Jocko Podcast - 373: The Individual Who Can Do Something The World Wants Done Will Make His Way. Booker T. Washington, "Up From Slavery"

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915)[1] was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary black elite.[2] Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocco podcast number 373 with Echo Charles and me Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. I'm 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 59 I do not know the month or day the earliest impressions I can now recall are of the plantation and the slave quarters the latter being the part

of the plantation where the slaves had their cabins my life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable desolate and discouraging surroundings this was so however not because my owners were especially cruel, for they were not, as compared with many others. I was born in a typical log cabin about 14 by 16 square feet. In this cabin, I lived with my mother and a brother and sister till after the Civil War when we were all declared free. Of my ancestry, I know almost nothing. In the slave quarters and even later, I heard whispered conversations among the

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've 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 the time. The cabin was not our only was not only our living place, but it was used as the kitchen for the plantation. My mother was the plantation cook. The cabin was without glass windows.

It only had 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. There was no wooden floor in our cabin. The naked earth being used as the floor. In the center of the earth and 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. The early years of my life, which were spent in the little cabin, were not very different from those of thousands of other slaves. 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 floor. And that right there is some excerpts from the opening of the book called Up From Slavery, written by Booker T. Washington. And as you heard from that excerpt, he was born a slave, clearly. But from there, after the Civil War, he went on quite the voyage. And he became educated. He became an author. He became the founder and leader of a college, which is the Tuskegee Institute.

He became a speaker. He became advisor. to several presidents. And in his time, he was the most dominant leader of the African American community. And eventually, some of his beliefs, which were focused on compromise and education and entrepreneurialism, that's what he thought

was the best way forward. Eventually, some of those beliefs were overtaken by more aggressive stances on racial equality in America, but regardless of that, Bookerty Washington's basic principles in life are applicable to anyone at any time. And I wanted to review some of them today.

So again, the book is called Up From Slavery. And obviously, as usual, we're not gonna cover the entire book, get the book. You can probably find a PDF for this for free so many good lessons in it and I'm gonna not cover you know it the books tells the story of his life and we're not gonna cover the entire story of his life just try I'm gonna try as much as I can to just focus on the principles that he talks about but you're gonna hear some of his life as well so there you go Booker T Washington

let's go to the book 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 the schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise so that's an interesting statement you think that's one of those things where you want what you can't have yes fully and you figure Because when I was a boy and I saw school it didn't look fun to me. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I didn't want to go. Yeah. And think of it in terms of like what if there was a school that taught you how to like do magic or something? Well, I can give you a better example. You ever, you ever seen like the James Bond movie movies where they open up some door and there's some special operations training going on? There's like people repelling. That is this is what it looked like to him. He saw he saw kids with.

books and pens. And that was like what I saw when I saw James Bond movie or some kind of military movie where there's secret training going on. They give you a little glimpse. Yep, yep, yep, exactly. For you, what would it have been? Like some kind of specialized athletic training? Well, yeah, jiu-jitsu is like that where, yeah, you know, when you old school, you

watched the UFC, remember? What about when you went to the University of Hawaii for the first time as a tour to see if you could play football there and you, like, saw the gym? Yeah. Was it like a really good gym? No. It was not a good gym. We actually got one of the best facilities in the nation one year in, yeah, one or two years in, yeah.

Did you, when you toured and they were, did you get recruited type thing? What did they show you to kind of get you in there? The games and stuff, the campus. Okay. The campus was cool. But that was like for, that seemed like a big social draw, you know, the campus. But you know, you go on Sorenex's website and you see some of the gyms that they put together for some of these schools. Yeah.

And you're like, oh, yeah, I want to go there. So even though you and I didn't have that academic desire like Booker T. Washington had, that's the feeling that he got. And he saw some people, Paradise. Yes, like, you know, what's it? Harry Potter, right? Isn't that a math? I never watched it, but is that like a magic school?

It's a magic school. It's like that. Like, what if you saw a bunch of people in your community knowing how to do magic and then you see where they learn it? You're like, oh, I want to go. Yeah. Learn that stuff. Yeah, that's it.

And it's wild. We'll get into like what it was like for him to learn. But going back to the book. So far as I can now recall, the first knowledge that I got of the fact that we were slaves and that freedom of slaves was being discussed was early one morning before day when I was awakened by my mother kneeling over her children and fervently praying that Lincoln and his armies might be successful and that one day she and her children might be free. in this connection, I have never been able to understand how the slaves throughout the South,

completely ignorant as were the masses so far as books or newspapers were concerned, were able to keep themselves so accurately and completely informed about the great national question that was agitating the country. So there you go. It's a good thing for it. You can understand why he's got like there's no newspapers. They don't know how to read. And yet they knew what was going on.

That rumor mill was spreading. And this is the thing, you know, this is why, maybe that's why he put together the fact that education was so important. Because these other people that can read, it's like the power of the internet now. You know, people, people, if you don't have the internet, there's a whole bunch of things that you're messing out on. I mean, never mind social media and Instagram and pictures of whatever,

cool cars never mind that stuff but I'm talking if you want to get ahead imagine if you didn't have imagine if you were a person right now in America but you didn't have you you weren't allowed on the internet yeah that would be a massive I mean it'd be an an infinite disadvantage to anybody that's on the internet yeah so back in the day reading is kind of the internet right and these guys didn't have it and yet there were still enough rumor that'd be like if you didn't have internet but Someone's like, bro, you gotta know about this thing. They're still talking.

Yeah, for sure. He goes on to say, I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together and God's blessing was asked and the family ate a meal in a civilized manner. On the plantation in Virginia and even later, meals were gotten by the children very much as dumb animals get theirs. It was a piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there.

It was a cup of milk at one. time and some potatoes at another sometimes a portion of our family would eat out of the skillet or pot while someone else would eat from a tin plate held on the knees and often using nothing but his hands with which to hold the food when I had grown to sufficient size I was required to go to the big house at meal times to fan the flies from the table by means of a large set of paper fans operated by a pulley naturally much of the conversation of the white people Turned to 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 in eating ginger cakes in the yard

At that time those cakes seemed to me to be absolutely the most tempting and desirable things that I had ever seen and I then and there resolved that if I ever got free the height of my ambition would be reached if I I could get to the point where I could secure and eat ginger cakes in the way that I saw those ladies doing. So that's, so you're not only living in the cabin with the dirt floor, which if that's the way things are, you're kind of like, you kind of get the impression in that first couple paragraphs like, hey, that's just the way things are. And if you don't know any better, that's just the way things are. But then you've got to go to the big house. And now you see what they're eating. Freaking ginger cakes. Yep.

Sounds delicious. And that's a lot harder. It's kind of like when we talk to guys that were POWs. Like if they just, if you were born into a POW camp, that's just the way it is. But when you grew up in America and then you get put into a prisoner camp, it's like, oh, you know what you're missing. So Booker T. Washington, by going to the big house, knew what he was missing. But that's interesting that they would sit there and listen to them talking about the war and that's obviously That's where they're getting some of their information from

Maybe even all their information from and the greatest thing you can imagine is these ginger cakes See I don't know if it's um I don't know what it is that I don't know if this is The way I don't know if this is nature or nurture right I don't know if I was born this way or if I was made this way but like if I see something like that it's gonna it's gonna bother you know what I mean yeah it seems natural it seems natural right but then the nurture is like hey there's nothing you can do about it you're a slave that's the way it is you just got a deal yeah and I

don't know is is rebelliousness a born trait I don't know I mean I'm sure the the The current conclusion is that it's a little of both. Right, right. But see, I have four children. Sure. There's various levels of rebellion in each child. Yeah. All of them have a little bit.

Some of them have more. Yeah. So there's a little bit. You're looking at ginger cakes, bro. Yeah. Yeah. The kid's thing is, is when you think about it, you can actually go pretty deep because just, you know, a lot of times you'll be like, hey, they're, there's so different personalities, you know, so that, therefore, it proves that it's like nature, right,

where it's like they're born that way, which, you know, obviously it's both. So like, but if you're, let's say, the firstborn person and you're, let's say you're a boy. Yeah. That's way different than being the firstborn person as a girl. It's a whole different experience. But don't they have, don't they have like the similar personalities, though? There's all those firstborn traits. Yeah. You're more conscientious. That's girl or boy, right? I don't know for sure. But all I'm saying is. is like when you're born first, when you're born second, when you're born third, when you're a boy, when you're a girl,

those are very specific different positions to begin and go through life from. So little personality traits can be explained a little bit here and there from nature for sure, but the nurture is like always going to be there. It's like unavoidable because even me having a twin brother, you'd think, oh, they're going to grow up pretty much the same because their experiences are going to be the same

and all this stuff or whatever, and it's not true because if you're kind of, like my brother's a little bigger than me, so just that alone is going to, just that little like deviation in direction. Over time is going to be a big difference, you know? You can leave a mark, huh? It's going to leave a mark.

You see what I'm saying? So there's like, you know, there's that going on a lot of the time. So I feel like to say, oh, they're going through the same experience. It's hard to do that because just being, Born second, for example, is so different of an experience just in and of itself, you know. Yeah, and speaking of experiences, that's another thing that really strikes me about this book and about Booker T. Washington's attitude. And, you know, I think, actually I know, episode 12 of this podcast, which is the forgotten Highlander. And he, you know, he's a prisoner of war.

And it's absolutely just the most horrific story. And we get done with that. With that podcast and you and I were both like how can you ever complain about how could I ever complain about anything? This is a guy that you know they're putting they're putting maggots on their wounds to eat the dead flesh. That's how they're staying alive starving being beaten being tortured slave labor out in the jungle and you just think yourself how could I I'm never complaining about anything and then this and that's what's so impressive about Booker T Washington and you'll hear this I mean you can see him kind of breezing through it. And I'm reading some pretty big chunks about what it was like for him growing up. And he's like, yeah, we didn't eat as a family. Yeah, we had dirt floors. It's almost like it's just a report, not a complaint. He's just saying, oh, this is what it was. It's more like he's just stating the facts.

And so that's the, and you're going to, the theme throughout this book is, is it really about, you know, what it's not about your circumstances. It's what you do with them. And, and so it's, very powerful, but it also gives you the same feeling that, or gives me the same feeling that I got from the Forgotten Highlander. It's like, oh, I'm not ever going to complain about anything. And it's the same thing here. You're like, wait a second, you're living in this dirt cabin and you have to go and be subservient slaves to these girls that are eaten ginger cakes when you're getting fed scraps of bread. I'm kind of pissed when I say that.

But that's the thing is you're gonna see like he's not a complainer. He's like, okay, this is the situation. It isn't even complain. I mean, he kind of heard it in part of that opening. He's like, oh, this is the institution that we were in. And it had to change, but it wasn't changed yet. So we had to deal with it. That's just incredibly kind of a stoic attitude about the whole thing.

Yeah. So here we go. Back to the book. I have said that there are few instances of a member of my race, but a specific trust. One of the best illustrations of this, which I know of, is in the case of an ex-slave from Virginia, whom I met not long ago in a little town in the state of Ohio. I found that this man had made a contract with his master two or three years previous

to the Emancipation Proclamation to the effect that the slave was to be permitted to buy himself by paying so much per year for his body. And while he was paying for himself, he was 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 $300. 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.

And talking to me about this, the man told me that he knew he did not have to be. 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. Some integrity. That's some integrity. That's integrity I would not have. I would not have had this type of integrity. I might have gone back and taken some ginger cakes. I could tell you that. Yeah, that's like the ultimate in not taking things personal right there. It's like so, it's like a set, like my word is my word.

It doesn't matter. Like all this other stuff, like one thing has nothing to do with the other, you know, kind of a thing. Or it's like, oh yeah, he was,

you know, this, you know, bad slave master, you know, slave driver, all this stuff or whatever, like, yeah,

yeah, but that has nothing to do with this other thing right here. Mm-hmm. See what I'm saying? Like, it is what it is and this thing is what it is. And, you know,

it's like, man. That's how we're moving forward. Some mental strength right here. Again, this type of attitude, we're going to see this throughout. And it's just such a stoic, detached attitude. He says, 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 onto the economic and social life of the republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution. It's kind of like what you just said. It's like, okay, this is how it was. How do I move forward? He continues to say, 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 to. 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, in 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 talked to cook, sew, or take care of the house.

All of this was left to the slaves. Now, you want to talk about finding some positive. Yeah. He dig it deep. Yeah. I mean, you kind of hear about that, right? Sometimes we're as adults, you know, these successful adults, and they're very thankful for their hard childhood.

Yeah. Because it, you know, it built them into a strong, productive, like, person. Right, right. So they, yeah, regardless of the beatings they took or the bullying that they went through or like all this like bad stuff that you wouldn't wish on your kids or whatever. Like they're they're so thankful for that because of the benefits, the resulting benefit. Well, what's that cycle of wealth where like what the one generation makes the money, the next generation builds the money, then the next generation loses the money. It takes like three generations because that that third generation has no hardship. They don't learn anything.

They don't learn each other. They just have everything given to them. So they just fall apart. Yeah. But that's a very positive way for him to look at this, which is incredible attitude to have. Fast forward a little bit. Finally, the war closed and the day of freedom came. It was a momentous and eventful day to all upon our plantation.

We had been expecting it. Freedom was in the air and had been for months. Deserting soldiers returning to their homes were to be seen every day. Others who had been discharged or whose regiments had been paroled were constantly passing near our place. the slaves would give the Yankee soldiers food, drink, and clothing, anything but that which had been specifically instructed to their care and honor. Or sorry, entrusted to their care and honor. As the great day grew 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. 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 young and old 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 in 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 betterness as I 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 the parting with those whom they had reared and who were in many ways very close to them the most distinct thing that

I now recall in connection with the scene was that some man who seemed to be a stranger a United States officer I presume made a little speech and then read a rather long paper the Emancipation Proclamation I think after the reading we were told that we were all free and we 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 it was a 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 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 10 or 12 years out into the world to provide for himself in a few hours the great questions with which the anglo-saxon race had been grappling for centuries had been thrown upon these people to be solved. I never thought of that aspect until I read that section. It was like like the first time yeah like he says like a little kid like you when you're 14 your kids aren't this old yet but when they're like 14 or 15 at some point you're gonna have that conversation with them because they're not gonna want to follow the little

rules that you're putting on them and you're gonna be like oh you you want to you okay cool. Yeah, you don't have to be a part of the house. Cool. You can go. Here's what rent is. Here's how much your phone costs. Here's what it takes to get to school. Oh, you need to pay for food.

Like all of a sudden, all this thing. Trust me, they ain't going very far. When they run away at 13, they're coming back real quick. That's what they hit. They walk into that right there where they're like, oh, damn, I'm responsible for all this now. Yeah, that's crazy, huh? Yeah, you know how like, you know, you get this, I don't know, it seems like a movie thing. where you know you have the boss and then you have the assistant right but the assistant is like a ninja

with everything boom boom they can handle everything then yeah once that assistant is gone it's like oh oh i don't know how to do any of this stuff i didn't even realize it because you just take it for granted after that after so much time you know yeah it's like dang that's your life now so they're all fired up careful yeah but then they're like oh damn got to figure this out that's interesting how and it it's not that surprise i'm sure different households yeah are going to be different for sure But essentially how he mentions that it's like we're kind of like a family, really. Like we had a role for sure. And it was like he was master slave.

But it was like, shoot, I kind of like felt bad for them. You know, like that weren't not their slaves anymore. That's a you have to be in a very specific position to have those feelings. You know, you'd assume like, oh, screw these guys. In fact, when I'm listening to that, I'm thinking to myself, oh, I wonder if knowing that my slave, let's say I'm the slave owner, Knowing my slaves are gonna be free Am I kind of mad? Like, oh, like you guys are gonna leave

and all this stuff. Like you said, every household's gonna be different. But I'm sure there's some people like, oh, cool. Like there's some slave owners that must have been like, oh shit, like I know where this is going. If you treat people bad, if you treated all your slaves terribly,

they might be killing you. They might be looking for revenge. So there's a lot of different ways that this could go. Yeah. Or like, hey, you're going to be free next week or whatever. You're not free now. So maybe they'll like, you know, I don't know, impose some, we'll say some negativity on to them before the freedom, you know, kind of.

It feels like that. You try and be all cool to them. That's true. That seems like a good shadow. But what a crazy dynamic. Like, it's so crazy to think about this dynamic. Very. Yes.

Like, here you are. And how old is his mom? You know, when is she 34 years old? I'm guessing no idea. but she's 34 years old her entire life she's been a slave yeah like that's and now all of a sudden and with no end in the sight by the way yeah and now all of a sudden nope you're free yeah it's crazy dynamic very um fast forward a little bit so he gets a job um in a in a salt mine and it there's other things that take place like his mom gets married so he has a stepdad now

and his dad, his stepdad has a job at this salt mine in the salt mine furnaces. And this is like hard-ass work, but hey, now that's what they're doing. So he's working there. I'm going to go ahead, go back to the book here. 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 each 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. So that's his first actual like understanding of any written word with this letter the number 18 written on this thing and he's old enough to not know what that was like it's like you know there's some things that you did your whole life where you don't remember learning them and he so for us you know we don't remember when you learn the alphabet really or when you started to recognize that for him he remembers it yeah like it was not there and now it's there this is a thing he says I and he so then he gets fired up to become educated which we already

kind of knew because he he loved looking at that school look like paradise he says I induced my mother to get a 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 ab ba kha and da I began at once to devour this book and I think that it was the first one I ever had in my hands I had learned from somebody that the way to begin to read was to learn the alphabet so I tried in all the ways I could think of it to learn 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 great portion of the alphabet. Just had to figure it out. You take it for granted. When you take it for granted, when someone helps you learn something, it's infinitely easier to learn. And for me, the easiest example that is like jujitsu. Someone teaches you something about jih Tjitsu that you didn't know.

it would have taken you years Yeah They would have taken you years to learn it If you ever actually learned it Because there's something you just wouldn't have you ever figured out Yeah Yeah a lot of it you can't see that's why It's like it's like you know certain things are important

And not important Yeah there's a lot you don't see So to actually figure out the alphabet And what the noises were That's like a crazy thing to try and figure out He goes on to say The opening of the so he goes There's a school that opens up

in Kanawa Valley. He says the opening of the school in Kanawa Valley, however, brought me to one of the keenest disappointments I ever experienced. I had been working in the salt furnace for several months and my stepfather 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 more. 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 so not only his dad's his stepdad's say you can't go to school because you have value you can work you make us money wherever he's working in this in this salt furnace he sees the kids going to and from school so what does he do he learns harder This dude's legit, right? He's gonna learn harder. And then fast forward a little bit. Finally, he basically pressures his mom, pressures his dad as much as he can

to try and make this happen. Finally, I won and was permitted to go to 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. So he's just going to keep working

and take a little bit of time during the day to go to school. Again, this is this guy's an excuse killer. Like whatever excuses you have, he's got weapons to crush them. Making it happen. Fast forward a little bit. When, however, I found myself at 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 head,

and I had neither hat nor cap. In fact, I do not remember that up to the time of going to school, I had ever worn any kind of covering upon my head, nor do I recall that either I or anybody else had even thought about the need of covering for my head. But of course, when I saw how all the other boys were dressed, I began to feel quite uncomfortable. As usual, I put the case before my mother, and she explained to me that she had no money with which to buy a store hat, which was a rather new institution at the 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, this is like denim, and sold them together, and I was soon the proud possessor of my first cap. And here we get to the lesson. The lesson that my mother taught me in this has always remained with me, and I have tried as best I could to teach it to others. I have always felt proud whenever I think of the incident that my mother had the 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 felt so proud as of the cap made by two pieces of cloth sewed together by my mother. I have noted this, I was, I keep looking

where to stop reading this lesson, but then he says, 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 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 not able to now buy any kind of hat. And he obviously ended up very wealthy. So lesson learned. Don't try and keep up with the Joneses. Yeah. Don't go into debt.

Like these are, these are good lessons for your life. Yeah. Especially don't go into debt for something that just looks cool. Right. Yeah, that's been kind of going around on the internet lately. What's that? The, the, it's like a list of life advice.

One of them is don't go broke trying to impress others. And I was like, yeah, man, that goes so deep because sometimes it's like not as conscious. Sometimes you're kind of like, you know, like I want that nicer car and you're gonna have that pay, that bigger payment or whatever that it's like, sure, I can afford it. barely you know kind of a thing but I got this nice car and everyone's gonna see me in my

nice car kind of a thing you know and it's a spectrum where some things are real obvious you're just doing it to impress others and the but some things you don't really realize it till you think about it you know I was like man it's a good thing to kind of think about you can get sucked into little ecosystems of stuff too like watches oh yeah you know you know watches is a big one big one and recently I've been like man I think I need a one I went snowboarding and you know when you want to see what time it is, you got to undo the zipper and, you know,

bust out your phone or whatever. To have a watch would be very useful. But, yes. So are you checking out like the big time watches? See, that's the whole point of even bringing it up. So you kind of think about it, right? Because really, okay, so the last watch I had, and this is going to sound like a joke, but it's not.

The last watch I had was, you know, maybe I don't know, eight years ago or something like that, it was one of those old-school calculator watches. Cassio? You can edit this out if you want, bro. You don't need to tell everyone you run a calculator. The reason I had it, though, is, or the reason I had a watch was for workouts. So, you know, when you go to the gym, like, I timed my rest between sets.

So, you know, I didn't want to bust up my phone and nothing. So if it's on your watch, it's, like, just way easier, you know, or easier than just looking up at the clock wherever it is, you know, kind of thing. And I was like, oh, let me just buy a cheap one. And you go on Amazon, you see all the cheap. And then I saw the calculator one. which reminded me of when I was, you know, in elementary school, the cool kids had the calculator one.

So I got it like, kind of like, oh, that'd be fun. You know, I got it, whatever. But I was just looking for complete functionality, though. So, but, you know, wearing it or whatever, it's kind of like, yeah, totally functions. But then when I stopped working out at public gyms, like I didn't need it, so whatever. So wait, so what are you looking at for watches for when you go snowboarding? Oh, I don't know. How much you think you're going to spend?

Put it this way. I will not go broke trying to impress all this. How about that? What do you think you'll spend on a watch? And I'm kind of curious on your whole gig. Yeah. So I don't know what I don't even know how much watches cost. They cost about 70 bucks.

Yeah, I would think like 100 bucks for like a good functional one. But here's the thing. So last time I looked into watches was I was talking to Jason Gardner and he had the one and I keep forgetting what it's called. But I looked at it. I was like, hey, that's nice. It looks real durable. And you can tell it's quality or whatever. So I started looking into them and then there's all these different models and all the things.

So you go down. I haven't holds you wait I want the I want this one with this deluxe thing you know so I don't know what watch I'm gonna get I shop well I'm glad that you're not going out and buying him like you can buy a $10,000 watch by the way yeah or you can buy a $50,000 watch yeah a $50,000 watch it doesn't have it has less functionality than my $30 watch yeah you know what I mean right and and it's like your $30 watch can take abuse a $50,000 no matter actually it doesn't matter it doesn't matter if it takes abuse or not, if it's $50,000, $100,000 watch. It doesn't matter if it can take abuse. You ain't abusing that thing. That thing has its own case, its own lock, insurance policy, all that stuff. Oh, yeah. So the thing's going to be pristine.

So it kind of defeats the purpose in that way. The other interesting thing there is, though, like he's saying that the other kids that had stuff, nice hats, they end up in the penitentiary or they can't afford a hat in the future for themselves. And it goes back to that thing we were saying earlier. Like he had to struggle. And that struggle made him kind of a little bit.

bit more successful in the long run. Yeah. It takes a certain kind of person to be that reflective, though, where, I mean, it sounds like his mom had had a lot of integrity to, you know, so you get that just that little influence or whatever that'll help a lot because not everyone who struggled wound up this strong pillar of the community. A lot of people struggled in very similar ways. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. You can struggle and you can, yeah, 100%. Yeah. So now he's talking about these difficulties I had in school. First one was missing the hat and he says, my second difficulty was with regard to my name, or rather a name. From the time I could remember anything, I had been called simply Booker. Before going to school, it 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 the children had at least two names. And some of them indulged what seemed to do. me the extravagance of having three. I was in deep perplexity because I knew that my, that the teacher would demand of me at least two names and I only had one. By the time the occasion came for the enrolling of my name, an idea occurred to me, which I thought would make me equal to the situation. And so when the teacher asked me what my full name was, I calmly told him Booker Washington, as if I had been called that name my whole life. and by the name by that name I have been since known later in life I found that my mother had given me the name of Booker Talley Farrow soon after I was born but in some way that part of my name seemed to disappear for a long while was forgotten but as soon as I found out about it I revived it and made my full name Booker Buker Talaferro Washington and think there are not many men in our country who have had the privilege of naming them

in the way that I have. Just like legit. A kid just figuring out what his name's gonna be. While the teachers, while they're waiting to call in you, I was thinking of you go to a restaurant with a bunch of people. And like, I already know what I'm getting when I get to the restaurant. Sure.

And so as soon as the waiter comes over, I'm like, we're ready to order. Yeah. But I know that there's someone at the, I'm like, I know what I'm gonna order. I'll go first. And I know that. My wife is like, she's feeling like Booker T. Washington.

She's like, wait a second. I've got to figure this out by the time he gets to me. So he was feeling that pressure. The name thing is crazy. You know, like you, so back in the day, a lot of slaves inherit their owner's name. So when I think of it, like, my, I'm a descendant of slaves. And I get reminded by like this kind of stuff where it's like Charles, the last name Charles, is somewhere along line he was like our slave master like that's whose name I

I literally have my sister or ancestor slave is that confirmed or is that an assumption that's assumption because I mean someone along the line might have just taken that last name yeah huh yeah that's true yeah the I did my ancestry and here's it here that when I think about the reading thing too so when you can go back far enough and they have like old school documents and it's like a what do you call it when like if I sell you a big crate of stuff it'll have the list of all the stuff like packing list almost that's what it looked like all handwritten by the way in cursive so it'll have this what looked like a packing list was there was names on it and there's these columns like yes no right and one of the columns was

can read so each name and all of them so this This was like a packing list for slaves, essentially. Like, hey, you're going to buy this. Was this your direct ancestry? Yeah. One of my ancestors was on that list. So if you go to, I think it's ancestry. Doc, I'm one of these ones, right?

And you can look up all these people in all these different ways. So you don't, not everyone, especially when you go far back and they don't have like an ID or something that you can see on there. Right. So it's just any document that was recorded on there. And sometimes it's like the draft card or sometimes it's like this. They don't, some have pictures, some don't, you know. So anything like, if, you know, if it's just their name on some arbitrary document, they'll be like, oh, that's that person.

And it's confirmed in all these different ways. And it'll have that document. And then you'll see their name will be, like, highlighted. Didn't you tell me there's a photograph of someone on your dad's side? Yeah. What is it your great, great? Is grandma or something great for your grandma? Yeah.

Yeah. But I found out later, she. She was this daughter of a slate. So she was born after Emancipation Proclamation. But yeah, there's a photo of her. So we don't know where the last name Charles come from officially. Officially, no. It could have been tagged or created after the Emancipation Proclamation,

or it could have been, and even then it could have been like, well, I came from the Charles plantation, so we're just going to take Charles. Yeah, and so I heard, and this is not confirmed enough, you know, I'm sure there's an official way to confirm it, but from what was told to me is, yeah, it was the Charles Plantation in South Carolina. So we need to research that and find out what's up. I did, man, I went through, like,

I went down huge rabbit holes with that, but I couldn't really, like, nail it down through. But I think they've probably got even better records. When did you go through the rabbit holes? Last year, maybe two years ago. Okay, so I don't know if it's proof that much. Well, you can, so there's all these tools online that you can go,

and what you do is like, and I'm pretty sure it's Ancestry. It is Ancestry.com. You go and you enter in all the information that you know about everyone, I mean, as many people as you want, basically, right? So if you want to like really go down, you enter in all the information

that you know about everybody in that with that lineage or through that lineage, right? So you enter in that information, you know, save it or whatever. The system will cross-reference it to any potential matches of other people doing the same thing,

whether they're this and this is absent of genetic testing like 23 me right yes so that's a whole different ballgame yeah you can do that part too and that's i didn't do that so and i've heard some people in my family have done that so there's that information but i i don't know about that as much about that information as this other this other way so slowly by slowly everyone's information all merges together for confirmation so it's like hey we have a uh I think they call it a hint or something. We have a hint here where it's like information entered by other people. Then you can look at it and confirm, yes, that's him.

That's who I'm talking about or that's who I'm not talking about, you know. So it slowly confirms all this information. And it all kind of comes together from everyone, kind of whoever is doing it. So what was the furthest back that you got for? So the first back you got was plantation in South Carolina. Yeah. Yeah. That South Carolina is is pretty quick.

It's like two generations, maybe three. So didn't your dad move from South Carolina? No. Oh, it was his dad. Yeah, my grandfather and grandmother. They were both in the same like town or something. And they made the great migration. Yeah, you kind of have the sort of the stereotypical path of the great

migration north up to New York. Yep. And then the standard, not the standard, but that's like, well, that's what happened. That's why it's called the Great Migration. Yeah. So they went, yeah, they went to South Carolina to New York. And then after New York went to New Jersey, was just right next to it. But, and then, of course, my dad went to when he was like early, early 20s, he moved to Hawaii.

So that's obviously, that's different. But yeah. That's a great migration. Yeah, that was a bigger, bigger migration. Get out of New Jersey. the end of Hawaii. Yeah, he was, he, they had a little bit of a rough childhood there. And he grew up in Brooklyn and, you know, he was born in, what, 44.

So you figure the 50s and then in the 60s, I think that's when you moved to Hawaii or something like that. I forget. Actually, I think even like LA first or something like this, but got to make that stop in LA. Got to. And then you realize LA ain't the place to be. No, no, no, no. Hawaii all day. So, there you go.

That's how, that's how Booker T. Washington got his name. That's how possibly Echo Charles got his last name. Going back to the book. More than once, I've 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 a fortune and a proud family homestead. And yet I have sometimes had the feeling that if I had inherited these and had been a member of a more popular race, I should have been inclined to yield to the temptation of depending upon my ancestry and my color to do that for me, which I should do for myself.

Come on, bro. That's freaking legit. 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. Squared away. Fast forward a little bit. After I'd worked in the salt furnace for some time, work was secured for me in the 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 the coal mine was always unclean, at least while at work, and it was a very hard job to get one 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'd 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,

By chance, I found someone who'd give me a light. The work was not only hard, but it was dangerous. There was always the danger of being blown to pieces by a premature explosion of powder or being crushed by falling slate. Accidents from one or another of these causes were frequently occurring, and this kept me in constant fear. All right. So people talk about, like, being in the SEAL teams and like, oh, it's a hard job. Yeah.

I mean, you put me in a coal mine. It's like a totally different ballgame. Yeah. I'm not that's that's that's that's freaking that's a crazy just that description in like being in that just complete darkness a mile to get to like underground fast forward a little bit one day while work at the coal mine I happen to overhear two miners talking about a great school for colored people somewhere in Virginia this was the first time I'd ever heard of anything about any kind of school or college that was more pretentious than the little colored school in our own town.

In the darkness of the mind, 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. So he hears these guys talking about this school. Then shortly after that, he hears. that there's an opportunity to be a servant for this woman, Miss Viola Ruffner, who apparently had like the harshest reputation of being super strict, like psycho-strict.

But she was the wife of a Northern general. Or he might not have been a Northern, he was a general, but she was a Yankee. She was from Vermont. And so he gets, he gets hired at the dollar, at this salary of $5 a month. And he says this, I'd 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 to be kept clean about her,

that she wanted things done promptly and systematically, and that at the bottom of everything, she wanted absolute honesty and frankness. Nothing must be sloven or slipshod. Every door, every fence must be kept in repair. I cannot recall, I cannot now recall how long I lived with Mrs. Ruffner before going to Hampton. That's where she ended up going to school. But I think it must have been a year and a half. At any rate, I hear repeat what I've said more than once before, that the lessons I learned in the home of Mrs. Ruffner were as valuable to me as any education I've ever gotten anywhere else. Even to this day, I never see bits of paper scattered around a house or in a street that I do not want to pick up at once. I never see a filthy yard that I did not

want to clean it, a paling off of fence that I'd not want to put it on, an unpainted or unwhite washed house that I do not want to paint or white wash or a buttons off one clothes or a grease spot upon the floor that I do not want to call attention to. This dude got militaristic brainwashing. So let me ask you this too. I mean, this applies to your kids as well. So let's say I want my kids to be clean or we'll say like tidy, right? You know, some kids are just messy and so.

So my friends, Squatty Lewis mentioned him before. He's a cop in the big of him, by the way. He, so when I met him, he was always, like, super, everything about him was super clean. Like, his shoes, his clothes, like, clean, you know, like, and, you know, some people, they'll have, like, a little bit of a stain or something. And it's kind of okay. And then some people are just crispy clean, right? He was one of these crispy clean guys. You go to his dorm room, everything squared away, like, clean, right?

So I'm like, huh, this guy almost, like, kind of, like, to a crazy degree. Right. Just a little bit, you know? So we got first time I go to his house, Big Island, same deal. Inside a clean, no dust like nothing compared to my house, which I mean, it's not a messy house, but it's like this is like museum level clean, everything. I'm like, huh, it would be cool to have kids that are kind of like that where they're clean. You know, if he goes somewhere, he'll be like, and something's messy, he'll like clean it up

real quick. You know, he's like that kind. So I'm like, all right, how do you develop that in someone? So I kind of landed on two little theories that I don't even know which one is correct. They're probably both wrong. I don't know. But it's like, do you teach them to clean when they're young? Or do you make sure everything is clean when they're young?

Yeah, I think both. Both, right? But what you know what you got to watch out for is if you impose it on your kids, this is the kid when you go to like their college dorm room and everything's the disaster. Yeah. Because everything was always clean growing up and they're like rebelling against it. Yeah. You know what I mean?

That's what I, that's what I, the thoughts I have too, right? where I'm like, but then on the other hand, it's like what if you in whatever way provide just everywhere that you go and everywhere that they grow up in or whatever, the house, you know, the room is clean. So they get used to that standard of clean. So now if they go somewhere messy, it's kind of like they're uncomfortable.

So they got to clean it up real quick. Is I'm saying? That's what Booker T kind of was. That's what he's saying he felt. It's weird because I think you see people that get in the military and the military you're going to be like you're going through boot camp, things are going to be squared away. Things are going to be clean.

Right. I mean, they're going to be clean. They're going to be full. They're going to be neat. Some people get done with boot camp. They say that way. Leif Babin still folds his t-shirts the same way he learned at the Naval Academy, right? That's what I don't.

I don't do that. In fact, I only fold, like, my t-shirts in a very sloppy way. Like, just so they don't look, I don't just so they're not wrinkled, right? Right. But there's no discipline in the way I fold my t-shirts. Yeah. So the way it hit Laif was like, got to fold the t-shirts that way. And Laf's not a neat person, by the way.

You know, that's just like one of the things. Yeah. So I don't think, I don't think there's a legit, I don't think there's an answer. I don't think any, I don't think a psychologist can answer this question. Yeah, like there's not a very specific method. There's not a specific protocol. Yeah, yeah. Huh.

Yeah, I wonder. But yeah, you, because you can see that distinction with some people. Yeah. And you can see that also people let it get out of control. Yeah. Right. In both ways. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. So you want to be that nice balanced, you know, situation. Yeah. clean. I like things to be clean and functional. In fact, when things are not functional, it bothers me a lot. Like if something's messy to the point where it's not functional, it bothers me. Yeah, that makes sense. But I also am not going to waste time doing something that's, that doesn't make sense. It's not necessary. Yeah, yeah. Like there is a degree far enough on that spectrum where it's kind of obsessive. Yeah, where you're like, oh, they're, they're

unnecessary. It sounds like maybe our girl, Mrs. Ruffner, had a little bit of that going on. Yeah. When he gets done with Mrs. Ruffner, there's this school in Hampton. He's got to go from his place in Malden to Hampton, which is about 500 miles. This is where his school is going to be. And dude, he goes through this whole thing of what he's going through. He's begging rides, walking, hitching, finally he ends up sleeping under a sidewalk. That's where he spends a couple days.

He goes and unloads a ship. for money. He goes up and says, hey, do you need help unloading this ship? They're getting a bunch of iron off this ship. So he goes that. Spends more days underneath the sidewalk as he's saving up money. And the sidewalk thing comes back in a play because he ends up going into the same city again. Instead of sleeping on the sidewalk, he's all kind of done well in his life and it comes back. But he says this. When I'd saved enough, when I'd saved what I considered enough money with which to reach Hampton, I thank the captain of the vessel for his kindness and started out again. With without any usual occurrence, I reached Hampton with a surplus of exactly 50 cents with which to begin my education. To me, it had been a long eventful journey, but the first site of the large three-story brick school building seemed to have rewarded me for all that I'd undergone in order to reach the place. If the people who gave the money to provide that building could appreciate the influence of the site it had on me, as well as upon thousands of other use, they would feel all the more. encouraged to make such gifts. It seemed to me the largest and most beautiful building I had ever seen. The sight of it seemed to give me new life.

So then he goes in. He presents himself to the head teacher. And of course, this guy's been living on the streets, unloading iron from a ship. He has no change of clothes. And he rolls in there and is like, yeah, I want to go to school here. And she's kind of like, uh, you look like a dirt bag. But he hangs out. You just waits, waits, waits.

And finally he says this after some hours passed the head teacher said to me the adjoining Recytation room needs sweeping take the broom and sweep it It occurred to me that it occurred to me at once that here was my chance never did I receive an order with more delight I knew that I could sweep for mrs. Ruffner had thoroughly taught me how to do it 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 desk I went over four times with my dusting cloth. Besides, every piece of furniture had been moved in 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 the head teacher. She was a Yankee woman who knew just where to look for the dirt. She went into the room and inspected the floor and closets. She took her handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about the walls and over the table. benches when she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the floor or a particle of dust on any furniture she quietly remarked I guess you will do to enter this institution so there you go the sweeping of the recitation room in the manner that I did seems to have paved the way for me to get through to 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 in taxing, but I stuck to it. I had a large number of rooms to care for, and I had to work late into the night while at the same time I had to rise by 4 o'clock in the morning in order to build the fires and have little time 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've spoken to the impression that was made upon me by the buildings in general appearance of the Hampton Institute, but I've not spoken of that which made the greatest and most lasting impression on me, and that was a great man, the noblest, rarest being that it has ever been

my privilege to meet. I refer to the late General Samuel C. Armstrong. One might have removed from Hampton all the buildings, classrooms, teachers, and industries, and given the men and women there of opportunity of coming into daily contact with General Armstrong, and that alone would have been an education. It would have been difficult, it would be difficult to describe the hold that he had upon the students at Hampton or the faith they had in him. In fact, he was worshipped by his students.

While I was at Hampton, I'm just reading little chunks of this. While I was at Hampton, while I was a student at Hampton, the dormitories became so, crowded that it was impossible to find room for all who wanted to be admitted in order to help remedy the difficulty the general conceived of a plan of putting up tents to be used as room 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 the school volunteered I was one of the volunteers the winter wait that we spent in those tents was intensely cold 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 and early in the morning and his earnest cheerful encouraging voice would dispel any feeling of despondency So there you go general Armstrong Fast forward a little bit when I first went to Hampton I do not recall that I had ever slept in a bed that had two sheets on it in those days there were not many buildings there and room was very precious there were seven

other boys in the same room with me most of them however students who had been there for some time the sheets were quite a puzzle to me the first night I slept under both of them the second night I slept on top of both of them but by watching the other boys I learned my lesson and had been trying to follow it ever since and to teach it to others another one here the great and prevailing I 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 at what a rare set of human beings they were They worked for the students night and day and seasons in and out of season

They seemed happy only when they were helping the students in some manner This is whole next chapter is called helping others. That's this driving force He says when I left school at the end in my first year, I owed the institution $16 that I had not been able to work out. I economized in every way that I could think of, did my own Washington and went washing and went without necessary garments. But still, I found my summer vacation ending and I did not have $16. One day during my, during the last week of my stay, I found one of the, I found, oh, he's

working at a restaurant. One week, 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 was a proper thing to do to show the money to the proprietor this I did he seemed as glad as I was but he coolly explained to me that as it was his place of business he had a right to keep the money and proceeded to do so this I confessed 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 were 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 and told him my frank condition to my gratification,

he told me that I could reenter the institution, reenter the institution, and then he would trust me to pay the debt when I could during the second year. I continued to work as janitor. So there you go. I'm not mad. Look, I found $10, which, by the way,

there's a decent chance. That might be just going into a brother's pocket. Like $10? He went to school for a whole year and it was 16. So $10 is a big number. It's a lot of money. But he just, doesn't let it get him down and he doesn't accept excuses he's a note that's what it says here

I never had much patience for the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed that's excuses no excuses for Booker T Washington don't tell me why you can't get it done I'm really I'm not playing that game perhaps the most valuable thing that I got out of my second year was an understanding and the use of 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 and read the Bible, not only for the spiritual help which it gives, but on account of its literature. The lessons taught me in this respect took such a hold upon me that at present time when I am home, no matter how busy I am,

I always make it a role to read a chapter or a portion of a chapter in the morning before the beginning of each day of work. Whatever ability I may have as a public speaker, I owe to, I own measure to miss Lord. When she found out that I had some inclination in this direction, she gave me private lessons in this matter of breathing, emphasis, and articulation. Simply to be able to talk in public for the sake of talking has never had the least attraction to me. In fact, I consider that there is nothing so empty and unsatisfactory as mere public speaking,

but from my early childhood I had a desire to do something to make the world better and then to be able to speak to the world about that thing. So people are just investing in him as a person. So when I'm working with companies, I'm always like, hey, whoever had somebody invest in you? Like take personal time, personal effort to make you, to make you better, to help you along the way. And usually 95% of people raise their hands, myself included. And then you think, oh, how much did that help you? It helped me a lot.

And then how much do you appreciate that person now today and everyone raised their hand? Of course, a ton. And you can see this guy's right. writing a whole book about somebody that took a little extra time to help him learn how to talk learn how to speak better yeah it's crazy because he references those skills too where it's like oh yeah I did this and I knew how to do this because of this person they taught me all that you know so it's like it's like it's very fresh in his mind you know where all these skills come from lasting impact last lasting impact and that's that this book is about helping people and how

appreciative you can be in a how if you want to do something good in your life you help other people out so this book is about and he's talking about people that helped him I get some of this second year at Hampton he was able to go back home and spend his vacation in in West Virginia and then this happens about three o'clock in the morning my brother John found me asleep in this house he'd been working at a house or sorry traveling and spent the night house 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 be the saddest and blankest moment of my life.

For several years, my mother had not been in good health, but I had no idea when I parted from her the previous day that I should never see her alive again. Besides that, I had always had an intense desire to be with her when she did pass away. One of the chief ambitions which spurred me on at Hampton was that I might be able to get in a position in which I could 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. Fast forward a little bit three weeks before the time for the opening of the term at Hampton. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from my good friend, Miss Mary F. Mackey, the lady principal, asking me to return to Hampton two weeks before the opening of 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 an opportunity that I wanted.

gave me the 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. Ms. 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 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. This dude is all about hard work, by the way. And you're going to see this theme throughout this, this whole book, the theme of being able to understand how to do things, learning how to do things, and then working hard to do them is what this guy, one of the underlying things this guy believes in, which is a great lesson for any human being. You know, you hear it all the time. It's a, it's almost become, you know, it's like, oh, the grind. It's basically the grind. This guy's the original person on the grind.

Yeah. Grind culture. Yep, that's him. You know? Booker T. Washington is on the grind. Yeah. And so, apparently, was Ms. Mary F. Mackey. She's on the grind.

Yeah. She's rich. She's from a great family. She's still all on the grind. Yeah. Getting in there. This is a leadership lesson, too. This is picking up the brass, right?

Yeah, yeah. You know, this is her. She doesn't have to do this. I mean, she's the freaking head of the school. She's in their cleaning windows. Yeah. Respect. I noticed that's the second time where he probably says it a bunch more,

but how he's, mentions he has little patience for people who are not like that. Yeah. It's like, huh. It's a nice way of putting it. Yeah, yeah. Right? All right. Fast forward a little bit.

The greatest benefits that I got out of my life at the Hampton Institute, perhaps maybe classified under two heads. So this is the big lessons that he took away. First was the contact with the great man General S.C. Armstrong, who I repeat was, in my opinion, the rarest, strongest and most beautiful character that 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 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 wants done brings. At that institution, I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness. My first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy. So like I said, this book is about hard work. Yeah.

And the value of hard work. And to love labor for its own sake. Like the work itself is good. Never mind the paycheck that you're getting. Just the work itself. Yeah. That's a very interesting and memorable and useful thing. He said there where he mentioned the world needs things done.

And that is kind of like a good way to look. at it where you can find yourself getting sucked into certain things but the result of those things like you're not going to be any use to anybody and you can kind of differentiate what you're doing and you know what game you're playing if you will if you look at it through that lens you know yeah you know it's on the warrior kid podcast of you know if kids like oh what can I do for work and I always say find something that people don't want to do that they need done this is the exact same advice these again then do it do it well yeah and you're gonna

If you can do something for people or you can give them something, you can make something for them that they want, that they need, you're going to be set. Yeah. That's what it is. Yeah. If you, you could look at it as a binary. Like, hey, are you going to be useful or useless? Yeah, exactly. If you look at it in those terms, you'd be like useful all day.

Yep. And you can look at it in non-binary. Are you going to be useless? And then once you get into useful, how useful are you going to be? Because the more useful you are, the best. better results you're going to have in everything. Yep. That is correct.

Fast forward a little bit. 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 for long before I found out that I knew practically nothing about waiting on a hotel table. The head waiter, however, supposed that I was accomplished waiter. He soon gave me charge of a table at which there sat four or five wealthy and

rather aristocratic people my ignorance of how to wait upon them was so apparent that they scolded me in such a severe manner that I became frightened and left their table leaving them sitting there without food as a result of this I was reduced from position of waiter to that of dish carrier but this guy's like hard to discourage but I determined to learn the business of waiting and did so within a few weeks and was restored to my former position I've had the satisfaction of being a guest in this hotel several times since I was a waiter there you Start at the bottom.

My man. While it was while at my home, it was while my home was at Malden that what was known as the Ku Klux Klan was in the height of its activity. This is fast forward a little bit. The Ku Klux were bands of men who had joined themselves together for the purpose of regulating the contact of the color, the conduct of the colored people, especially with the object of preventing the members of the race from exercising any influence in politics. like patrollers, and he gives a little thing about the patrolers back in the day that were basically trying to keep, trying to make sure slaves were being kept and not escaping or not causing problems. And he says, like the patrolers, the coup clucks operated almost wholly at night. They were, however, more cruel than the patrollers. Their object 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 color people lost their lives. The Ku Klux period was, I think, the darkest part of the Reconstruction Days. I have referred to this unpleasant part of 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 a few places in the South now where public sentiment would permit such organizations to exist. Well, there you go.

I think we, sometimes I think we're heading in a different racial direction because there's a lot of people that focused on race more than any other part of existence. But at the time, you know, and this is around the turn of the century, he's like, hey, look, these things are done, at least from his perspective. He says, 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 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. So there's two things that he's going to address here. This desire to learn Greek and Latin, he kind of puts that as a whole genre of learning.

You can probably guess where this is going. These are languages that people don't speak anymore. And he kind of, his basic assessment is like, why are you trying to learn something that doesn't exist anymore? Greek, Latin, and no offense against the people out there that are starting Greek and Latin, good on you. But back in the day, he's saying, what are you learning this for? And in the political thing. He says this about the political thing.

The temptations to enter political life were so alluring that I came very near to 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 legislators and county officers who, in some cases, could not read a right and whose morals were as weak as their education. He's got his own. He's holding the line. 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 Washington, D.C., studying I remained there for eight months and this is where he gets into this

some he talks about there's no in industrial training like he had at the Hampton Institute he says the students at the other school seem to be less self-dependent they seem to give more attention to mere outward appearances in a word they did not appear to me to be bringing to be beginning all at the bottom on a real solid foundation to the extent they were at Hampton they knew more about last and Greek when they left school, but they seem to know less about life and its conditions as they would meet in their homes.

So this dude was thinking, you gotta learn how to do something. You know, this was got not a guy that was getting a degree in, you know, some liberal arts major. He was getting a degree in like something, engineering. You're gonna, when he opens up the Tuskegee Institute, Like they start this is what you're going to learn. You're going to walk out of there.

You're going to be an employable dude. Useful. You're going to be a useful person because there's male and female. I shouldn't just say dude. But male and female. If you're going to the Tuskegee Institute, when you get done there, you're going to be a productive member of society with like multiple skill sets. You're going to get educated.

You're going to learn classic education as well. But trust me, you're going to know how to make bricks. You're going to know how to do carpentry. What do you say? Hand, heads and hearts? Yeah, hands, heads, and hearts. There you go. That's a good thing to do.

How do you train someone's morals? I think you have to, I think you learn them through stories, right? I think that's, you know, when you look at how we learn morals and how we pass them on, the best, the most common way to do that is through stories. You know, that's where the Bible is a bunch of stories about how things happened. But any of these parables that you get from the Bible, but then also, you know, you, The boy who cried wolf, right? All those are just stories. So those moral, those morals come from hearing stories.

Where the stories come from is, you know, you could be a lot of different sources. Yeah. But it's everything from the Bible to nursery rhymes to whatever. They're all, that's where you're going to learn this stuff from. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like that's like one of those kind of like in a way like leadership where it's seen from the outside. It seems like, hey, this is just something you sort of develop incidentally almost through, you know, as you grow up.

But it feels like there has to be a way to actually train morals. Like you get a young man or whatever who is weak morally. Well, this is one of the reasons why the way the warrior kid, you know, one of the reasons that I wrote that book was to give this code. Yeah. for kids to go off of in life because that's a moral code. You know, that is a moral code and it's a simple one. It's a straightforward one. It's a basic one, but you can apply that thing, you know, through your whole life.

But the reason is, is because we've gotten to a point in society where you're not getting your morals from school. You're not getting from church because a lot of people aren't going to church. You're not getting them from school because they're not teaching them in school. You're not getting him from the Boy Scouts because the people aren't doing that anymore. So where are you getting your moral code from? So, oh, way of the warrior kid is one place you can get it from. And same thing with the code diva, the code

and the protocol book that Dave Burke and Sarah Armstrong and I wrote. It's like just read those things. Look, you can make up your own code, which is awesome. But if you don't have a code that you're living by, problematic. But you know, back in the day, 10 commandments. Right, here's kind of the basic rule.

that you need to abide by. And yet, when you ask the question, where do you teach people morals? Well, you used to get it, some from school, some from church. Where do you get it from now? Uh-huh. There's a gap there.

Yeah, seems like it would have to be within the family, I guess, in one way or another. Well, yeah, I guess I should have put that as the primary place, right? The primary place, but you're right in the fact that you should be getting it from your family, but where's your family getting it? Your family's getting their code from church or from school.

They got it from school. And so, yes, you're right. The primary place should be the family. But again, another reason for the warrior kid books, like a lot of times the family's a little different now. You know, how often is the family sitting around and having dinner every night? Yeah. You know, how often they get around the table and sit down and eat dinner?

I can tell you this. When my kids were younger, I didn't do that at all. Didn't do it at all. Oh, I should just, let me rephrase it. Very rarely. No more than once a week would me, my wife and all my kids get around the table. and eat a meal I would like to go back in time and fix that but it's gone and you know everyone's got things going on they got work they got this they got that and and so

where your great question and you know what Booker T is saying is like oh we need to teach their minds their hands and their hearts that's we need to teach them morals because otherwise like you're saying these aren't these aren't These aren't you're not born with morals. You're not. You need to be taught them and people along the way can teach you and that's what is so cool about this book is he's kind of you can see where he's piecing these things together. He's getting it from people right. He's getting it from general Armstrong. He's getting it from Olivia. What's her name? Violet Viola. He's getting it from he's getting it from he's getting a little bit of his morals from viola. Oh, he got to be neat and clean. Yeah. He's getting stuff from general Armstrong got to help other people. He's getting it from. He's getting up from. Lord who's teaching him the Bible so he's getting he's building his moral structure as he's growing up and that's one of the coolest things about the book is you can see this kind of thing you can see it kind of build as he goes through his life yeah and they're coming from sources that seem strict and consistent yes strict consistent positive right positive because think of the other morals that you can

grow up with right I mean it happens all time you know if you you're around about bunch of people that are, you know, thieves or they're scamming people or they're hurting people. Like, you go up. That's what the morals you're going to get. Right. That, and I didn't even think of that. Those are the morals you might get because you might be able to say, I don't want to act that way. Right. And it can be inversely. And you met what you just said positive. You added positive, which the more I think about that even right now, it's like, dang, that's really, really important because you can be strict and consistently strict too. Or sorry, strict and consistent. but if it's like if the kid or whoever, right, the learner,

if they regard it as negative or abusive or anything negative, the chance of rebellion is super high. It seems like it anyway. But if it's positive, like, man, you're just going to take that, like that's like one of the better ways to learn things, especially hard and useful things. That positivity. Strict, consistent, positive.

Yeah. And I think there's a, you know, you talked about, Integrity earlier, I think there's a level of integrity. You know, if you're my kid and I'm telling you one thing, but I'm acting a different way, I think that's a real problem. Yeah. Yeah. That's a real problem. Yeah.

And that's kind of part of that consistency piece as well where, you know, like, you should be getting good grades, right? And then sometimes it's not that big of a deal. So it's kind of like, I have no real integrity, no real direction, you know. Consistency, absolutely key. Yeah. Absolutely. So now he's actually going. He starts doing some speaking.

He's taking a train back to Hampton at this point to give a speech, a commencement day speech. He says, 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 home to West, to my home in West Virginia, where I had planned to continue teaching. I was again surprised to receive a letter from General Armstrong, as asking me to return to Hampton, partly as a teacher, and partly to pursue some supplementary studies.

This was in the summer of 1879. About this time, the experiment was being tried for the first time 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 reservation 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 a sort to be a sort of house father to the Indian young men That is I was to live in the building with them and have charge of their discipline clothing rooms and so on

This was a very tempting offer but I'd become so much absorbed in my work in rest of Virginia that 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 is not a member of their race. At first, I had a good deal of doubt about my ability to succeed. I knew that the average Indian felt himself above the white man, and of course, he felt himself far above the Negro largely on account of the fact of the Negro having submitted to slavery a thing which the Indian would never do the Indians in the Indian Territory owned a large number of slaves during the days of slavery Aside from this there was a general feeling that the attempt to educate and civilize the red men at Hampton would be a failure

All of this may be 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 Indian 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 did the things that they disliked most I think were to have their Long hair cut to give up wearing their blankets and to cease smoking.

But no white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man clothes, eats the white man's food, speaks the white man language, and professes the white man's religion. So a very interesting aspect here from his perspective as these Indians show up. And the key part that I underlined that is this is a good lesson for everybody. I found that they were about like any other human beings, that they responded to kind treatment and resent to ill. You want people to do, you want people to get on board, treat them well. Treat them with respect. Listen to what they have to say. That's what you do.

And also imposing your culture on other people doesn't, doesn't work. that's not a good way to move forward. And this is like, I'm just talking about culture like in a company, you know, if my company acquires your company. And I say, this is how we do it here? Oh, we don't know. How do you guys don't do it? And then you let the culture sort themselves out because there's some things about

culture in your company that might not be as good as the culture I have in my company. You know, when we started working with the army or the Marine Corps, we didn't say, well, this is how we do it in the SEAL teams. We didn't say that. Nope. How do you guys do it? How do you want to make this happen? He goes on to say, while I was in charge of the Indian boys at Hampton, I had one or two experiences which illustrate the curious workings of caste in America.

One of the Indian boys was taken ill and it became my duty to take him to Washington, deliver him over to the Secretary of the Interior and get a receipt for him in order that he might be returned to his Western reservation. At the 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 I could not. I never could understand how he knew just where to draw the color line, since the Indian and I were 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 in 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 there you go um he goes on to talk about well that's that's just interesting you know that's like the times i mean what what like what just what what heinous way to go through what a what a what a heinous history what a what a Part of history that is and he talks about this as this really helped him again like he talks about how this helped him learn how to help people prepare for this type of behavior in the future and when he ended up with the Tuskegee Institute this is that these the type of things that helped him learn to teach Fast forward a little bit. General Armstrong asked me to take charge of the night school, and I did so.

At the beginning of this school, there were about 12 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 they would often urge me to continue the lessons after the usual hour for going to bed and come. So he was just talking about how these night school, these kids had to work. And they were the hardest working kids.

They appreciated it. In May of 1881, near the close of my first year in teaching at the night school in a way that I had. had not dared expect the opportunity open for me to begin my life work one night in the chapel after the usual chapel exercises were over general Armstrong referred me referred to the fact that he received a letter from some gentleman in Alabama asking him to recommend someone to take charge of what was to be a normal school for colored people in the little town of tuskegee in that state before going to Tuskegee, I had expected to find there a building and all necessary apparatus ready for me to begin teaching.

To my disappointment, I found nothing of the kind. I did find, though, which no costly building and apparatus can supply hundreds of hungry, earnest souls who wanted to secure knowledge. So there you go. He gets assigned to open the school, the Tuskegee Institute. He goes, there's nothing there. This guy doesn't care, though. That's just like, whatever.

This is just no factor for him. He lives a life of no factor. I'm a slave, no factor. Oh, I have to work in a coal mine, no factor. I'm getting racially discriminated against, no factor. Watch this. So fast forward. On the morning that I opened, that the school opened,

30 students reported for, this is the Tuskegee Institute. 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. was interesting it was also interesting to note how many big books some of them had studied and how many high sounding subjects some of them claimed to have mastered the bigger the book and the longer the name of the subject the prouder they felt of their accomplishment some had studied latin one or two

had studied greek this they thought entitled them to a special distinction in fact one of the saddest things i saw 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 garden engaged in studying a French grammar. Let me just make sure you understand that. He's like totally one of the saddest things he saw was this kid that looks like crap, looks like a slob. He's all dirty and yet he knows how to speak French.

Like bro, you don't speak in French. You learn how to do your laundry. You learn how to build, you know, build, improve your cabin. 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 life. He goes on the end of the first six weeks, a new and rare face entered the school as co-teacher. 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 and she went to the state of Mississippi and began teaching there

Later, she taught in the city of Memphis Miss Davidson's experience in the South showed her that people needed something more than book learning She heard of the Hampton system of education and decided that was what she wanted in order to prepare herself for better work in the South Miss Davidson and I begin consulting us to the future of the school from the first The students were making progress in learning books and in developing their minds, but it came apparent at once 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 no opportunities for lessons which we would teach them how to care for their bodies with few exceptions the homes in tuskegee in which the students

bordered were but little improvement upon those 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 how to eat how to eat or sorry 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 left us. We wanted to teach them to study actual things instead of mere books alone. Well, this would be a really helpful thing for educators to be paying attention to right now. Because a lot of kids, they get it done with college.

I mean, high school, same thing. They go to high school, they learn how to get into college. They didn't learn how to actually do anything They don't know how to fix a car They don't know how to do plumbing They don't know how to install electrical They don't know how to do any of that stuff They know how to take a test to get into college

What are they learning college? Is that where they learn electrical? Is that where they learn plumbing? No, no, no. Some of them do. Not a lot of them. So That's

So that's what they set this education system up for They end up he's making moves. I'll tell you what he's he's he's a good businessman. He's making moves. He's growing They end up there's an old plantation that's for sale next door He wants to buy it doesn't have any money But gets a general general J F B Marshall who's the treasurer of the Hampton Institute He decides he's gonna lend with his personal funds to buy this chunk of land He says 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 in 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 neat so there you go oh we bought land now we're gonna start farming the land and what do you get to do when you farm the land you get to teach the people how to farm It goes on They needed a building They start building this building 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 failing

Due that we did not have any money to meet Perhaps no one who has gone Who has not gone through the experience Month after month of trying to erect buildings And provide equipment for a school When no one knew where the money was to come from can properly appreciate the difficulties under which we labored. During the first years at Tuskegee, I recall that night after night I would roll and toss my bed

without sleep because of the anxiety and uncertainty which we were in regarding money. I knew that in a large degree we were trying an experiment, that of testing whether or not it was possible for Negroes to build up and control the affairs of a large educational institution. I knew that if we failed, it would injure the whole race. I knew that the presumption was against us. I knew that in case of the white people beginning such an enterprise, it would be taking for granted that they were going to succeed. But in our case, I felt that people would be surprised if we succeeded. All of this made a burden which pressed down on us sometimes it seemed at a rate of a thousand pounds to the inch.

Fast forward a little bit. I was married to Miss Fannie N. Smith of Maldon, West Virginia. So he briefly talking about that. He gets married as she ends up. passing away but I wanted to just mention that fast forward a little bit 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 least

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 and labor, but beauty and dignity, would be taught, in fact, how to lift labor up from mere drudgery and toil and would learn to love work for its own sake. My plan was not to teach them to work in the old way, but to show them how to make the forces of nature, air, water, steam, electricity, 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 the finish as buildings erected by experienced hands of outside workmen, but that in teaching of the civilization, self-help reliance, self-reliance, the erection of buildings by the students themselves would more than compensate for any lack of comfort or fine finish. So this dude's like, hey, we're building our own buildings.

That is no small task. We just decide, hey, I'm going to take a bunch of students and we're going to do our best to build the buildings. And he says, look, they're not going to be perfect. I get it. Some rough edges. But it's going to be worth it. He says, not fast forward a little bit,

not a few times when a new student has been led to the temptation of marring the looks of some building by lead pencil marks or by cuts of a jackknife. I have heard an old student remind him, don't do that. This is our building. I helped put it up.

Bro, don't be met, don't be putting the graffiti marks on this thing. I built it. It's a little bit of ownership right there. 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 is the visible, tangible that goes a long ways in softening prejudices,

the actual sight of a first. class house that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought to build or perhaps could build man go out and do it that's what he's saying do it get it done nowadays we say don't talk about it be about it yeah there you go that's what that's what's what Bucker T was saying he's up even back in the day he had a little he had a little head start on echo Charles and your people that are out there saying this The same principle of industrial education has been carried out in the building of our own wagons, carts, and buggies. We now own and use on our farm and about the school, dozens of these vehicles, and every one of them has been built by the hands of the students. Aside from this, we help supply the local market with these vehicles. The supplying of them to the people in the community has had the same effect as the supplying of bricks. and the man who learns at Tuskegee to build and repair wagons and carts is regarded as a benefactor by both races in the community where he goes. The people with whom he lives and works are going to think twice before they part with such a man.

Like that's what we're talking about. Like make yourself value. Hey, guess what? If we got a wagon and there's someone that knows how to fix a wagon, that's a, we appreciate this dude. Yeah. You know, like, oh, you got a car? If you don't know how to fix a car, you know someone that does, this person has. value he says this the individual who can do something that the world wants done

will in the end make his way regardless of race one man may go into a community prepared to supply the people there with an assat 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 how and wagons if the man can supply the need for those then it will eventually to then it will lead eventually to a demand for the first product and with the demand will come the ability to appreciate and profit by it there you go is a good rule figure out how to do something that people need done by this time it had gotten

fast for it a little bit by this time it had gotten to be pretty well advertised throughout the state that every student who comes 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 school. Other parents came to protest, came to the school to protest in person. 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 talk 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 so he's getting it done making it happen as I look back now and fast forward as we look back now over that part of the struggle I am glad to see that we had it he this is just like the whole thing the building of the the being cold the the the the the the issue of the that they had when the buildings didn't come out right they had to take it down and rebuild like all these things he says as I look back now over that part of the struggle I'm 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 the kitchen and dining room I am glad that our first boarding place was in the dismal ill-lighted and damp basement had we started in a fine attractive convenient room I fear we would have lost our heads and become stuck up. It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for one's self. When our old students return to Tuskegee now, as they often do, and

go into our large, beautiful, well-ventilated, and well-lighted dining room and see tempting, well-cooked food, largely grown by students themselves, and see tables, neat tablecloths and napkins and vases of flowers upon the tables, and hear singing birds, and note that Each meal is served exactly upon the minute with no disorder and with almost no complaint coming from the hundreds that now fill our dining room They too often say to me that they are glad we started as we did and built it ourselves up year by year by a slow and natural Process of growth. So there you go pretty awesome Fast forward a little bit general Armstrong comes to the school the first visit with general 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 Toward 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 generosity of the man I soon learned by his his visits to the southern white people and from his conversations with them that he was anxious about He was as anxious about the prosperity and 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 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 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 good old general armstrong no that's that's uh that's like chamberlain you know Joshua chamberlain at the end of the civil war like salutes the soldiers salutes the confederate soldiers like all right we're done let's move on taking the high road as one might say he says here fast forward a little bit It was my aim from the first at Tuskegee, not only to have the buildings erected by the students themselves, but to have them make their own furniture as far as well as possible. I now marvel at the patience of the students while sleeping upon the floor while we made it for some kind of bedstead to be constructed or they're sleeping without any kind of mattress while waiting for something that looked like a mattress to be made.

I just had to add that in there too, right? Because it's like, oh, you want a good way to motivate people to learn how to make furniture? Don't have any. Straight on making the mattress as well. Geez. This is a great lesson for life. The first time I ever saw the late, Collis P. Huntington, the great railroad man,

he gave me $2 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. portions which came every year from both mr and mrs. Huntington some people say that it was Tuskegee's good luck that brought us to this gift of fifty thousand dollars no it was

not luck it was hard work nothing ever comes to me that is worth having except as a result of hard work when mr. Huntington gave me the first two dollars I did not blame him for not giving me more but made up my mind that I was going to convince him by tangible results that we were worthy of larger gifts for a dozen years I made a strong effort to convince mr. Huntington of the value of our work I noted that just in proportion as the usefulness of the school grew his donations increased somebody gives you two dollars you can definitely take two approach like someone that's so rich

mean this guy's a freaking railroad tycoon and you approach him and you ask him for don't he gives you two dollars yeah it'd be real easy to be salty about that right that's the right yes because that's a modern word salty sure right means like I'm mad about yeah be easy to be salty about a really really rich guy giving you two dollars yeah but instead being like oh cool yeah got a little we got a little well relationship going I'm going to make it my goal to prove to him how valuable we are. That's what I'm talking about. Another little section here.

In 1885, Miss Olivia Davidson, two of them I've already referred as being largely responsible for the success of the school. And I were married. So remember his first wife died. So now he's on his second wife. During our married life, she continued to divide her time between our home and the work of the school. She not only continued to work in the school,

Tuskegee also kept her habit of going north to start. Cure Funds in 1889. She died after four years of happy married life and eight years of hard and happy work for the school. She literally wore herself out in her never-ceasing efforts in behalf of the work that she so dearly loved. During our married life, there were burned two bright, beautiful boys, Booker, Tali Fero, and Ernest Davidson. The elder of these, Booker has already mastered the brickmakers trade at Tuskegee.

Yep. Hey, dude, this is Booker T. He's all about education, because guess what he's proud of? He's proud that is a son, who's named after him, knows how to make bricks. He starts giving, he's given more speeches. He gives a speech at the National Educational Association. He says, when I first came to Tuskegee, I was 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 public address in the north that I would not be willing to say in the south. I early learned that it is hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him and that it is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to the evil done. This is just like indirect approach all day long. Oh you if I want to convince you of something I don't attack you and said I figure, hey, Where do we agree? What have you done that's positive?

How do I form a relationship with you? And then he says, 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 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 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. So you can kind of get that feel for the division that still existed between the north and

the south. He's like, I'm not going to go come down here and like talk smack. If you're going to say something, I'll say it to you. Good rule of thumb. He goes on to say that this was one of the addresses that he made. In this address, I said that the whole future of the Negro rested largely upon the question as to whether or not he should make himself through his skill, intelligence and character of such undeniable value to the community in which he lived that the community could not dispense with his presence. I said that any individual who learned to do something better than anybody else learned to do a common thing in an uncommon manner had solved his problem, regardless of the color of his skin, and that in proportionate. as the Negro learned to produce what other people wanted and must have in the same proportion,

he would be respected. This is sort of the main thrust of what Booker T. Washington is saying to get equality. It's like, yep, become indispensable. Work hard. Use your skill. Do common things in an uncommon manner. That's a good little statement. He says, in early life, I used to cherish a feeling of ill will toward any people 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 curtail the development of another, I pity the individual who would do this. I know that the one who makes this mistake does so because of his own lack of opportunity for the highest kind of growth. I pity him because I know that he is trying to stop the progress of the world and because I know that in time the development and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make him ashamed of his weak and narrow position. One might as well try to stop the progress of a mighty railroad train by throwing his body across the track as to try and stop the growth of the world in the direction of giving me. mankind, more intelligence, more culture, more skill, more liberty, and in the direction of extending more sympathy and more brotherly kindness. Boom. End quote. You can't stop it. He says, I now come to 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 in Atlanta, Georgia, September 18th, 1895. So basically, he gets the opportunity to give this speech at this huge convention. And, you know, it's in Atlanta, Georgia, and he gives this whole very eloquent speech, of which I'm not going to read the whole thing because it would be long and I don't think I could do it justice but here's a highlight or should I say some highlights he says 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 Negroes that the Negro is given a man's chance in a commercial world and in nothing is

this exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance? So he's like, hey, you can say what you want about the South, but here I am speaking at the biggest exposition that they have down here. He says, our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom, we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the production 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 common occupations of life shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between superficial and substantial the ornamental gygaws of life and the useful and I had to look up that word goug gougas actually and it means something that's useless no race can prosper till

it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities. Imagine that. We shouldn't permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities. Lesson learned, right? How often do we catch ourselves doing that? We're complaining about things.

We're complaining about our grievances instead of looking at our opportunities. This is coming from a guy that was an actual slave, right? What are we complaining about? This guy was owned. His mom was owned. His brother and sister were owned. He had to sit there and pull a little cord to fan the white folks and keep the flies off their dinner. And he's not

Letting these grievances Overshadow his opportunities And that's like a little excerpt of the speech Get the book you can read the whole speech But the speech was huge And it got transcribed into all different Newspapers And he became

And I used the term I wrote down the term overnight success Because you know how everyone says Oh you're like oh you call it overnight success You don't see what I've been doing behind And it was kind of like that I I I the way I perceived it it was like that for him here like he'd been obviously been gone to school he'd put himself through school He started the Tuskegee Institute he was making speeches before this one but he made this speech and he became you know

Quote unquote an overnight success And then he did this was just interesting because it again this is something that applies so now he's a now he's kind of famous He went viral yeah he went viral that's like the old school version of going to viral you're right 100% like they printed the whole the whole speech was transcribed in in newspapers across the country that he went viral back in the day he says here the number of people who stand ready to consume once times once time to no purpose is almost countless at one time I spoke before a large audience in Boston and in the evening the next morning I was

awakened by having a card brought to my room and with it a message that someone was Anxious to see me, thinking that it must be something very important. I dressed hastily and went down. When I reached the hotel office, I found a blank and innocent looking individual waiting for me. Who coolly remarked, I heard you talk at a meeting yesterday last night. I rather like to talk so I came this morning to hear you talk some more. Then he says, I'm often asked how it is possible for me to super intend the work at Tuskegee and at the same time be so much away from the school.

So how's he overlook, how does he keep track of what's going on to Skigi when he's on the road all the time? 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 to, which says do not get others to do that which you can do yourself. So he's like, oh, people say, don't, don't get others to do things that you can do yourself. And he says, my motto, on the other hand, is do not do that which others can do as well as you. This is decentralized command all day long. He doesn't need to be a Tuskegee all the time. He's got people that can run that. Decentralized command.

He says, 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 what part of the country I'm in, I know by these reports, even what students are excused from school and why they're 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 money is. I know how many gallons of milk and how many pounds of butter come from the dairy, what the bill of fare is for teachers and students, whether a certain kind of meat is boiled or baked, and whether certain vegetables in the dining room were brought from a store or bought from a store or procured from our own farm. Now that sounds a little bit micromanagement to me, but you can tell he knows what's going on. And then he says, I'm often asked 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 a rather difficult question for me to answer. I have a strong feeling that every individual owes it to himself and to the cause of which he was 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 some routine of daily duties,

but to get rid of the routine work as early as possible in the day and then enter upon some newer advanced work. So that's a good plan. Hey, get done with the stuff that just got to be done. The routine stuff working out, whatever, answer a couple of emails, and then get into the good stuff. So get the crap out of the way. It says, I make it a rule to clear my desk every day before leaving my office of all

correspondence and memorandas so that on the tomorrow I can begin a new day of work. I make it a rule to never let my work drive me, but to so master it. Oh, this is a good one. Let me read that again. 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 keep so far ahead of it that I will be the master instead of the servant Don't let your work control you get control That's where I learned it when I went to college. I was really good at this because remember I was a 20 I don't know 20 like seven year old man or something when I went to college

Old school. Yeah, so I was like oh I'll be ahead Like, they did not control me at all. I would have 20-page papers written weeks in advance. I was such a dork. But you know what? That stuff didn't control me. You know what I mean? Yeah.

To develop that skill young, I feel like that could have been a lot very useful for me. I think it could be useful for everybody. For everybody. I think maybe it could even be useful to you today. Right now, yeah. Yep, that skill doesn't seem like a skill that would become less useful. No. He says 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 satisfying, satisfying and inspiring. My experience teaches me that if one learns to follow this plan, he gets a freshness of body and vigor out of mind, out of work. that goes a long way toward keeping him strong and healthy. I believe that when one can grow to a point that he loves his work, this gives him a kind of strength that is most valuable. Legit, right?

Yep. So now we get to another. Again, this is kind of like the daily, you know how in the productivity world, this whole little section, these sections kind of like that from Booker T. He said, I've said that I make it a rule to finish up each day's work before leaving it. There is perhaps one exception to this. When I have an unusually difficult question to decide, one that appeals strongly to the emotions, I find it a safe rule to sleep over at four night or wait until I have had the opportunity to talk it over with my wife and friends. Boom.

Good piece of advice right there. He goes on to say, the time when I get the most solid rest and recreation is when I'm, 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 telling a story. That's a good idea of making or having your kids tell stories

because storytelling is such an important skill to have. Let's get into that a little bit more. You know what I'm saying? Your kids are young enough to do that with. My kids are too old for that now. Yeah. Yeah, I never thought about that. Yeah, to have them tell you a story.

Yeah. And it's a smart move. Yeah, especially actively doing it because my daughter, she's into it. And she does tell stories sometimes. Like she'll take over and ask questions to, you know, I told you that we do this like protocol at the end of the night where before bed, we, I give them like basically quizzes. Like name which planet is this one. And, you know, but sometimes it'll be like a story or just like talking about stuff or them.

But sometimes she'll ask the questions. tell the story but I never approached it as like hey let's do this on like deliberately you know so that yeah that's a good little take right there good little take I wish I would have thought of that get your kids to tell stories yeah another thing he says my garden also what little time I can be at Tuskegee is another source of rest and enjoyment somehow I like as often as possible to touch nature not something that is artificial or an imitation but the real thing When I leave my office in time so that I can spend 30 or 40 minutes in spading the ground and planting seeds, in digging about the plants, I feel 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. solid and then the last little section here fast forward a little he says games I care little for I've never seen a game of football in cards I do not know one card from another a game of old-fashioned marbles with my two boys once in a while is all I care for in this direction I suppose I would care for games now if I had any time in my youth to give to them but that was not possible we're not playing games over here Uh, little note here in 1893, I was married to Miss Margaret James Murray. So he got married three times.

A native of Mississippi, a graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, who had come to Tuskegee as a teacher several years before. And at the time we were married was fulfilling the position of lady principal. So there you go. Now, the school continued to grow. and we'll close out with this section. And again, look, I've barely read 5%, less than 5%. We're a tiny fraction of this book.

Get this book up from slavery. But I want to close out with this section right here about the growth of the school and about sort of leadership and life. Some good points. He says, 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 on 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 a.m. breakfast bell. 6.20 a.m. breakfast over. 6.20 to 6.50 rooms are clean. 6.50 work bell. 7.30 morning study hours. 8.20 morning. school bell 825 inspection of young men's toilets in ranks 840 devotional exercises in the chapel

855 5 minutes with the daily news i like that five minutes you should think of that for your social media you have five minutes for your social media enactor 9 a.m. class work begins 12 class work closes 12 15 p.m. dinner 1 p.m. work bell 1 30 p.m. class work begins 3 30 p.m. class work ends 5.30 p.m. bell to knock off work. 6 p.m. supper. 7. 10.m. evening evening study hours. 8.45 p.m. evening study hour closes. 9.20 p.m. Warning. retiring bell. 9.30 p.m. retiring bell. You're not getting in trouble. You don't have time to get in trouble. No, that's the schedule. Right there. He says this. 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, education, 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 any race.

Aside from this, there is 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 of homes, saving money, in education, and in moral character are remarkable. Whole communities are fast being revolutionized by the instrumentality of these men and women. The greatest human law that in the end recognizes and rewards merit. is everlasting and universal. So the great human law that in the end recognizes and rewards merit is everlasting and universal. Those are some incredibly powerful words, especially from someone that was born a slave.

Because you can imagine the excuses that he can come up with and the blame that he could place on society on slavery on prejudice on the destruction of his family on the lack of his father on the deaths of his wives are like there's he has had an extremely difficult life and yet he says that in the end merit is going to be recognized because he didn't make any excuses he didn't cast any blame he freaking worked worked at the salt furnace worked in the coal mine worked unload Pag Iron from ships and as hard as he worked in that physical labor he worked even harder To become educated to teach himself the alphabet to learn how to read He worked to be educated he worked to become Successful in life and that is an inspiration and a goal for anybody for all of us There you go. What's your reflections? Equot Charles, Booker T. Did he deliver the goods? He delivered. So and you know, it put in I know about book because I actually studied African American history a little bit in college. So okay. I'm familiar with Booker T. But just listening to this part of this book and you know you going over that it kind of paints this overall picture of an just a very basic attitude and for him not it was almost like he didn't.

didn't take slavery personally at all, like literally like zero zero, which is that's how you would act. Can you imagine how hard that is? Yes. Right. Oh, borderline impossible. Borderline impossible. The people, these I got my, my forefathers got captured, chained, put onto a tiny ship.

A bunch of them died sailing over here. Yep. And now we're actual slaves. And I'm going to be like, okay, that happened. I'm moving forward. Yeah. And not taking it personal and not blaming, right? That's like the thing.

And he did it because. And so you think about it, right? This is why I was like, this, that's really the, um, the, what, like, that's the, the, the critical factor right there. Because let's say, let's say it wasn't, uh, a human, let's say you got trapped somewhere on accident, right? So you weren't, you and you could see outside on a cave or something. some bars or, you know, jail cell, on an accident, right?

Like, maybe even by your own slip up or whatever. Okay. And you're in there for years. And you're like, shoot, I'm never going to get out of here, whatever, you know, kind of thing. And then you see all this activity going on outside. You see people going to school and having kids and just all this activity going on outside. And one day you wake up and like you see a little crack in the wall or something. You're, wait a second.

I can get out of here. And then you get out. You're free now. act like you're free go do all the stuff that you couldn't do go do all that stuff you know and that's kind of what he did essentially that is what he did so he it if you did if he did take it personal he'd be looking back into that that jail cell he'd be looking back in there and being mad at it and focusing at the very least some of his attention on that he didn't it was like none of it even to take the time to tell the people that we're walking around out there what you hey you're

Lucky you got to be here. I've been over there. It reminds me of a member when we had Jim Sturisley on the podcast and he was in Vietnam volunteered for the army, volunteered for Vietnam, ended up losing both legs and one arm and came back from Vietnam, spent nine months in the hospital and learning how to adapt to his new life, which by the way is like a crazy new life. This isn't like, oh, you got a new life because this little thing changed. This is a huge, just alter,

a huge alteration to everything that you are. You now have to do everything differently. He came back and he was like, okay. He never complained about it, never, never looked back, never said, why me? He's like, okay, cool. Here's what I can do. Remember he started a,

We started going to college, he started a roofing company, a roofing company, started a real estate company, started hunting, started doing all these things. Because instead of sitting there saying, woe was me, move forward. And it seems like that's what Booker T. Washington's doing too. I'm going to move forward. Here I am. The past is past. I'm going to move forward. I'm going to make the best of everything that I can starting right now.

And that's what he did. you notice that he referred to it as the institution of slavery. It's not like I was enslaved by this person or these people. It was the institution of slavery, real non-personal. That's what it, like, how it landed on me, where he was just like, oh, this is a thing that exists. Was it a bunch of people, which it was, but he didn't look at it like that a bunch of people against him, holding him down. It was the institution, which is now gone. So what is there to blame kind of an attitude?

You know, the institution literally doesn't exist anymore. See very very interesting way to look at it. Yeah, and once again if men like this people like this can have this kind of attitude after being in the worst possible conditions because the worst possible condition is you're not a free human being. That's the worst possible condition. It's the worst possible condition. It doesn't get any worse. We take it for granted. I know that we take it for granted. We take it for granted. But there's nothing worse than losing your freedom. Or I guess the only thing worse than losing your freedom is never having freedom.

And growing up without freedom, growing up in a fate of slavery. And then to have that washed away and to look up and move forward. I think we can all learn something from that. So thank you, Booker T. Washington. So echo Charles what do we got? Well Booker T another thing that I did notice Maybe you did too He's a hard worker

He's down for the hard work He's definitely he's not played it he is definitely working hard Yes sir We'll say that's a hundred percent factual information Yeah so and the make yourself useful philosophy That's like one that like man if you can just keep that in mind Yeah I think that's gonna you gonna take yourself far Yeah, with that philosophy.

Yep. One of the most important things of making yourself useful is making sure that you're physically fit to do your job. There's a meme. Sure. Meem. Hell. Going around right now. My kids are into memes, bro.

You better watch out. If you're on a thread with my family, you're getting memes. You get memes left, right. They're throwing all kinds of memes around. My wife will be sending a meme of a cute dog. My kid will be sending a meme a jiu-jitsu. My daughter will be sending a meme a jiu-jitsu. My other daughter will be sending a meme a mime of meas around.

whatever they're sending memes funny memes weightlifting memes jihitsu memes dog memes cute animal memes right so the memes going down sure I forgot what even meme I was going to tell you about right now there's so many memes in my head right now physically fit physically fit did you see the meme where it's a guy who's being rescued in some way and there's a guy carrying like a little pair of sandals. And then a dude in uniform is carrying that guy's kid through like flood waters. And the meme is kind of like, hey, don't be the guy carrying the sandals, right? Yeah.

And look, who knows what the situation is? It's a meme. I get it. That guy was probably like, hey, I don't have shoes on. I don't want to drop my daughter. You take her because she'll be safe for you. I get it. I'm not trying to call this poor guy out.

Right, right. But the sentiment is don't be that guy. You want to be the person that's strong enough, mentally fit enough to handle situations when they come. So that means we're working out. That means we're doing jiu-jitsu. How was that jiu-jitsu you had the other day? Good.

Intense jiu-jitsu. That's, yeah, that was like the old school, because we used to do that every Wednesday. Yeah. But, yeah, so every day. No, I mean, that group. that kind of that group okay we had that Wednesday crew going yeah yeah yeah solid yeah and some new new yeah characters which Sloan and uh Keenan Cornelius

actually Keenan would come every once in a while yeah the old school but mehan wasn't there mehan's in the game yeah it's good it's good I I posted a picture sure and I said no easy rolls yeah no no easy rounds or something like that yeah because it's one of those days right you're not getting a restaurant no there's nobody there I could be you're going to chill mode it's not happening yeah especially because I'll be like oh you want to go again want to go again yeah just get beat up I did the math and I think what total was what 11 rounds something like this yeah it was like 11 rounds um I took off one round actually two rounds I took off

technically because I filmed that's technically a restaurant but so what the 11 nine I'm kind of happy about that so nine rounds you figure with yeah no easy round no even the lightest guy physical weight is Greg Train year is 20 years experience he's like uh he's like mulener thor's hammer and that just doesn't look like it's going to be that heavy but then you can't move it's right that's the perfect analogy right there yeah i guess adam was there too and he is also not a heavyweight oh yeah but he didn't roll he also has like weird you know weird jitsu and he puts his he got that he's like a break dancer you know what I'm saying yep yeah seriously that yeah I agree bouncing on a

head and you're like what are you doing yeah what's happening but the but yes so it's no easy rounds yeah really good I had doms in my face from getting shut and I was trying to like backtrack where was my face getting abused in that way because it wasn't like friction nothing it wasn't that it was like you know the muscles in your face from tensing up from getting your head choked and I'm pretty sure it was Sloan pretty sure yeah you if Sloan has a hold your head there's going to be there's going to be some tension yes sir confirmed confirmed enough you're going to be some tension but very good and to your point that you make a lot is like when you go through good and this goes from pretty much all

exercise where if you go through some a good a good um sash jujitsu latings lifting running surfing this was one of those sessions where it was like yeah it's like hard for sure but at the end you're like man that's solid Mm-hmm. Yeah. You mean rounds I took off? I don't know how many. Zero?

No rounds. Dang. No rounds. Nonetheless, are you on the creatine? Yes. Because you got to be consistent, right? With the creatine, you can't just like take one here and there, like like a milk or something. It's feeling good too.

Yeah. Because I was off the creatine train for a while. You can feel it. Yeah. You can feel it. It's legit. So isn't there like, and I don't know, I got to look into it more. Just for the sake of understanding.

I mean, I know the protocol, but like, why it isn't there like an actual loading phase? I think that was the old school sort of thing. So if I'm remembering correctly, maybe I'll get tuned up again, just for the sake of information it you might need to refer the bro science manual on this one before you start putting out word I think it takes a while to get to roll into your system. Yeah, you just don't have to load like take like more in the beginning and then tape art. You don't have to do that. I mean, I guess you can't start taking it. Yeah, you can. Yeah. You want to get old school about. it sure so yes creatine oh by the way if you need creatine go to joccofuel.com get yourself some creatine get yourself some joint warfare you get done rolling with Sloan we need some joint warfare yeah just take that maybe you could get joint warfare injected into your neck my face into your face super krill mok you know what I love right now is I know when I as soon as I get done take a shower on my way out of here I'm

grabbing that ready to drink milk yeah oh 30 grams of protein on the way home. It's a six minute drive and I have 30 grams of protein when I walk through the door of my house. That's already being digested, already being sent into the system, already getting refueled. It's hard to keep that stuff in stock here. Because everybody has the same thought.

I just, I need fuel now. I need to rebuild. And that's, everyone's thinking that and you walk out and there's a rebuilding glory. Tasty glory. And that's a big part of it. the tasty part because you know we all ate we all know the chalky old school protein powder that like kind of tastes like chocolate or whatever flavor but it tastes like like chalky like protein powder you know health powder whatever let's face it that's not not yeah we're not doing that anymore

no need no need no need i was in big bear a few days ago shredding shredding that's right gregg train speaking of great train he was there too okay we had a little overlap sesh went night or skiing or with a snowboarding. But he brought up the monk. He was like, hey, you guys nailed that formula, like how it tastes. Whatever he was like, I gave him another one. I had a little stock up there. But yes, very good tasting, protein.

Kind of groundbreaking. Yeah, really. Yeah, I think it's Nobel Prize. I think they've been put in for the Nobel Prize at Janko Fuel. Yeah, I heard that too. Protein supplementation. So anyways, Jocko Fuel, you know the deal. Get at JoccoFuel.com.

Get it at Wawa, get it at Vitamin Shop, get at the military. commissaries H.E.B. Meyer. I mean, we got it. We got it where you're at. Hannaford. Yeah. Go get yourself some. Go get yourself some. Did I say vitamin shop? Vitamin shop. Yeah. And if you don't see it in there, hey, joccofuel.com. All day. Yes. All day. There you go. Also. Origin. Origin USA.orgion.com. If you need for these jiu-jitsu sessions that you're in, you need a gie. You need a rash guard. Have you, have you tried the comfort fit rash guards no um i don't really use those oh actually i have like a like you saw a shirt i was wearing right it's like a it's almost like a dry dry fit it's like i didn't see it yeah

i think it is the same thing though but i actually typically that's not the the the nogee wardrobe comfort well if you need it if you need a rash guard you can get them at origin usa.a.com But they're made in America. They're not made with slave labor. Look, we just talked about, we just talked about Booker T. Washington. People that are slaves, and we think, oh, that must have been so horrible back then.

It's still going on. It's literally going on today. And they probably made that shirt that you're wearing right now. Probably made that rash guard that you're wearing right now. They're definitely wearing that ghee. If you're wearing a ghee and it's not from Origin USA, it's made by slave labor. So go to origin USA.com, get some hunt gear,

get some jiu jitsu gear get some jeans you got you what you want to support america you don't like slavery we fought a civil war to end it but now we're just going to let these other countries just have slaves is that is that what we're doing no it's not what we're doing this is america go to origin usa.com get yourself some american freedom for clothing this is freedom that you put on your own body Let's make it happen Origin USA.com Also, Jocko has a store called Jocko Store That's some good merch

Do you want to represent on the path Discipline equals freedom? Good, all this stuff This is where you can get it Also there's a thing called the shirt locker That's a new shirt every month Different kind of designs but still representing hard People seem to like that word But yeah, jocco store.com

Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe to Jocco Underground.com Subscribe to the YouTube channel Origin USA Do you know Jock Fuel has a YouTube channel now. Everyone's making their own YouTube channel. People are just out there just making YouTube channels. We got three of them that are actually pretty dope. This one, Jockle podcast YouTube channel, Origin USA, Jock Fuel, check out those and then

subscribe to the YouTube channel. Well, that way, why would you do that? Why would you do that? You would do that so that when a new video comes out, it pops up, you get to see it. See what's happening. See what's happening in a Jocko Fuel. See what's happening at Origin. See what's happening at Jockle podcast. There you go. Psychological Warfare. We got full. Lipside Canvas by Dakota Meyer. I've written a bunch of books. You know them. Get them.

If you got kids, just get them the Warrior Kid books. All of them. All of them. And you think, oh, my kid doesn't really like to read. Of course they don't like to read. You've been buying them crap books. Check out the Way the Warrior Kid podcast. We just put up three new ones.

Check that out. Don't buy your kids junk books. Buy them good books. There's only five of them. Actually six. Way of the Warrior Kid series. That's five plus Mikey and the Dragons. There's six books.

You don't think your kid wants to read them because your kid doesn't read your kid because you're buying your kid junk books don't do that buy them the good stuff buy them a book that's going to give them an upper hand in life and you should do this for other people that you don't think that oh I'm not going to get little Johnny my neighbor I'm not going to get him one of these books because I want my kid to do better don't think that way actually what you want to do your kid to be in a little gang of warrior kids and that the way they're all peer pressuring each other to do better be stronger do more pull-ups do better in school be more squared away that's what you want

You want your kid the lone warrior kid under peer pressure from a bunch of other kids that are telling them to do drugs and not study and not work out, which is what's going to happen. I'm not trying to fearmonger you. I'm just telling you what's going on. Way of the warrior kid. Get these books for your kids. Seriously. Ashlandfront, leadership consultancy, we solve problems through leadership. Ashlandfront.com for details.

Also, Extreme Ownership Academy. We are online and just ran some stuff online today. Online training people are just asking me questions if you go to extreme ownership.com We got some free courses on there about how to take ownership about what that looks like about what to say About what the barriers are Extremeownership.com come and join the academy become a good leader become a good human And if you want to help service members active and retired you want to help their families gold star families check out Mark Lee's mom Mama Lee she's got a charity organization if you want to donate or you want to get involved

Go to America's Mighty Warriors.org. And don't forget about Micah Fink. Right now, what's he doing right? Oh, let's do a little check in with Micah Fink. Oh, right now, Micah Fink just repelled down a cliff with a lasso in one hand, and he's got a bear and a mountain lion in the other hand. He's up there, heroes and horses helping veterans find themselves again.

Heroes and Horses.org. If you want to connect with us on the interwebs, Echoes at Echoes at Equitral. I'm at Jocko Willink. But listen, five minutes. Five minutes. Booker T. Washington is giving you five minutes to catch up on news,

and we're going to slide social media in there. Well, you want to cover social media? Okay, get 10 minutes. News? News followed by social media. You got 10 minutes. Otherwise, the algorithm grabs you, chokes you out.

Be careful. And thanks to all the people out there in university. who fought for and protect freedom around the world we are only free because of your sacrifice and thanks also to our police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service all first responders you all protect us here on the home front and we thank you for that and to everyone else out there one more quote from mr. Booker T Washington quote character, not circumstances, makes the man.

End quote. Which means it's not the situation that you're born into. It's not the scenario that unfolds around you. It's not the hand that you get dealt in life. What matters is the character with which you live. So do not. Do not permit your grievances in life to overshadow your opportunities. Instead, go out there and get after it.

And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.