Classic Audiobook Collection - Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington ~ Full Audiobook [biography]

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington audiobook. Genre: biography Up From Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his slow and steady rise from a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps. He reflects on the generosity of both teachers and philanthropists who helped in educating blacks and native Americans. He describes his efforts to instill manners, breeding, health and a feeling of dignity to students. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:19:09) Chapter 01 (00:49:09) Chapter 02 (01:13:28) Chapter 03 (01:40:46) Chapter 04 (02:02:47) Chapter 05 (02:17:36) Chapter 06 (02:35:41) Chapter 07 (02:51:15) Chapter 08 (03:10:56) Chapter 09 (03:30:00) Chapter 10 (03:49:29) Chapter 11 (04:07:34) Chapter 12 (04:33:11) Chapter 13 (05:00:13) Chapter 14 (05:29:04) Chapter 15 (06:09:37) Chapter 16 (06:43:45) Chapter 17 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington Chapter 1 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 crossroads post office called Hales 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. others. I was born in a typical log cabin, about 14 by 16 feet square. In this cabin, I lived with my mother and a brother and a 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 colored 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 nearby 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 a special 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 our only living place, but 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 led 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 antebellum 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 center 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 are 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 labor, 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 passerby came along who would help me out of my trouble. The hours while waiting for someone 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 first knowledge that I got of the first thing, fact that we were slaves, and that freedom of the slaves was being discussed, was early one morning before day, when I was awaked 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 show that they understood the situation and that they kept themselves informed of events by what was termed the grapevine 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. 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 colored 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 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 blessings 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 got 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 someone else would eat from a tin plate held on the knees, and often using nothing but the hands with which to hold the food. 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

resolve 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 an exceeding the 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 a 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 cause by putting on a new flak's 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 pinpoints 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 a way 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 honor. Anyone attempting to harm young mistress or old mistress during the night would have had to cross the dead body of the slave to do so. I do not know how many have noticed it, but I think that it will be found to be true that there are few instances, either in slavery or freedom, in which a member of my race has been known to betray a specific trust. As a rule, not only did the members of my race entertain no feelings of bitterness against

the whites before and during the war, but there are many instances of Negroes tenderly caring for their former masters and mistresses, who for some reason have become poor and dependent since the war. I know of instances where the former masters of slaves have for years been supplied with money by their former slaves to keep them from suffering. I have known of still other cases in which the former slaves have assisted in the education of the descendants of their former owners. I know of a case on a large plantation in the south in which a young white man, the son of the former owner of the estate, has become so reduced in purse and self-control by reason of drink, that he is a pitiable creature. And yet, notwithstanding the poverty of the

colored 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 colored people possesses 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 or three years. 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 labor 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 had returned to slavery. I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery. I have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race.

No one section of our country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and besides it was recognized and protected for years by the general government. Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution. Then when we rid ourselves of prejudice or racial feeling and look facts in the face, we must acknowledge that, notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially,

intellectually, morally, and religiously than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe. This is so to such an extent that Negroes in this country, who themselves or whose forefathers went through the school of slavery, are constantly returning to Africa. as missionaries to enlighten those who remained in the fatherland. This I say not to justify slavery. On the other hand, I condemn it as an institution, as we all know that in America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not from a missionary motive, but to call attention to a fact and to show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish

a purpose. When persons ask me in these days, how, in the midst of what some sometimes seems hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such faith in the future of my race in this country. I remind them of the wilderness the 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 labor as a rule to be looked upon

as a badge of degradation, of inferiority. Hence, labor was something that both races on the slave plantation sought to escape. The slave system on our place, on 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, so or to take care of the house. All of this was left to the slaves. The slaves, of course, had little personal interest in the life of the plantation, and their ignorance prevented them from learning how to do things in the most improved and thorough manner. As a result of the system, fences were out of

repair. Gates were hanging half off the hinges. Doors creaked, window-panes were out, plastering had fallen but was not replaced. Weeds grew in the yard. As a rule, there was food for whites and blacks, but inside the house and on the dining-room table, there was wanting that delicacy and refinement of touch and finish, which can make a home the most convenient, comfortable, and attractive place in the world. With all, 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 labor 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 labor. Finally the war closed and the day of freedom came. It was a momentous and eventful day to all upon our plantation. We had been expecting it. Freedom was in the air and had been for months. Deserting soldiers returning to their homes were to be seen every day. Others who had been discharged or those regiments had been paroled were constantly passing near our place. The grapevine 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 anyone who would have attempted to disturb the buried treasure. The slaves would have given the Yankee soldiers food, drink, clothing, anything but that which had been specifically entrusted to their care and honor. 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. they were not afraid to let it be known that the freedom in their songs meant freedom of the body in this world. The night before the eventful day, word was sent to the slave quarters to the effect that something unusual was going to take place at the big house the next morning. There was little, if any, sleep that night. All 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 them. 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 colored 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 those 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 70 or 80 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 were 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 master 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. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from Slavery

Chapter 2. 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 colored 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 colored 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 or as often, Hatcher's John. But there was a feeling that John 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 colored man proudly called his entitles. As I have stated, most of the colored people left the old plantation for a short while at least, so as to be sure it seemed that they could leave and tried 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 him there perhaps once a year, that being about Christmas time. In some way, during the war, by running away and following the Federal soldiers, it seems he found his way into the new state of West Virginia. As soon as freedom was declared, he sent for my mother to come to the Canawa Valley in West Virginia. At that time, a journey from Virginia over the mountains to West Virginia was rather a tedious

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 recalled 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 had 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 time 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 neighbors were colored 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 years. Often I began work as 4 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 recalled 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 Blueback Spelling Book, which contained the alphabet, followed by such meaningless words as Abba, Ka, Da. I began at once to devour this book,

and I think it was the first one I had 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 colored boy who had learned to read in the state of Ohio came to Malden. As soon as the colored 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 open for the colored 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 colored 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 colored people to teach their first school.

As yet, no free schools had been started for colored 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 are 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 50 or 75 years old would often be found in the night school.

Some day schools were formed soon after freedom, but the pre-year-olds 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 Canawa 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 cover me in all the way 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 yield it to a temptation for which most people, I suppose, would 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 had ever worn any kind of covering upon my head, do I recall that either I or anybody else had even thought anything about the need for 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 sold 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 two pieces of cloth sewed together by my mother. I have noted the fact, but without satisfaction, I need not add, that several of the boys who began their careers with store hats, and who were my schoolmates and used to join in the sport that was made of me, because I had only a homespun cap, have ended their careers in the penitentiary, while others are not able now to buy any kind of hat. My second difficulty was

with regard to my name, or rather a name. From the time when I could remember anything, I had been called simply Booker. Before going to school, it had never occurred to me that it was needful or appropriate to have an additional name. When I heard the school roll called, I noticed that all of the children had at least two names, and some of them indulged in what seemed to me the extravagance of having three. I was in deep perplexity, because I knew that the teacher would demand of me at least two names, and I had only one. By the time the occasion came for the enrolling of my name, an idea occurred to me which I thought would make me equal to the situation. And so, when the teacher asked me what my full name was, I calmly told him,

Booker Washington, as if I have 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 Taleifero, 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 honored 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 those 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 color to do that for me, which I should do for myself. Years ago, I resolved that because I had no ancestry myself, I would leave a record of which my children would be proud, and which might encourage them to still higher effort. The world should not pass judgment upon the Negro, and especially the Negro youth, too quickly or too harshly. The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little

known to those not situated as he is. When a white boy undertakes a task, it is taken for granted that he will succeed. On the other hand, people are usually surprised if the Negro boy does not fail. in a word, the Negro youth starts out with the presumption against him. The influence of ancestry, however, is important in helping forward any individual or race, if too much reliance is not placed upon it. Those who constantly direct attention to the Negro youth's moral weaknesses and compare his advancement with that of white youths, do not consider the influence of the memories

which cling about the old family homesteads. I have no idea, as I have stated elsewhere, who my grandmother was. I have, or have had, uncles and aunts and cousins, but I have no knowledge as to where most of them are. My case will illustrate that of hundreds of thousands of black people in every part of our country. The very fact that the white boy is conscious that, if he fails in life, he will disgrace the whole family record extending back through many generations, is of tremendous value in helping him to resist temptations. The fact that the individual has behind and surrounding him proud family history, and connection serves as a stimulus to help him

to overcome obstacles when striving for success. The time that I was permitted to attend school during the day was short, and my attendance was irregular. It was not long before I had to stop attending day school altogether, and devote all of my time again to work. I resorted to the night school again. In fact, the greater part of the education I secured in my boyhood was gathered through the night school after my day's work was done. I had difficulty often in securing a satisfactory teacher. Sometimes, after I had secured someone 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 anyone 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 was never 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 someone to give me a light. The work was not only hard, but it was dangerous. There was always the day of the day of the 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. need. 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 than 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 favored 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 any 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. End of Chapter 2

Chapter 3 of Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Slavery. Chapter 3. The Struggle for an Education One day, while at the work in the coal mine, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for colored 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 colored 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 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 remember 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 Slavin 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 hear repeat what I have said more than once before, that the lesson of the lesson 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 peeling off of a fence that I do not want to put it on, an unpainted or unwhite-washed house that I do not want to paint or whitewash it, or a button off one's clothes, or a grease spot on them, or a off. 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 out 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 someone whom I could hire to teach me. Mrs. Ruffner always encouraged and sympathized with me at 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, said 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 of which Hampton was, or of what it would cause to go there. I do not think that anyone 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 learned 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 traveling 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 colored people took in the matter. They had spent the best of their days 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 the 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 traveled by stagecoaches. The distance from Malden to Hampton is about 500 miles. I had not been away from home many hours before it began to grow painfully evident that I did not have enough money to pay my fare to Hampton. One experience I shall long remember. I have been traveling over the mountains most of the afternoon in an old-fashioned stagecoach. When, late in the evening, the coach stopped for the night at a common, unpaid 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 traveled on the stagecoach. The difference that the color 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 color 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 on 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 82 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 cityways, 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 many foodstands, where fried chicken and half-moving 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 street till after midnight. At last I became so exhausted that I couldn't 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 continue to sleep under the same sidewalk that gave me shelter the first night I was in Richmond. Many years after that, the colored 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 side 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 them 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, very favorable 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 favor, 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, 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 depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher in the cleaning of that room. When I was through, I reported to the head teacher. She was a Yankee woman who knew just where to look for dirt. She went into the room and inspected the floor in 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. Mackey, 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. Mackey, 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, classrooms, 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 son. 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, was worshipped by his students. It never occurred to me that General Armstrong could fail in anything that he undertook. There was 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 recalled 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 a 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 we spent in those tents was an intensely cold one, and we suffered severely. How much I am sure General Armstrong never knew, because we made no complaints. It was enough for us to know that we were pleasing General Armstrong, and that we were making it possible

for an additional number of students to secure an education. More than once, during a cold night, when a stiff gale would be blowing, our tent was lifted bodily, and we would find ourselves in the open air. The general would usually pay a visit to the tents early in the morning, and his earnest, cheerful, encouraging voice would dispel any feeling of despondency. I have spoken of my admiration for General Armstrong,

and yet he was but a type of that Christ-like 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, pure, 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 bathtub, and of the toothless, 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 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 $10 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 $70 a year. This, of course, was wholly beyond my ability to provide. If I had been compelled to pay the $70 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. Griffiths Morgan of New Bedford, Massachusetts,

to defray the cost of my tuition during the whole time that I was at Hampton. After I finished the course at Hampton and it entered upon my life work at Tuskegee, I had the pleasure of visiting Mr. Morgan several times. After having been for a while at Hampton, I found myself in difficulty because I did not have books and cliquet. clothing. Usually, however, I got around the trouble about books by borrowing from those who were more fortunate than myself. As to close, 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 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 age. As I now recall the scene of my first

year, I do not believe that one often has the opportunity of coming into contact with three or four hundred men and women who were so tremendously in earnest as these men and women were. Every hour was occupied in study or work. Nearly all had had enough actual contact with the world to teach them the need of education. Many of the older ones were, of course, too old to master the textbooks 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, have to have. having to wrestle with their books, they had to struggle with the 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 who support in some way they had to provide for. The great and prevailing idea that seemed to take possession of everyone 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 of this country. The time is not far distant when the whole South will appreciate this service in a way that it has not yet been able to do. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from slavery. Chapter 4. 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 traveling 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 colored 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 $3. 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 $16 that I had not been able to work out. It was my greatest ambition during the summer to save enough money with which to pay this debt. I felt that this was a debt of honor, 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 $16. One day, during the last week of my stay in the restaurant, I found under one of the tables a crisp new $10 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, as 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 re-enter 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 textbooks 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 livestock 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 Natalie Lord, one of the teachers from Portland, Maine, 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 something so. 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 in a single evening. I 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 20 minutes which the young men usually spend in idle gossip. About 20 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 20 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 unable 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 should seemed, usually occurred whenever the man 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 time of the strike. soon as the professional labor 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 colored people, and especially the older ones

over my return, was almost pathetic. I had to pay a visit to each family and take a meal with each, and at each place tell the story of my experiences at Hampton. In addition to this, I had to speak before the church and Sunday school, and at various other places. The thing that I was most in search of, though, work I could not find. There was no work on account of the strike. I spent nearly the whole of the first month of my vacation in an effort to find something to do by which I could earn money

to pay my way back to Hampton and save a little money to use after reaching there. Toward the end of the first month I went to a place a considerable distance from my home to try to find employment. I did not succeed, and it was night before I got started on my return. When I had gotten within a mile or so of my home, I was so completely tired out that I could not walk any farther, and I went into an old, abandoned house to spend the remainder of the night. About three o'clock in 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 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 well

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 traveling 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 for my good friend, Miss Mary F. Mackey, 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 Mackey 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 whatnot. 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 labor. 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 honor roll of commencement speakers. This I was successful in doing. It was June of 1875 when I finished the regular course of study at Hampton. The greatest benefits that I got out of my life at the Hampton Institute perhaps may be classified under two heads. First was contact with a great man, General S. C. Armstrong, who, I repeat, was, in my opinion, the rarest, strongest, and most beautiful character that it has ever been my privilege to meet.

Second, at Hampton, for the first time, I learned what education was expected to do for an individual. Before going there, I had a good deal of the then-rather-prevalent idea among our people that to secure an education meant to have a good, easy time, free from all necessity for manual labor. At Hampton, I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labor, but learned to love labor, not alone for its financial value, but for labor's own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world once done brings. At that institution, I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.

I was completely out of money when I graduated. In company with other Hampton students, I secured a place as a table waiter in a summer hotel in Connecticut, and managed to borrow enough money with which to get there. I had not been in this hotel long before I found out that I knew practically nothing about waiting on a hotel table. The head-waiter, however, supposed that I was an accomplished waiter. He soon gave me charge of the table at which there sat four or five wealthy and rather aristocratic people. My ignorance of how to wait upon them was so apparent that they scolded me in such a severe manner that I became frightened and left their table, leaving them sitting

there without food. As a result of this, I was reduced from the position of waiter to that of a dish-carrier. but I determined to learn the business of waiting, and did so within a few weeks and was restored to my former position. I have had the satisfaction of being a guest in this hotel several times since I was a waiter there. At the close of the hotel season, I returned to my former home in Malden and was elected to teach the colored 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 hometown 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 toothbrush and the bath. In all my teaching, I have watched carefully the influence of the toothbrush, and I am convinced that there are a 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 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 50 years of age to learn, were in some cases very pathetic. My day and night schoolwork 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 anyone 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 was

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 Malton, I spent very much as I did the first. It was where we were, 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 colored 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 patrolers. 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 colored 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 colored 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 colored 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. Today, 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. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from slavery. Chapter 5. 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 colored 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 long in age as 60 and 70 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 labor. 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 colored 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 neighborhood 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 early days of freedom, almost every colored man who learned to read would receive a call to preach within a few days after he began reading. At my home in West Virginia, the process of being called to the ministry was a very interesting one. Usually, the call

came when the individual was sitting in church. Without warning, the one called would fall upon the floor as if struck by a bullet, and would lie there for hours, speechless and motionless. Then the news would spread all through the 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 holy ignorant men who preached or exhorted to that of those who possess 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 minister 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 formally, 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 labor 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, and perhaps, after all, that 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 could 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 period, as 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 colored 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 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 colored man who at one time had held the position of Luson. lieutenant governor of his state. But not all the colored 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, dishonorable men. Some of them, like ex-governor Bullock of Georgia, were men of high character and usefulness. Of course, the colored 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 neighbors 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 chorus my daily observation in the South convinces me will be unjust to the Negro, unjust to the white man, and unfair 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, or 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 someone 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 colored people, many of whom had recently come from the South. A large proportion of these people had been drawn to Washington because they felt 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 colored men, some of them very strong and brilliant, were in the House of Representatives at that time, and one, the Honorable B.K. Bruce was in the Senate. All this tended to make Washington an attractive place for members of the colored 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 colored people were better than 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 colored men who were not earning more than $4 a week spend $2 or more for a buggy on Sunday to ride up and down Pennsylvania Avenue in, in order that they might try to convince the world that they were worth thousands. I saw other young men who received $75 or $100 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 a employment and in poverty. Among a large class there seemed to be a dependence upon the government for every conceivable thing. The members of this class had little ambition to create

a position for themselves, but wanted the federal officials to create one for them. How many times I wished then, and have often wished since, that by some power of magic I might remove the great bulk of these people into the 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 laundering. These girls were taught by their mothers, in a rather crude way it is true, the industry of laundering. 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 favor any kind of training, whether in the languages or mathematics, that give 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 laundering and other kindred occupations. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington. This Libervox recording is in the public. Domain. Up from Slavery. Chapter 6. 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 and 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 plan 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-colored man during the days of slavery, who wanted to learn how to play on the guitar. In his desired 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 want you to be sure and give me that last 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 honor which I had not dreamed of receiving. With much care, I prepared the best address that I was capable of. I chose for my subject, The Force That Wins. As I returned to Hampton for the purpose of delivering this address,

I went over much of the same ground, now, however, covered entirely by railroad, that I had traversed nearly six years before, when I first sought entrance into Hampton Institute as a student. Now I was able to ride the whole distance in the train. I was constantly contrasting this with my first journey to Hampton. I think I may say, without seeming egotism, that it is seldom that five years have wrought such a change in the life and aspirations of an individual.

At Hampton I received a warm welcome from teachers and students. I found that during my absence from Hampton, the Institute each year had been getting closer to the real needs and conditions of our people. that the industrial teaching, as well as that of the academic department, had greatly improved. The plan of the school was not modeled 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 as being done in other communities a thousand miles away. The temptation often is to run each individual through a certain educational mold, regardless of the condition of the subjects 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 everyone,

and many kind and encouraging words were spoken to me regarding it. Soon after my return to my home in West Virginia, where I had planned to continue teaching, I was again surprised to receive a letter from General Armstrong, asking me to return to Hampton partly as a teacher and partly to pursue some supplementary studies. This was in the summer of 1879. Soon after I began my first teaching in West Virginia, I had picked out four of the brightest and most promising of my pupils, in addition to my two brothers, to whom I have already referred,

and had given them special attention with the view of having them go to Hampton. They had gone there, and in each case the teachers had found them so well prepared that they entered advanced classes. This fact, it seems, led to my being called back to Hampton as a teacher. One of the young men that I sent to Hampton in this way is now Dr. Samuel E. Courtney, a successful physician in Boston, and a member of the school board of that city. About this time, the experiment was being tried for the first time by General Armstrong of educating Indians at Hampton. Few people then had any confidence in the ability of the Indians to

receive education and to profit by it. General Armstrong was anxious to try the experiment systematically on a large scale. He secured from the reservations in the Western States over 100 wild and, for the most part, perfectly ignorant Indians, the greater proportion of whom were young men. The special work which the General desired me to do was to be a sort of housefather 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 75 Indian youths. I was the only person in the building who was not a member of their race. At first, I had a good deal of doubt about my ability to succeed. I knew that the average Indian felt himself above the white man, and of course he felt himself far above the Negro, largely on account of the fact of the Negro having submitted to slavery, a thing which the Indian would never do. The Indians in the Indian territory

owned a large number of slaves during the days of slavery. Aside from this, there was a general feeling that the attempt to educate and civilize the Red Man 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 haircut, to give up wearing their blankets and to cease smoking. But no white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly similar. 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 colored and Indian students. It was a constant delight to me to note the interests which the colored students took in trying to help the Indians in every way possible. There were a few of the colored 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 roommates, 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 welcome 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 oneself by giving the assistance. This reminds me of a conversation which I once had with the Honorable Frederick Douglass. At one time Mr. Douglas was traveling in the state of Pennsylvania, and was forced, on account of his color, 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. Douglas, and one of them said to him, I am sorry, Mr. Douglas, that you have been degraded in this manner. Mr. Douglas 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 colored 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 send him to the white people's coach. to insult him by asking him if he was a negro. The official looked him over carefully, examining his hair, eyes, nose, and hands, but still seemed puzzled. Finally, to solve the difficulty, he stooped over and peeped at the man's feet. When I saw the conductor examining the feet of the man in question, I said to myself, that will settle it. And so it did, for the trainman promptly decided that the passenger was a negro, and let him remain where he was. I congratulated myself that my race was fortunate in not losing one of its members. My experience has been that the time to test a true gentleman is to observe him

when he is in contact with individuals of a race that is less fortunate than his own. This is illustrated in no better way than by observing the conduct of the old-school type of southern gentleman when he is in contact with his former slaves or their descendants. An example of what I mean is shown in a story told of George Washington, who, meeting a colored man in the road once, who politely lifted his hat, lifted his own in return. Some of his white friends who saw the incident criticized Washington for his action. In reply to their criticism, George Washington said, Do you suppose that I am going to permit a poor, ignorant, colored 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 cast in a 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 color 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 traveling 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 colored 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 days school, after they had spent one or two years in the night school. In this way, they would obtain a start in their books and a knowledge of some trade or industry, in addition to the other far-reaching benefits of the institution. General Armstrong asked me to take charge of the night school, and I did so. At the beginning of this school there were about twelve strong, earnest men and women who entered the class. During the day, the greater part of the young men worked in the school's sawmill, and the young women worked in the laundry. The work was not easy in either place,

but in all my teaching I never taught pupils who gave me 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 25 students in attendance. I have followed the course of many of these 25 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 12 students, now numbers between 3 and 400, and is one of the permanent and most important features of the institution. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from slavery. Chapter 7. Early Days at Tuskegee. During the time that I had charge of the Indians and the Natives, night school at Hampton, I pursued some studies myself, under the direction of the instructors there.

One of these instructors was the Reverend Dr. H. B. Fressel, 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 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 someone to take charge of what was to be a normal school for the colored people in the little town of Tuskegee in that state. These gentlemen seemed to take it for granted that no colored 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 colored 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. Sometime 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 2,000 inhabitants, nearly one half of whom were colored. It was in what was known as the Black Belt of the South. In the county in which Tuskegee is situated, the colored people outnumbered the whites by about three to one. In some of the adjoining and nearby counties the proportion was not far from

six colored persons to one white. I have often been asked to define the term black belt. So far as I can learn, the term was first used to designate a part of the country which was distinguished by the color 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 the part of the country, 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

center 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 colored people were ignorant, they had not, as a rule, degraded and weakened their bodies by vices, such as are common to the lower classes 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 the time the only hardware store in the town, was owned and operated jointly by a colored man and a white man.

This co-partnership continued until the death of the white partner. I found that about a year previous to my going to Tuskegee, some of the colored 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 legislator had complied with to the extent of granting an annual appropriation of $2,000. 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 colored people were overjoyed, and were constantly offering their services in any way 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 colored 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 colored 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 bit of them. 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 want you to be sure to vote just like we votes. We can't read the newspapers very much, but we knows how to vote, and we wants you to vote just like we votes. He added, we watches the white man, and we keeps watching the white man until we finds out which way to white man's going to vote. And when we finds out which way to white man's going to vote, then we vote exactly the other way. Then we know 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 traveling through Alabama examining into the actual life of the people, especially in the court districts, and in getting the school advertised among the class of people that I wanted to have attended. The most of my traveling was done over the country roads, with a mule in a cart or a mule in 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 cornbread. At times I have eaten in cabins where they had only cornbread and black-eyed peas cooked in plain water.

The people seemed to have no other idea than to live on this fat meat and cornbread. The meat and the meal of which the bread was made, having been bought at a high price at a store in town, notwithstanding the fact that the land all about the cabin homes could easily have been made to produce nearly every kind of garden vegetable that is raised anywhere in the country. Their one object seemed to be to plant nothing but cotton, and in many cases, cotton was planted up to the very door of the cabin. In these cabin homes I often found sewing machines which had been bought, or were being bought, on installments, frequently at a cost of as much as $60, or showy clocks for which the occupants

of the cabins had paid $12 or $14. I remembered that on one occasion, but 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. On the opposite corner of that same cabin was an organ, for which the people told me they were paying $60 in monthly installments. One fork and a $60 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 one 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 an unusual proceeding, and was done in my honor. 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 the meat was scarce, it was rarely that the children who were not old enough or strong enough to work in the fields would have the luxury of meat. The breakfast over, and with practically no attention given to the house, the whole family would, as a general thing, proceed to the cotton field.

Every child that was large enough to carry a hoe was put to work, and the baby, for usually there was at least one baby, would be laid down at the end of the cotton row, so that its mother could give it a certain amount of attention when she had finished chopping her row. The noon meal and the supper were taken in much the same way as the breakfast. All the days of the family would be spent after much this same routine, except Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday, the whole family would spend at least half a day, and often a whole day, in town. The idea in going to town was, I suppose, to do shopping, but all the shopping that the whole family had money for could have been attended to in ten minutes by one person. Still, the whole family remained in town for most of the day, spending the greater part of the time in standing on the streets, the women too often sitting about somewhere smoking or dipping snuff. Sunday was usually spent in going to some big meeting. With few exceptions, I found that the crops were mortgaged in the counties where I went, and that most of the colored 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 purpose 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 recalled 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 colored 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. Alabama in 1845. I asked him how many were sold at the same time. He said, There were five of us, myself and brother and three mules. In giving all these descriptions of what I saw during my month of travel in the country around Tuskegee, I wish my readers to keep in mind the fact that there were many encouraging exceptions to the conditions which I have described. I have stated in such plain words what I saw, mainly for the reason that later I want to emphasize the encouraging changes that have taken place in the community, not wholly by the work of the Tuskegee School, but by that of other institutions as well.

End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 From Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. This Liber Vox recording is in the public domain. Up from Slavery Chapter 8. Teaching School in a Stable and a Henhouse 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 worthwhile 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 colored 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 colored, 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 disfavor upon the project. They questioned its value to the colored 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 eyeglasses, a showy walking stick, kid gloves, fancy boots, and whatnot. 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 colored man. In the midst of all the difficulties which I encountered in getting the little school started,

and since then, through a period of 19 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 little experience in dealing with matters pertaining to education. Mr. Adams was a mechanic, and had learned the trades of shoe-making,

harness-making, and tinsmithing during the days of slavery. He had never been to school a day in his life, but in some way 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 and 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 today into any southern town and ask for the leading and most reliable colored 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, 30 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 15 years of age, and who had previously received some education. The greater part of the 30 were public school teachers, and some of them were nearly 40 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 studied, and how many high-sounding subjects some of them claimed to have mastered. The bigger the book and the longer the name of the subject, the prouder they felt of their accomplishment. Some had studied Latin and one or two Greek. This they thought entitled them to special distinction. In fact, one of the saddest things I saw

during the month of travel which I have described was a young man who had attended some high school, sitting down in a one-room cabin with grease on his clothing, filth all around him, and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in studying a French grammar. The students who came first seemed to be fond of memorizing long and complicated rules in grammar and mathematics, but had little thought or knowledge of applying these rules to their everyday affairs of their life. One subject which they'd like 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 anyone in the neighborhood 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 schoolteachers. 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 explained 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. Everyone 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, Tennessee, that perhaps has ever occurred in the South. When she heard of this, she at once telegraphed the mayor of Memphis, offering her services as a yellow fever nurse, although she had never had the disease. Miss Davidson's experience in the South showed her that the people needed something more than mere book learning. She heard of the Hampton's 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 Hemingway of Boston was attracted to her

rare ability. Through Mrs. Hemingway's kindness and generosity, Miss Davidson, after graduating at Hampton, received an opportunity to complete a two-year's course of training at the Massachusetts State Normal School at Framingham. Before she went to Framingham, someone suggested to Miss. Davidson that, since she was so very light in color, she might find it more comfortable not to be known as a colored woman in this school in Massachusetts. She at once replied that under no circumstances and for no considerations would she consent to deceive anyone 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 equaled. No single individual did more toward laying the foundations of the Tuskegee Institute so as to ensure the successful work that has been done there than Olivia A. Davidson. Miss Davidson and I began consulting as to the future of the school from the first. The students were making progress in learning books and in developing their minds, but in 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 over 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 85% of the colored people in the Gulf states depended upon agriculture for their living. Since this was true, we wanted to be careful not to educate our students out of sympathy with agricultural life, so that they would be attracted from the country to the cities and yield to the temptation of trying to live by their wits. We wanted to give them such an education as would fit a large proportion of them to be teachers, and at the same time caused them to return to the plantation districts and show the people there how to put new energy and new ideas into farming, as well as into the intellectual and moral and religious life of the people. All these ideas and needs crowded themselves upon us with a seriousness

that seemed well-nigh overwhelming. What were we to do? We had only the little old shanty, and the abandoned church, which the good-colored 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 traveled through the country districts, the more we saw that our efforts were reaching, to only a partial degree, the actual needs of the people whom we wanted to lift up through the medium of the students whom we should educate and send out as leaders. The more we talked with the students, who were then coming to us from several parts of the state, the more we found that the chief ambition

among a large proportion of them was to get an education so that they would not have to work any longer with their hands. This is illustrated by a story told of a colored man in Alabama, who, one hot day in July, when he was at work in a cotton field, suddenly stopped, and, looking toward the sky, said, "'Oh, Lord, the cotton am so grassy, the work am so hard, and the son am so hot did I believe this darky am called to preach. About three months after the opening of the school, and at the time when we were in the greatest anxiety about our work, there came into the market for sale an old and abandoned plantation, which was situated about a mile from the town of Tuskegee. The mansion house, or big house,

as it would have been called, which had been occupied by the owners during slavery, had been burned. After making a careful examination of 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 was very little, only $500, 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 can make a payment of $250 down, with the understanding that the remaining $250 must be paid within a year. Although $500 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 $250 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 had never had in my possession so much money,

as $100 at a time, and the loan which I had asked General Marsha for seemed a tremendously large sum to me. The fact of my being responsible for the repaying of such a large amount of money weighed very heavily upon me. I lost no time in getting ready to move the school on to the new farm. At the time we occupied the place, there were standing upon it a cabin, formerly used as a dining-room, an old kitchen, a stable, and an old hen-house. Within a few weeks, weeks, we had all of these structures in use. The stable was repaired and used as a recitation room, and very presently the henhouse was utilized for the same purpose. I recall that one morning, when I told an old colored 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 henhouse 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 surely ain't Guan clean out to Henhouse into daytime. 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 it very kindly. It was hard for them to see the connection between clearing land and an education. Besides, many of them have 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 20 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 canvas among the white and colored 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 colored people

were glad to give anything that they could spare. But I want to add that Miss. Mrs. Davidson did not apply to a single white family, so far as I now remember, that failed to donate something, and in many ways the white families showed their interest in the school. Several of these festivals were held, and quite a little sum of money was raised. A canvas was also made among the people of both races for direct gifts of money, and most of those applied to give small sums. It was often pathetic to note the gifts of the older colored people, most of whom had spent their best days in slavery. Sometimes they would give five cents, sometimes 25 cents. Sometimes the

contribution was a quilt, or a quantity of sugar cane. I recall one old colored woman who was about 70 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. Washington, God knows I spent the best days of my life in slavery. God knows I's ignorant and poor. But she added, I knows what you and Miss Davidson is trying to do. I knows who is trying to make better men and better women for the colored race. I ain't got no money, but I want you to take these six eggs, what I's been saving up,

and I want you to put these six eggs into the education of these boys and 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. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington. This Liber Vox recording is in the public domain. Up from Slavery. Chapter 9. anxious days and sleepless nights.

The coming of Christmas, that first year of our residents 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 four-day visits of scores of children wrapping at our doors, asking for Christmas gifts, Christmas 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 today.

During the days of slavery, it was a custom quite generally observed throughout all the southern states to give the colored people a week of holiday at Christmas, or to allow the holiday to continue as long as the U-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 colored people in and around Tuskegee dropped work the day before Christmas, and that it was difficult for anyone 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 side of. During this first Christmas vacation, I went some distance from the town to visit the people on one of the large plantations. In their poverty and ignorance, it was pathetic to see their attempts to get joy out of the season that in most parts of the country is so sacred and so dear to the heart. In one cabin I noticed that all that the five children had to remind them of the coming of Christ was a single bunch of firecrackers, which they had divided among them. In another cabin, where there were at least a half-dozen persons, they had only ten cents

worth of ginger cakes, which had been bought in the store the day before. In another family, they had only a few pieces of sugar-cane. 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-colored 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 Savior, 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 colored 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 labor, 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 the 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 comforts 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 colored woman, who was about 75 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 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 favorable. 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 neighbor, 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 $250 to General Marshall, and within two months more, we had secured the entire $500, and had received a deed of the 100 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 colored people in the town of Tuskegee. The most of this money was obtained by holding festivals and concerts and from small individual donations. Our next effort was in the direction of increasing the cultivation of the land, so as to secure some return from it, and at the same time give the students training in agriculture. All the industries at Tuskegee have been started in natural and logical order, growing out of the needs of a community settlement. We began with farming, because we wanted something to eat. Many of the students also were able to remain in school but a few weeks at a time,

because they had so little money with which to pay their board. Thus another object, which made it desirable to get an industrial system started, was in order to make it available as a means of helping the students to earn money enough, so that they might be able to remain in school during the nine-month session of the school year. The first animal that the school came into possession of was an old-blanked, 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 200 horses, Colts, mules, cows, calves, and oxen, and about 700 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 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 on the subject, we finally had the plans drawn for a building that was estimated to cost about $6,000. 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 colored people in and near Tuskegee. I think I never saw a community of people so happy over anything as were the colored people over the prospect of this new building. One day, when we were holding a meeting to secure funds for its erection, an old antebellum colored man came a distance of twelve miles and brought in his ox-cart a large hog. When the meeting was in progress, he rose in the midst of the company and said that he had no money which he could give, but 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 we could in Tuskegee, Miss Davidson decided to go north for the purpose of securing additional funds. Four 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 who 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 $50. For some time before our marriage, and also after it, Miss Davidson kept up the work of securing money in the north and in the south by interesting people by personal visits and through correspondence. At the same time, she kept in close touch with the work at Tuskegee, as Lady Principal and Classroom Teacher. In addition to this, she worked among the older people in and near Tuskegee

and taught a Sunday school class in the town. She was never very strong, but never seemed happy unless she was giving all of her strength to the cause which she loved. Often at night, after spending the day in going from door to door trying to interest persons in the work at Tuskegee, she would be so exhausted that she could not undress herself. A lady upon whom she had 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 parlor, 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, New York, 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 $400. $400. 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 $400. I could relate many instances of almost the same character. This $400 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 lady sent us $6,000. Words cannot describe our surprise or the encouragement that the gift brought to us. Perhaps I might add here that for 14 years these same friends had sent us $6,000 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 educated and not to work. Gradually, though, I noted with satisfaction that a sentiment in favor 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 cornerstone. When it is considered that the laying of this cornerstone took place in the heart of the South, in the black belt, in the center of that part of our country that was most devoted to slavery, that at that time slavery had been abolished only about 16 years, that only 16 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 in the world where it could have taken place. The principal address was delivered by the Honorable Wadi Thompson, the Superintendent of Education for the county. About the cornerstone 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 cornerstone 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. come from, can properly appreciate the difficulties under which we labored.

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've 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 Fanny N. Smith of Malden, West Virginia. We began keeping house in Tuskegee early in the fall. This made a home for our teachers, who now had been increased to four in number. My wife was also a graduate of the Hampton Institute. After earnest and constant work in the interests of the school, together with her housekeeping duties, my wife passed away in May 18. 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. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Up From Slavery by Booker Washington. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from slavery. Chapter 10.

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 labor, 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 labor, but beauty and dignity. Would be taught, in fact, how to lift labor up from mere drudgery and toil, and will 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, horsepower, assist them in their labor. At first, many advised against the experiment, of having the buildings erected by the labor 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 we 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 19 years' existence of the Tuskegee School, the plan of having the buildings erected by student labor has been adhered to. In this time, 40 buildings, counting small and large, have been built, and all except four are almost wholly the product of student labor. As an additional result, hundreds of men are now scattered throughout the South who receive 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 lead-pencil marks or by the cuts of a jackknife. I have heard an old stute 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 brick-making. 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 and 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 labor 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 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 burrower of the burrower of the burrowered. of the bricks. After a good deal of effort, we molded about 25,000 bricks and put them into a kiln to be burned. This kiln turned out to be a failure, because it was not properly constructed or properly burned. We began at once, however, on a second kiln. This, for some reason, also proved a failure. The failure of this kiln made it still more difficult to get the students to take part in the work. Several of the teachers, however, who have been trained in the Industries at Hampton, volunteered their services, and in some way we succeeded in getting a third

kiln ready for burning. The burning of a kiln required about a week. Toward the latter part of the week, when it seemed as if we were going to have a good many thousand bricks in a few hours, in the middle of the night the kiln fell. For the third time, we had failed. The failure of this last kiln left me without a single dollar with which to make another experiment. Most of the teachers advised the abandoning of the effort to make bricks. In the midst of my troubles, I thought of a watch which had come into my possession years before. I took 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 $15, with which to renew the brick-making experiment. I returned to Tuskegee,

and with the help of the $15, 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 1,000 of first-class bricks, of a quality suitable to be sold in any market. Aside from this, scores of young men have mastered the brick-making 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 neighborhood 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 neighborhood 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 is something to contribute to the well-being of the community and to 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 color of skin merit is found.

I have found, too, that it is the visible, the tangible, that goes along ways in softening prejudices. The actual site 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. A site 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 once 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 labor 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 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 150, 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 attention. And not make any attention. to get money, for he was quite sure that I would never get more than enough to pay my traveling expenses. I thanked him for his advice and proceeded on my journey. The first place I went to in the North was Northampton, Massachusetts, where I spent nearly a half-day in looking for a colored 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 someone to preach the Thanksgiving sermon, I found one of the rarest men that it has ever been my privilege to know. This was the Reverend Robert C. Bedford, a white man from Wisconsin, who was then pastor of a little colored congregational church in Montgomery, Alabama. Before going to Montgomery to look for someone 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 colored people there had ever observed, and what a deep interest they manifested in it. The site 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 18 years. During this time he has borne the school upon his heart day and night, 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. 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 17 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 can 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. Anyone seeing the place now would never believe it was once used for a dining room. The most serious problem, though, was to get the boarding department started off in running order, with nothing to do with in the way of furniture, and with no money with which to buy anything. The merchants in the town would let us have what food we wanted on credit. In fact, in those earlier years I was constantly embarrassed because people seemed to have more faith in me than I had in myself. It was pretty hard to cook, however, without stoves, and awkward to eat without dishes. At first, the cooking was done out of doors, in the old-fashioned, primitive style, in pots and

skillets placed over a fire. Some of the carpenter's benches have been used in the construction of the building were utilized for tables. As for dishes, there were too few to make it worthwhile 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 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 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 oneself. 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 table-cloths 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. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 of Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington This Libervox Recordings in the Public Domain Up from Slavery Chapter 11 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 $250 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. Mackey, the teacher who had given me the sweeping examination when I entered Hampton, came to see us, and still later General Armstrong himself came.

At the time of the visits of these Hampton friends, the number of teachers at Tuskegee had increased considerably, and the most of the new teachers were graduates of the Hampton Institute. We gave our Hampton friends, especially General Armstrong, a cordial welcome. They were all surprised and pleased at the rapid progress that the school had made within so short a time. The colored 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 referred 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 to the White South, and was interested in helping only the colored 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 color 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 Negro's ballot is not wholly in the wrong done to the Negro, but in the permanent injury to the morals of the white man. The wrong to the Negro is temporary, but to the morals of the white man, the injury is permanent. I have noted time and time again that when an individual perjures himself in order to break the force of the black man's ballot, he soon learns to practice dishonesty in other relations of life,

not only where the Negro is concerned, but equally so where a white man is concerned. The white man who begins by cheating a negro usually ends by cheating a white man. The white man who begins to break the law by lynching a negro soon yields to the temptation to lynch a white man. All this, it seems to me, makes it important that the whole nation lend a hand in trying to lift the burden of ignorance from the South. Another thing that is becoming more apparent each year in the development of education in the South is the influence of General Armstrong's idea of education,

and this not upon the blacks alone, but upon the whites also. At the present time, there is almost no southern state that is not putting forth efforts in the direction of securing industrial education for its white boys and girls, and in most cases it is easy to trace the history of these efforts back to General Armstrong. Soon after the opening of our humble boarding department, students began coming to us in still larger numbers. For weeks we not only had to contend with the difficult of providing board, with no money, but also with that of providing sleeping accommodations.

For this purpose, we rented a number of cabins near the school. These cabins were in a dilapidated condition, and during the winter months the students who occupied them necessarily suffered from the cold. We charged the students $8 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 $50 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 bedclothes 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 that, I found that. 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 colored 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 19 years of my experience at Tuskegee,

I never, either by word or act, have been treated with disrespect by any student or officer connected with the institution. On the other hand, I am constantly embarrassed by the many acts of thoughtful kindness. The students do not seem to want to see me carry a large book or a satchel or any kind of a burden through the grounds. In such cases, more than one always offers to relieve me.

I almost never go out of my office when the rain is falling that some student does not come to my side with an umbrella and ask to be allowed to hold it over me. While writing upon this subject, it is a pleasure for me to add that, in all my contact with the white people of the South, I have never received a single personal insult. The white people in and near Tuskegee, to an especial degree,

seemed 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 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 for much travel, I rode in a Pullman sleeper. When I went into the car, I found there two ladies from Boston whom I knew well. These good ladies were perfectly ignorant, it seems, of the customs of the South, and in the goodness of their hearts insisted that I take a seat with them in their section. After some hesitation, I consent, 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 am. 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 advisor, 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 criticizing 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 labor 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 bedstead to be constructed, or at their sleeping without any kind of 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, when I went into the student's 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 nearby. 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 student's 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 in 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 toothbrush. The Gospel of the toothbrush. The Gospel of the

toothbrush, 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 toothbrush. Several times in recent years, students have come to us who brought with them almost no other article except a toothbrush. 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 toothbrush 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 toothbrushes, 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 toothbrush 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 toothbrush 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 the meals. This lesson we began teaching before we had anything in the shape of a bathhouse. Most of the students came from plantation districts, and often we had to teach them how to sleep at night, that is, weathered 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 nightgown 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 in special, as it is every night, not one button is found to be missing. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington.

This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from slavery. Chapter 12. 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, continue 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 a preliminary sketch of the needed building made, we found that it would cost about $10,000. 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 honor of the state in which we were laboring. Again, Miss Davidson began making efforts to enlist the interest and help of the colored 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 traveling 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 quartet 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 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 center of unselfish power and the working out of the whole Southern problem. In regard to the addresses which I was to make in the North, I recall just one piece of advice which the General gave me. He said, Give them an idea for every word. I think it would be hard to improve upon this advice, and it might be made to apply to all public speaking. From that time to the present, I have always tried to keep his advice in mind.

Meetings were held in New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, and other large cities, and at all of these meetings, General Armstrong pleaded, together with myself, for help not for Hampton, but for Tuskegee. At these meetings, and a special 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 of these respects, the meetings proved successful. After that kindly introduction, I began going north alone to secure funds. During the last 15 years, I have been compelled to spend a large portion of my time away from a 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 but two rules. First, always 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 in

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 and 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 to more 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 always 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 to Skegging, 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 plain 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 as check for a generous sum, and then, before I had had the 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 honor 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 Christ-like 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. money and opportunity for help. In the early years of the Tuskegee School, I walked the streets or traveled 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 and 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 someone who I had had little idea would give at all. I recalled 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 Stanford, Connecticut, might become interested in our efforts at Tuskegee if our conditions and needs were presented to him. On an unusually cold and stormy day, I walked the two miles to see him.

After some difficulty, I succeeded in securing an interview with him. He listened with some degree of interest to what I had to say, but did not give me any of 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. Inclosed, I send you a New York draft for $10,000, 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 would 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 $10,000, under all these circumstances, partially lifted a burden that had been pressing down upon me for day. 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 $50,000 toward our endowment fund.

Between these two gifts, there were others of generous proportions which came every year from both Mr. and Mrs. Huntingdon. Some people may say that it was Tuskegee's good luck that brought to us this gift of $50,000. 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 time, first two dollars, I did not blame him for not giving me more, but made of 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 25-cent piece in the middle of the street track.

I not only had this 25-cent 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 Reverend 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 arbor, 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 and 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 traveling 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 $20,000 for 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 have 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 West 51st Street, 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 1,100 students, 86 officers and instructors, together with their families, and about 200 colored 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 to 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 $20,000, 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 Christ-like work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last 35 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 Endeavor Societies, and the Missionary Society. 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 25 cents, up to $10.

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 $2,000 to $3,000. I might add that still later, it increased this sum to $4,500 a year. The effort to secure this increase was led by the Honorable M. F. Foster, the member of the legislature from Tuskegee. Second, we received $1,000 from the John F. Slater Fund. Our work seemed to pleased the trustees of this fund, as they soon began increasing their annual grant. This has been added from time to time, until at present, we receive $11,000 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 $500, but it has since been increased to $1,500. 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 Honorable 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 men in the country who is more deeply interested in the highest welfare of the Negro than Dr. Curry,

or one who is more free from race prejudice. He enjoys the unique distinction of possessing, to an equal degree, the confidence of the black man and the southern white man. I shall never forget the first time I met him. It was in Richmond, Virginia, 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. Jessop, the treasurer of the Slater Fund, I referred to because I know of no men of wealth and large and complicated business responsibilities who gives not only money but his time and thought to the subject of the proper method of elevating the Negro to the extent that is true of Mr. Jessop. 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. End of Chapter 12. Chapter 13 of Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from Slavery Chapter 13 2,000 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 re-year-old. 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 their school, until there are at present 457 students enrolled in it alone. There could hardly be a more severe test of a student's worth than this branch of the Institute's work. It is largely because it furnishes such a good opportunity to test the backbone of a student that I place such a high value upon our night school. Anyone who is willing to work ten hours a day at the brickyard

or in the laundry through one or two years in order that he or she may have the privilege of studying academic branch. 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 labor. 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 obtain 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 relationship the religious and spiritual side. The school is strictly undenominational, but it is thoroughly Christian, and the spiritual training of the students is not neglected. Our preaching service, prayer meetings, Sunday school, Christian Endeavor 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 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 Talia Farrow and Ernest Davidson. The older of these, Booker, has already mastered the Brickmaster'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 Honorable 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, Wisconsin. 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 4,000 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 of the South roundly abused, but were pleasantly surprised to find that there was no word of abuse in my address. On the contrary, the South was given credit for all the praiseworthy things that it had done. A white lady, who was teacher in a college in Tuskegee, wrote back to the local paper that she was gratified, as well as surprised, to note the credit which I gave the white people of Tuskegee for their help in getting the school started. This address at Madison was the first

that I had delivered that in any large measure dealt with the general problem of the races. Those who heard it seemed to be pleased with what I said, and with the general position that I took. When I first came to Tuskegee, I determined that I would make it my home, that I would take as much pride in the right actions of the people of the town as any white man could do, and that I would, at the same time, deplore the wrongdoing 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 criticize the South, when criticism is necessary, is in the South, not in Boston. A Boston man who came to Alabama to criticize Boston would not affect 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 honorable 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 someone 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 country was a 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 color of his skin, and that in proportion as the Negro learned to produce what other people wanted and must have, in the same proportion he would be respected. I spoke of an instance where one of our graduates had produced 266 bushels of sweet potatoes from an acre of of ground, in a community where the average production had been only 49 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 neighborhood respected him, and came to him for ideas regarding the raising of sweet potatoes. These white farmers honored 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, confined him for all time to farm life, to the production of the best and the most sweet potatoes, but that if he succeeded in this line of industry, he could lay the foundations upon which his children and grandchildren could grow to higher and more

important things in life. Such in brief were some of the views I advocated in this first address dealing with the broad question of the relations of the two races, and since that time I have not found any reason for changing my views on any important point. In my early life, I used to cherish a feeling of ill-will toward anyone 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 anyone advocating measures that are meant to curtailing, 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 open 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, Georgia. 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 30 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 worthwhile 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 are 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 favor 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 for my own people and from Northern whites. I gave as much time to these addresses, and 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 colored 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, Georgia, 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 25 of the most prominent. 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 colored 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 try to emphasize the fact that while the Negro should not be deprived by unfair means of the franchise, political agitation alone would not save him. And that back of the ballot he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character. and that no race without these elements could permanently succeed.

I said that in granting the appropriation, Congress could do something that would prove to be of real and lasting value to both races, and that it was the first great opportunity of the kind that had been presented since the close of the Civil War. I spoke for 15 or 20 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 favorable 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 colored 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 the time demanded my time and strength. Largely at my suggestion, Mr. I. Garland-Penn of Lynchburg, Virginia, was selected to be 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 program for the opening exercises. In the discussion from day to day of the various features of this program, 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 have been asked to take such a prominent part of the 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 anyone 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 to me as a slave. 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 and 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. 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 18th 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 schoolwork, 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 16th of September, the day before I was to start for Atlanta, so many of the Tuskegee teachers expressed a desire to hear my address, and

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 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, tomorrow, you'll have before you the northern whites, the southern whites, and the Negroes altogether. 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 colored 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 colored man nearby. "'That's the man of my race what's going to make a speech at the exposition tomorrow. I show going 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 a special 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 colored citizens and 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 colored people in the procession were properly placed and properly treated. The procession was about three hours in reaching the exposition grounds, and during all of this time the sun was shining down upon us disagreeably hot. When we reached the grounds, the heat, together with my nervous anxiety, made me feel as if I were about ready to collapse, and to feel that my address was not going to be a success. When I entered the audience room, I found it packed with humanity from bottom to top, and there were thousands outside who could not get in.

The room was very large and well suited to public speaking. When I entered the room, there were vigorous cheers from the colored 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. End of Chapter 13. Chapter 14 From Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington.

This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from Slavery Chapter 14 The Atlanta Exposition Address The Atlanta Exposition at which I have 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 John, Georgia, a dedicatory ode by Albert Howell Jr., and addresses by the President of the Exposition and Mrs. Joseph Thompson, the president of the Women's Board, Governor Bullock introduced me with the words, We have with us today a representative of Negro Enterprise and Negro Civilization. When I rose to speak, there was considerable cheering, especially from the colored 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. Ignorate 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 this 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,' came up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, "'Cast down your bucket where you are!' And a third and a fourth signal for water was answered.

"'Cast down your bucket where you are!' The captain of the distressed vessel, at last, heating 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 neighbor, 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 least 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 labor 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 gougas of life and the useful. No race can process. No race can process. to 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 met the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labor wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, built your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the boughs 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 that the world has seen. As we approved 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 stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense 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 defense 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, efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort, or means so invested, will pay a thousand percent 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 law 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 30 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 drugstores 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 extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle, rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world

is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house. In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us more hope and encouragement and drawn us so near to you of the white race as this opportunity offered by the exposition. And here, bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles

of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledged 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, a forest, of mine, a factory, letters and art, much good will come. Yet, far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good. That, let us pray God, will come in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice,

in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, this, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth. The first thing 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 onto 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 complementary 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 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 equaled. I very soon began receiving all kinds of propositions from lecture Bureau's and editors of magazines and papers to take the lecture platform and to write articles. One lecture bureau offered me $50,000 or $200 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 Honorable Grover Cleveland. I received from him the following autograph reply. Gray Gables, Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, October 6, 1895, Booker T. Washington, Esquire. My dear sir, I thank you for sending 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 colored 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 colored 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 colored people. He seemed to be as careful to shake hands with some colored ante, clad partially in rags, and to take as much pleasure in doing so, as if he were greeting some millionaire. Many of the colored 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 a 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 color 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 color 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 someone else more happy and more useful. The colored people and the colored 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 colored people began reading the speech and 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 colored ministers in the South, as based upon my observations. I wrote the letter, giving the exact facts as I conceive 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 a journey to pass a resolution condemning me, or calling upon me to retract or modify what I had said. Many of these organizations went so far in their resolutions as to advise parents to cease sending their children to Tuskegee. One association even appointed a missionary whose duty it was to warn the people against sending their children to Tuskegee. This missionary had a son in the

school, and I noticed that whatever the missionary might have said or done with regard to others, he was careful not to take his son away from the institution. Many of the colored papers, especially those that were the organs of religious bodies, joined in the general chorus of condemnation or demands for retraction. During the whole time of the excitement, and through all the criticism, I did not utter a word of explanation or retraction. I knew that I was right, and that time and the sober second thought of the people would vindicate me.

It was not long before the bishops and other church leaders began to make 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 that. 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 of among the clergymen. The improvements 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, convinced 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's speech, I received the letter which I give below from Dr. Gilman, the President of Johns Hopkins University, who have been made chairman of the judges of award in connection with the Atlanta Exposition. John's 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 colored schools, but also upon those of the white schools. I accepted the position, and spent a month in Atlanta in performing of the duties which it entailed. The Board of Jurors was a large one, containing an 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 labors 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 gave 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 entitled 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 the public platform outside the South that a Negro be given a place on the opening program, and that a Negro be placed upon the board of jurors of a ward. 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 color 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 overnight, Gordvine 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 be more and more influenced by those of intelligence and character who are his next-door neighbors. I know colored 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 is a law. 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 interests 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.

End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from Slavery Chapter 15 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, autographed the following account to the New York world. Atlanta, September 18. While President Cleveland was waiting at Grey Gables today 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 epic in the history of the South, and a body of Negro troops marched in a procession

with the citizen's soldiery of Georgia and Louisiana. The whole city is thrilling tonight 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 colored people in Tuskegee, Alabama, 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, high eyes. Again the music changed, this time to Yankee Doodle and the clamor 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 sinew stood out on his bronze neck, and his muscular right arm swung high in the air, with a lead pencil grasped in the clenched brown fist. His big feet were planted squarely, with the heels together and the toes turned out. His voice rang out clear and true, and he paused impressively as he made each point. Within ten minutes, the multitude was in an uproar of enthusiasm.

Handkerchiefs were waved, 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, bony 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 read

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 lifework 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, Wisconsin. An hour before the time set for me to speak, a fierce snowstorm 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 if I 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 threat 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 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 someone 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 and 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'd like best to talk to, I would put at the top of the list an organization of strong, wide-awake, businessmen, such, for example, as is founded 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 businessmen 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 14-course dinner, every minute of the time feeling sure that his speech is going to prove a dismal failure and disappointment. I rarely take a time to the 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 cornbread 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 anyone 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 this syrup was usually about two tablespoonfuls, and those two spoonfuls of molasses were much more enjoyable to me than as a fourteen-course dinner after which I am to speak. Next to a company of businessmen, 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 amends and dots to truth that comes spontaneously from the colored 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... that this is the first time that they have ever called a Negro Mr. When speaking directly in the interests of the Tuskegee Institute, I usually arrange, sometime in advance, a series of meetings in important centers. This takes me before churches, Sunday schools, Christian endeavor 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. Jessop 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 colored people in the large centers 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 colored people in large numbers, but by the

white people. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example, there was present at the mass meeting an audience of not less than 3,000 persons, and I was informed that 800 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 course. old, 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, 90% 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 came into contact with the race for 20 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 is likely will ever be brought together in the country again. The late Honorable 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 Corps and Colonel of yesterday's great noon meeting in honor 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 Walcott. To receive an honorary degree from the first year, the oldest university in the land, and this for the wise leadership of his people. When Mr. Washington rose in the flag-filled, enthusiasm-warmed, patriotic, and glowing atmosphere of Music Hall, people felt keenly that here was the civic justification of the old abolition spirit of Massachusetts. In his person, the proof of her ancient and indomitable faith, in his strong thought and rich oratory, the crown and glory of the old war days of suffer 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 in the persons of hundreds of her best citizens, men and women whose names and lives stand for the virtues that make for honorable 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 54th 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 Walcott had made his short, memorable speech, saying, Fort Wagner marked an epic 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 colored soldiers on the platform, to the color-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 54th, who, with empty sleeve and wanting leg, have honored 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 Walcott, as well as 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, Massachusetts, the brave colored officer, who was the color-bearer at Fort Wagner and held the American flag. In spite of the fact that a large part of his regiment was killed, he escaped, and exclaimed, after the battle was over, the old flag never touched. The 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 colored 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 equal 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 16,000 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 anyone 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 Attacks 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 colored troops at Port Hudson and Fort's 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 of 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. bowed his acknowledgments. At that, the enthusiasm broke out again, and the demonstration was almost indescribable. One portion of my address at Chicago seemed to have been misunderstood by

the Southern Press, and some of the Southern papers took occasion to criticize 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, Alabama, 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 17 years of work in the heart of the South had not been explanation enough, I did not see how words could explain. I said, 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 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 said someone was anxious to see me. Thinking that it must be something very important, I dressed haste of 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 science 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 86. 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's 17 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, centers 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 dairy, what the bill of fare for the teachers and students is, whether a certain kind of meat is boiled or baked, and whether certain vegetables served in the dining-room

were bought from a store or procured from our own farm. Human nature I find to be very much the same, the world over, and it is sometimes not hard to yield to the temptation to go to a barrel of rice that has come from the store, with the grain all prepared to go in the pot, rather than to take the time and trouble to go to the field and dig and wash one's own sweet potatoes, which might be prepared in a manner to take the place of the rice. I am often asked how, in the midst of so much work, a large part of which is 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 nerve steady and strong, prepared for great efforts, and prepared for disappointments and trying positions. As far as I can, I make it a rule to plan for each day's work, not merely to go through with the same routine of daily duties, but to get rid of the routine work as early in the day as possible, and then to enter upon some new or advance work. I make it a rule to clear my desk every day before leaving my office, of all correspondence and memoranda, so that on the morrow I can begin a new day of work. I make it a rule never to let my work drive me, but to so master it and keep it in such

complete control and to keep so far ahead of it that I will be the master instead of the servant. There is a physical and mental and spiritual enjoyment that comes from a consciousness of being the absolute master of one's work in all its details, that is very satisfactory and inspiring. My experience teaches me that if one learns to follow this plan, he gets a freshness of body and vigor of mind out of work that goes a long way toward keeping him strong and healthy. I believe that when one can grow to the point where he loves his work, this gives him a kind of strength that is most valuable. When I begin my work in the morning, I expect to have a successful and pleasant day of it,

but at the same time I prepare myself for unpleasant and unexpected hard places. I prepare myself to hear that one of our school buildings is on fire, or has burned, or that some disagreeable accident has occurred, or that someone has abused me in a public address or printed article for something that I have done or admitted to do, or for something that he had heard that I had said, probably something that I had never thought of saying. In 19 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 everyone 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 15 or 20 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 appeal 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 everyone's lips. The kind of reading that I have the greatest fondness for is biography. I'd 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. Tegi. 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 work,

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 art. artificial or an imitation, but the real thing. When I can leave my office in time so that I can spend 30 or 40 minutes in spating 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 favorite 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 could care for games now if I had had any time in my youth to give to them, but that was not possible. End of Chapter 15. Chapter 16 of Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington.

This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from slavery. Chapter 16 Europe In 1893 I was married to Miss Margaret James Murray, a native of Mississippi, and a graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, who had come to Desquigee 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 mother's 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 mother's 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 Colored Women's Clubs, and is chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. Portia, the oldest of my three children, has learned dressmaking.

She has unusual ability in instrumental music. Aside from her studies at Tuskegee, she has already begun to teach there. Booker Taliaferro is my next oldest child. Young as he is, he has already nearly mastered the Brickmason's trade. He began working at this trade when he was quite small, dividing his time between this and classwork, 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 anyone 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 read received the following letter from him. Tuskegee, Alabama. My dear Papa, before you left home, you told me to work at my trade half of each day. I like my work so much that I want to work at my trade all day. Besides, I want to earn all the money I can so that when I go to another school I shall have money to pay my expenses.

Your son, Booker. My youngest child, Ernest Davidson, Washington, says that he is going to be a physician. In addition to going to school, where he studies books and has manual training, he regularly spends a portion of his time in the office of our resident physician, and has already learned to do many of the duties which pertain to a doctor's office. The thing in my life which brings me the keenest regret is that my work in connection with public affairs keeps me for so much of the time away from my family, where, of all places in the world, I delight to be. I always envy the individual whose life-work is so late 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 traveling 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 1890, 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 Theater. 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 18 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 would 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 one 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 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. Goodbyes were set 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, Massachusetts, came to New York to see us off. Mr. Scott, my secretary, came with me to New York, in order that I might clear up the last bit of business before I left. Other friends also came to New York to see us off.

Just before we went on board the steamer, another pleasant surprise came to us in the form of a letter from two generous ladies, stating that they had decided to give us the money with which to erect a new building to be used in properly housing all our industries for girls at Tuskegee. We were to sail on the Friesland of the Red Star Line, and a beautiful vessel she was. We went on board just before noon, the hour of sailing. I had never before been on board a large ocean steamer, and the feeling which took possession of me when I found myself there is rather hard to describe. It was a feeling, I think, of awe mingled with delight. We were agreeably surprised to find that the captain, as well as several of the other officers, not only knew who we were,

but was expecting us and gave us a pleasant greeting. There were several passengers whom we knew, including Senator Sewell of New Jersey, and Edward Marshall, the newspaper correspondent. I had just a little fear that we would not be treated civilly by some of the passengers. This fear was based upon what I had heard other people of my race, who had crossed the ocean, say about unpleasant experiences in crossing the ocean in American vessels. But in our case, from the captain down to the most humble servant, we were treated with the greatest kindness. nor was this kindness confined to those who were connected with the steamer. It was shown by all the passengers also.

There were not a few southern men and women on board, and they were as cordial as those from other parts of the country. As soon as the last good-bys were said, and the steamer had cut loose from the wharf, the load of care, anxiety, and responsibility which I had carried for 18 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 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 someone, or to make an address at a certain hour. How different

all this was from the experiences that I have been through when traveling, 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 and address to them in the dining saloon sometime 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 cell. The women coming in with their dogs drawing large, brightly polished cans filled with milk, the people streaming into the cathedral, filled me with a sense of newness that I had never before experienced. After spending some time in Antwerp, we were invited to go with a party of a half-dozen persons on a trip through Holland. This party included Edward Marshall and some American artists who had come over on the same steamer with us. We accepted the invitation and enjoyed the trip greatly. It was all the more interesting and instructive because we went for the 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 Katie 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, 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 honored. I do not believe that they were really convinced of the fact until they saw the picture for themselves. My acquaintance with Mr. Tanner reinforced 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 color, will be recognized and rewarded just in proportion as he learns to do something well, learns to do it better than someone 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 color did not enter into their minds. When a Negro girl learns to cook, to wash dishes, to sew, or to write a book, or a Negro boy learns to groom horses, or to grow sweet potatoes, or to produce butter, or to build a house, or to be able to practice medicine as well or better than someone else, they will be

be rewarded, regardless of race or color. In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history, will not long keep the world from what it wants. I think that the whole future of my race hinges on the question as to whether or not it can make itself of such indispensable value that the people in the town and the state where we reside will feel that our presence is necessary to the happiness and well-being of the community. No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual, and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is long left without proper reward. This is a great human law which cannot be permanently nullified. The love of pleasure and excitement, which seems in a large

measure to possess the French people, impressed itself upon me. I think they are more noted in this respect than is true of the people of my own race. In point of morality and moral earnestness, I do not believe that the French are ahead of my own race in America. Severe competition and the great stress of life have led them to learn to do things more thoroughly and to exercise greater economy. But time, I think, will bring my race to the same point. In the matter of truth and high honor,

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 Reverend Dr. Brooke Herford and Mrs. Herbert, whom I had known in Boston, consulted with the American Ambassador, the Honorable Joseph Choate, and arranged for me to speak at a public meeting to be held in Essex Hall. Mr. Chote 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. Doctor 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 guest 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 guest 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 honored the late William Lloyd Garrison, the Honorable 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 Negroes improving his condition by emigrating to Africa. On various occasions, Mrs. Washington and I were the guests of Englishmen in their country homes, where, and 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 Englishman, 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 had I any correct conception of how much time and money they spend 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 Englishman 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 300 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, Missouri. In this library I found a life of Frederick Douglass, which I began reading. I became especially interested in Mr. Douglas'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 and 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 Honorable Benjamin B. O'Dell Jr., the present governor of New York, presided. I was never given a more cordial hearing anywhere. A large proportion of the passengers were southern people. After the concert, some of the passengers proposed that a subscription be raised to help the work at Tuskegee, and the money to support several scholarships was the result. While we were in Paris, I was very pleasantly surprised to receive the following invitation from the citizens of West Virginia and of the city near which I had spent my boyhood days. Charleston, West Virginia, May 16, 1899. Professor Booker T. Washington, Paris, France.

Dear Sir, many of the best citizens of West Virginia have you, have you. united in liberal expressions of admiration and praise of your worth and work, and desire that on your return from Europe you should favor them with your presence and with the inspiration of your words. We must sincerely endorse this move, and on behalf of the citizens of Charleston, extend to you our most cordial invitation to have you come to us, that we may honor you who have done so much by your life and work to honor 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. W. Atkinson, Governor. E. L. Boggs, Secretary to the Governor. William M. O. Dawson, Secretary of State.

L. M. LaFollett, Auditor. J. R. Trotter, Superintendent of Schools. E. W. Wilson, ex-governor. W. A. McCorkle, ex-governor. John Q. Dickinson, President Canawa Valley Bank. L. Pritchard, President Charleston National Bank. George S. Couch, President Canawa National Bank. Ed Reed, cashier, Canawa National Bank. George S. Lately, Superintendent City Schools. L. E. McW. McW. President, Board of Education.

Charles 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 at 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. McCorkel, and composed of men of both races. The public reception was held in the Opera House at Charleston. The governor of the state,

the Honorable George W. Atkinson, and an address of welcome was made by ex-Governor McCorkel. A prominent part in the reception was taken by the colored 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 Colored 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.

End of Chapter 16. Chapter 17. From Up from Slavery. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Up from slavery. Chapter 17. 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 watermark 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 someone 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 city.

of the main station, Chihaw, five miles away, to meet him. He arrived on the school grounds about nine o'clock in the evening. Someone 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 over by a thousand students of 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 and 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 Reverend Dr. Hollisbee Friesel, now the principal of the Hampton Institute and General Armstrong's successor.

Under the clear, strong, and almost perfect leadership of Dr. Frizzell, 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. Fressel 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 good, greatest surprise that ever came to me. I have a 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 and 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. Elliott. 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 honored 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 mean met President Elliott, the Board of Overseers at Harvard University and the other guests at the designated place on the university grounds, for the purpose of being escorted to Sanders' theater, 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, for General Nelson A. Miles, Dr. Bell, the inventor of the Bell Telephone, Bishop Vincent, and the Reverend 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 Elliot. 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 honors 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 Elliot, 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 honored 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 flavor, is a sight that does not easily fade from memory. Among the speakers after dinner were President Elliott, Governor Roger Wolcott, General Miles, Dr. Minot J. Savage, the Honorable 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 honor which you do me today. Why you have called me from the Black Belt of the South, from among my humble people, to share in the honors 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 honored 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 labor in the South, entitles him to rank with our national benefactors.

The university which can claim him on its list of sons, whether in regular course or onaurus Cosa, 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 colored 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 a

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 honor 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 colored man carried off the oratorical honors, 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 anyone. 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 Honorable 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 18 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 car 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

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 reinforce 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 colored people greatly depressed because of several

severe race riots which had occurred at different points in the south. As soon as I saw the president, I perceived that his heart was greatly burdened by reason of these race disturbances. Although there were many people waiting to see him, he detained me for some time, discussing the condition and prospects of the race. He remarked several times that he was determined to show his interest and faith in the race, not merely in words, but by acts. When I told him that I thought that at that time, scarcely anything would go farther in giving hope and encouragement to the race than the fact that the President of the Nation would

be willing to travel one hundred and forty miles out of his way, To spend a day at a Negro institution, he seemed deeply impressed. While I was with the President, a white citizen of Atlanta, a Democrat and an ex-slaveholder, came into the room, and the President asked his opinion as to the wisdom of his going to Tuskegee. Without hesitation, the Atlanta man replied that it was the proper thing for him to do. This opinion was reinforced 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 leave 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 himself 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 correspondence. The Alabama legislature was in session in Montgomery at this time. This body passed a resolution to adjourn for the purpose of visiting Tuskegee.

Just before the arrival of the President's party, the legislature arrived, headed by the governor and other state officials. The citizens of Tuskegee had decorated the town from the station to the school in a generous manner. In order to economize in the matter of time, we arranged to have the whole school pass in review before the president. Each student carried a stock of sugarcane with some open bowls 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 show 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 honor 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 Honorable John D. Long, the Secretary of the Navy, said in part, I cannot make a speech today. My heart is too full, full of hope, admiration,

and pride for my countrymen of both sections and both colors. 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 today 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 colored president of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. God blessed the President under whose majesty such as seen as this is presented to the American people. God blessed 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, December 23, 1899. Dear Sir, by this mail, I take pleasure in sending you embossed 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 Congress. 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 program 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 favorably 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, Alabama. Twenty years have now passed since I made the first humble effort at Tuskegee, in a broken-down shanty and an old henhouse, without owning a dollars' worth of property, and with but one teacher and thirty students. At the present time, the institution owns 2,300 acres of land, 1,000 of which are under cultivation each year, entirely by student labor. There are now upon the grounds, counting large and small, 66 buildings, and all, except four of these, have been almost wholly erected by the labor 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, 30 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 students 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 once 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 labor is dignified and beautiful, to make each one love labor 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, daring, 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 half of each day at some industry, in order to get skill and the love of work, so that when he goes out from the institution, he is prepared to set the people with whom he goes to labor 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 million, 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 million.

The annual current expenses are now about $150,000. The greater part of this I collect each year by going from door to door and from house to house. All of our property is free from mortgage and is deeded to an undenominational board of trustees who have the control of the institution. From 30 students, the number has grown to 1,400, coming from 27 states and territories, from Africa, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and other foreign countries. In our departments, there are 110 officers and instructors, and if we add the families of our instructors, we have a

constant population upon our grounds of not far from 1,700 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.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 and ranks.

8.40. Devotional exercises in chapel. 8.55. 5 minutes with the daily news. 9 a.m. classwork begins. 12. Class work closes. 12.15 p.m. dinner. 1.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 6,000 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 mother's 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 informing plans for improvement. Out from this central Negro conference at Tuskegee have grown numerous state and local conferences, which are doing the same kind of work. As a result of the influence of these gatherings, one delegate reported at the last annual meeting that ten families in his community had bought and paid for homes. On the day following the annual Negro conference, there is 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 colored 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 colored men who were engaged in various lines of trade or business in different parts of the United States. 30 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 New York 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 colored 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 to be a very busy man. time to partake of supper. Then he held a public levy in the parlors 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 colored citizens, headed by the Reverend Mr. Watkins, and hustled off to a small informal reception, arranged in honor of the visitor by the people of his race. Nor can I, in addition to making

these addresses, escape the duty of calling the attention of the South and of the country in general, through the medium of the press, to matters that pertain to the interests of both races. This, for example, I have done in regard to the evil habit of lynching. When the Louisiana State Constitutional Convention was in session, I wrote an open letter to that body pleading for justice for the race. In all such efforts, I have received warm and hearty support from the Southern newspapers, as well as from those in all other parts of the country. Despite superficial and temporary signs which might lead one to entertain a contrary opinion, there was never a time when I felt more hopeful for the race than I do at the present.

The great human law that in the end recognizes and rewards merit is everlasting and universal. The outside world does not know, neither can it appreciate, the struggle that is constantly going on in the hearts of both the Southern white people and their former slaves to free themselves from racial prejudice. And while both races are thus struggling, they should have the sympathy, the support, and the forbearance of the rest of the world. As I write the closing words of this autobiography, I find myself, not by design, in the city of Richmond, Virginia, the city which only a few decades ago was the capital of the Southern Confederacy, and where, about 25 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 colored people of the city, and came at their request to deliver an address last night to both races in the occasion. Academy of Music, the largest and finest audience room in the city. This was the first time that the colored people had ever been permitted to use this hall. The day before I came, the city council passed a vote to attend the meeting in a body to hear me speak. The state legislature, including the House of Delegates and the Senate, also passed a unanimous vote to attend in a body. In the presence of hundreds of colored people, many distinguished white citizens, the citizens 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. The end of Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington.