first product, and with the demand will come the ability to appreciate it and to profit by it.
About the time that we succeeded in burning our first kiln of bricks we began facing in an emphasized form the objection of the students to being taught to work. By this time it had gotten to be pretty well advertised throughout the state that every student who came to Tuskegee, no matter what his financial ability might be, must learn some industry. Quite a number of letters came from parents protesting against their children engaging in labour while they were in the school. Other
parents came to the school to protest in person. Most of the new students brought a written or a verbal request from their parents to the effect that they wanted their children taught nothing but books. The more books, the larger they were, and the longer the titles printed upon them, the better pleased the students and their parents seemed to be.
I gave little heed to these protests, except that I lost no opportunity to go into as many parts of the state as I could, for the purpose of speaking to the parents, and showing them the value of industrial education. Besides, I talked to the students constantly on the subject. Notwithstanding the unpopularity of industrial work, the school continued to increase in numbers to such an extent that by the middle of the second year there was an attendance of about one hundred and fifty, representing almost all parts of the state of Alabama, and including a few from other states.
In the summer of 1882 Miss Davidson and I both went North and engaged in the work of raising funds for the completion of our new building. On my way North I stopped in New York to try to get a letter of recommendation from an officer of a missionary organization who had become somewhat acquainted with me a few years previous. This man not only refused to give me the letter,
but advised me most earnestly to go back home at once, and not make an attempt to get money, for he was quite sure that I would never get more than enough to pay my travelling expenses. I thanked him for his advice, and proceeded on my journey.
The first place I went to in the North, was Northampton, Mass., where I spent nearly a half-day in looking for a coloured family with whom I could board, never dreaming that any hotel would admit me. I was greatly surprised when I found that I would have no trouble in being accommodated at a hotel.
We were successful in getting money enough so that on Thanksgiving Day of that year we held our first service in the chapel of Porter Hall, although the building was not completed.
In looking about for some one to preach the Thanksgiving sermon, I found one of the rarest men that it has ever been my privilege to know. This was the Rev. Robert C. Bedford, a white man from Wisconsin, who was then pastor of a little coloured Congregational church in Montgomery, Ala. Before going to Montgomery to look for some one to preach this sermon I had never heard of Mr. Bedford. He had never heard of me. He gladly consented to come to Tuskegee and hold the Thanksgiving service. It was the first service of the kind that the coloured people there had ever
observed, and what a deep interest they manifested in it! The sight of the new building made it a day of Thanksgiving for them never to be forgotten.
Mr. Bedford consented to become one of the trustees of the school, and in that capacity, and as a worker for it, he has been connected with it for eighteen years. During this time he has borne the school upon his heart night and day, and is never so happy as when he is performing some service, no matter how humble, for it. He completely obliterates himself in everything, and looks only for permission to serve where service is most disagreeable, and where others would not be attracted. In all my relations with him he has seemed to me to approach as nearly to the spirit of the Master as almost any man I ever met.
A little later there came into the service of the school another man, quite young at the time, and fresh from Hampton, without whose service the school never could have become what it is. This was Mr. Warren Logan, who now for seventeen years has been the treasurer of the Institute, and the acting principal during my absence. He has always shown a degree of unselfishness and an amount of business tact, coupled with a clear judgment, that has kept the school in good condition no matter how long I have been absent from it.
During all the financial stress through which the school has passed, his patience and faith in our ultimate success have not left him.
As soon as our first building was near enough to completion so that we could occupy a portion of it - which was near the middle of the second year of the school - we opened a boarding department. Students had begun coming from quite a distance, and in such increasing numbers that we felt more and more that we were merely skimming over the surface, in that we were not getting hold of the students in their home life.
We had nothing but the students and their appetites with which to begin a boarding department. No provision had been made in the new building for a kitchen and dining room; but we discovered that by digging out a large amount of earth from under the building we could make a partially lighted basement room that could be used for a kitchen and dining room. Again I called on the students to volunteer for work, this time to assist in digging out the basement. This they did, and in a few weeks we had a place to cook and eat in, although it was very rough and uncomfortable. Any one seeing the place now would never believe that it was once used for a dining room.
The most serious problem, though, was to get
the boarding department started off in running order, with nothing to do with in the way of furniture, and with no money with which to buy anything. The merchants in the town would let us have what food we wanted on credit. In fact in those earlier years I was constantly embarrassed because people seemed to have more faith in me than I had in myself. It was pretty hard to cook however, without stoves, and awkward to eat without dishes. At first the cooking was done out-of-doors, in the old-fashioned, primitive style, in pot and skillets placed over a fire. Some of the carpenters' benches that had been used in the construction of the building were utilized for tables. As for dishes, there were too few to make it worth while to spend time in describing them.
No one connected with the boarding department seemed to have any idea that meals must be served at certain fixed and regular hours, and this was a source of great worry. Everything was so out of joint and so inconvenient that I feel safe in saying that for the first two weeks something was wrong at every meal. Either the meat was not done or had been burnt, or the salt had been left out of the bread, or the tea had been forgotten.
Early one morning I was standing near the dining-room door listening to the complaints of
the students. The complaints that morning were especially emphatic and numerous, because the whole breakfast had been a failure. One of the girls who had failed to get any breakfast came out and went to the well to draw some water to drink to take the place of the breakfast which she had not been able to get. When she reached the well, she found that the rope was broken and that she could get no water. She turned from the well and said, in the most discouraged tone, not knowing that I was where I could hear her, "We can't even get water to drink at this school." I think no one remark ever came so near discouraging me as that one.
At another time, when Mr. Bedford - whom I have already spoken of as one of our trustees, and a devoted friend of the institution - was visiting the school, he was given a bedroom immediately over the dining room. Early in the morning he was awakened by a rather animated discussion between two boys in the dining room below. The discussion was over the question as to whose turn it was to use the coffee-cup that morning. One boy won the case by proving that for three mornings he had not had an opportunity to use the cup at all.
But gradually, by patience and hard work, we brought order out of chaos, just as will be true of
any problem if we stick to it with patience and wisdom and earnest effort.
As I look back now over that part of our struggle, I am glad that we had it. I am glad that we endured all those discomforts and inconveniences. I am glad that our students had to dig out the place for their kitchen and dining room. I am glad that our first boarding-place was in that dismal, ill-lighted, and damp basement. Had we started in a fine, attractive, convenient room, I fear we would have "lost our heads" and become "stuck up." It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for one's self.
When our old students return to Tuskegee now, as they often do, and go into our large, beautiful, well-ventilated, and well-lighted dining room, and see tempting, well-cooked food - largely grown by the students themselves - and see tables, neat tablecloths and napkins, and vases of flowers upon the tables, and hear singing birds, and note that each meal is served exactly upon the minute, with no disorder, and with almost no complaint coming from the hundreds that now fill our dining room, they, too, often say to me that they are glad that we started as we did, and built ourselves up year by year, by a slow and natural process of growth.
A LITTLE later in the history of the school we had a visit from General J. F. B. Marshall, the Treasurer of the Hampton Institute, who had had faith enough to lend us the first two hundred and fifty dollars with which to make a payment down on the farm. He remained with us a week, and made a careful inspection of everything. He seemed well pleased with our progress, and wrote back interesting and encouraging reports to Hampton. A little later Miss Mary F. Mackie, the teacher who had given me the "sweeping" examination when I entered Hampton, came to see us, and still later General Armstrong himself came.
At the time of the visits of these Hampton friends the number of teachers at Tuskegee had increased considerably, and the most of the new teachers were graduates of the Hampton Institute. We gave our Hampton friends, especially General Armstrong, a cordial welcome. They were all surprised and pleased
at the rapid progress that the school had made within so short a time. The coloured people from miles around came to the school to get a look at General Armstrong, about whom they had heard so much. The General was not only welcomed by the members of my own race, but by the Southern white people as well.
This first visit which General Armstrong made to Tuskegee gave me an opportunity to get an insight into his character such as I had not before had. I refer to his interest in the Southern white people. Before this I had had the thought that General Armstrong, having fought the Southern white man, rather cherished a feeling of bitterness toward the white South, and was interested in helping only the coloured man there. But this visit convinced me that I did not know the greatness and the generosity of the man. I soon learned, by his visits to the Southern white people, and from his conversations with them, that he was as anxious about the prosperity and the happiness of the white race as the black. He cherished no bitterness against the South, and was happy when an opportunity offered for manifesting his sympathy. In all my acquaintance with General Armstrong I never heard him speak, in public or in private, a single bitter word against the white man in the South. From his
example in this respect I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.
It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Armstrong, and resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade may soul by making me hate him. With God's help, I believe that I have completely rid myself of any ill feeling toward the Southern white man for any wrong that he may have inflicted upon my race. I am made to feel just as happy now when I am rendering service to Southern white men as when the service is rendered to a member of my own race. I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice.
The more I consider the subject, the more strongly I am convinced that the most harmful effect of the practice to which the people in certain sections of the South have felt themselves compelled to resort, in order to get rid of the force of the Negroes' ballot, is not wholly in the wrong done to the Negro, but in the permanent injury to the
morals of the white man. The wrong to the Negro is temporary, but to the morals of the white man the injury is permanent. I have noted time and time again that when an individual perjures himself in order to break the force of the black man's ballot, he soon learns to practice dishonesty in other relations of life, not only where the Negro is concerned, but equally so where a white man is concerned. The white man who begins by cheating a Negro usually ends by cheating a white man. The white man who begins to break the law by lynching a Negro soon yields to the temptation to lynch a white man. All this, it seems to me, makes it important that the whole Nation lend a hand in trying to lift the burden of ignorance from the South.
Another thing that is becoming more apparent each year in the development of education in the South is the influence of General Armstrong's idea of education; and this not upon the blacks alone, but upon the whites also. At the present time there is almost no Southern state that is not putting forth efforts in the direction of securing industrial education for its white boys and girls, and in most cases it is easy to trace the history of these efforts back to General Armstrong.
Soon after the opening of our humble boarding department students began coming to us in still
larger numbers. For weeks we not only had to contend with the difficulty of providing board, with no money, but also with that of providing sleeping accommodations. For this purpose we rented a number of cabins near the school. These cabins were in a dilapidated condition, and during the winter months the students who occupied them necessarily suffered from the cold. We charged the students eight dollars a month - all they were able to pay - for their board. This included, besides board, room, fuel, and washing. We also gave the students credit on their board bills for all the work which they did for the school which was of any value to the institution. The cost of tuition, which was fifty dollars a year for each student, we had to secure then, as now, wherever we could.
This small charge in cash gave us no capital with which to start a boarding department. The weather during the second winter of our work was very cold. We were not able to provide enough bed-clothes to keep the students warm. In fact, for some time we were not able to provide, except in a few cases, bedsteads and mattresses of any kind. During the coldest nights I was so troubled about the discomfort of the students that I could not sleep myself. I recall that on several occasions I went in the middle of the night to the shanties
occupied by the young men, for the purpose of comforting them. Often I found some of them sitting huddled around a fire, with the one blanket which we had been able to provide wrapped around them, trying in this way to keep warm. During the whole night some of them did not attempt to lie down. One morning, when the night previous had been unusually cold, I asked those of the students in the chapel who thought that they had been frostbitten during the night to raise their hands. Three hands went up. Notwithstanding these experiences, there was almost no complaining on the part of the students. They knew that we were doing the best that we could for them. They were happy in the privilege of being permitted to enjoy any kind of opportunity that would enable them to improve their condition. They were constantly asking what they might do to lighten the burdens of the teachers.
I have heard it stated more than once, both in the North and in the South, that coloured people would not obey and respect each other when one member of the race is placed in a position of authority over others. In regard to this general belief and these statements, I can say that during the nineteen years of my experience at Tuskegee I never, either by word or act, have been treated
with disrespect by any student or officer connected with the institution. On the other hand, I am constantly embarrassed by the many acts of thoughtful kindness. The students do not seem to want to see me carry a large book or a satchel or any kind of a burden through the grounds. In such cases more than one always offers to relieve me. I almost never go out of my office when the rain is falling that some student does not come to my side with an umbrella and ask to be allowed to hold it over me.
While writing upon this subject, it is a pleasure for me to add that in all my contact with the white people of the South I have never received a single personal insult. The white people in and near Tuskegee, to an especial degree, seem to count it a privilege to show me all the respect within their power, and often go out of their way to do this.
Not very long ago I was making a journey between Dallas (Texas) and Houston. In some way it became known in advance that I was on the train. At nearly every station at which the train stopped, numbers of white people, including in most cases the officials of the town, came aboard and introduced themselves and thanked me heartily for the work that I was trying to do for the South.
On another occasion, when I was making a trip
from Augusta, Georgia, to Atlanta, being rather tired from much travel, I rode in a Pullman sleeper. When I went into the car, I found there two ladies from Boston whom I knew well. These good ladies were perfectly ignorant, it seems, of the customs of the South, and in the goodness of their hearts insisted that I take a seat with them in their section. After some hesitation I consented. I had been there but a few minutes when one of them, without my knowledge, ordered supper to be served to the three of us. This embarrassed me still further. The car was full of Southern white men, most of whom had their eyes on our party. When I found that supper had been ordered, I tried to contrive some excuse that would permit me to leave the section, but the ladies insisted that I must eat with them. I finally settled back in my seat with a sigh, and said to myself, "I am in for it now, sure."
To add further to the embarrassment of the situation, soon after the supper was placed on the table one of the ladies remembered that she had in her satchel a special kind of tea which she wished served, and as she said she felt quite sure the porter did not know how to brew it properly, she insisted upon getting up and preparing and serving it herself. At last the meal was over; and it seemed the
longest one that I had ever eaten. When we were through I decided to get myself out of the embarrassing situation and go into the smoking-room, where most of the men were by that time, to see how the land lay. In the meantime, however, it had become known in some way throughout the car who I was. When I went into the smoking-room I was never more surprised in my life than when each man, nearly every one of them a citizen of Georgia, came up and introduced himself to me and thanked me earnestly for the work that I was trying to do for the whole South. This was not flattery, because each one of these individuals knew that he had nothing to gain by trying to flatter me.
From the first I have sought to impress the students with the idea that Tuskegee is not my institution, or that of the officers, but that it is their institution, and that they have as much interest in it as any of the trustees or instructors. I have further sought to have them feel that I am at the institution as their friend and adviser, and not as their overseer. It has been my aim to have them speak with directness and frankness about anything that concerns the life of the school. Two or three times a year I ask the students to write me a letter criticising or making complaints or suggestions about anything connected with the institution. When
this is not done, I have them meet me in the chapel for a heart-to-heart talk about the conduct of the school. There are no meetings with our students that I enjoy more than these, and none are more helpful to me in planning for the future. These meetings, it seems to me, enable me to get at the very heart of all that concerns the school. Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him. When I have read of labour troubles between employers and employees, I have often thought that many strikes and similar disturbances might be avoided if the employers would cultivate the habit of getting nearer to their employees, of consulting and advising with them, and letting them feel that the interests of the two are the same. Every individual responds to confidence, and this is not more true of any race than of the Negroes. Let them once understand that you are unselfishly interested in them, and you can lead them to any extent.
It was my aim from the first at Tuskegee to not only have the buildings erected by the students themselves, but to have them make their own furniture as far as was possible. I now marvel at the patience of the students while sleeping upon the floor while waiting for some kind of a bedstead to
be constructed, or at their sleeping without any kind of a mattress while waiting for something that looked like a mattress to be made.
In the early days we had very few students who had been used to handling carpenter's tools, and the bedsteads made by the students then were very rough and very weak. Not unfrequently when I went into the students' rooms in the morning I would find at least two bedsteads lying about on the floor. The problem of providing mattresses was a difficult one to solve. We finally mastered this, however, by getting some cheap cloth and sewing pieces of this together so as to make large bags. These bags we filled with the pine straw - or, as it is sometimes called, pine needles - which we secured from the forests near by. I am glad to say that the industry of mattress-making has grown steadily since then, and has been improved to such an extent that at the present time it is an important branch of the work which is taught systematically to a number of our girls, and that the mattresses that now come out of the mattress-shop at Tuskegee are about as good as those bought in the average store. For some time after the opening of the boarding department we had no chairs in the students' bedrooms or in the dining rooms. Instead of chairs we used stools which the students
constructed by nailing together three pieces of rough board. As a rule, the furniture in the students' rooms during the early days of the school consisted of a bed, some stools, and sometimes a rough table made by the students. The plan of having the students make the furniture is still followed, but the number of pieces in a room has been increased, and the workmanship has so improved that little fault can be found with the articles now. One thing that I have always insisted upon at Tuskegee is that everywhere there should be absolute cleanliness. Over and over again the students were reminded in those first years - and are reminded now - that people would excuse us for our poverty, for our lack of comforts and conveniences, but that they would not excuse us for dirt.
Another thing that has been insisted upon at the school is the use of the tooth-brush. "The gospel of the tooth-brush," as General Armstrong used to call it, is a part of our creed at Tuskegee. No student is permitted to remain who does not keep and use a tooth-brush. Several times, in recent years, students have come to us who brought with them almost no other article except a tooth-brush. They had heard from the lips of older students about our insisting upon the use of this, and so, to make a good impression, they brought at least a
tooth-brush with them. I remember that one morning, not long ago, I went with the lady principal on her usual morning tour of inspection of the girls' rooms. We found one room that contained three girls who had recently arrived at the school. When I asked them if they had tooth-brushes, one of the girls replied, pointing to a brush: "Yes, sir. That is our brush. We bought it together, yesterday." It did not take them long to learn a different lesson.
It has been interesting to note the effect that the use of the tooth-brush has had in bringing about a higher degree of civilization among the students. With few exceptions, I have noticed that, if we can get a student to the point where, when the first or second tooth-brush disappears, he of his own motion buys another, I have not been disappointed in the future of that individual. Absolute cleanliness of the body has been insisted upon from the first. The students have been taught to bathe as regularly as to take their meals. This lesson we began teaching before we had anything in the shape of a bath-house. Most of the students came from plantation districts, and often we had to teach them how to sleep at night; that is, whether between the two sheets - after we got to the point where we could provide them two sheets - or under both of them. Naturally I found it difficult to teach them to sleep
between two sheets when we were able to supply but one. The importance of the use of the night-gown received the same attention.
For a long time one of the most difficult tasks was to teach the students that all the buttons were to be kept on their clothes, and that there must be no torn places and no grease-spots. This lesson, I am pleased to be able to say, has been so thoroughly learned and so faithfully handed down from year to year by one set of students to another that often at the present time, when the students march out of chapel in the evening and their dress is inspected, as it is every night, not one button is to be found missing.
After having had a preliminary sketch of the
needed building made, we found that it would cost
about ten thousand dollars. We had no money
whatever with which to begin; still we decided to
give the needed building a name. We knew we
could name it, even though we were in doubt about
our ability to secure the means for its construction.
We decided to call the proposed building Alabama
Hall, in honour of the state in which we were labouring.
Again Miss Davidson began making efforts
to enlist the interest and help of the coloured and
white people in and near Tuskegee. They
responded willingly, in proportion to their means.
The students, as in the case of our first building,
Porter Hall, began digging out the dirt in order to
allow of the laying of the foundations.
When we seemed at the end of our resources, so
far as securing money was concerned, something
occurred which showed the greatness of General
Armstrong - something which proved how far he
was above the ordinary individual. When we were
in the midst of great anxiety as to where and how
we were to get funds for the new building, I received
a telegram from General Armstrong asking me if I
could spend a month travelling with him through
the North, and asking me, if I could do so, to
come to Hampton at once. Of course I accepted
General Armstrong's invitation, and went to Hampton
immediately. On arriving there I found that
the General had decided to take a quartette of
singers through the North, and hold meetings for
a month in important cities, at which meetings he
and I were to speak. Imagine my surprise when
the General told me, further, that these meetings
were to be held, not in the interests of Hampton,
but in the interests of Tuskegee, and that the
Hampton Institute was to be responsible for all
the expenses.
Although he never told me so in so many
words, I found out that General Armstrong took
this method of introducing me to the people of the
North, as well as for the sake of securing some
immediate funds to be used in the erection of
Alabama Hall. A weak and narrow man would have
reasoned that all the money which came to Tuskegee
in this way would be just so much taken from
the Hampton Institute; but none of these selfish
or short-sighted feelings ever entered the breast of
General Armstrong. He was too big to be little,
too good to be mean. He knew that the people
in the North who gave money gave it for the
purpose of helping the whole cause of Negro
civilization, and not merely for the advancement of any
one school. The General knew, too, that the way
to strengthen Hampton was to make it a centre of
unselfish power in the working out of the whole
Southern problem.
In regard to the addresses which I was to make
in the North, I recall just one piece of advice which
the General gave me. He said: "Give them an
idea for every word." I think it would be hard to
improve upon this advice; and it might be made
to apply to all public speaking. From that time to
the present I have always tried to keep his advice
in mind.
Meetings were held in New York, Brooklyn,
Boston, Philadelphia, and other large cities, and at
all of these meetings General Armstrong pleaded,
together with myself, for help, not for Hampton,
but for Tuskegee. At these meetings an especial
effort was made to secure help for the building of
Alabama Hall, as well as to introduce the school
to the attention of the general public. In both
these respects the meetings proved successful.
After that kindly introduction I began going
North alone to secure funds. During the last
fifteen years I have been compelled to spend a large
proportion of my time away from the school, in an
effort to secure money to provide for the growing
needs of the institution. In my efforts to get funds
I have had some experiences that may be of interest
to my readers. Time and time again I have been
asked, by people who are trying to secure money
for philanthropic purposes, what rule or rules I
followed to secure the interest and help of people who
were able to contribute money to worthy objects.
As far as the science of what is called begging can
be reduced to rules, I would say that I have had
but two rules. First, always to do my whole duty
regarding making our work known to individuals
and organizations; and, second, not to worry about
the results. This second rule has been the hardest
for me to live up to. When bills are on the eve of
falling due, with not a dollar in hand with which to
meet them, it is pretty difficult to learn not to
worry, although I think I am learning more and
more each year that all worry simply consumes, and
to no purpose, just so much physical and mental
strength that might otherwise be given to effective
work. After considerable experience in coming
into contact with wealthy and noted men, I have
observed that those who have accomplished the
greatest results are those who "keep under the
body"; are those who never grow excited or lose
self-control, but are always calm, self-possessed,
patient, and polite. I think that President
William McKinley is the best example of a man of this
class that I have ever seen.
In order to be successful in any kind of
undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to
grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that
is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion
as one loses himself in this way, in the same degree
does he get the highest happiness out of his work.
My experience in getting money for Tuskegee
has taught me to have no patience with those people
who are always condemning the rich because
they are rich, and because they do not give more
to objects of charity. In the first place, those who
are guilty of such sweeping criticisms do not know
how many people would be made poor, and how
much suffering would result, if wealthy people were
to part all at once with any large proportion of
their wealth in a way to disorganize and cripple
great business enterprises. Then very few persons
have any idea of the large number of applications
for help that rich people are constantly being flooded
with. I know wealthy people who receive as many
as twenty calls a day for help. More than once,
when I have gone into the offices of rich men, I
have found half a dozen persons waiting to see
them, and all come for the same purpose, that of
securing money. And all these calls in person, to
say nothing of the applications received through
the mails. Very few people have any idea of the
amount of money given away by persons who
never permit their names to be known. I have
often heard persons condemned for not giving
away money, who, to my own knowledge, were
giving away thousands of dollars every year so
quietly that the world knew nothing about it.
As an example of this, there are two ladies in
New York, whose names rarely appear in print, but
who, in a quiet way, have given us the means with
which to erect three large and important buildings
during the last eight years. Besides the gift of
these buildings, they have made other generous
donations to the school. And they not only help
Tuskegee, but they are constantly seeking
opportunities to help other worthy causes.
Although it has been my privilege to be
the medium through which a good many hundred
thousand dollars have been received for the work
at Tuskegee, I have always avoided what the world
calls "begging." I often tell people that I have
never "begged" any money, and that I am not a
"beggar." My experience and observation have
convinced me that persistent asking outright for
money from the rich does not, as a rule, secure
help. I have usually proceeded on the principle
that persons who possess sense enough to earn
money have sense enough to know how to give it
away, and that the mere making known of the facts
regarding Tuskegee, and especially the facts regarding
the work of the graduates, has been more effective
than outright begging. I think that the
presentation of facts, on a high, dignified plane, is
all the begging that most rich people care for.
While the work of going from door to door and
from office to office is hard, disagreeable, and costly
in bodily strength, yet it has some compensations.
Such work gives one a rare opportunity to study
human nature. It also has its compensations in
giving one an opportunity to meet some of the
best people in the world - to be more correct, I
think I should say the best people in the world.
When one takes a broad survey of the country, he
will find that the most useful and influential people
in it are those who take the deepest interest in
institutions that exist for the purpose of making the
world better.
At one time, when I was in Boston, I called at
the door of a rather wealthy lady, and was admitted
to the vestibule and sent up my card. While I
was waiting for an answer, her husband came in,
and asked me in the most abrupt manner what I
wanted. When I tried to explain the object of my
call, he became still more ungentlemanly in his
words and manner, and finally grew so excited that
I left the house without waiting for a reply from
the lady. A few blocks from that house I called
to see a gentleman who received me in the most
cordial manner. He wrote me his check for a
generous sum, and then, before I had had an opportunity
to thank him, said: "I am so grateful to
you, Mr. Washington, for giving me the opportunity
to help a good cause. It is a privilege to have
a share in it. We in Boston are constantly indebted
to you for doing our work." My experience in
securing money convinces me that the first type of
man is growing more rare all the time, and that the
latter type is increasing; that is, that, more and
more, rich people are coming to regard men and
women who apply to them for help for worthy
objects, not as beggars, but as agents for doing their
work.
In the city of Boston I have rarely called upon
an individual for funds that I have not been thanked
for calling, usually before I could get an opportunity
to thank the donor for the money. In that
city the donors seem to feel, in a large degree, that
an honour is being conferred upon them in their
being permitted to give. Nowhere else have I met
with, in so large a measure, this fine and Christlike
spirit as in the city of Boston, although there are
many notable instances of it outside that city. I
repeat my belief that the world is growing in the
direction of giving. I repeat that the main rule by
which I have been guided in collecting money is
to do my full duty in regard to giving people who
have money an opportunity to help.
In the early years of the Tuskegee school I
walked the streets or travelled country roads in the
North for days and days without receiving a dollar.
Often it has happened, when during the week I had
been disappointed in not getting a cent from the
very individuals from whom I most expected help,
and when I was almost broken down and discouraged,
that generous help has come from some one
who I had had little idea would give at all.
I recall that on one occasion I obtained information
that led me to believe that a gentleman who
lived about two miles out in the country from Stamford,
Conn., might become interested in our efforts
at Tuskegee if our conditions and needs were
presented to him. On an unusually cold and stormy
day I walked the two miles to see him. After some
difficulty I succeeded in securing an interview with
him. He listened with some degree of interest to
what I had to say, but did not give me anything.
I could not help having the feeling that, in a measure,
the three hours that I had spent in seeing him
had been thrown away. Still, I had followed my
usual rule of doing my duty. If I had not seen
him, I should have felt unhappy over neglect of
duty.
Two years after this visit a letter came to Tuskegee
from this man, which read like this: "Enclosed
I send you a New York draft for ten thousand
dollars, to be used in furtherance of your work. I had
placed this sum in my will for your school, but deem
it wiser to give it to you while I live. I recall with
pleasure your visit to me two years ago."
I can hardly imagine any occurrence which could
have given me more genuine satisfaction than the
receipt of this draft. It was by far the largest
single donation which up to that time the school
had ever received. It came at a time when an
unusually long period had passed since we had
received any money. We were in great distress
because of lack of funds, and the nervous strain
was tremendous. It is difficult for me to think of
any situation that is more trying on the nerves than
that of conducting a large institution, with heavy
financial obligations to meet, without knowing
where the money is to come from to meet these
obligations from month to month.
In our case I felt a double responsibility, and
this made the anxiety all the more intense. If the
institution had been officered by white persons, and
had failed, it would have injured the cause of Negro
education; but I knew that the failure of our
institution, officered by Negroes, would not only mean
the loss of a school, but would cause people, in a
large degree, to lose faith in the ability of the entire
race. The receipt of this draft for ten thousand
dollars, under all these circumstances, partially
lifted a burden that had been pressing down upon
me for days.
From the beginning of our work to the present
I have always had the feeling, and lose no
opportunity to impress our teachers with the same idea,
that the school will always be supported in proportion
as the inside of the institution is kept clean
and pure and wholesome.
The first time I ever saw the late Collis P.
Huntington, the great railroad man, he gave me two
dollars for our school. The last time I saw him, which
was a few months before he died, he gave me fifty
thousand dollars toward our endowment fund.
Between these two gifts there were others of generous
proportions which came every year from both Mr.
and Mrs. Huntington.
Some people may say that it was Tuskegee's
good luck that brought to us this gift of fifty
thousand dollars. No, it was not luck. It was
hard work. Nothing ever comes to one, that is
worth having, except as a result of hard work.
When Mr. Huntington gave me the first two
dollars, I did not blame him for not giving me more,
but made up my mind that I was going to
convince him by tangible results that we were worthy
of larger gifts. For a dozen years I made a strong
effort to convince Mr. Huntington of the value of
our work. I noted that just in proportion as the
usefulness of the school grew, his donations
increased. Never did I meet an individual who
took a more kindly and sympathetic interest in our
school than did Mr. Huntington. He not only
gave money to us, but took time in which to advise
me, as a father would a son, about the general
conduct of the school.
More than once I have found myself in some
pretty tight places while collecting money in the
North. The following incident I have never
related but once before, for the reason that I feared
that people would not believe it. One morning I
found myself in Providence, Rhode Island, without
a cent of money with which to buy breakfast. In
crossing the street to see a lady from whom I
hoped to get some money, I found a bright new
twenty-five-cent piece in the middle of the streetcar
track. I not only had this twenty-five cents
for my breakfast, but within a few minutes I had a
donation from the lady on whom I had started to
call.
At one of our Commencements I was bold
enough to invite the Rev. E. Winchester Donald,
D. D., rector of Trinity Church, Boston, to preach
the Commencement sermon. As we then had no
room large enough to accommodate all who would
be present, the place of meeting was under a large,
improvised arbour, built partly of brush and partly
of rough boards. Soon after Dr. Donald had begun
speaking, the rain came down in torrents, and he had
to stop, while some one held an umbrella over him.
The boldness of what I had done never dawned
upon me until I saw the picture made by the rector
of Trinity Church standing before that large audience
under an old umbrella, waiting for the rain to
cease so that he could go on with his address.
It was not very long before the rain ceased and
Dr. Donald finished his sermon; and an excellent
sermon it was, too, in spite of the weather. After
he had gone to his room, and had gotten the wet
threads of his clothes dry, Dr. Donald ventured
the remark that a large chapel at Tuskegee would
not be out of place. The next day a letter came
from two ladies who were then travelling in Italy,
saying that they had decided to give us the money
for such a chapel as we needed.
A short time ago we received twenty thousand
dollars from Mr. Andrew Carnegie, to be used for
the purpose of erecting a new library building.
Our first library and reading-room were in a corner
of a shanty, and the whole thing occupied a space
about five by twelve feet. It required ten years of
work before I was able to secure Mr. Carnegie's
interest and help. The first time I saw him, ten
years ago, he seemed to take but little interest in
our school, but I was determined to show him that
we were worthy of his help. After ten years of
hard work I wrote him a letter reading as follows:
DECEMBER 15, 1900.
MR. ANDREW CARNEGIE, 5 W. FIFTY-FIRST ST., NEW
YORK.
DEAR SIR: Complying with the request which you
made of me when I saw you at your residence a few days
ago, I now submit in writing an appeal for a library building
for our institution.
We have 1100 students, 86 officers and instructors,
together with their families, and about 200 coloured people
living near the school, all of whom would make use of the
library building.
We have over 12,000 books, periodicals, etc., gifts from
our friends, but we have no suitable place for them, and
we have no suitable reading-room.
Our graduates go to work in every section of the South,
and whatever knowledge might be obtained in the library
would serve to assist in the elevation of the whole Negro
race.
Such a building as we need could be erected for about
$20,000. All of the work for the building, such as
brickmaking, brick-masonry, carpentry, blacksmithing, etc.,
would be done by the students. The money which you
would give would not only supply the building, but the
erection of the building would give a large number of
students an opportunity to learn the building trades, and the students would
use the money paid to them to keep themselves
in school. I do not believe that a similar amount
of money often could be made go so far in uplifting a
whole race.
If you wish further information, I shall be glad to
furnish it.
The next mail brought back the following reply:
"I will be very glad to pay the bills for the library
building as they are incurred, to the extent of twenty
thousand dollars, and I am glad of this opportunity
to show the interest I have in your noble work."
I have found that strict business methods go a
long way in securing the interest of rich people. It
has been my constant aim at Tuskegee to carry out,
in our financial and other operations, such business
methods as would be approved of by any New York
banking house.
I have spoken of several large gifts to the school;
but by far the greater proportion of the money that
has built up the institution has come in the form of
small donations from persons of moderate means.
It is upon these small gifts, which carry with them
the interest of hundreds of donors, that any philanthropic
work must depend largely for its support.
In my efforts to get money I have often been
surprised at the patience and deep interest of the
ministers, who are besieged on every hand and at all
hours of the day for help. If no other consideration
had convinced me of the value of the Christian
life, the Christlike work which the Church of all
denominations in America has done during the last
thirty-five years for the elevation of the black man
would have made me a Christian. In a large degree
it has been the pennies, the nickels, and the dimes
which have come from the Sunday-schools, the
Christian Endeavour societies, and the missionary
societies, as well as from the church proper, that
have helped to elevate the Negro at so rapid a rate.
This speaking of small gifts reminds me to say
that very few Tuskegee graduates fail to send us
an annual contribution. These contributions range
from twenty-five cents up to ten dollars.
Soon after beginning our third year's work we
were surprised to receive money from three special
sources, and up to the present time we have
continued to receive help from them. First, the State
Legislature of Alabama increased its annual
appropriation from two thousand dollars to three thousand
dollars; I might add that still later it increased this
sum to four thousand five hundred dollars a year.
The effort to secure this increase was led by the
Hon. M. F. Foster, the member of the Legislature
from Tuskegee. Second, we received one thousand
dollars from the John F. Slater Fund. Our work
seemed to please the trustees of this fund, as they
soon began increasing their annual grant. This has
been added to from time to time until at present we
receive eleven thousand dollars annually from this
Fund. The other help to which I have referred
came in the shape of an allowance from the Peabody
Fund. This was at first five hundred dollars, but it
has since been increased to fifteen hundred dollars.
The effort to secure help from the Slater and
Peabody Funds brought me into contact with two
rare men - men who have had much to do in shaping
the policy for the education of the Negro. I
refer to the Hon. J. L. M. Curry, of Washington,
who is the general agent for these two funds, and
Mr. Morris K. Jesup, of New York. Dr. Curry
is a native of the South, an ex-Confederate soldier,
yet I do not believe there is any man in the country
who is more deeply interested in the highest
welfare of the Negro than Dr. Curry, or one who
is more free from race prejudice. He enjoys the
unique distinction of possessing to an equal degree
the confidence of the black man and the Southern
white man. I shall never forget the first time I
met him. It was in Richmond, Va., where he was
then living. I had heard much about him. When
I first went into his presence, trembling because of
my youth and inexperience, he took me by the
hand so cordially, and spoke such encouraging
words, and gave me such helpful advice regarding
the proper course to pursue, that I came to know
him then, as I have known him ever since, as a
high example of one who is constantly and unselfishly
at work for the betterment of humanity.
Mr. Morris K. Jesup, the treasurer of the Slater
Fund, I refer to because I know of no man of wealth
and large and complicated business responsibilities
who gives not only money but his time and thought
to the subject of the proper method of elevating the
Negro to the extent that is true of Mr. Jesup. It
is very largely through his effort and influence that
during the last few years the subject of industrial
education has assumed the importance that it has,
and been placed on its present footing.
SOON after the opening of our boarding
department, quite a number of students who
evidently were worthy, but who were so poor
that they did not have any money to pay even the
small charges at the school, began applying for
admission. This class was composed of both men
and women. It was a great trial to refuse admission
to these applicants, and in 1884 we established
a night-school to accommodate a few of them.
The night-school was organized on a plan similar
to the one which I had helped to establish at
Hampton. At first it was composed of about a
dozen students. They were admitted to the
night-school only when they had no money with which
to pay any part of their board in the regular day-school.
It was further required that they must
work for ten hours during the day at some trade
or industry, and study academic branches for two
hours during the evening. This was the requirement
for the first one or two years of their stay.
They were to be paid something above the cost of
their board, with the understanding that all of their
earnings, except a very small part, were to be
reserved in the school's treasury, to be used for paying
their board in the regular day-school after they
had entered that department. The night-school,
started in this manner, has grown until there are
at present four hundred and fifty-seven students
enrolled in it alone.
There could hardly be a more severe test of a
student's worth than this branch of the Institute's
work. It is largely because it furnishes such a
good opportunity to test the backbone of a student
that I place such high value upon our night-school.
Any one who is willing to work ten hours
a day at the brick-yard, or in the laundry, through
one or two years, in order that he or she may have
the privilege of studying academic branches for two
hours in the evening, has enough bottom to warrant
being further educated.
After the student has left the night-school he
enters the day-school, where he takes academic
branches four days in a week, and works at his
trade two days. Besides this he usually works at
his trade during the three summer months. As a
rule, after a student has succeeded in going through
the night-school test, he finds a way to finish the
regular course in industrial and academic training.
No student, no matter how much money he may
be able to command, is permitted to go through
school without doing manual labour. In fact, the
industrial work is now as popular as the academic
branches. Some of the most successful men and
women who have graduated from the institution
obtained their start in the night-school.
While a great deal of stress is laid upon the
industrial side of the work at Tuskegee, we do
not neglect or overlook in any degree the religious
and spiritual side. The school is strictly
undenominational, but it is thoroughly Christian, and
the spiritual training of the students is not
neglected. Our preaching service, prayer-meetings,
Sunday-school, Christian Endeavour Society, Young
Men's Christian Association, and various missionary
organizations, testify to this.
In 1885, Miss Olivia
Davidson, to whom I have
already referred as being largely responsible for the
success of the school during its early history, and I
were married. During our married life she
continued to divide her time and strength between our
home and the work for the school. She not only
continued to work in the school at Tuskegee, but
also kept up her habit of going North to secure
funds. In
1889 she died, after four years of happy
married life and eight years of hard and happy work
for the school. She literally wore herself out in
her never ceasing efforts in behalf of the work that
she so dearly loved. During our married life there
were born to us two bright beautiful boys, Booker
Taliaferro and Ernest Davidson. The older of
these, Booker, has already mastered the brickmaker's
trade at Tuskegee. I have often been asked how I began the practice
of public speaking. In answer I would say
that I never planned to give any large part of my
life to speaking in public. I have always had more
of an ambition to do things than merely to talk
about doing them. It seems that when I went
North with General Armstrong to speak at the
series of public meetings to which I have referred,
the President of the National Educational
Association, the Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, was present at
one of those meetings and heard me speak.
A few days afterward he sent me an invitation to
deliver an address at the next meeting of the
Educational Association. This meeting was to be
held in Madison, Wis. I accepted the invitation.
This was, in a sense, the beginning of my
public-speaking career.
One the evening that I spoke before the Association
there must have been not far from four thousand
persons present. Without my knowing it,
there were a large number of people present from
Alabama, and some from the town of Tuskegee.
These white people afterward frankly told me that
they went to this meeting expecting to hear the
South roundly abused, but were pleasantly surprised
to find that there was no word of abuse in my address.
On the contrary, the South was given credit for all
the praiseworthy things that it had done. A white
lady who was teacher in a college in Tuskegee wrote
back to the local paper that she was gratified, as
well as surprised, to note the credit which I gave
the white people of Tuskegee for their help in getting
the school started. This address at Madison
was the first that I had delivered that in any large
measure dealt with the general problem of the
races. Those who heard it seemed to be pleased
with what I said and with the general position that
I took.
When I first came to Tuskegee, I determined
that I would make it my home, that I would take
as much pride in the right actions of the people of
the town as any white man could do, and that I
would, at the same time, deplore the wrong-doing
of the people as much as any white man. I determined
never to say anything in a public address in
the North that I would not be willing to say in the
South. I early learned that it is a hard matter to
convert an individual by abusing him, and that this
is more often accomplished by giving credit for all
the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling
attention alone to all the evil done.
While pursuing this policy I have not failed, at
the proper time and in the proper manner, to call
attention, in no uncertain terms, to the wrongs
which any part of the South has been guilty of. I
have found that there is a large element in the
South that is quick to respond to straightforward,
honest criticism of any wrong policy. As a rule,
the place to criticise the South, when criticism is
necessary, is in the South - not in Boston. A
Boston man who came to Alabama to criticise
Boston would not effect so much good, I think,
as one who had his word of criticism to say in
Boston.
In this address at Madison I took the ground
that the policy to be pursued with reference to the
races was, by every honourable means, to bring
them together and to encourage the cultivation of
friendly relations, instead of doing that which would
embitter. I further contended that, in relation to
his vote, the Negro should more and more consider
the interests of the community in which he lived,
rather than seek alone to please some one who
lived a thousand miles away from him and from
his interests.
In this address I said that the whole future of
the Negro rested largely upon the question as to
whether or not he should make himself, through
his skill, intelligence, and character, of such
undeniable value to the community in which he lived
that the community could not dispense with his
presence. I said that any individual who learned
to do something better than anybody else - learned
to do a common thing in an uncommon manner
- had solved his problem, regardless of the colour
of his skin, and that in proportion as the Negro
learned to produce what other people wanted and
must have, in the same proportion would he be
respected.
I spoke of an instance where one of our graduates
had produced two hundred and sixty-six
bushels of sweet potatoes from an acre of ground,
in a community where the average production had
been only forty-nine bushels to the acre. He
had been able to do this by reason of his knowledge
of the chemistry of the soil and by his
knowledge of improved methods of agriculture.
The white farmers in the neighbourhood respected
him, and came to him for ideas regarding the raising
of sweet potatoes. These white farmers
honoured and respected him because he, by his skill
and knowledge, had added something to the wealth
and the comfort of the community in which he
lived. I explained that my theory of education for
the Negro would not, for example, confine him for
all time to farm life - to the production of the
best and the most sweet potatoes - but that, if
he succeeded in this line of industry, he could lay
the foundations upon which his children and
grandchildren could grow to higher and more important
things in life.
Such, in brief, were some of the views I advocated
in this first address dealing with the broad question
of the relations of the two races, and since that time
I have not found any reason for changing my views
on any important point.
In my early life I used to cherish a feeling of ill
will toward any one who spoke in bitter terms
against the Negro, or who advocated measures that
tended to oppress the black man or take from him
opportunities for growth in the most complete manner.
Now, whenever I hear any one advocating
measures that are meant to curtail the development
of another, I pity the individual who would do this.
I know that the one who makes this mistake does
so because of his own lack of opportunity for the
highest kind of growth. I pity him because I know
that he is trying to stop the progress of the world,
and because I know that in time the development
and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make
him ashamed of his weak and narrow position.
One might as well try to stop the progress of a
mighty railroad train by throwing his body across
the track, as to try to stop the growth of the world
in the direction of giving mankind more intelligence,
more culture, more skill, more liberty, and in
the direction of extending more sympathy and more
brotherly kindness.
The address which I delivered at Madison, before
the National Educational Association, gave me a
rather wide introduction in the North, and soon
after that opportunities began offering themselves
for me to address audiences there.
I was anxious, however, that the way might also
be opened for me to speak directly to a representative
Southern white audience. A partial opportunity
of this kind, one that seemed to me might
serve as an entering wedge, presented itself in
1893, when the international meeting of Christian
Workers was held at Atlanta, Ga. When this
invitation came to me, I had engagements in Boston
that seemed to make it impossible for me to
speak in Atlanta. Still, after looking over my list
of dates and places carefully, I found that I could
take a train from Boston that would get me into
Atlanta about thirty minutes before my address was
to be delivered, and that I could remain in that city
about sixty minutes before taking another train for
Boston. My invitation to speak in Atlanta stipulated
that I was to confine my address to five
minutes. The question, then, was whether or not I
could put enough into a five-minute address to
make it worth while for me to make such a trip.
I knew that the audience would be largely
composed of the most influential class of white men and
women, and that it would be a rare opportunity for
me to let them know what we were trying to do at
Tuskegee, as well as to speak to them about the
relations of the races. So I decided to make the
trip. I spoke for five minutes to an audience of
two thousand people, composed mostly of Southern
and Northern whites. What I said seemed to be
received with favour and enthusiasm. The Atlanta
papers of the next day commented in friendly terms
on my address, and a good deal was said about it in
different parts of the country. I felt that I had in
some degree accomplished my object - that of
getting a hearing from the dominant class of the South.
The demands made upon me for public addresses
continued to increase, coming in about equal
numbers from my own people and from Northern whites.
I gave as much time to these addresses as I could
spare from the immediate work at Tuskegee. Most
of the addresses in the North were made for the
direct purpose of getting funds with which to
support the school. Those delivered before the
coloured people had for their main object the
impressing upon them of the importance of industrial
and technical education in addition to academic and
religious training.
I now come to that one of the incidents in my
life which seems to have excited the greatest amount
of interest, and which perhaps went further than
anything else in giving me a reputation that in a
sense might be called National. I refer to the
address which I delivered at the opening of the
Atlanta Cotton states and International Exposition,
at Atlanta, Ga., September 18, 1895.
So much has been said and written about this
incident, and so many questions have been asked
me concerning the address, that perhaps I may be
excused for taking up the matter with some detail.
The five-minute address in Atlanta, which I came
from Boston to deliver, was possibly the prime
cause for an opportunity being given me to make
the second address there. In the spring of 1895 I
received a telegram from prominent citizens in
Atlanta asking me to accompany a committee from
that city to Washington for the purpose of appearing
before a committee of Congress in the interest
of securing Government help for the Exposition.
The committee was composed of about twenty-five
of the most prominent and most influential white
men of Georgia. All the members of this
committee were white men except Bishop Grant, Bishop
Gaines, and myself. The Mayor and several other
city and state officials spoke before the committee.
They were followed by the two coloured bishops.
My name was the last on the list of speakers. I
had never before appeared before such a committee,
nor had I ever delivered any address in the capital
of the Nation. I had many misgivings as to what
I ought to say, and as to the impression that my
address would make. While I cannot recall in
detail what I said, I remember that I tried to
impress upon the committee, with all the earnestness
and plainness of any language that I could
command, that if Congress wanted to do something
which would assist in ridding the South of the race
question and making friends between the two races,
it should, in every proper way, encourage the material
and intellectual growth of both races. I said
that the Atlanta Exposition would present an opportunity
for both races to show what advance they
had made since freedom, and would at the same
time afford encouragement to them to make still
greater progress.
I tried to emphasize the fact that while the Negro
should not be deprived by unfair means of the franchise,
political agitation alone would not save him,
and that back of the ballot he must have property,
industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character,
and that no race without these elements could
permanently succeed. I said that in granting the
appropriation Congress could do something that
would prove to be of real and lasting value to both
races, and that it was the first great opportunity of
the kind that had been presented since the close of
the Civil War.
I spoke for fifteen or twenty minutes, and was
surprised at the close of my address to receive the
hearty congratulations of the Georgia committee
and of the members of Congress who were present.
The Committee was unanimous in making a
favourable report, and in a few days the bill passed
Congress. With the passing of this bill the success
of the Atlanta Exposition was assured.
Soon after this trip to Washington the directors
of the Exposition decided that it would be a fitting
recognition of the coloured race to erect a large and
attractive building which should be devoted wholly
to showing the progress of the Negro since freedom.
It was further decided to have the building designed
and erected wholly by Negro mechanics. This plan
was carried out. In design, beauty, and general
finish the Negro Building was equal to the others on
the grounds.
After it was decided to have a separate Negro
exhibit, the question arose as to who should take
charge of it. The officials of the Exposition were
anxious that I should assume this responsibility,
but I declined to do so, on the plea that the work
at Tuskegee at that time demanded my time and
strength. Largely at my suggestion, Mr. I. Garland
Penn, of Lynchburg, Va., was selected to be
at the head of the Negro department. I gave him
all the aid that I could. The Negro exhibit, as a
whole, was large and creditable. The two exhibits
in this department which attracted the greatest
amount of attention were those from the Hampton
Institute and the Tuskegee Institute. The people
who seemed to be the most surprised, as well as
pleased, at what they saw in the Negro Building
were the Southern white people.
As the day for the opening of the Exposition
drew near, the Board of Directors began preparing
the programme for the opening exercises. In the
discussion from day to day of the various features
of this programme, the question came up as to the
advisability of putting a member of the Negro race
on for one of the opening addresses, since the
Negroes had been asked to take such a prominent
part in the Exposition. It was argued, further,
that such recognition would mark the good
feeling prevailing between the two races. Of
course there were those who were opposed to any
such recognition of the rights of the Negro, but the
Board of Directors, composed of men who
represented the best and most progressive element in the
South, had their way, and voted to invite a black
man to speak on the opening day. The next thing
was to decide upon the person who was thus to
represent the Negro race. After the question had
been canvassed for several days, the directors voted
unanimously to ask me to deliver one of the
opening-day addresses, and in a few days after that I
received the official invitation.
The receiving of this invitation brought to me a
sense of responsibility that it would be hard for any
one not placed in my position to appreciate. What
were my feelings when this invitation came to me?
I remembered that I had been a slave; that my
early years had been spent in the lowest depths of
poverty and ignorance, and that I had had little
opportunity to prepare me for such a responsibility
as this. It was only a few years before that
time that any white man in the audience might
have claimed me as his slave; and it was easily
possible that some of my former owners might be
present to hear me speak.
I knew, too, that this was the first time in the
entire history of the Negro that a member of my
race had been asked to speak from the same
platform with white Southern men and women on any
important National occasion. I was asked now to
speak to an audience composed of the wealth and
culture of the white South, the representatives of
my former masters. I knew, too, that while the
greater part of my audience would be composed of
Southern people, yet there would be present a large
number of Northern whites, as well as a great many
men and women of my own race.
I was determined to say nothing that I did not
feel from the bottom of my heart to be true and
right. When the invitation came to me, there was
not one word of intimation as to what I should say
or as to what I should omit. In this I felt that the
Board of Directors had paid a tribute to me. They
knew that by one sentence I could have blasted, in
a large degree, the success of the Exposition. I
was also painfully conscious of the fact that, while
I must be true to my own race in my utterances, I
had it in my power to make such an ill-timed
address as would result in preventing any similar
invitation being extended to a black man again for
years to come. I was equally determined to be
true to the North, as well as to the best element of
the white South, in what I had to say.
The papers, North and South, had taken up the
discussion of my coming speech, and as the time
for it drew near this discussion became more and
more widespread. Not a few of the Southern white
papers were unfriendly to the idea of my speaking.
From my own race I received many suggestions as
to what I ought to say. I prepared myself as best
I could for the address, but as the eighteenth of
September drew nearer, the heavier my heart
became, and the more I feared that my effort would
prove a failure and a disappointment.
The invitation had come at a time when I was
very busy with my school work, as it was the
beginning of our school year. After preparing my
address, I went through it, as I usually do with all
those utterances which I consider particularly
important, with Mrs. Washington, and she approved
of what I intended to say. On the sixteenth of
September, the day before I was to start for Atlanta,
so many of the Tuskegee teachers expressed a
desire to hear my address that I consented to read it
to them in a body. When I had done so, and had
heard their criticisms and comments, I felt somewhat
relieved, since they seemed to think well of
what I had to say.
On the morning of
September 17, together with
Mrs. Washington and my three children, I started
for Atlanta. I felt a good deal as I suppose a man
feels when he is on his way to the gallows. In
passing through the town of Tuskegee I met a
white farmer who lived some distance out in the
country. In a jesting manner this man said:
"Washington, you have spoken before the Northern
white people, the Negroes in the South, and
to us country white people in the South; but in
Atlanta, to-morrow, you will have before you the
Northern whites, the Southern whites, and the
Negroes all together. I am afraid that you have got
yourself into a tight place." This farmer diagnosed
the situation correctly, but his frank words did not
add anything to my comfort.
In the course of the journey from Tuskegee to
Atlanta both coloured and white people came to
the train to point me out, and discussed with
perfect freedom, in my hearing, what was going to
take place the next day. We were met by a
committee in Atlanta. Almost the first thing that I
heard when I got off the train in that city was an
expression something like this from an old coloured
man near by: "Dat's de man of my race what's
gwine to make a speech at de Exposition to-morrow.
I'se sho' gwine to hear him."
Atlanta was literally packed, at the time, with
people from all parts of this country, and with
representatives of foreign governments, as well as
with military and civic organizations. The afternoon
papers had forecasts of the next day's
proceedings in flaring headlines. All this tended to
add to my burden. I did not sleep much that
night. The next morning, before day, I went
carefully over what I intended to say. I also kneeled
down and asked God's blessing upon my effort.
Right here, perhaps, I ought to add that I make it
a rule never to go before an audience, on any occasion,
without asking the blessing of God upon what
I want to say.
I always make it a rule to make especial preparation
for each separate address. No two audiences
are exactly alike. It is my aim to reach and talk to
the heart of each individual audience, taking it into
my confidence very much as I would a person.
When I am speaking to an audience, I care little
for how what I am saying is going to sound in the
newspapers, or to another audience, or to an
individual. At the time, the audience before me
absorbs all my sympathy, thought, and energy.
Early in the morning a committee called to
escort me to my place in the procession which
was to march to the Exposition grounds. In this
procession were prominent coloured citizens in
carriages, as well as several Negro military organizations.
I noted that the Exposition officials seemed
to go out of their way to see that all of the coloured
people in the procession were properly placed and
properly treated. The procession was about three
hours in reaching the Exposition grounds, and during
all of this time the sun was shining down upon
us disagreeably hot. When we reached the grounds,
the heat, together with my nervous anxiety, made
me feel as if I were about ready to collapse, and to
feel that my address was not going to be a success.
When I entered the audience-room, I found it
packed with humanity from bottom to top, and
there were thousands outside who could not get in.
The room was very large, and well suited to public
speaking. When I entered the room, there were
vigorous cheers from the coloured portion of the
audience, and faint cheers from some of the white
people. I had been told, while I had been in
Atlanta, that while many white people were going
to be present to hear me speak, simply out of
curiosity, and that others who would be present
would be in full sympathy with me, there was
a still larger element of the audience which would
consist of those who were going to be present for
the purpose of hearing me make a fool of myself,
or, at least, of hearing me say some foolish thing,
so that they could say to the officials who had
invited me to speak, "I told you so!"
One of the trustees of the Tuskegee Institute, as
well as my personal friend, Mr. William H. Baldwin,
Jr. was at the time General Manager of the
Southern Railroad, and happened to be in Atlanta
on that day. He was so nervous about the kind
of reception that I would have, and the effect that
my speech would produce, that he could not
persuade himself to go into the building, but walked
back and forth in the grounds outside until the
opening exercises were over.
THE Atlanta Exposition, at which I had
been asked to make an address as a
representative of the Negro race, as stated in
the last chapter, was opened with a short address
from Governor Bullock. After other interesting
exercises, including an invocation from Bishop Nelson,
of Georgia, a dedicatory ode by Albert Howell,
Jr., and addresses by the President of the Exposition
and Mrs. Joseph Thompson, the President of
the Woman's Board, Governor Bullock introduced
me with the words, "We have with us to-day a
representative of Negro enterprise and Negro civilization."
When I arose to speak, there was considerable
cheering, especially from the coloured people. As
I remember it now, the thing that was uppermost
in my mind was the desire to say something that
would cement the friendship of the races and bring
about hearty cooperation between them. So far as
my outward surroundings were concerned, the only
thing that I recall distinctly now is that when I got
up, I saw thousands of eyes looking intently into
my face. The following is the address which I
delivered: -
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE BOARD
OF DIRECTORS AND CITIZENS.
One-third of the
population of the South is of
the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material,
civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard
this element of our population and reach the
highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President
and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of
my race when I say that in no way have the value
and manhood of the American Negro been more
fittingly and generously recognized than by the
managers of this magnificent Exposition at every
stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will
do more to cement the friendship of the two races
than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.
Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded
will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress.
Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange
that in the first years of our new life we began at
the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in
Congress or the state legislature was more sought
than real estate or industrial skill; that the political
convention of stump speaking had more attraction
than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.
A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted
a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate
vessel was seen a signal, "Water, water; we
die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel
at once came back, "Cast down your bucket
where you are." A second time the signal, "Water,
water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed
vessel, and was answered, "Cast down your bucket
where you are." And a third and fourth signal for
water was answered, "Cast down your bucket where
you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at
last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket,
and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from
the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my
race who depend on bettering their condition in a
foreign land or who underestimate the importance
of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern
white man, who is their next-door neighbour, I would
say: "Cast down your bucket where you are" -
cast it down in making friends in every manly way
of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in
commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions.
And in this connection it is well to bear in mind
that whatever other sins the South may be called to
bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it
is in the South that the Negro is given a man's
chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is
this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing
this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great
leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the
fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions
of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we
shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify
and glorify common labour and put brains and skill
into the common occupations of life; shall prosper
in proportion as we learn to draw the line between
the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental
gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper
till it learns that there is as much dignity in
tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom
of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor
should we permit our grievances to overshadow our
opportunities.
To those of the white race who look to the incoming
of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and
habits for the prosperity of the South, were I
permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race,
"Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it
down among the eight millions of Negroes whose
habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have
tested in days when to have proved treacherous
meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your
bucket among these people who have, without
strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared
your forests, builded your railroads and cities,
and
brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth,
and helped make possible this magnificent representation
of the progress of the South. Casting down
your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging
them as you are doing on these grounds, and
to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find
that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom
the waste places in your fields, and run your factories.
While doing this, you can be sure in the
future, as in the past, that you and your families
will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful,
law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world
has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you
in the past, in nursing your children, watching by
the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often
following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves,
so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand
by you with a devotion that no foreigner can
approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in
defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial,
civil, and religious life with yours in a way that
shall make the interests of both races one. In all
things that are purely social we can be as separate
as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things
essential to mutual progress.
There is no defence or security for any of us
except in the highest intelligence and development of
all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail
the fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be
turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making
him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort
or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent.
interest. These efforts will be twice blessed -
"blessing him that gives and him that takes."
There is no escape through law of man or God
from the inevitable: -
The
laws of changeless justice bind
Nearly sixteen
millions of hands will aid you in
pulling the load upward, or they will pull against
you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third
and more of the ignorance and crime of the
South, or one-third its intelligence and progress;
we shall contribute one-third to the business and
industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove
a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing,
retarding every effort to advance the body politic.
Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to
you our humble effort at an exhibition of our progress,
you must not expect overmuch. Starting thirty
years ago with ownership here and there in a few
quilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered from
miscellaneous sources), remember the path that has
led from these to the inventions and production
of agricultural implements, buggies, steam-engines,
newspapers, books, statuary, carving, paintings, the
management of drug-stores and banks, has not been
trodden without contact with thorns and thistles.
While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result
of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment
forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far
short of your expectations but for the constant help
that has come to our educational life, not only from
the Southern states, but especially from Northern
philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant
stream of blessing and encouragement.
The wisest among my race understand that the
agitation of questions of social equality is the
extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment
of all the privileges that will come to us must be
the result of severe and constant struggle rather
than of artificial forcing. No race that has
anything to contribute to the markets of the world is
long in any degree ostracized. It is important and
right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is
vastly more important that we be prepared for the
exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to
earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely
more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an
opera-house.
In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty
years has given us more hope and encouragement,
and drawn us so near to you of the white race, as
this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and
here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents
the results of the struggles of your race and
mine, both starting practically empty-handed three
decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work
out the great and intricate problem which God has
laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all
times the patient, sympathetic help of my race;
only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from
representations in these buildings of the product of
field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and art,
much good will come, yet far above and beyond
material benefits will be that higher good, that, let
us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of
sectional differences and racial animosities and
suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute
justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to
the mandates of law. This, this, coupled with our
material prosperity, will bring into our beloved
South a new heaven and a new earth.
The first thing that I remember, after I had
finished speaking, was that Governor Bullock rushed
across the platform and took me by the hand, and
that others did the same. I received so many and
such hearty congratulations that I found it difficult
to get out of the building. I did not appreciate to
any degree, however, the impression which my
address seemed to have made, until the next morning,
when I went into the business part of the city.
As soon as I was recognized, I was surprised to
find myself pointed out and surrounded by a crowd
of men who wished to shake hands with me. This
was kept up on every street on to which I went, to
an extent which embarrassed me so much that I
went back to my boarding-place. The next morning
I returned to Tuskegee. At the station in
Atlanta, and at almost all of the stations at which
the train stopped between that city and Tuskegee,
I found a crowd of people anxious to shake hands
with me.
The papers in all parts of the United States
published the address in full, and for months afterward
there were complimentary editorial references to it.
Mr. Clark Howell, the editor of the Atlanta
Constitution, telegraphed to a New York paper, among
other words, the following, "I do not exaggerate
when I say that Professor Booker T. Washington's
address yesterday was one of the most notable
speeches, both as to character and as to the
warmth of its reception, ever delivered to a Southern
audience. The address was a revelation. The
whole speech is a platform upon which blacks
and whites can stand with full justice to each
other."
The Boston Transcript said editorially: "The
speech of Booker T. Washington at the Atlanta
Exposition, this week, seems to have dwarfed all
the other proceedings and the Exposition itself.
The sensation that it has caused in the press has
never been equalled."
I very soon began receiving all kinds of propositions
from lecture bureaus, and editors of magazines
and papers, to take the lecture platform, and to
write articles. One lecture bureau offered me fifty
thousand dollars, or two hundred dollars a night
and expenses, if I would place my services at its
disposal for a given period. To all these
communications I replied that my life-work was at Tuskegee;
and that whenever I spoke it must be in the
interests of the Tuskegee school and my race,
and that I would enter into no arrangements that
seemed to place a mere commercial value upon my
services.
Some days after
its delivery I sent a copy of my
address to the President of the United States, the
Hon. Grover Cleveland. I received from him the
following autograph reply: -
GRAY GABLES, BUZZARD'S BAY, MASS.,
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, ESQ.:
MY DEAR SIR: I thank you for sending me a copy of
your address delivered at the Atlanta Exposition.
I thank you with much enthusiasm for making the
address. I have read it with intense interest, and I think
the Exposition would be fully justified if it did not do more
than furnish the opportunity for its delivery. Your words
cannot fail to delight and encourage all who wish well for
your race; and if our coloured fellow-citizens do not from
your utterances gather new hope and form new determinations
to gain every valuable advantage offered them by their
citizenship, it will be strange indeed.
Later I met Mr. Cleveland, for the first time,
when, as President, he visited the Atlanta Exposition.
At the request of myself and others he
consented to spend an hour in the Negro Building, for
the purpose of inspecting the Negro exhibit and of
giving the coloured people in attendance an
opportunity to shake hands with him. As soon as I met
Mr. Cleveland I became impressed with his
simplicity, greatness, and rugged honesty. I have met
him many times since then, both at public functions
and at his private residence in Princeton, and the
more I see of him the more I admire him. When
he visited the Negro Building in Atlanta he seemed
to give himself up wholly, for that hour, to the
coloured people. He seemed to be as careful to
shake hands with some old coloured "auntie" clad
partially in rags, and to take as much pleasure in
doing so, as if he were greeting some millionaire.
Many of the coloured people took advantage of the
occasion to get him to write his name in a book or
on a slip of paper. He was as careful and patient
in doing this as if he were putting his signature to
some great state document.
Mr. Cleveland has not only shown his friendship
for me in many personal ways, but has always
consented to do anything I have asked of him for our
school. This he has done, whether it was to make
a personal donation or to use his influence in securing
the donations of others. Judging from my
personal acquaintance with Mr. Cleveland, I do not
believe that he is conscious of possessing any colour
prejudice. He is too great for that. In my contact
with people I find that, as a rule, it is only the
little, narrow people who live for themselves, who
never read good books, who do not travel, who
never open up their souls in a way to permit them
to come into contact with other souls - with the
great outside world. No man whose vision is
bounded by colour can come into contact with what
is highest and best in the world. In meeting men,
in many places, I have found that the happiest people
are those who do the most for others; the most
miserable are those who do the least. I have also
found that few things, if any, are capable of making
one so blind and narrow as race prejudice. I often
say to our students, in the course of my talks to
them on Sunday evenings in the chapel, that the
longer I live and the more experience I have of
the world, the more I am convinced that, after all,
the one thing that is most worth living for - and
dying for, if need be - is the opportunity of making
some one else more happy and more useful.
The coloured people and the coloured newspapers
at first seemed to be greatly pleased with the character
of my Atlanta address, as well as with its reception.
But after the first burst of enthusiasm began
to die away, and the coloured people began reading
the speech in cold type, some of them seemed to
feel that they had been hypnotized. They seemed
to feel that I had been too liberal in my remarks
toward the Southern whites, and that I had not
spoken out strongly enough for what they termed
the "rights" of the race. For a while there was a
reaction, so far as a certain element of my own race
was concerned, but later these reactionary ones
seemed to have been won over to my way of
believing and acting.
While speaking of changes in public sentiment, I
recall that about ten years after the school at Tuskegee
was established, I had an experience that I shall
never forget. Dr. Lyman Abbott, then the pastor
of Plymouth Church, and also editor of the Outlook
(then the Christian Union), asked me to write a letter
for his paper giving my opinion of the exact
condition, mental and moral, of the coloured ministers
in the South, as based upon my observations.
I wrote the letter, giving the exact facts as I
conceived them to be. The picture painted was a
rather black one - or, since I am black, shall I say
"white"? It could not be otherwise with a race
but a few years out of slavery, a race which had not
had time or opportunity to produce a competent
ministry.
What I said soon reached every Negro minister
in the country, I think, and the letters of condemnation
which I received from them were not few.
I think that for a year after the publication of this
article every association and every conference or
religious body of any kind, of my race, that met,
did not fail before adjourning to pass a resolution
condemning me, or calling upon me to retract or
modify what I had said. Many of these organizations
went so far in their resolutions as to advise
parents to cease sending their children to Tuskegee.
One association even appointed a "missionary"
whose duty it was to warn the people against sending
their children to Tuskegee. This missionary
had a son in the school, and I noticed that, whatever
the "missionary" might have said or done
with regard to others, he was careful not to take
his son away from the institution. Many or the
coloured papers, especially those that were the
organs of religious bodies, joined in the general
chorus of condemnation or demands for retraction.
During the whole time of the excitement, and
through all the criticism, I did not utter a word of
explanation or retraction. I knew that I was right,
and that time and the sober second thought of the
people would vindicate me. It was not long before
the bishops and other church leaders began to make
a careful investigation of the conditions of the
ministry, and they found out that I was right. In fact,
the oldest and most influential bishop in one branch
of the Methodist Church said that my words were
far too mild. Very soon public sentiment began
making itself felt, in demanding a purifying of the
ministry. While this is not yet complete by any
means, I think I may say, without egotism, and I
have been told by many of our most influential
ministers, that my words had much to do with starting
a demand for the placing of a higher type of
men in the pulpit. I have had the satisfaction of
having many who once condemned me thank me
heartily for my frank words.
The change of the attitude of the Negro ministry,
so far as regards myself, is so complete that at
the present time I have no warmer friends among
any class than I have among the clergymen. The
improvement in the character and life of the Negro
ministers is one of the most gratifying evidences of
the progress of the race. My experience with them
as well as other events in my life, convince me that
the thing to do, when one feels sure that he has said
or done the right thing, and is condemned, is to
stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will
show it.
In the midst of the discussion which was going on
concerning my Atlanta speech, I received the letter
which I give below, from Dr. Gilman, the President
of Johns Hopkins University, who had been made
chairman of the judges of award in connection with
the Atlanta Exposition: -
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, BALTIMORE,
DEAR MR. WASHINGTON: Would it be agreeable to
you to be one of the Judges of Award in the Department
of Education at Atlanta? If so, I shall be glad to place
your name upon the list. A line by telegraph will be
welcomed.
Yours very truly,
I think I was even
more surprised to receive this
invitation than I had been to receive the invitation
to speak at the opening of the Exposition. It was
to be a part of my duty, as one of the jurors, to
pass not only upon the exhibits of the coloured
schools, but also upon those of the white schools.
I accepted the position, and spent a month in
Atlanta in performance of the duties which it
entailed. The board of jurors was a large one,
consisting in all of sixty members. It was about
equally divided between Southern white people
and Northern white people. Among them were
college presidents, leading scientists and men of
letters, and specialists in many subjects. When
the group of jurors to which I was assigned met
for organization, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, who
was one of the number, moved that I be made
secretary of that division, and the motion was
unanimously adopted. Nearly half of our division
were Southern people. In performing my
duties in the inspection of the exhibits of white
schools I was in every case treated with respect,
and at the close of our labours I parted from my
associates with regret.
I am often asked to express myself more freely
than I do upon the political condition and the
political future of my race. These recollections
of my experience in Atlanta give me the opportunity
to do so briefly. My own belief is, although
I have never before said so in so many words, that
the time will come when the Negro in the South
will be accorded all the political rights which his
ability, character, and material possessions entitle
him to. I think, though, that the opportunity to
freely exercise such political rights will not come in
any large degree through outside or artificial forcing,
but will be accorded to the Negro by the
Southern white people themselves, and that they
will protect him in the exercise of those rights.
Just as soon as the South gets over the old feeling
that it is being forced by "foreigners," or "aliens,"
to do something which it does not want to do, I
believe that the change in the direction that I have
indicated is going to begin. In fact, there are
indications that it is already beginning in a slight
degree.
Let me illustrate my meaning. Suppose that
some months before the opening of the Atlanta
Exposition there had been a general demand from
the press and public platform outside the South
that a Negro be given a place on the opening
programme, and that a Negro be placed upon the
board of jurors of award. Would any such
recognition of the race have taken place? I do not
think so. The Atlanta officials went as far as they
did because they felt it to be a pleasure, as well as a
duty, to reward what they considered merit in
the Negro race. Say what we will, there is
something in human nature which we cannot blot out,
which makes one man, in the end, recognize and
reward merit in another, regardless of colour or
race.
I believe it is the duty of the Negro - as the
greater part of the race is already doing - to deport
himself modestly in regard to political claims,
depending upon the slow but sure influences that
proceed from the possession of property, intelligence,
and high character for the full recognition
of his political rights. I think that the according
of the full exercise of political rights is going to be
a matter of natural, slow growth, not an over-night,
gourd-vine affair. I do not believe that the Negro
should cease voting, for a man cannot learn the
exercise of self-government by ceasing to vote any
more than a boy can learn to swim by keeping out
of the water, but I do believe that in his voting he
should more and more be influenced by those of
intelligence and character who are his next-door
neighbours.
I know coloured men who, through the
encouragement, help, and advice of Southern white people,
have accumulated thousands of dollars' worth of
property, but who, at the same time, would never
think of going to those same persons for advice
concerning the casting of their ballots. This, it
seems to me, is unwise and unreasonable, and
should cease. In saying this I do not mean that
the Negro should buckle, or not vote from
principle, for the instant he ceases to vote from principle
he loses the confidence and respect of the Southern
white man even.
I do not believe that any state should make a
law that permits an ignorant and poverty-stricken
white man to vote, and prevents a black man in the
same condition from voting. Such a law is not
only unjust, but it will react, as all unjust laws do,
in time; for the effect of such a law is to encourage
the Negro to secure education and property, and at
the same time it encourages the white man to
remain in ignorance and poverty. I believe that in
time, through the operation of intelligence and
friendly race relations, all cheating at the ballot-box
in the South will cease. It will become apparent
that the white man who begins by cheating a
Negro out of his ballot soon learns to cheat a white
man out of his, and that the man who does this
ends his career of dishonesty by the theft of property
or by some equally serious crime. In my
opinion, the time will come when the South will
encourage all of its citizens to vote. It will see
that it pays better, from every standpoint, to have
healthy, vigorous life than to have that political
stagnation which always results when one-half of
the population has no share and no interest in the
Government.
As a rule, I believe in universal, free suffrage,
but I believe that in the South we are confronted
with peculiar conditions that justify the protection
of the ballot in many of the states, for a while at
least, either by an educational test, a property test,
or by both combined; but whatever tests are
required, they should be made to apply with equal
and exact justice to both races.
AS to how my address at Atlanta was received
by the audience in the Exposition building,
I think I prefer to let Mr. James Creelman,
the noted war correspondent, tell. Mr. Creelman
was present, and telegraphed the following account
to the New York World: -
ATLANTA, SEPTEMBER 18.
While President
Cleveland was waiting at Gray Gables
to-day, to send the electric spark that started the machinery
of the Atlanta Exposition, a Negro Moses stood before
a great audience of white people and delivered an oration
that marks a new epoch in the history of the South; and
body of Negro troops marched in a procession with the
citizen soldiery of Georgia and Louisiana. The whole city
is thrilling to-night with a realization of the extraordinary
significance of these two unprecedented events. Nothing
has happened since Henry Grady's immortal speech before
the New England society in New York that indicates so
profoundly the spirit of the New South, except, perhaps,
the opening of the Exposition itself.
When Professor Booker T. Washington, Principal of
an industrial school for coloured people in Tuskegee, Ala.
stood on the platform of the Auditorium, with the sun
shining over the heads of his auditors into his eyes, and
with his whole face lit up with the fire of prophecy, Clark
Howell, the successor of Henry Grady, said to me, "That
man's speech is the beginning of a moral revolution in
America."
It is the first time that a Negro has made a speech in
the South on any important occasion before an audience
composed of white men and women. It electrified the
audience, and the response was as if it had come from the
throat of a whirlwind.
Mrs. Thompson had hardly taken her seat when all eyes
were turned on a tall tawny Negro sitting in the front row
of the platform. It was Professor Booker T. Washington,
President of the Tuskegee (Alabama) Normal and Industrial
Institute, who must rank from this time forth as the
foremost man of his race in America. Gilmore's Band
played the "Star-Spangled Banner," and the audience
cheered. The tune changed to "Dixie" and the audience
roared with shrill "hi-yis." Again the music changed, this
time to "Yankee Doodle," and the clamour lessened.
All this time the eyes of the thousands present looked
straight at the Negro orator. A strange thing was to happen.
A black man was to speak for his people, with none
to interrupt him. As Professor Washington strode to the
edge of the stage, the low, descending sun shot fiery rays
through the windows into his face. A great shout greeted
him. He turned his head to avoid the blinding light, and
moved about the platform for relief. Then he turned his
wonderful countenance to the sun without a blink of the
eyelids, and began to talk.
There was a remarkable figure; tall, bony, straight as a
Sioux chief, high forehead, straight nose, heavy jaws, and
strong, determined mouth, with big white teeth, piercing
eyes, and a commanding manner. The sinews stood out
on his bronzed neck, and his muscular right arm swung
high in the air, with a lead-pencil grasped in the clinched
brown fist. His big feet were planted squarely, with the
heels together and the toes turned out. His voice rang
out clear and true, and he paused impressively as he made
each point. Within ten minutes the multitude was in an
uproar of enthusiasm - handkerchiefs were waved, cans
were flourished, hats were tossed in the air. The fairest
women of Georgia stood up and cheered. It was as if the
orator had bewitched them.
And when he held his dusky hand high above his head,
with the fingers stretched wide apart, and said to the white
people of the South on behalf of his race, "In all things
that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers,
yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress,"
the great wave of sound dashed itself against the
walls, and the whole audience was on its feet in a delirium
of applause, and I thought at that moment of the night
when Henry Grady stood among the curling wreaths of
tobacco-smoke in Delmonico's banquet-hall and said, "I
am a Cavalier among Roundheads."
I have heard the great orators of many countries, but
not even Gladstone himself could have pleaded a cause
with more consummate power than did this angular Negro,
standing in a nimbus of sunshine, surrounded by the men
who once fought to keep his race in bondage. The roar
might swell ever so high, but the expression of his earnest
face never changed.
A ragged, ebony giant, squatted on the floor in one of
the aisles, watched the orator with burning eyes and tremulous
face until the supreme burst of applause came, and
then the tears ran down his face. Most of the Negroes in
the audience were crying, perhaps without knowing just
why.
At the close of the speech Governor Bullock rushed
across the stage and seized the orator's hand. Another
shout greeted this demonstration, and for a few minutes
the two men stood facing each other, hand in hand.
So far as I could spare the time from the immediate
work at Tuskegee, after my Atlanta address, I
accepted some of the invitations to speak in public
which came to me, especially those that would take
me into territory where I thought it would pay to
plead the cause of my race, but I always did this
with the understanding that I was to be free to talk
about my life-work and the needs of my people.
I also had it understood that I was not to speak in
the capacity of a professional lecturer, or for mere
commercial gain.
In my efforts on the public platform I never have
been able to understand why people come to hear
me speak. This question I never can rid myself
of. Time and time again, as I have stood in the
street in front of a building and have seen men and
women passing in large numbers into the audience-room
where I was to speak, I have felt ashamed
that I should be the cause of people - as it seemed
to me - wasting a valuable hour of time. Some
years ago I was to deliver an address before a literary
society in Madison, Wis. An hour before
the time set for me to speak, a fierce snow-storm
began, and continued for several hours. I made up
my mind that there would be no audience, and that
I should not have to speak, but, as a matter of duty,
I went to the church, and found it packed with people.
The surprise gave me a shock that I did not
recover from during the whole evening.
People often ask me if I feel nervous before
speaking, or else they suggest that, since I speak so
often, they suppose that I get used to it. In answer
to this question I have to say that I always suffer
intensely from nervousness before speaking. More
than once, just before I was to make an important
address, this nervous strain has been so great that
I have resolved never again to speak in public. I
not only feel nervous before speaking, but after I
have finished I usually feel a sense of regret, because
it seems to me as if I had left out of my address the
main thing and the best thing that I had meant to say.
There is a great compensation, though, for this
preliminary nervous suffering, that comes to me
after I have been speaking for about ten minutes,
and have come to feel that I have really mastered
my audience, and that we have gotten into full and
complete sympathy with each other. It seems to me
that there is rarely such a combination of mental and
physical delight in any effort as that which comes to
a public speaker when he feels that he has a great
audience completely within his control. There is a
thread of sympathy and oneness that connects a public
speaker with his audience, that is just as strong as
though it was something tangible and visible. If
in an audience of a thousand people there is one
person who is not in sympathy with my views, or
is inclined to be doubtful, cold, or critical, I can
pick him out. When I have found him I usually
go straight at him, and it is a great satisfaction to
watch the process of his thawing out. I find that
the most effective medicine for such individuals is
administered at first in the form of a story, although
I never tell an anecdote simply for the sake of telling
one. That kind of thing, I think, is empty and
hollow, and an audience soon finds it out.
I believe that one always does himself and his
audience an injustice when he speaks merely for the
sake of speaking. I do not believe that one should
speak unless, deep down in his heart, he feels
convinced that he has a message to deliver. When
one feels, from the bottom of his feet to the top of
his head, that he has something to say that is going
to help some individual or some cause, then let him
say it; and in delivering his message I do not
believe that many of the artificial rules of elocution
can, under such circumstances, help him very much.
Although there are certain things, such as pauses,
breathing, and pitch of voice, that are very important,
none of these can take the place of soul in an
address. When I have an address to deliver, I like
to forget all about the rules for the proper use of
the English language, and all about rhetoric and
that sort of thing, and I like to make the audience
forget all about these things, too.
Nothing tends to throw me off my balance so
quickly, when I am speaking, as to have some one
leave the room. To prevent this, I make up my
mind, as a rule, that I will try to make my address
so interesting, will try to state so many interesting
facts one after another, that no one can leave. The
average audience, I have come to believe, wants
facts rather than generalities or sermonizing. Most
people, I think, are able to draw proper conclusions
if they are given the facts in an interesting form on
which to base them.
As to the kind of audience that I like best to
talk to, I would put at the top of the list an organization
of strong, wide-awake, business men, such,
for example, as is found in Boston, New York, Chicago,
and Buffalo. I have found no other audience
so quick to see a point, and so responsive. Within
the last few years I have had the privilege of speaking
before most of the leading organizations of this
kind in the large cities of the United States. The
best time to get hold of an organization of business
men is after a good dinner, although I think that
one of the worst instruments of torture that was
ever invented is the custom which makes it necessary
for a speaker to sit through a fourteen-course
dinner, every minute of the time feeling sure that
his speech is going to prove a dismal failure and
disappointment.
I rarely take part in one of these long dinners
that I do not wish that I could put myself back in
the little cabin where I was a slave boy, and again
go through the experience there - one that I shall
never forget - of getting molasses to eat once a
week from the "big house." Our usual diet on
the plantation was corn bread and pork, but on
Sunday morning my mother was permitted to bring
down a little molasses from the "big house" for her
three children, and when it was received how I did
wish that every day was Sunday! I would get my
tin plate and hold it up for the sweet morsel, but I
would always shut my eyes while the molasses was
being poured out into the plate, with the hope that
when I opened them I would be surprised to see
how much I had got. When I opened my eyes I
would tip the plate in one direction and another, so
as to make the molasses spread all over it, in the
full belief that there would be more of it and that it
would last longer if spread out in this way. So
strong are my childish impressions of those Sunday
morning feasts that it would be pretty hard for any
one to convince me that there is not more molasses
on a plate when it is spread all over the plate than
when it occupies a little corner - if there is a corner
in a plate. At any rate, I have never believed in
"cornering" syrup. My share of the syrup was
usually about two tablespoonfuls, and those two
spoonfuls of molasses were much more enjoyable to
me than is a fourteen-course dinner after which I
am to speak.
Next to a company of business men, I prefer to
speak to an audience of Southern people, of either
race, together or taken separately. Their enthusiasm
and responsiveness are a constant delight. The
"amens" and "dat's de truf" that come spontaneously
from the coloured individuals are calculated to
spur any speaker on to his best efforts. I think
that next in order of preference I would place a
college audience. It has been my privilege to
deliver addresses at many of our leading colleges,
including Harvard, Yale, Williams, Amherst, Fisk
University, the University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley,
the University of Michigan, Trinity College in
North Carolina, and many others.
It has been a matter of deep interest to me to
note the number of people who have come to shake
hands with me after an address, who say that this
is the first time they have ever called a Negro
"Mister."
When speaking directly in the interests of the
Tuskegee Institute, I usually arrange, some time in
advance a series of meetings in important centres.
This takes me before churches, Sunday-schools,
Christian Endeavour Societies, and men's and
women's clubs. When doing this I sometimes
speak before as many as four organizations in a
single day.
Three years ago, at the suggestion of Mr. Morris
K. Jesup, of New York, and Dr. J. L. M. Curry, the
general agent of the fund, the trustees of the John
F. Slater Fund voted a sum of money to be used
in paying the expenses of Mrs. Washington and
myself while holding a series of meetings among
the coloured people in the large centres of Negro
population, especially in the large cities of the
ex-slaveholding states. Each year during the last
three years we have devoted some weeks to this
work. The plan that we have followed has been
for me to speak in the morning to the ministers,
teachers, and professional men. In the afternoon
Mrs. Washington would speak to the women alone,
and in the evening I spoke to a large mass-meeting.
In almost every case the meetings have been
attended not only by the coloured people in large
numbers, but by the white people. In Chattanooga,
Tenn., for example, there was present at
the mass-meeting an audience of not less than three
thousand persons, and I was informed that eight
hundred of these were white. I have done no work
that I really enjoyed more than this, or that I think
has accomplished more good.
These meetings have given Mrs. Washington
and myself an opportunity to get first-hand, accurate
information as to the real condition of the race,
by seeing the people in their homes, their churches,
their Sunday-schools, and their places of work, as
well as in the prisons and dens of crime. These
meetings also gave us an opportunity to see the
relations that exist between the races. I never feel
so hopeful about the race as I do after being
engaged in a series of these meetings. I know that
on such occasions there is much that comes to the
surface that is superficial and deceptive, but I have
had experience enough not to be deceived by mere
signs and fleeting enthusiasms. I have taken pains
to go to the bottom of things and get facts, in a
cold, business-like manner.
I have seen the statement made lately, by one
who claims to know what he is talking about, that,
taking the whole Negro race into account, ninety
per cent of the Negro women are not virtuous.
There never was a baser falsehood uttered concerning
a race, or a statement made that was less capable
of being proved by actual facts.
No one can come into contact with the race
for twenty years, as I have done in the heart of the
South, without being convinced that the race is
constantly making slow but sure progress materially,
educationally, and morally. One might take up
the life of the worst element in New York City, for
example, and prove almost anything he wanted to
prove concerning the white man, but all will agree that
this is not a fair test.
Early in the year 1897 I received a letter inviting
me to deliver an address at the dedication of the
Robert Gould Shaw monument in Boston. I
accepted the invitation. It is not necessary for me,
I am sure, to explain who Robert Gould Shaw was
and what did. The monument to his memory
stands near the head of Boston Common, facing the
State House. It is counted to be the most perfect
piece of art of the kind to be found in the country.
The exercises connected with the dedication were
held in Music Hall, in Boston, and the great hall
was packed from top to bottom with one of the
most distinguished audiences that ever assembled
in the city. Among those present there were more
persons representing the famous old anti-slavery
element than it is likely will ever be brought
together in the country again. The late Hon. Roger
Wolcott, then Governor of Massachusetts, was the
presiding officer, and on the platform with him
were many other officials and hundreds of distinguished
men. A report of the meeting which
appeared in the Boston Transcript will describe it
better than any words of mine could do: -
The core and kernel of yesterday's great noon meeting
in honour of the Brotherhood of Man, in Music Hall, was
the superb address of the Negro President of Tuskegee.
"Booker T. Washington received his Harvard A. M. last
June, the first of his race," said Governor Wolcott, "to
receive an honorary degree from the oldest university in
the land, and this for the wise leadership of his people."
When Mr. Washington rose in the flag-filled, enthusiasm-warmed,
patriotic, and glowing atmosphere of Music Hall,
people felt keenly that here was the civic justification of
the old abolition spirit of Massachusetts; in his person the
proof of her ancient and indomitable faith; in his strong
thought and rich oratory, the crown and glory of the old
war days of suffering and strife. The scene was full of
historic beauty and deep significance. "Cold" Boston
was alive with the fire that is always hot in her heart for
righteousness and truth. Rows and rows of people who
are seldom seen at any public function, whole families of
those who are certain to be out of town on a holiday,
crowded the place to overflowing. The city was at her
birthright fête in the persons of hundreds of her best
citizens, men and women whose names and lives stand for
the virtues that make for honourable civic pride.
Battle-music had filled the air. Ovation after ovation,
applause warm and prolonged, had greeted the officers
and friends of Colonel Shaw, the sculptor, St. Gaudens,
the memorial Committee, the Governor and his staff, and
the Negro soldiers of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts as
they came upon the platform or entered the hall. Colonel
Henry Lee, of Governor Andrew's old staff, had made a
noble, simple presentation speech for the committee, paying
tribute to Mr. John M. Forbes, in whose stead he
served. Governor Wolcott had made his short, memorable
speech, saying, "Fort Wagner marked an epoch in
the history of a race, and called it into manhood." Mayor
Quincy had received the monument for the city of Boston.
The story of Colonel Shaw and his black regiment had
been told in gallant words, and then, after the singing of
Mine
eyes have seen the glory
Booker Washington arose. It was, of course, just the
moment for him. The multitude, shaken out of its usual
symphony-concert calm, quivered with an excitement that
was not suppressed. A dozen times it had sprung to its feet
to cheer and wave and hurrah, as one person. When this
man of culture and voice and power, as well as a dark skin,
began, and uttered the names of Stearns and of Andrew,
feeling began to mount. You could see tears glisten in the
eyes of soldiers and civilians. When the orator turned
to the coloured soldiers on the platform, to the colour-bearer
of Fort Wagner, who smilingly bore still the flag he had
never lowered even when wounded, and said, "To you, to
the scarred and scattered remnants of the Fifty-fourth,
who, with empty sleeve and wanting leg, have honoured
this occasion with your presence, to you, your commander
is not dead. Though Boston erected no monument and
history recorded no story, in you and in the loyal race
which you represent, Robert Gould Shaw would have a
monument which time could not wear away," then came
the climax of the emotion of the day and the hour. It was
Roger Wolcott, as well as the Governor of Massachusetts,
the individual representative of the people's sympathy as
well as the chief magistrate, who had sprung first to his
feet and cried, "Three cheers to Booker T. Washington!"
Among those on the platform was Sergeant William
H. Carney, of New Bedford, Mass., the brave
coloured officer who was the colour-bearer at Fort
Wagner and held the American flag. In spite of
the fact that a large part of his regiment was killed,
he escaped, and exclaimed, after the battle was over,
"The old flag never touched the ground."
This flag Sergeant Carney held in his hands as
he sat on the platform, and when I turned to address
the survivors of the coloured regiment who were
present, and referred to Sergeant Carney, he rose,
as if by instinct, and raised the flag. It has been
my privilege to witness a good many satisfactory
and rather sensational demonstrations in connection
with some of my public addresses, but in dramatic
effect I have never seen or experienced anything
which equalled this. For a number of minutes the
audience seemed to entirely lose control of itself.
In the general rejoicing throughout the country
which followed the close of the Spanish-American
war, peace celebrations were arranged in several of
the large cities. I was asked by President William
R. Harper, of the University of Chicago, who was
chairman of the committee of invitations for the
celebration to be held in the city of Chicago, to
deliver one of the addresses at the celebration there.
I accepted the invitation, and delivered two addresses
there during the Jubilee week. The first of these,
and the principal one, was given in the Auditorium,
on the evening of Sunday, October 16. This was
the largest audience that I have ever addressed, in
any part of the country; and besides speaking in
the main Auditorium, I also addressed, that same
evening, two overflow audiences in other parts of
the city.
It was said that there were sixteen thousand
persons in the Auditorium, and it seemed to me as if
there were as many more on the outside trying to
get in. It was impossible for any one to get near
the entrance without the aid of a policeman. President
William McKinley attended this meeting, as
did also the members of his Cabinet, many foreign
ministers, and a large number of army and navy
officers, many of whom had distinguished themselves
in the war which had just closed. The speakers,
besides myself, on Sunday evening, were Rabbi
Emil G. Hirsch, Father Thomas P. Hodnett, and
Dr. John H. Barrows.
The Chicago Times-Herald, in describing the
meeting, said of my address: -
He pictured the Negro choosing slavery rather than
extinction; recalled Crispus Attucks shedding his blood at
the beginning of the American Revolution, that white
Americans might be free, while black Americans remained
in slavery; rehearsed the conduct of the Negroes with
Jackson at New Orleans; drew a vivid and pathetic picture
of the Southern slaves protecting and supporting the
families of their masters while the latter were fighting to
perpetuate black slavery; recounted the bravery of
coloured troops at Port Hudson and Forts Wagner and
Pillow, and praised the heroism of the black regiments that
stormed El Caney and Santiago to give freedom to the
enslaved people of Cuba, forgetting, for the time being, the
unjust discrimination that law and custom make against
them in their own country.
In all of these things, the speaker declared, his race had
chosen the better part. And then he made his eloquent
appeal to the consciences of the white Americans: "When you
have gotten the full story or the heroic conduct of the Negro
in the Spanish-American war, have heard it from the lips
of Northern soldier and Southern soldier, from ex-abolitionist
and ex-masters, then decide within yourselves whether
a race that is thus willing to die for its country should not
be given the highest opportunity to live for its country."
The part of the speech which seemed to arouse
the wildest and most sensational enthusiasm was
that in which I thanked the President for his recognition
of the Negro in his appointments during the
Spanish-American war. The President was sitting
in a box at the right of the stage. When I addressed
him I turned toward the box, and as I finished the
sentence thanking him for his generosity, the whole
audience rose and cheered again and again, waving
handkerchiefs and hats and canes, until the President
arose in the box and bowed his acknowledgments.
At that the enthusiasm broke out again,
and the demonstration was almost indescribable.
One portion of my address at Chicago seemed
to have been misunderstood by the Southern press
and some of the Southern papers took occasion to
criticise me rather strongly. These criticisms
continued for several weeks, until I finally received a
letter from the editor of the Age-Herald, published
in Birmingham, Ala., asking me if I would say just
what I meant by this part of my address. I
replied to him in a letter which seemed to satisfy my
critics. In this letter I said that I had made it a
rule never to say before a Northern audience
anything that I would not say before an audience in
the South. I said that I did not think it was
necessary for me to go into extended explanations; if
my seventeen years of work in the heart of the
South had not been explanation enough, I did not
see how words could explain. I said that I made
the same plea that I had made in my address at
Atlanta, for the blotting out of race prejudice in
"commercial and civil relations." I said that what
is termed social recognition was a question which
I never discussed, and then I quoted from my
Atlanta address what I had said there in regard to that
subject.
In meeting crowds
of people at public gatherings,
there is one type of individual that I dread. I mean the crank. I have
become so accustomed to
these people now that I can pick them out at a
distance when I see them elbowing their way up to
me. The average crank has a long beard, poorly
cared for, a lean, narrow face and wears a black
coat. The front of his vest and coat are slick
with grease, and his trousers bag at the knees.
In Chicago, after I had spoken at a meeting, I
met one of these fellows. They usually have some
process for curing all of the ills of the world at once.
This Chicago specimen had a patent process by
which he said Indian corn could be kept through
a period of three or four years, and he felt sure that
if the Negro race in the South would, as a whole,
adopt his process, it would settle the whole race
question. It mattered nothing that I tried to
convince him that our present problem was to teach
the Negroes how to produce enough corn to last
them through one year. Another Chicago crank
had a scheme by which he wanted me to join him
in an effort to close up all the National banks in
the country. If that was done, he felt sure it
would put the Negro on his feet.
The number of people who stand ready to
consume one's time, to no purpose, is almost countless.
At one time I spoke before a large audience in
Boston in the evening. The next morning I was
awakened by having a card brought to my room,
and with it a message that some one was anxious to
see me. Thinking that it must be something very
important, I dressed hastily and went down. When
I reached the hotel office I found a blank and
innocent-looking individual waiting for me, who
coolly remarked: "I heard you talk at a meeting
last night. I rather liked your talk, and so I came
in this morning to hear you talk some more."
I am often asked how it is possible for me to
superintend the work at Tuskegee and at the
same time be so much away from the school. In
partial answer to this I would say that I think I
have learned, in some degree at least, to disregard
the old maxim which says, "Do not get others to
do that which you can do yourself." My motto,
on the other hand, is, "Do not do that which
others can do as well."
One of the most encouraging signs in connection
with the Tuskegee school is found in the fact that
the organization is so thorough that the daily work
of the school is not dependent upon the presence
of any one individual. The whole executive force,
including instructors and clerks, now numbers
eighty-six. This force is so organized and
subdivided that the machinery of the school goes
on day by day like clockwork. Most of our
teachers have been connected with the institution
for a number of years, and are as much interested
in it as I am. In my absence, Mr. Warren Logan,
the treasurer, who has been at the school seventeen
years, is the executive. He is efficiently
supported by Mrs. Washington, and by my faithful
secretary, Mr. Emmett J. Scott, who handles the
bulk of my correspondence and keeps me in daily
touch with the life of the school, and who also
keeps me informed of whatever takes place in
the South that concerns the race. I owe more to his
tact, wisdom, and hard work than I can describe.
The main executive work of the school, whether
I am at Tuskegee or not, centres in what we call
the executive council. This council meets twice a
week, and is composed of the nine persons who are
at the head of the nine departments of the school.
For example: Mrs. B. K. Bruce, the Lady Principal,
the widow of the late ex-senator Bruce, is a
member of the council, and represents in it all that
pertains to the life of the girls at the school. In
addition to the executive council there is a financial
committee of six, that meets every week and decides
upon the expenditures for the week. Once a
month, and sometimes oftener, there is a general
meeting of all the instructors. Aside from these
there are innumerable smaller meetings, such as
that of the instructors in the Phelps Hall Bible
Training School, or of the instructors in the
agricultural department.
In order that I may keep in constant touch with
the life of the institution, I have a system of reports
so arranged that a record of the school's work
reaches me every day in the year, no matter in
what part of the country I am. I know by these
reports even what students are excused from school,
and why they are excused - whether for reasons of
ill health or otherwise. Through the medium
of these reports I know each day what the income
of the school in money is; I know how many
gallons of milk and how many pounds of butter
come from the dairy; what the bill of fare for the
teachers and students is; whether a certain kind
of meat was boiled or baked, and whether certain
vegetables served in the dining room were bought
from a store or procured from our own farm.
Human nature I find to be very much the same the
world over, and it is sometimes not hard to yield
to the temptation to go to a barrel of rice that has
come from the store - with the grain all prepared
to go into the pot - rather than to take the time
and trouble to go to the field and dig and wash
one's own sweet potatoes, which might be prepared
in a manner to take the place of the rice.
I am often asked how, in the midst of so much
work, a large part of which is before the public, I
can find time for any rest or recreation, and what
kind of recreation or sports I am fond of. This is
rather a difficult question to answer. I have a strong
feeling that every individual owes it to himself, and
to the cause which he is serving, to keep a vigorous,
healthy body, with the nerves steady and strong,
prepared for great efforts and prepared for
disappointments and trying positions. As far as I can,
I make it a rule to plan for each day's work - not
merely to go through with the same routine of daily
duties, but to get rid of the routine work as early
in the day as possible, and then to enter upon some
new or advance work. I make it a rule to clear
my desk every day, before leaving my office, of all
correspondence and memoranda, so that on the
morrow I can begin a new day of work. I make
it a rule never to let my work drive me, but to so
master it, and keep it in such complete control, and
to keep so far ahead of it, that I will be the master
instead of the servant. There is a physical and
mental and spiritual enjoyment that comes from a
consciousness of being the absolute master of one's
work, in all its details, that is very satisfactory and
inspiring. My experience teaches me that, if one
learns to follow this plan, he gets a freshness of
body and vigour of mind out of work that goes a
long way toward keeping him strong and healthy.
I believe that when one can grow to the point where
he loves his work, this gives him a kind of strength
that is most valuable.
When I begin my work in the morning, I expect
to have a successful and pleasant day of it, but at
the same time I prepare myself for unpleasant and
unexpected hard places. I prepare myself to hear
that one of our school buildings is on fire, or has
burned, or that some disagreeable accident has
occurred, or that some one has abused me in a public
address or printed article, for something that I have
done or omitted to do, or for something that he had
heard that I had said - probably something that
I had never thought of saying.
In nineteen years of continuous work I have taken
but one vacation. That was two years ago, when
some of my friends put the money into my hands
and forced Mrs. Washington and myself to spend
three months in Europe. I have said that I believe
it is the duty of every one to keep his body in good
condition. I try to look after the little ills, with
the idea that if I take care of the little ills the big
ones will not come. When I find myself unable
to sleep well, I know that something is wrong. If
I find any part of my system the least weak, and
not performing its duty, I consult a good physician.
The ability to sleep well, at any time and in any
place, I find of great advantage. I have so trained
myself that I can lie down for a nap of fifteen or
twenty minutes, and get up refreshed in body and
mind.
I have said that I make it a rule to finish up each
day's work before leaving it. There is, perhaps, one
exception to this. When I have an unusually difficult
question to decide - one that appeals strongly
to the emotions - I find it a safe rule to sleep over
it for a night, or to wait until I have had an opportunity
to talk it over with my wife and friends.
As to my reading;
the most time I get for solid
reading is when I am on the cars. Newspapers are
to me a constant source of delight and recreation.
The only trouble is that I read too many of them.
Fiction I care little for. Frequently I have to
almost force myself to read a novel that is on every
one's lips. The kind of reading that I have the
greatest fondness for is biography. I like to be
sure that I am reading about a real man or a real
thing. I think I do not go too far when I say that
I have read nearly every book and magazine article
that has been written about Abraham Lincoln. In
literature he is my patron saint.
Out of the twelve months in a year I suppose
that, on an average, I spend six months away from
Tuskegee. While my being absent from the school
so much unquestionably has its disadvantages, yet
there are at the same time some compensations.
The change of work brings a certain kind of rest.
I enjoy a ride of a long distance on the cars, when I
am permitted to ride where I can be comfortable.
I get rest on the cars, except when the inevitable
individual who seems to be on every train approaches
me with the now familiar phrase: "Isn't this Booker
Washington? I want to introduce myself to you."
Absence from the school enables me to lose sight
of the unimportant details of the work, and study
it in a broader and more comprehensive manner
than I could do on the grounds. This absence
also brings me into contact with the best work being
done in educational lines, and into contact with the
best educators in the land.
But, after all this is said, the time when I get the
most solid rest and recreation is when I can be at
Tuskegee, and, after our evening meal is over, can
sit down, as is our custom, with my wife and Portia
and Baker and Davidson, my three children, and
read a story, or each take turns in telling a story.
To me there is nothing on earth equal to that,
although what is nearly equal to it is to go with them
for an hour or more, as we like to do on Sunday
afternoons, into the woods, where we can live for a
while near the heart of nature, where no one can
disturb or vex us, surrounded by pure air, the trees,
the shrubbery, the flowers, and the sweet fragrance
that springs from a hundred plants, enjoying the
chirp of the crickets and the songs of the birds.
This is solid rest.
My garden, also, what little time I can be at
Tuskegee, is another source of rest and enjoyment.
Somehow I like, as often as possible, to touch
nature, not something that is artificial or an imitation,
but the real thing. When I can leave my office in
time so that I can spend thirty or forty minutes in
spading the ground, in planting seeds, in digging
about the plants, I feel that I am coming into
contact with something that is giving me strength for
the many duties and hard places that await me out
in the big world. I pity the man or woman who
has never learned to enjoy nature and to get strength
and inspiration out of it.
Aside from the large number of fowls and
animals kept by the school, I keep individually a
number of pigs and fowls of the best grades, and in
raising these I take a great deal of pleasure. I
think the pig is my favourite animal. Few things
are more satisfactory to me than a high-grade
Berkshire or Poland China pig.
Games I care little for. I have never seen a
game of football. In cards I do not know one
card from another. A game of old-fashioned
marbles with my two boys, once in a while, is all I care
for in this direction. I suppose I would care for
games now if I had had any time in my youth to
give to them, but that was not possible.
IN 1893 I was married to Miss Margaret James
Murray, a native of Mississippi, and a graduate
of Fisk University Nashville, Tenn.,
who had come to Tuskegee as a teacher several
years before, and at the time we were married was
filling the position of Lady Principal. Not only is
Mrs. Washington completely one with me in the
work directly connected with the school, relieving
me of many burdens and perplexities, but aside
from her work on the school grounds, she carries
on a mothers' meeting in the town of Tuskegee,
and a plantation work among the women, children,
and men who live in a settlement connected with a
large plantation about eight miles from Tuskegee.
Both the mothers' meeting and the plantation work
are carried on, not only with a view to helping
those who are directly reached, but also for the
purpose of furnishing object-lessons in these two
kinds of work that may be followed by our
students when they go out into the world for their
own life-work.
Aside from these two enterprises, Mrs. Washington
is also largely responsible for a woman's club at
the school which brings together, twice a month,
the women who live on the school grounds and
those who live near, for the discussion of some
important topic. She is also the President of what
is known as the Federation of Southern Coloured
Women's Clubs, and is Chairman of the
Executive Committee of the National Federation of
Coloured Women's Clubs.
Portia, the oldest of my three children, has
learned dressmaking. She has unusual ability in
instrumental music. Aside from her studies at
Tuskegee, she has already begun to teach there.
Booker Taliaferro is my next oldest child. Young
as he is, he has already nearly mastered the
brickmason's trade. He began working at this trade
when he was quite small, dividing his time between
this and class work; and he has developed great
skill in the trade and a fondness for it. He says
that he is going to be an architect and brickmason.
One of the most satisfactory letters that I have ever
received from any one came to me from Booker, last
summer. When I left home for the summer, I told
him that he must work at his trade half of each day,
and that the other half of the day he could spend
as he pleased. When I had been away from home
two weeks, I received the following letter from him:
TUSKEGEE, ALABAMA.
MY DEAR PAPA: Before you left home you told me to
work at my trade half of each day. I like my work so
much that I want to work at my trade all day. Besides, I
want to earn all the money I can, so that when I go to
another school I shall have money to pay my expenses.
Your son,
My youngest child,
Ernest Davidson Washington,
says that he is going to be a physician. In
addition to going to school, where he studies books
and has manual training, he regularly spends a
portion of his time in the office of our resident
physician, and has already learned to do many of
the duties which pertain to a doctor's office.
The thing in my life which brings me the keenest
regret is that my work in connection with public
affairs keeps me for so much of the time away from
my family, where, of all places in the world, I
delight to be. I always envy the individual whose
life-work is so laid that he can spend his evenings
at home. I have sometimes thought that people
who have this rare privilege do not appreciate it as
they should. It is such a rest and relief to get
away from crowds of people, and handshaking, and
travelling, and get home, even if it be for but a very
brief while.
Another thing at Tuskegee out of which I get
a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction is in the
meeting with our students, and teachers, and their
families in the chapel for devotional exercises every
evening at half-past eight, the last thing before
retiring for the night. It is an inspiring sight when
one stands on the platform there and sees before
him eleven or twelve hundred earnest young men
and women; and one cannot but feel that it is a
privilege to help to guide them to a higher and
more useful life.
In the spring of 1899 there came to me what I
might describe as almost the greatest surprise of
my life. Some good ladies in Boston arranged a
public meeting in the interests of Tuskegee, to be
held in the Hollis Street Theatre. This meeting
was attended by large numbers of the best people of
Boston, of both races. Bishop Lawrence presided.
In addition to an address made by myself, Mr.
Paul Lawrence Dunbar read from his poems, and
Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois read an original sketch.
Some of those who attended this meeting noticed
that I seemed unusually tired, and some little time
after the close of the meeting, one of the ladies who
had been interested in it asked me in a casual way
if I had ever been to Europe. I replied that I
never had. She asked me if I had ever thought
of going, and I told her no; that it was something
entirely beyond me. This conversation soon passed
out of my mind, but a few days afterward I was
informed that some friends in Boston, including
Mr. Francis J. Garrison, had raised a sum of money
sufficient to pay all the expenses of Mrs. Washington
and myself during a three or four months' trip
to Europe. It was added with emphasis that we
must go. A year previous to this Mr. Garrison
had attempted to get me to promise to go to
Europe for a summer's rest, with the understanding
that he would be responsible for raising the money
among his friends for the expenses of the trip. At
that time such a journey seemed so entirely foreign
to anything that I should ever be able to undertake
that I confess I did not give the matter very serious
attention; but later Mr. Garrison joined his
efforts to those of the ladies whom I have
mentioned, and when their plans were made known to
me Mr. Garrison not only had the route mapped
out, but had, I believe, selected the steamer upon
which we were to sail.
The whole thing was so sudden and so
unexpected that I was completely taken off my feet.
I had been at work steadily for eighteen years in
connection with Tuskegee, and I had never thought
of anything else but ending my life in that way.
Each day the school seemed to depend upon me
more largely for its daily expenses, and I told these
Boston friends that, while I thanked them sincerely
for their thoughtfulness and generosity, I could
not go to Europe, for the reason that the school
could not live financially while I was absent. They
then informed me that Mr. Henry L. Higginson,
and some other good friends who I know do not
want their names made public, were then raising a
sum of money which would be sufficient to keep
the school in operation while I was away. At this
point I was compelled to surrender. Every avenue
of escape had been closed.
Deep down in my heart the whole thing seemed
more like a dream than like reality, and for a long
time it was difficult for me to make myself believe
that I was actually going to Europe. I had been
born and largely reared in the lowest depths of
slavery, ignorance, and poverty. In my childhood
I had suffered for want of a place to sleep, for lack
of food, clothing, and shelter. I had not had the
privilege of sitting down to a dining-table until I was
quite well grown. Luxuries had always seemed to
me to be something meant for white people, not for
my race. I had always regarded Europe, and London,
and Paris, much as I regard heaven. And now
could it be that I was actually going to Europe?
Such thoughts as these were constantly with me.
Two other thoughts troubled me a good deal.
I feared that people who heard that Mrs. Washington
and I were going to Europe might not know
all the circumstances, and might get the idea that
we had become, as some might say, "stuck up,"
and were trying to "show off." I recalled that from
my youth I had heard it said that too often, when
people of my race reached any degree of success,
they were inclined to unduly exalt themselves; to
try and ape the wealthy, and in so doing to lose
their heads. The fear that people might think
this of us haunted me a good deal. Then, too,
I could not see how my conscience would permit
me to spare the time from my work and be happy.
It seemed mean and selfish in me to be taking a
vacation while others were at work, and while there
was so much that needed to be done. From the
time I could remember, I had always been at work,
and I did not see how I could spend three or four
months in doing nothing. The fact was that I did
not know how to take a vacation.
Mrs. Washington had much the same difficulty
in getting away, but she was anxious to go because
she thought that I needed the rest. There were
many important National questions bearing upon
the life of the race which were being agitated at that
time, and this made it all the harder for us to decide
to go. We finally gave our Boston friends our
promise that we would go, and then they insisted
that the date of our departure be set as soon as
possible. So we decided upon May 10. My
good friend Mr. Garrison kindly took charge of
all the details necessary for the success of the trip,
and he, as well as other friends, gave us a great
number of letters of introduction to people in
France and England, and made other arrangements
for our comfort and convenience abroad.
Good-bys were said at Tuskegee, and we were in
New York May 9, ready to sail the next day. Our
daughter Portia, who was then studying in South
Framingham, Mass., came to New York to see us
off. Mr. Scott, my secretary, came with me to
New York, in order that I might clear up the last
bit of business before I left. Other friends also
came to New York to see us off. Just before we
went on board the steamer another pleasant
surprise came to us in the form of a letter from two
generous ladies, stating that they had decided to
give us the money with which to erect a new building
to be used in properly housing all our industries
for girls at Tuskegee.
We were to sail on the Friesland, of the Red
Star Line, and a beautiful vessel she was. We
went on board just before noon, the hour of sailing.
I had never before been on board a large
ocean steamer, and the feeling which took possession
of me when I found myself there is rather
hard to describe. It was a feeling, I think, of
awe mingled with delight. We were agreeably
surprised to find that the captain, as well as several
of the other officers, not only knew who we were,
but was expecting us and gave us a pleasant greeting.
There were several passengers whom we
knew, including Senator Sewell, of New Jersey, and
Edward Marshall, the newspaper correspondent.
I had just a little fear that we would not be treated
civilly by some of the passengers. This fear was
based upon what I had heard other people of my
race, who had crossed the ocean, say about
unpleasant experiences in crossing the ocean in American
vessels. But in our case, from the captain
down to the most humble servant, we were treated
with the greatest kindness. Nor was this kindness
confined to those who were connected with the
steamer; it was shown by all the passengers also.
There were not a few Southern men and women
on board, and they were as cordial as those from
other parts of the country.
As soon as the last good-bye were said, and
the steamer had cut loose from the wharf, the load
of care, anxiety, and responsibility which I had
carried for eighteen years began to lift itself from
my shoulders at the rate, it seemed to me, of a
pound a minute. It was the first time in all those
years that I had felt, even in a measure, free from
care; and my feeling of relief it is hard to describe
on paper. Added to this was the delightful anticipation
of being in Europe soon. It all seemed
more like a dream than like a reality.
Mr. Garrison had thoughtfully arranged to have
us have one of the most comfortable rooms on the
ship. The second or third day out I began to
sleep, and I think that I slept at the rate of fifteen
hours a day during the remainder of the ten days'
passage. Then it was that I began to understand
how tired I really was. These long sleeps I kept
up for a month after we landed on the other side.
It was such an unusual feeling to wake up in the
morning and realize that I had no engagements;
did not have to take a train at a certain hour;
did not have an appointment to meet some one,
or to make an address, at a certain hour. How
different all this was from some of the experiences
that I have been through when travelling, when I
have sometimes slept in three different beds in
a single night!
When Sunday came, the captain invited me to
conduct the religious services, but, not being a
minister, I declined. The passengers, however,
began making requests that I deliver an address
to them in the dining-saloon some time during
the voyage, and this I consented to do. Senator
Sewell presided at this meeting. After ten days
of delightful weather, during which I was not
seasick for a day, we landed at the interesting old city
of Antwerp, in Belgium.
The next day after we landed happened to be one of
those numberless holidays which the people of those
countries are in the habit of observing. It was a
bright, beautiful day. Our room in the hotel faced
the main public square, and the sights there - the
people coming in from the country with all kinds
of beautiful flowers to sell, the women coming in
with their dogs drawing large, brightly polished cans
filled with milk, the people streaming into the
cathedral - filled me with a sense of newness that
I had never before experienced.
After spending some time in Antwerp, we were
invited to go with a party of a half-dozen persons
on a trip through Holland. This party included
Edward Marshall and some American artists who
had come over on the same steamer with us. We
accepted the invitation, and enjoyed the trip greatly.
I think it was all the more interesting and instructive
because we went for most of the way on one of
the slow, old-fashioned canal-boats. This gave us
an opportunity of seeing and studying the real life
of the people in the country districts. We went in
this way as far as Rotterdam, and later went to The
Hague, where the Peace Conference was then in
session, and where we were kindly received by the
American representatives.
The thing that impressed itself most on me in
Holland was the thoroughness of the agriculture and
the excellence of the Holstein cattle. I never
knew, before visiting Holland, how much it was
possible for people to get out of a small plot of
ground. It seemed to me that absolutely no land
was wasted. It was worth a trip to Holland, too,
just to get a sight of three or four hundred fine
Holstein cows grazing in one of those intensely
green fields.
From Holland we went to Belgium, and made a
hasty trip through that country, stopping at Brussels,
where we visited the battlefield of Waterloo.
From Belgium we went direct to Paris, where we
found that Mr. Theodore Stanton, the son of Mrs.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had kindly provided
accommodations for us. We had barely got settled
in Paris before an invitation came to me from the
University Club of Paris to be its guest at a
banquet which was soon to be given. The other guests
were ex-President Benjamin Harrison and
Archbishop Ireland, who were in Paris at the time.
The American Ambassador, General Horace Porter,
presided at the banquet. My address on this
occasion seemed to give satisfaction to those who
heard it. General Harrison kindly devoted a
large portion of his remarks at dinner to myself
and to the influence of the work at Tuskegee on
the American race question. After my address at
this banquet other invitations came to me, but I
declined the most of them, knowing that if I
accepted them all, the object of my visit would be
defeated. I did, however, consent to deliver an
address in the American chapel the following Sunday
morning, and at this meeting General Harrison,
General Porter, and other distinguished Americans
were present.
Later we received a formal call from the American
Ambassador, and were invited to attend a
reception at his residence. At this reception we
met many Americans, among them Justices Fuller
and Harlan, of the United States Supreme Court.
During our entire stay of a month in Paris, both
the American Ambassador and his wife, as well as
several other Americans, were very kind to us.
While in Paris we saw a good deal of the now
famous American Negro painter, Mr. Henry C.
Tanner, whom we had formerly known in America.
It was very satisfactory to find how well
known Mr. Tanner was in the field of art, and to
note the high standing which all classes accorded to
him. When we told some Americans that we were
going to the Luxembourg Palace to see a painting
by an American Negro, it was hard to convince
them that a Negro had been thus honoured. I do
not believe that they were really convinced of the
fact until they saw the picture for themselves. My
acquaintance with Mr. Tanner reenforced in my
mind the truth which I am constantly trying to
impress upon our students at Tuskegee - and on our
people throughout the country, as far as I can reach
them with my voice - that any man, regardless of
colour, will be recognized and rewarded just in
proportion as he learns to do something well - learns
to do it better than some one else - however humble
the thing may be. As I have said, I believe
that my race will succeed in proportion as it learns
to do a common thing in an uncommon manner;
learns to do a thing so thoroughly that no one can
improve upon what it has done; learns to make
its services of indispensable value. This was the
spirit that inspired me in my first effort at Hampton,
when I was given the opportunity to sweep and dust
that schoolroom. In a degree I felt that my whole
future life depended upon the thoroughness with
which I cleaned that room, and I was determined
to do it so well that no one could find any fault
with the job. Few people ever stopped, I found
when looking at his pictures, to inquire whether Mr.
Tanner was a Negro painter, a French painter, or a
German painter. They simply knew that he was
able to produce something which the world wanted
- a great painting - and the matter of his colour
did not enter into their minds. When a Negro
girl learns to cook, to wash dishes, to sew, to write a
book, or a Negro boy learns to groom horses, or
to grow sweet potatoes, or to produce butter, or to
build a house, or to be able to practice medicine, as
well or better than some one else, they will be
rewarded regardless of race or colour. In the long
run, the world is going to have the best, and any
difference in race, religion, or previous history will
not long keep the world from what it wants.
I think that the whole future of my race hinges
on the question as to whether or not it can make
itself of such indispensable value that the people in
the town and the state where we reside will feel
that our presence is necessary to the happiness and
well-being of the community. No man who
continues to add something to the material, intellectual,
and moral well-being of the place in which he lives
is long left without proper reward. This is a great
human law which cannot be permanently nullified.
The love of pleasure and excitement which seems
in a large measure to possess the French people
impressed itself upon me. I think they are more
noted in this respect than is true of the people
of my own race. In point of morality and moral
earnestness I do not believe that the French are
ahead of my own race in America. Severe
competition and the great stress of life have led them
to learn to do things more thoroughly and to exercise
greater economy; but time, I think, will bring
my race to the same point. In the matter of truth
and high honour I do not believe that the average
Frenchman is ahead of the American Negro; while
so far as mercy and kindness to dumb animals go,
I believe that my race is far ahead. In fact, when
I left France, I had more faith in the future of the
black man in America than I had ever possessed.
From Paris we went to London, and reached
there early in July, just about the height of the
London social season. Parliament was in session,
and there was a great deal of gaiety. Mr. Garrison
and other friends had provided us with a large
number of letters of introduction, and they had
also sent letters to other persons in different parts
of the United Kingdom, apprising these people of
our coming. Very soon after reaching London we
were flooded with invitations to attend all manner
of social functions, and a great many invitations
came to me asking that I deliver public addresses.
The most of these invitations I declined, for the
reason that I wanted to rest. Neither were we able
to accept more than a small proportion of the other
invitations. The Rev. Dr. Brooke Herford and
Mrs. Herford, whom I had known in Boston,
consulted with the American Ambassador, the Hon.
Joseph Choate, and arranged for me to speak at
a public meeting to be held in Essex Hall. Mr.
Choate kindly consented to preside. The meeting
was largely attended. There were many
distinguished persons present, among them several
members of Parliament, including Mr. James Bryce, who
spoke at the meeting. What the American Ambassador
said in introducing me, as well as a synopsis
of what I said, was widely published in England and
in the American papers at the time. Dr. and Mrs.
Herford gave Mrs. Washington and myself a reception,
at which we had the privilege of meeting some
of the best people in England. Throughout our
stay in London Ambassador Choate was most kind
and attentive to us. At the Ambassador's reception
I met, for the first time, Mark Twain.
We were the guests several times of Mrs. T.
Fisher Unwin, the daughter of the English statesman,
Richard Cobden. It seemed as if both Mr.
and Mrs. Unwin could not do enough for our comfort
and happiness. Later, for nearly a week, we
were the guests of the daughter of John Bright,
now Mrs. Clark, of Street, England. Both Mr.
and Mrs. Clark, with their daughter, visited us at
Tuskegee the next year. In Birmingham, England,
we were the guests for several days of Mr.
Joseph Sturge, whose father was a great abolitionist
and friend of Whittier and Garrison. It was a
great privilege to meet throughout England those
who had known and honoured the late William
Lloyd Garrison, the Hon. Frederick Douglass,
and other abolitionists. The English abolitionists
with whom we came in contact never seemed to
tire of talking about these two Americans. Before
going to England I had had no proper conception
of the deep interest displayed by the abolitionists of
England in the cause of freedom, nor did I realize
the amount of substantial help given by them.
In Bristol, England, both Mrs. Washington and
I spoke at the Women's Liberal Club. I was also
the principal speaker at the Commencement exercises
of the Royal College for the Blind. These
exercises were held in the Crystal Palace, and the
presiding officer was the late Duke of Westminster,
who was said to be, I believe, the richest man in
England, if not in the world. The Duke, as
well as his wife and their daughter, seemed to be
pleased with what I said, and thanked me heartily.
Through the kindness of Lady Aberdeen, my wife
and I were enabled to go with a party of those
who were attending the International Congress of
Women, then in session in London, to see Queen
Victoria, at Windsor Castle, where, afterward, we
were all the guests of her Majesty at tea. In our
party was Miss Susan B. Anthony, and I was
deeply impressed with the fact that one did not
often get an opportunity to see, during the same
hour, two women so remarkable in different ways
as Susan B. Anthony and Queen Victoria.
In the House of Commons, which we visited
several times, we met Sir Henry M. Stanley. I
talked with him about Africa and its relation to the
American Negro, and after my interview with him
I became more convinced than ever that there was
no hope of the American Negro's improving his
condition by emigrating to Africa.
On various occasions Mrs. Washington and I
were the guests of Englishmen in their country
homes, where, I think, one sees the Englishman at
his best. In one thing, at least, I feel sure that the
English are ahead of Americans, and that is, that
they have learned how to get more out of life.
The home life of the English seems to me to be
about as perfect as anything can be. Everything
moves like clockwork. I was impressed, too, with
the deference that the servants show to their "masters"
and "mistresses," - terms which I suppose
would not be tolerated in America. The English
servant expects, as a rule, to be nothing but a
servant, and so he perfects himself in the art to a
degree that no class of servants in America has yet
reached. In our country the servant expects to
become, in a few years, a "master" himself.
Which system is preferable? I will not venture
an answer.
Another thing that impressed itself upon me
throughout England was the high regard that all
classes have for law and order, and the ease and
thoroughness with which everything is done. The
Englishmen, I found, took plenty of time for eating,
as for everything else. I am not sure if, in the
long run, they do not accomplish as much or more
than rushing, nervous Americans do.
My visit to England gave me a higher regard for
the nobility than I had had. I had no idea that
they were so generally loved and respected by
the masses, nor had I any correct conception of how
much time and money they spent in works of
philanthropy, and how much real heart they put
into this work. My impression had been that
they merely spent money freely and had a "good
time."
It was hard for me to get accustomed to speaking
to English audiences. The average Englishman
is so serious, and is so tremendously in earnest
about everything, that when I told a story that
would have made an American audience roar with
laughter, the Englishmen simply looked me straight
in the face without even cracking a smile.
When the Englishman takes you into his heart
and friendship, he binds you there as with cords of
steel, and I do not believe that there are many other
friendships that are so lasting or so satisfactory.
Perhaps I can illustrate this point in no better
way than by relating the following incident. Mrs.
Washington and I were invited to attend a
reception given by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland,
at Stafford House - said to be the finest house in
London; I may add that I believe the Duchess of
Sutherland is said to be the most beautiful woman
in England. There must have been at least three
hundred persons at this reception. Twice during
the evening the Duchess sought us out for a
conversation, and she asked me to write her when we
got home, and tell her more about the work at
Tuskegee. This I did. When Christmas came
we were surprised and delighted to receive her
photograph with her autograph on it. The
correspondence has continued, and we now feel that in
the Duchess of Sutherland we have one of our
warmest friends.
After three months in Europe we sailed from
Southampton in the steamship St. Louis. On this
steamer there was a fine library that had been
presented to the ship by the citizens of St. Louis,
Mo. In this library I found a life of Frederick
Douglass, which I began reading. I became
especially interested in Mr. Douglass's description
of the way he was treated on shipboard during his
first or second visit to England. In this description
he told how he was not permitted to enter the
cabin, but had to confine himself to the deck of the
ship. A few minutes after I had finished reading
this description I was waited on by a committee of
ladies and gentlemen with the request that I deliver
an address at a concert which was to be given the
following evening. And yet there are people who
are bold enough to say that race feeling in America
is not growing less intense! At this concert the
Hon. Benjamin B. Odell, Jr., the present governor
of New York, presided. I was never given a more
cordial hearing anywhere. A large proportion of the
passengers were Southern people. After the concert
some of the passengers proposed that a subscription
be raised to help the work at Tuskegee, and the
money to support several scholarships was the result.
While we were in Paris I was very pleasantly
surprised to receive the following invitation from
the citizens of West Virginia and of the city near
which I had spent my boyhood days: -
CHARLESTON W. VA., MAY 16, 1899.
PROFESSOR BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, PARIS, FRANCE:
DEAR SIR: Many of the
best citizens of West Virginia
have united in liberal expressions of admiration and
praise of your worth and work, and desire that on your
return from Europe you should favour them with your
presence and with the inspiration of your words. We most
sincerely indorse this move, and on behalf of the
citizens
of Charleston extend to you our most cordial invitation to
have you come to us, that we may honour you who have
done so much by your life and work to honour us.
By W. HERMAN SMITH, Mayor.
This invitation from the City Council of Charleston
was accompanied by the following: -
PROFESSOR BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, PARIS, FRANCE.
DEAR SIR: We, the citizens of Charleston and West
Virginia, desire to express our pride in you and the splendid
career that you have thus far accomplished, and ask
that we be permitted to show our pride and interest in a
substantial way.
Your recent visit to your old home in our midst awoke
within us the keenest regret that we were not permitted to
hear you and render some substantial aid to your work,
before you left for Europe.
In view of the foregoing, we earnestly invite you to
share the hospitality of our city upon your return from
Europe, and give us the opportunity to hear you and put
ourselves in touch with your work in a way that will be
most gratifying to yourself, and that we may receive the
inspiration of your words and presence.
An early reply to this invitation, with an indication of
the time you may reach our city, will greatly oblige,
Yours very respectfully,
Ed. Reid, Cashier Kanawha National Bank; Gen.
This invitation, coming as it did from the City
Council, the state officers, and all the substantial
citizens of both races of the community where I
had spent my boyhood, and from which I had gone
a few years before, unknown, in poverty and
ignorance, in quest of an education, not only surprised
me, but almost unmanned me. I could not
understand what I had done to deserve it all.
I accepted the invitation, and at the appointed
day was met at the railway station at Charleston by
a committee headed by ex-Governor W. A. MacCorkle,
and composed of men of both races. The
public reception was held in the Opera-House at
Charleston. The Governor of the state, the Hon.
George W. Atkinson, presided, and an address of
welcome was made by ex-Governor MacCorkle. A
prominent part in the reception was taken by the
coloured citizens. The Opera-House was filled with
citizens of both races, and among the white people
were many for whom I had worked when a boy.
The next day Governor and Mrs. Atkinson gave
me a public reception at the State House, which
was attended by all classes.
Not long after this the coloured people in Atlanta,
Georgia, gave me a reception at which the Governor
of the state presided, and a similar reception was
given me in New Orleans, which was presided over
by the Mayor of the city. Invitations came from
many other places which I was not able to accept.
BEFORE going to Europe some events came
into my life which were great surprises to
me. In fact, my whole life has largely been
one of surprises. I believe that any man's life will
be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements
of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his
level best each day of his life - that is, tries to
make each day reach as nearly as possible the
high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living. I pity
the man, black or white, who has never experienced
the joy and satisfaction that come to one by reason
of an effort to assist in making some one else more
useful and more happy.
Six months before he died, and nearly a year
after he had been stricken with paralysis, General
Armstrong expressed a wish to visit Tuskegee
again before he passed away. Notwithstanding the
fact that he had lost the use of his limbs to such
an extent that he was practically helpless, his wish
was gratified, and he was brought to Tuskegee.
The owners of the Tuskegee Railroad, white men
living in the town, offered to run a special train,
without cost, out to the main station - Chehaw,
five miles away - to meet him. He arrived on
the school grounds about nine o'clock in the evening.
Some one had suggested that we give the
General a "pine-knot torchlight reception." This
plan was carried out, and the moment that his
carriage entered the school grounds he began passing
between two lines of lighted and waving "fat
pine" wood knots held by over a thousand students
and teachers. The whole thing was so novel and
surprising that the General was completely overcome
with happiness. He remained a guest in
my home for nearly two months, and, although
almost wholly without the use of voice or limb
he spent nearly every hour in devising ways and
means to help the South. Time and time again
he said to me, during this visit, that it was not
only the duty of the country to assist in elevating
the Negro of the South, but the poor white man
as well. At the end of his visit I resolved anew
to devote myself more earnestly than ever to the
cause which was so near his heart. I said that if
a man in his condition was willing to think, work,
and act, I should not be wanting in furthering
in every possible way the wish of his heart.
The death of General Armstrong, a few weeks
later, gave me the privilege of getting acquainted
with one of the finest, most unselfish, and most
attractive men that I have ever come in contact
with. I refer to the Rev. Dr. Hollis B. Frissell,
now the Principal of the Hampton Institute, and
General Armstrong's successor. Under the clear,
strong, and almost perfect leadership of Dr. Frissell,
Hampton has had a career of prosperity and usefulness
that is all that the General could have wished
for. It seems to be the constant effort of Dr.
Frissell to hide his own great personality behind
that of General Armstrong - to make himself of
"no reputation" for the sake of the cause.
More than once I have been asked what was
the greatest surprise that ever came to me. I
have little hesitation in answering that question.
It was the following letter, which came to me
one Sunday morning when I was sitting on the
veranda of my home at Tuskegee, surrounded by
my wife and three children: -
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MAY 28, 1896.
PRESIDENT BOOKER T. WASHINGTON,
MY DEAR SIR: Harvard
University desires to confer on
you at the approaching Commencement an honorary degree;
but it is our custom to confer degrees only on gentlemen
who are present. Our Commencement occurs this year
on June 24, and your presence would be desirable from
about noon till about five o'clock in the afternoon. Would
it be possible for you to be in Cambridge on that day?
Believe me, with great regard,
Very truly yours,
This was a recognition
that had never in the
slightest manner entered into my mind, and it was
hard for me to realize that I was to be honoured by
a degree from the oldest and most renowned
university in America. As I sat upon my veranda,
with this letter in my hand, tears came into my
eyes. My whole former life - my life as a slave
on the plantation, my work in the coal-mine, the
times when I was without food and clothing, when
I made my bed under a sidewalk, my struggles for
an education, the trying days I had had at Tuskegee,
days when I did not know where to turn for a
dollar to continue the work there, the ostracism and
sometimes oppression of my race, - all this passed
before me and nearly overcame me.
I had never sought or
cared for what the world
calls fame. I have always looked upon fame as something
to be used in accomplishing good. I have
often said to my friends that if I can use whatever
prominence may have come to me as an instrument
with which to do good, I am content to have it. I
care for it only as a means to be used for doing
good, just as wealth may be used. The more I
come into contact with wealthy people, the more I
believe that they are growing in the direction of
looking upon their money simply as an instrument
which God has placed in their hand for doing good
with. I never go to the office of Mr. John D.
Rockefeller, who more than once has been generous
to Tuskegee, without being reminded of this. The
close, careful, and minute investigation that he always
makes in order to be sure that every dollar that he
gives will do the most good - an investigation that
is just as searching as if he were investing money
in a business enterprise - convinces me that the
growth in this direction is most encouraging.
At nine o'clock, on the morning of June 24, I
met President Eliot, the Board of Overseers of Harvard
University, and the other guests, at the designated
place on the university grounds, for the purpose
of being escorted to Sanders Theatre, where
the Commencement exercises were to be held and
degrees conferred. Among others invited to be
present for the purpose of receiving a degree at this
time were General Nelson A. Miles, Dr. Bell,
the inventor of the Bell telephone, Bishop Vincent, and
the Rev. Minot J. Savage. We were placed in line
immediately behind the president and the Board of
Overseers, and directly afterward the Governor of
Massachusetts, escorted by the Lancers, arrived and
took his place in the line of march by the side of
President Eliot. In the line there were also various
other officers and professors, clad in cap and gown.
In this order we marched to Sanders Theatre, where,
after the usual Commencement exercises, came the
conferring of the honorary degrees. This, it seems,
is always considered the most interesting feature at
Harvard. It is not known, until the individuals
appear, upon whom the honorary degrees are to be
conferred, and those receiving these honours are
cheered by the students and others in proportion to
their popularity. During the conferring of the
degrees excitement and enthusiasm are at the highest
pitch.
When my name was called, I rose, and President
Eliot, in beautiful and strong English, conferred
upon me the degree of Master of Arts. After
these exercises were over, those who had received
honorary degrees were invited to lunch with the
President. After the lunch we were formed in line
again, and were escorted by the Marshal of the day,
who that year happened to be Bishop William
Lawrence, through the grounds, where, at different
points, those who had been honoured were called by
name and received the Harvard yell. This march
ended at Memorial Hall, where the alumni dinner
was served. To see over a thousand strong men,
representing all that is best in State, Church,
business, and education, with the glow and enthusiasm
of college loyalty and college pride, - which has, I
think, a peculiar Harvard flavour, - is a sight that
does not easily fade from memory.
Among the speakers after dinner were President
Eliot, Governor Roger Wolcott, General Miles,
Dr. Minot J. Savage, the Hon. Henry Cabot
Lodge, and myself. When I was called upon,
I said, among other things: -
It would in some measure relieve my embarrassment
if I could, even in a slight degree, feel myself worthy of
the great honour which you do me to-day. Why you
have called me from the Black Belt of the South, from
among my humble people, to share in the honours of this
occasion, is not for me to explain; and yet it may not be
inappropriate for me to suggest that it seems to me that one
of the most vital questions that touch our American life is
how to bring the strong, wealthy, and learned into helpful
touch with the poorest, most ignorant, and humblest, and
at the same time make one appreciate the vitalizing,
strengthening influence of the other. How shall we make
the mansions on yon Beacon Street feel and see the need
of the spirits in the lowliest cabin in Alabama cottonfields
or Louisiana sugar-bottoms? This problem Harvard
University is solving, not by bringing itself down, but by bringing the masses up.
If my life in the past has meant anything in the lifting
up of my people and the bringing about of better relations
between your race and mine, I assure you from this day it
will mean doubly more. In the economy of God there
is but one standard by which an individual can succeed -
there is but one for a race. This country demands that
every race shall measure itself by the American standard.
By it a race must rise or fall, succeed or fail, and in the
last analysis mere sentiment counts for little. During the
next half-century and more, my race must continue passing
through the severe American crucible. We are to be
tested in our patience, our forbearance, our perseverance,
our power to endure wrong, to withstand temptations, to
economize, to acquire and use skill; in our ability to
compete, to succeed in commerce, to disregard the
superficial for the real, the appearance for the substance, to be
great and yet small, learned and yet simple, high and yet
the servant of all.
As this was the first time that a New England
university had conferred an honorary degree upon a
Negro, it was the occasion of much newspaper comment
throughout the country. A correspondent of
a New York paper said: - When the name of Booker T. Washington was called,
and he arose to acknowledge and accept, there was such an
outburst of applause as greeted no other name except that
of the popular soldier patriot, General Miles. The applause
was not studied and stiff, sympathetic and condoling; it
was enthusiasm and admiration. Every part of the audience
from pit to gallery joined in, and a glow covered
the cheeks of those around me, proving sincere appreciation
of the rising struggle of an ex-slave and the work he has
accomplished for his race.
A Boston paper said, editorially: -
In conferring the honorary degree of Master of Arts
upon the Principal of Tuskegee Institute, Harvard
University has honoured itself as well as the object of this
distinction. The work which Professor Booker T. Washington
has accomplished for the education, good citizenship,
and popular enlightenment in his chosen field of labour in
the South entitles him to rank with our national benefactors.
The university which can claim him on its list of sons,
whether in regular course or honoris causa, may be proud.
It has been mentioned that Mr. Washington is the first
of his race to receive an honorary degree from a New England
university. This, in itself, is a distinction. But the
degree was not conferred because Mr. Washington is a
coloured man, or because he was born in slavery, but because
he has shown, by his work for the elevation of the people
of the Black Belt of the South, a genius and a broad
humanity which count for greatness in any man, whether
his skin be white or black.
Another Boston paper said: -
It is Harvard which, first among New England colleges,
confers an honorary degree upon a black man. No one
who has followed the history of Tuskegee and its work can
fail to admire the courage, persistence, and splendid common
sense of Booker T. Washington. Well may Harvard
honour the ex-slave, the value of whose services, alike to
his race and country, only the future can estimate.
The correspondent of the New York Times
wrote: -
All the speeches were enthusiastically received, but the
coloured man carried off the oratorical honours, and the
applause which broke out when he had finished was
vociferous and long-continued.
Soon after I began work at Tuskegee I formed a
resolution, in the secret of my heart, that I would
try to build up a school that would be of so much
service to the country that the President of the
United States would one day come to see it. This
was, I confess, rather a bold resolution, and for a
number of years I kept it hidden in my own thoughts,
not daring to share it with any one. In November, 1897, I made the first move in
this direction, and that was in securing a visit from
a member of President McKinley's Cabinet, the
Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. He
came to deliver an address at the formal opening of
the Slater-Armstrong Agricultural Building, our first
large building to be used for the purpose of giving
training to our students in agriculture and kindred
branches.
In the fall of 1898 I heard that President
McKinley was likely to visit Atlanta, Georgia, for the
purpose of taking part in the Peace Jubilee exercises
to be held there to commemorate the successful close
of the Spanish-American war. At this time I had
been hard at work, together with our teachers, for
eighteen years, trying to build up a school that we
thought would be of service to the Nation, and I
determined to make a direct effort to secure a visit
from the President and his Cabinet. I went to
Washington, and I was not long in the city before
I found my way to the White House. When I
got there I found the waiting rooms full of people,
and my heart began to sink, for I feared there would
not be much chance of my seeing the President that
day, if at all. But, at any rate, I got an opportunity
to see Mr. J. Addison Porter, the secretary to
the President, and explained to him my mission.
Mr. Porter kindly sent my card directly to the President,
and in a few minutes word came from Mr.
McKinley that he would see me.
How any man can see so many people of all
kinds, with all kinds of errands, and do so much
hard work, and still keep himself calm, patient, and
fresh for each visitor in the way that President
McKinley does, I cannot understand. When I saw
the President he kindly thanked me for the work
which we were doing at Tuskegee for the interests
of the country. I then told him, briefly, the object
of my visit. I impressed upon him the fact that a
visit from the Chief Executive of the Nation would
not only encourage our students and teachers, but
would help the entire race. He seemed interested,
but did not make a promise to go to Tuskegee, for
the reason that his plans about going to Atlanta
were not then fully made; but he asked me to call
the matter to his attention a few weeks later.
By the middle of the following month the
President had definitely decided to attend the Peace
Jubilee at Atlanta. I went to Washington again
and saw him, with a view of getting him to extend
his trip to Tuskegee. On this second visit Mr.
Charles W. Hare, a prominent white citizen of
Tuskegee, kindly volunteered to accompany me, to
reenforce my invitation with one from the white
people of Tuskegee and the vicinity.
Just previous to my going to Washington the
second time, the country had been excited, and the
coloured people greatly depressed, because of several
severe race riots which had occurred at different
points in the South. As soon as I saw the
President, I perceived that his heart was greatly
burdened by reason of these race disturbances.
Although there were many people waiting to see
him, he detained me for some time, discussing the
condition and prospects of the race. He remarked
several times that he was determined to show his
interest and faith in the race, not merely in words,
but by acts. When I told him that I thought that
at that time scarcely anything would go farther in
giving hope and encouragement to the race than the
fact that the President of the Nation would be willing
to travel one hundred and forty miles out of his
way to spend a day at a Negro institution, he seemed
deeply impressed.
While I was with the President, a white citizen
of Atlanta, a Democrat and an ex-slaveholder, came
into the room, and the President asked his opinion
as to the wisdom of his going to Tuskegee. Without
hesitation the Atlanta man replied that it was
the proper thing for him to do. This opinion was
reenforced by that friend of the race, Dr. J. L. M.
Curry. The President promised that he would
visit our school on the 16th of December.
When it became known that the President was
going to visit our school, the white citizens of the
town of Tuskegee - a mile distant from the school
- were as much pleased as were our students and
teachers. The white people of the town, including
both men and women, began arranging to decorate
the town, and to form themselves into committees
for the purpose of cooperating with the officers of
our school in order that the distinguished visitor
might have a fitting reception. I think I never
realized before this how much the white people of
Tuskegee and vicinity thought of our institution.
During the days when we were preparing for the
President's reception, dozens of these people came
to me and said that, while they did not want to
push themselves into prominence, if there was
anything they could do to help, or to relieve me
personally, I had but to intimate it and they would be
only too glad to assist. In fact, the thing that
touched me almost as deeply as the visit of the
President itself was the deep pride which all classes
of citizens in Alabama seemed to take in our work.
The morning of December 16th brought to the
little city of Tuskegee such a crowd as it had
never seen before. With the President came Mrs.
McKinley and all of the Cabinet officers but one;
and most of them brought their wives or some
members of their families. Several prominent
generals came, including General Shafter and General
Joseph Wheeler, who were recently returned from
the Spanish-American war. There was also a host
of newspaper correspondents. The Alabama Legislature
was in session at Montgomery at this time.
This body passed a resolution to adjourn for the
purpose of visiting Tuskegee. Just before the
arrival of the President's party the Legislature arrived,
headed by the governor and other state officials.
The citizens of Tuskegee had decorated the town
from the station to the school in a generous
manner. In order to economize in the matter of time,
we arranged to have the whole school pass in review
before the President. Each student carried a stalk
of sugar-cane with some open bolls of cotton fastened
to the end of it. Following the students the
work of all departments of the school passed in
review, displayed on "floats" drawn by horses,
mules, and oxen. On these floats we tried to
exhibit not only the present work of the school, but
to show the contrasts between the old methods of
doing things and the new. As an example, we
showed the old method of dairying in contrast
with the improved methods, the old methods of
tilling the soil in contrast with the new, the old
methods of cooking and housekeeping in contrast
with the new. These floats consumed an hour and
a half of time in passing.
In his address in our large, new chapel, which the
students had recently completed, the President said,
among other things: - To meet you under such pleasant auspices and to have
the opportunity of a personal observation of your work is
indeed most gratifying. The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute is ideal in its conception, and has already a
large and growing reputation in the country, and is not
unknown abroad. I congratulate all who are associated in
this undertaking for the good work which it is doing in the education of its students to lead lives of honour and
usefulness, thus exalting the race for which it was established.
Nowhere, I think, could a more delightful location have
been chosen for this unique educational experiment, which
has attracted the attention and won the support even of
conservative philanthropists in all sections of the country.
To speak of Tuskegee without paying special tribute to
Booker T. Washington's genius and perseverance would be
impossible. The inception of this noble enterprise was
his, and he deserves high credit for it. His was the enthusiasm and enterprise which made its steady progress possible
and established in the institution its present high standard
of accomplishment. He has won a worthy reputation
as one of the great leaders of his race, widely known and
much respected at home and abroad as an accomplished
educator, a great orator, and a true philanthropist.
The Hon. John D. Long, the Secretary of the Navy,
said in part: -
I cannot make a speech to-day. My heart is too full
- full of hope, admiration, and pride for my countrymen
of both sections and both colours. I am filled with
gratitude and admiration for your work, and from this time
forward I shall have absolute confidence in your progress and
in the solution of the problem in which you are engaged.
The problem, I say, has been solved. A picture has
been presented to-day which should be put upon canvas
with the pictures of Washington and Lincoln, and
transmitted to future time and generations - a picture which
the press of the country should spread broadcast over the
land, a most dramatic picture, and that picture is this: The President of the United States standing on this platform;
on one side the Governor of Alabama, on the other,
completing the trinity, a representative of a race only a few years ago in bondage, the coloured President of the Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute.
God bless the President under whose majesty such a
scene as that is presented to the American people. God
bless the state of Alabama, which is showing that it can
deal with this problem for itself. God bless the orator, philanthropist, and disciple of the Great Master - who, if
he were on earth, would be doing the same work - Booker
T. Washington.
Postmaster General Smith closed the address which
he made with these words: -
We have witnessed many spectacles within the last few
days. We have seen the magnificent grandeur and the
magnificent achievements of one of the great metropolitan
cities of the South. We have seen heroes of the war pass
by in procession. We have seen floral parades. But I
am sure my colleagues will agree with me in saying that
we have witnessed no spectacle more impressive and more encouraging, more inspiring for our future, than that which
we have witnessed here this morning.
Some days after the President returned to Washington
I received the letter which follows: -
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, DEC. 23, 1899.
DEAR SIR: By this mail I take pleasure in sending you engrossed copies of the souvenir of the visit of the
President to your institution. These sheets bear the
autographs of the President and the members of the Cabinet
who accompanied him on the trip. Let me take this
opportunity of congratulating you most heartily and
sincerely upon the great success of the exercises provided for
and entertainment furnished us under your auspices during
our visit to Tuskegee. Every feature of the programme
was perfectly executed and was viewed or participated in
with the heartiest satisfaction by every visitor present.
The unique exhibition which you gave of your pupils
engaged in their industrial vocations was not only artistic but
thoroughly impressive. The tribute paid by the President
and his Cabinet to your work was none too high, and
forms a most encouraging augury, I think, for the future prosperity of your institution. I cannot close without
assuring you that the modesty shown by yourself in the
exercises was most favourably commented upon by all
the members of our party.
With best wishes for the continued advance of your
most useful and patriotic undertaking, kind personal regards,
and the compliments of the season, believe me, always,
Very sincerely yours,
Twenty years have now passed since I made the
first humble effort at Tuskegee, in a broken-down
shanty and an old hen-house, without owning a
dollar's worth of property, and with but one teacher
and thirty students. At the present time the
institution owns twenty-three hundred acres of land,
one thousand of which are under cultivation
each year, entirely by student labour. There are
now upon the grounds, counting large and small,
sixty-six buildings; and all except four of these have
been almost wholly erected by the labour of our
students. While the students are at work upon
the land and in erecting buildings, they are taught,
by competent instructors, the latest methods of
agriculture and the trades connected with building.
There are in constant operation at the school,
in connection with thorough academic and
religious training, thirty industrial departments. All
of these teach industries at which our men and
women can find immediate employment as soon as
they leave the institution. The only difficulty now
is that the demand for our graduates from both
white and black people in the South is so great that
we cannot supply more than one-half the persons
for whom applications come to us. Neither have
we the buildings nor the money for current
expenses to enable us to admit to the school more
than one-half the young men and women who
apply to us for admission.
In our industrial teaching we keep three things
in mind: first, that the student shall be so educated
that he shall be enabled to meet conditions as they
exist now, in the part of the South where he lives -
in a word, to be able to do the thing which the
world wants done; second, that every student who
graduates from the school shall have enough skill
coupled with intelligence and moral character, to
enable him to make a living for himself and others;
third, to send every graduate out feeling and knowing
that labour is dignified and beautiful - to make
each one love labour instead of trying to escape it.
In addition to the agricultural training which we
give to young men, and the training given to our
girls in all the usual domestic employments, we now
train a number of girls in agriculture each year.
These girls are taught gardening, fruit-growing,
dairying, bee-culture, and poultry-raising.
While the institution is in no sense denominational,
we have a department known as the Phelps
Hall Bible Training School, in which a number of
students are prepared for the ministry and other
forms of Christian work, especially work in the
country districts. What is equally important, each
one of these students works half of each day at some
industry, in order to get skill and the love of work,
so that when he goes out from the institution he is
prepared to set the people with whom he goes to
labour a proper example in the matter of industry.
The value of our property is now over $700,000.
If we add to this our endowment fund, which at
present is $1,000,000, the value of the total
property is now $1,700,000. Aside from the
need for more buildings and for money for current
expenses, the endowment fund should be increased
to at least $3,000,000. The annual current expenses
are now about $150,000. The greater part of this
I collect each year by going from door to door
and from house to house. All of our property
is free from mortgage, and is deeded to an
undenominational board of trustees who have the control
of the institution.
From thirty students the number has grown to
fourteen hundred, coming from twenty-seven states
and territories, from Africa, Cuba, Porto Rico,
Jamaica, and other foreign countries. In our
departments there are one hundred and ten officers and instructors; and if we add the families of our instructors,
we have a constant population upon our
grounds of not far from seventeen hundred people.
I have often been asked how we keep so large a
body of people together, and at the same time keep
them out of mischief. There are two answers: that
the men and women who come to us for an education
are in earnest; and that everybody is kept
busy. The following outline of our daily work
will testify to this: -
5 A.M., rising bell; 5.50 A.M., warning breakfast bell;
6 A.M., breakfast bell; 6.20 A.M., breakfast over; 6.20 to
6.50 A.M., rooms are cleaned; 6.50, work bell; 7.30,
morning study hour; 8.20, morning school bell; 8.25,
inspection of young men's toilet in ranks; 8.40, devotional
exercises in chapel; 8.55, "five minutes with the daily
news;" 9 A.M., class work begins; 12, class work closes;
12.15 P.M., dinner; 1 P.M., work bell; 1.30 P.M., class
work begins; 3.30 P.M., class work ends; 5.30 P.M., bell
to "knock off" work; 6 P.M., supper; 7.10 P.M., evening
prayers; 7.30 P.M., evening study hour; 8.45 P.M., evening
study hour closes; 9.20 P.M., warning retiring bell;
9.30 P.M., retiring bell.
We try to keep constantly in mind the fact that
the worth of the school is to be judged by its
graduates. Counting those who have finished the full
course, together with those who have taken enough
training to enable them to do reasonably good work,
we can safely say that at least six thousand men
and women from Tuskegee are now at work in
different parts of the South; men and women who,
by their own example or by direct effort, are showing
the masses of our race how to improve their
material, educational, and moral and religious life.
What is equally important, they are exhibiting a
degree of common sense and self-control which is
causing better relations to exist between the races,
and is causing the Southern white man to learn to
believe in the value of educating the men and
women of my race. Aside from this, there is the
influence that is constantly being exerted through
the mothers' meeting and the plantation work
conducted by Mrs. Washington.
Wherever our graduates go, the changes which
soon begin to appear in the buying of land, improving
homes, saving money, in education, and in high
moral character are remarkable. Whole communities
are fast being revolutionized through the
instrumentality of these men and women.
Ten years ago I organized at Tuskegee the first
Negro Conference. This is an annual gathering
which now brings to the school eight or nine hundred
representative men and women of the race, who
come to spend a day in finding out what the actual
industrial, mental, and moral conditions of the people
are, and in forming plans for improvement. Out
from this central Negro Conference at Tuskegee
have grown numerous state and local conferences
which are doing the same kind of work. As a
result of the influence of these gatherings, one
delegate reported at the last annual meeting that ten
families in his community had bought and paid for
homes. On the day following the annual Negro
Conference, there is held the "Workers'
Conference." This is composed of officers and teachers
who are engaged in educational work in the larger
institutions in the South. The Negro Conference
furnishes a rare opportunity for these workers to
study the real condition of the rank and file of the
people.
In the summer of 1900, with the assistance of
such prominent coloured men as Mr. T. Thomas
Fortune, who has always upheld my hands in every
effort, I organized the National Negro Business
League, which held its first meeting in Boston, and
brought together for the first time a large number
of the coloured men who are engaged in various
lines of trade or business in different parts of the
United States. Thirty states were represented at
our first meeting. Out of this national meeting
grew state and local business leagues.
In addition to looking after the executive side of
the work at Tuskegee, and raising the greater part
of the money for the support of the school, I cannot
seem to escape the duty of answering at least a part
of the calls which come to me unsought to address
Southern white audiences and audiences of my own
race, as well as frequent gatherings in the North.
As to how much of my time is spent in this way, the
following clipping from a Buffalo (N.Y.) paper will
tell. This has reference to an occasion when I
spoke before the National Educational Association
in that city.
Booker T. Washington, the foremost educator among
the coloured people of the world, was a very busy man from
the time he arrived in the city the other night from the
West and registered at the Iroquois. He had hardly
removed the stains of travel when it was time to partake of
supper. Then he held a public levee in the parlours of the
Iroquois until eight o'clock. During that time he was
greeted by over two hundred eminent teachers and
educators from all parts of the United States. Shortly after
eight o'clock he was driven in a carriage to Music Hall,
and in one hour and a half he made two ringing addresses,
to as many as five thousand people, on Negro education.
Then Mr. Washington was taken in charge by a delegation
of coloured citizens, headed by the Rev. Mr. Watkins,
and hustled off to a small informal reception, arranged in
honor of the visitor by the people of his race.
Nor can I, in addition to making these addresses,
escape the duty of calling the attention of the South
and of the country in general, through the medium
of the press, to matters that pertain to the interests
of both races. This, for example, I have done in
regard to the evil habit of lynching. When the
Louisiana State Constitutional Convention was in
session, I wrote an open letter to that body pleading
for justice for the race. In all such efforts I have
received warm and hearty support from the Southern
newspapers, as well as from those in all other
parts of the country.
Despite superficial and temporary signs which
might lead one to entertain a contrary opinion,
there was never a time when I felt more hopeful
for the race than I do at the present. The great
human law that in the end recognizes and rewards
merit is everlasting and universal. The outside
world does not know, neither can it appreciate, the
struggle that is constantly going on in the hearts of
both the Southern white people and their former
slaves to free themselves from racial prejudice; and
while both races are thus struggling they should
have the sympathy, the support, and the forbearance
of the rest of the world.
As I write the closing words of this autobiography
I find myself - not by design - in the city
of Richmond, Virginia: the city which only a few
decades ago was the capital of the Southern Confederacy,
and where, about twenty-five years ago, because
of my poverty I slept night after night under
a sidewalk.
This time I am in Richmond as the guest of the
coloured people of the city; and came at their request
to deliver an address last night to both races in the
Academy of Music, the largest and finest audience
room in the city. This was the first time that the
coloured people had ever been permitted to use this
hall. The day before I came, the City Council
passed a vote to attend the meeting in a body to
hear me speak. The state Legislature, including
the House of Delegates and the Senate, also
passed a unanimous vote to attend in a body. In
the presence of hundreds of coloured people, many
distinguished white citizens, the City Council, the
state Legislature, and state officials, I delivered my
message, which was one of hope and cheer; and
from the bottom of my heart I thanked both races for
this welcome back to the state that gave me
birth.
first hears of, 42; resolves to
attend, 43; journey to, 46-50; a
student at, 53-74; John and
James Washington attend, 76-77;
character-building result of training
at, 87-88; Washington revisits,
94-95; Washington returns
as a teacher, 97; represented at
Atlanta Exposition, 209; under
Dr. Frissell, 295.
Armstrong, 106-107, to
Andrew Carnegie, 191-192; from
President Cleveland, 227; from
Dr. D. C. Gilman, 233; from Booker
T. Washington, 269; from citizens
of Charleston, W. Va., 289, 290;
from President Eliot, 295-296;
from John Addison Porter, 310.
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Yours truly,
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, Principal.
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Page 196CHAPTER XIII
TWO THOUSAND MILES FOR A FIVE-MINUTE SPEECH
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Page 217CHAPTER XIV
THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION ADDRESS
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Oppressor
with oppressed;
And
close as sin and suffering joined
We
march to fate abreast.
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October 6, 1895
Yours very truly,
GROVER CLEVELAND.
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President's Office, September 30, 1895.
D. C. GILMAN.
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Page 238CHAPTER XV
THE SECRET OF SUCCESS IN PUBLIC SPEAKING
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Of
the coming of the Lord.
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Page 267CHAPTER XVI
EUROPE
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BOOKER.
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We are,
Very truly yours,
THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CHARLESTON,
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The Charleston Daily Gazette, The Daily Mail
Tribune ; G. W. Atkinson, Governor ; E. L. Boggs,
Secretary to Governor; Wm. M. O. Dawson,
Secretary of State; L. M. La Follette, Auditor;
J. R. Trotter, Superintendent of Schools; E. W.
Wilson, ex-Governor; W. A. MacCorkle, ex-Governor;
John Q. Dickinson, President Kanawha Valley Bank;
L. Prichard, President Charleston National Bank;
Geo. S. Couch, President Kanawha National Bank;
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S. Laidley, Superintendent City Schools; L. E.
McWhorter, President Board of Education; Chas. K.
Payne, wholesale merchant; and many others.
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Page 293CHAPTER XVII
LAST WORDS
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CHARLES W. ELIOT.
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JOHN ADDISON PORTER,
Secretary to the President.
TO PRESIDENT BOOKER T. Washington, Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute, Tuskegee, Ala.
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