The Internet Wiretap Electronic Edition of
UP FROM SLAVERY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Booker T. Washington
A Public Domain Text
Released September 1993
Entered by Aloysius &tSftDotIotE
aloysius@west.darkside.com
---------
UP FROM SLAVERY
An Autobiography
by
Booker Taliaferro Washington
Boston New York Chicago
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
Copyright 1900, 1901
A Public Domain Text, Copyright Expired
PREFACE
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.
UP FROM SLAVERY
CHAPTER I
A SLAVE AMONG SLAVES
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 fireplace 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 had 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 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 and 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 carrying 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 the 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 extend 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
saves. 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 have 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
[sic] 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 slaver 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 as
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.
CHAPTER II
BOYHOOD DAYS
AFTER the coming of freedom there were two points upon which
practically all the people on our place were agreed, and I found 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 while, 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 his 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 fully my ambition, and sympathized with me and aided me in
every way that she could. Though she was totally ignorant, 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 wildest
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.
Some day-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 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 as 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 led 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 schoolroll 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 know 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 reached 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 tasks 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 or 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 superior 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.
CHAPTER III
THE STRUGGLE FOR AN EDUCATION
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 any race,
but the opportunities that it provided by which poor but worthy
students could work out all or a part of the cost of a 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 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 else.
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 pain 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 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, and 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 a 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 fair to
Hampton. One experience I shall long remember. I had been travelling
over the mountains most of the afternoon in an old-fashion 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 a 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 on 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 the city, and I must confess that my
mind was more upon the sidewalk that first gave me shelter than upon
the recognition, 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 an
assignment to a class. Having been so long without proper food, a
bath, and a 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 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 dependent 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 the 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 in 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
on 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 books 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 tend 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 of 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 book 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 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
the time. Most of the students were men and women -- some as old as
forty years of ago. 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 earnest 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 seasons 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
off 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.
CHAPTER IV
HELPING OTHERS
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 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 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
reenter 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 to 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
"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 the 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 my 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 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 the 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 get 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 in 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 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
our 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 the table at which their 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 and still were
craving an opportunity for an 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 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.
CHAPTER V
THE RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD
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 in the minds
of the coloured people, or, at least, in 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 the 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 those 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 could teach
the children concerning the 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 be there for hours, speechless and
motionless. Then the news would spread all through the neighborhood
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 very 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 many 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 state 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 emphasizes 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 portion 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 at 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, [sic] 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 them, and
have often wished since, that by some power of magic I might remove
the great bulk of these people into the county 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 have 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 maternal
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.
CHAPTER VI
BLACK RACE AND RED RACE
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 three 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 a 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 reaching, 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 underdeveloped 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 education 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 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 education 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 the 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 to 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 salves or their
descendants.
An example of what I mean is shown in a story told of George
Washington, who, meeting a coloured 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 manner. 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 men worked in the laundry. The work was not easy in either
place, but in all my teaching I never taught pupils who gave me much
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.
CHAPTER VII
EARLY DAYS AT TUSKEGEE
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 designated 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 at 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 court districts, and in getting the school
advertised among the glass 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 face 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 [sic], 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 [sic]. 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 spent 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 mouth 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.
CHAPTER VIII
TEACHING SCHOOL IN A STABLE AND A HEN-HOUSE
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, harness-
making, 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 weeks 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 their 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 nor almost any one in the
neighbourhood in which they had 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 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 Olivia 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 Davidon'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 women 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 development 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
education 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-night 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 education 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
cottom 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 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 the 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 the 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 [sic] standing
upon it a cabin, formerly used as a 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 interested
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 women 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 the 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.
CHAPTER IX
ANXIOUS DAYS AND SLEEPLESS NIGHTS
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 for
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 notice 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 these. 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. That 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 season 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 women who was 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
asking 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 in 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-card 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 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 e
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 her to see and send 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 a 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 education, 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 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 the 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 momento.
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
education 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 to 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 increase 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.
CHAPTER X
A HARDER TASK THAN MAKING BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW
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 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,
four some reason, also proved a failure. The failure of this kiln
made it still more difficult to get the students to take 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
AI thought of a watch which had come into my possession years before.
I took the 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 stable 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 simulated.
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 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 the 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 any 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, with stoves, and awkward to eat
without dishes. At first the cooking was done out-of-doors, in the
old-fashioned, primitive style, in pots 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 and 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, with 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 to
see 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 the 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.
CHAPTER XI
MAKING THEIR BEDS BEFORE THEY COULD LIE ON THEM
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 increase 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 my 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
practise 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 charge 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 confronting 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 [sic] degree, seem to count it as 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 of 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 road 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 for 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 to 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 carpenters' tools, and the bedsteads made by the students
then were very rough and very weak. Not unfrequently [sic] 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 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 part of our creed at Tuskegee. No
student is permitted to retain 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 other 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 or 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
the chapel in the evening and their dress is inspected, as it is every
night, not one button is found to be missing.
CHAPTER XII
RAISING MONEY
WHEN we opened our boarding department, we provided rooms in the attic
of Porter Hall, our first building, for a number of girls. But the
number of students, of both sexes, continued to increase. We could
find rooms outside the school grounds for many of the young men, but
the girls we did not care to expose in this way. Very soon the
problem of providing more rooms for the girls, as well as a larger
boarding department for all the students, grew serious. As a result,
we finally decided to undertake the construction of a still larger
building -- a building that would contain rooms for the girls and
boarding accommodations for all.
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
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 [sic]
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 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
pleased, together with myself, for help, not for Hampton, but for
Tuskegee. At these meetings an especial [sic] 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 the 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 much 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 for 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 as it 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 interest 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 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 me, that is worth having, except
as the 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 street 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 someone 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.
Yours truly,
Booker T. Washington, Principal.
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
the 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. Jessup, 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 interest 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 of 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. Jessup, the treasurer of the Slater Fund, I refer to
because I know of no man of wealth and large and complication 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. Jessup. It is very largely through this 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.
CHAPTER XIII
TWO THOUSAND MILES FOR A FIVE-MINUTE SPEECH
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 worth. 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
[sic], but it is thoroughly Christian, and the spiritual training or
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 brick-maker'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.
On 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 [sic] 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 references 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 grand-children 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 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 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 [sic] 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 care 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 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
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 in 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 hearings, 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 the 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 planned 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 [sic] 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 [sic]. 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.
CHAPTER XIV
THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION ADDRESS
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 introduce 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 or stump speaking had more attractions 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 heading 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 [sic] 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 of 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 [sic] 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, 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
Oppressor with oppressed;
And close as sin and suffering joined
We march to fate abreast.
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 education 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 [sic]. 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, [sic] 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 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.,
October 6, 1895.
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.
Yours very truly,
Grover Cleveland.
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
millionnaire [sic]. 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 my 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 form the institution. Many of 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 of 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 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,
President's Office, September 30, 1895.
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,
D.C. Gilman
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, containing 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
truckle, 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 education 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.
CHAPTER XV
THE SECRET OF SUCCESS IN PUBLIC SPEAKING
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 a 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 range 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, canes 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 pleased a cause with most 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 their 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 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. Jessup, 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 he did. The
monument to his memory stands near the head of the 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 were more persons representing the famous
old anti-slavery element that 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 through 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
_fete_ 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
Of the coming of the Lord,
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 escape, 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 seems 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
acknowledgements. 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 the 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
institutions 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 of 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 diary; 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 --
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 for 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 [sic] 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
teachers 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 prepared 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.
CHAPTER XVI
EUROPE
IN 1893 I was married to Miss Margaret James Murray, a native of
Mississippi, and a graduate of Fisk University, in 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 brick-mason'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
traded 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,
Booker.
My youngest child, Earnest 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 studies 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, to 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 did 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 regarded 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 [sic] 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-bys 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 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
part 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 O. 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
[sic] 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, or 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 practise 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 indispensible 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 classes, nor that 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
begin 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 with 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 must sincerely indorse [sic] this move, and on
behalf of the citizens of Charleston extend to your 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.
We are,
Very truly yours,
The Common Council of the City of Charleston,
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,
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; Ed. Reid, Cashier
Kanawha National Bank; Geo. S. Laidley, Superintended City
Schools; L.E. McWhorter, President Board of Education; Chas. K.
Payne, wholesale merchant; and many others.
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 I was 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.
CHAPTER XVII
LAST WORDS
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 of 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 desired 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,
Charles W. Eliot.
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 mansion on yon Beacon Street
feel and see the need of the spirits in the lowliest cabin in
Alabama cotton-fields 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 of _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
[sic] 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 father 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 [sic] 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 this 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 in Montgomery at this time. This body
passed a resolution to adjourn for the purpose of visited 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 [sic] 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,
John Addison Porter,
Secretary to the President.
To President Booker T. Washington,
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Tuskegee, Ala.
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 the students works . . . 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 [sic] 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 [sic], 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
hours; 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 hours; 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 efforts, are showing the masses of our race now
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 characters 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 an 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 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
[sic]. 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 support. 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 honour 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 unaminous 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.
[End.]