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Title: A boys' life of Booker T. Washington
Author: Walter Clinton Jackson
Release date: January 18, 2025 [eBook #75144]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The MacMillan Company, 1922
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Charlene Taylor, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOYS' LIFE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON ***
A BOYS’ LIFE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
[Illustration:
SYMBOLIC GROUP ERECTED AT TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE (1922).
]
A BOYS’ LIFE
OF
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
BY
W. C. JACKSON
Vice President of the North Carolina College for Women, Greensboro, and
Professor of History
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1922
PREFACE
The single aim in telling the story that follows is to interest boys in
the life of Booker T. Washington.
This man’s life was of such singular and vital importance in the history
of his own race and in the history of our country that it ought to be
familiar to all the youth of the land, and to the negro youth
especially, since it is the greatest inspiration to the latter to be
found in the annals of American history.
There has been no attempt to be original or exhaustive in the treatment.
While a great mass of material has been consulted, it should be frankly
stated that the story follows very closely the material found in
Washington’s “Up from Slavery” and “My Larger Education” and Scott and
Stowe’s “Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization.”
The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to Doubleday, Page
and Company for permission to use extensive quotations from these books.
If some boy by reading this book is inspired to higher ambition and
encouraged to nobler effort, the author will feel that the book is fully
justified.
FOREWORD
This is the story of Booker T. Washington. It is the story of a boy who
was born a slave and who in manhood became the leader of ten million
people; who was born in poverty and ignorance and became the greatest
orator and teacher of the negro race; who was born of an ignorant and
backward race and became the friend of the greatest and best men of all
races of all the world.
He was a brave man. He had courage and backbone. He was not afraid. He
had courage to fight for what he believed to be the right.
He was an energetic man. There was not a lazy bone in him. No man ever
lived a more strenuous life than he did. He loved his work; and few
other men ever did so much work in a lifetime.
He was just and fair-minded. He could see right for the white man as
well as for the negro. He never intentionally did any one, white or
black, an injustice.
He was an honest man; honest in his thinking as well as in his business;
honest, frank, and open in his speeches and his writings. He looked
facts squarely in the face.
He was a wise man. He had intelligence. He had good judgment. He knew
the right thing to do and to say, and he did it and said it.
He was a modest man. He did not boast or brag. He did not try to get
money or office or high position. He was content to do his work as an
honest man.
He was a patriotic man. He loved his country and believed this to be the
greatest nation in the world; and he was ready to give his life for it
if necessary.
He had will power. He made up his mind about things, and, when he had
made a decision, he could not be discouraged nor turned aside. He would
see his plans through, and he would stand by his convictions to the
last.
He had self-control. He did not lose his temper or his tongue. He kept
himself in hand. He did not lose his head or waste his time and thought
and effort on useless and needless things.
He was a great lover of animals. He loved the pigs and the chickens, the
horses and the dogs, the birds and the fishes, and every living thing.
Above all he loved folks. He loved the people of all races. He was a
friend not only to the black man but likewise a friend to the red man,
the yellow, the brown, and the white.
He loved his race. He was not ashamed of it. He was proud of its
history; of its great achievements in the past. He had an abounding
confidence in its future. He believed that in the days that lie ahead
the negro race is to play a wonderful part.
It is well worth while to know about this man.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. EARLY CHILDHOOD 1
II. BOYHOOD DAYS 9
III. PLANNING FOR AN EDUCATION 14
IV. SCHOOL DAYS AT HAMPTON 22
V. BEGINNING LIFE IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 33
VI. BACK AT HAMPTON 40
VII. BUILDING A GREAT SCHOOL 45
VIII. STRENUOUS DAYS 56
IX. RAISING MONEY FOR TUSKEGEE 67
X. MAKING SPEECHES 76
XI. SUCCESS AS EDUCATIONAL LEADER 88
XII. LEADING HIS PEOPLE 105
XIII. POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 112
XIV. VISITS TO EUROPE 118
XV. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON: THE MAN 129
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
SYMBOLIC GROUP ERECTED AT TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE (1922) _Frontispiece_
FOUNDER’S DAY DRILL AT TUSKEGEE 6
CABINETMAKING AT TUSKEGEE 23
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AS A HAMPTON GRADUATE (1875) 24
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S CLASS (1875) AT HAMPTON INSTITUTE 31
TUSKEGEE’S FIRST GROUP OF BUILDINGS 51
A SUNDAY AFTERNOON BAND CONCERT ON THE CAMPUS 58
AUTOMOBILE AND BUGGY TRIMMING AT TUSKEGEE 61
CLASS IN PHYSICAL TRAINING AT TUSKEGEE 65
WHITE HALL; CHAPEL; TATUM HALL, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 69
JOHN A. ANDREW MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 72
CLASS IN PHOTOGRAPHY, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 74
CHEMISTRY CLASS, TUSKEGEE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT 89
TRUCK GARDENING, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 92
DOMESTIC SCIENCE CLASS AT TUSKEGEE 95
THE STUDENTS’ BAND OF A RURAL SCHOOL 99
TAILORING DIVISION, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 101
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, FIRST PRINCIPAL OF TUSKEGEE
INSTITUTE 119
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND HIS FAMILY 132
ROBERT RUSSA MOTON, SUCCESSOR TO BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AT
TUSKEGEE 139
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND HIS GRANDCHILDREN 141
A BOYS’ LIFE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
CHAPTER I
EARLY CHILDHOOD
No state in the Union has a more interesting history than Virginia. It
is the oldest of the states. It was at Jamestown in 1607 that the first
permanent English settlement was made in America. Before the Revolution,
it shared with Massachusetts the honor of being the leading colony.
During the time of the Revolution, it furnished some of America’s
greatest leaders—Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson. After
the Revolution, it became known as the “Mother of Presidents.” Most of
the battles of the Civil War were fought on its soil, and its capital
was the capital of the Confederacy. Lee and Jackson, the two greatest
leaders of the Confederacy, were Virginians.
It was in this state that slavery in North America began. We must
remember, however, that slavery had been in existence a long, long time.
The ancient Hebrews, we are told in the Old Testament, practiced this
evil custom. So did all the nations about Palestine. The Greeks and the
Romans also kept slaves. We must not think of the people that were
enslaved by the Hebrews and Greeks and Romans as negroes. They were of
all races. Whenever one people conquered another, it mattered not of
what race, the conquerors made their captives slaves. This often
resulted in the most cultured and highly educated people being made
slaves. This was especially the case when the Romans captured Greeks.
Later on in the history of Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, the enslavement of negroes became very general, so that, by
the time North America began to be settled by the people from Europe,
negro slaves were bought and sold throughout the principal European
countries and their colonies.
So it came about that, in Virginia, negro slavery was introduced into
the United States. It was in 1619 that a Dutch ship, after a cruise in
the West Indies, landed at Jamestown, and while there, engaging in trade
with the inhabitants, sold them nineteen negroes. These were the first
slaves sold in North America, and it was from this beginning that the
system grew up in the country.
In Virginia too we had the first big plantations. Tobacco was the most
important crop in the early history of the colony. The planters could
sell tobacco at a great profit in England. Negro slaves could cultivate
tobacco very successfully. The planters, therefore, bought slaves to
raise tobacco, and they sold the tobacco and bought more slaves to raise
more tobacco. The planters bought many hundreds of acres of land and
many slaves to cultivate them. As you know, the slaves lived in cabins.
These cabins were little houses, usually built of logs, and the cracks
were daubed with mud. The cabin usually had one door, one window, and a
dirt floor only. These cabins were all close together, not very far from
the “big house,” and were known as the “quarters.”
The slaves did all the work on the plantation. Most of them worked in
the fields. Some worked about the barn and in the garden. One drove the
master’s carriage and took care of the horses. Another was the butler in
the “big house.” Some of the small boys and girls also worked in the
“big house,” serving their young masters and mistresses. And, of course,
one of the negro women was the plantation cook.
On just such a plantation down in Franklin County, Virginia, Booker T.
Washington was born. His mother was the cook on the plantation of a Mr.
Burroughs who lived near a little crossroads post office, southwest of
Lynchburg, called Hales’ Ford. There, in a little one-room cabin, Booker
was born on April 5, 1856. The cabin had no glass windows. It had only
one door, and it had a dirt floor. There were large cracks that let in
the cold. In the middle of the floor there was a large opening in the
ground in which sweet potatoes were stored. Sometimes as they put the
potatoes in or took them out, Booker got one or two and roasted them.
All of the cooking was done over the open fire in this cabin, for they
had no stove. It was a very uncomfortable place in which to live.
The boy lived a hard life. He says: “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. 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.”[1]
One day, when he was about five years old, he saw his young mistress and
some visitors out in the yard eating ginger cakes. He said he never saw
anything in his life that looked so good to him as those cakes did; and
he thought that, if he ever got free, the height of his ambition would
be to buy all the ginger cakes he wanted, just like those the young
ladies were eating.
He had to sleep on a pallet. He never slept in a bed until after he was
set free. The first pair of shoes he ever had was made of leather, but
the soles were of wood, and they were very uncomfortable and made a
great noise when he walked. He never thought of wearing anything on his
head. But the worst thing about his dress in those early days was having
to wear a flax shirt. These shirts were made of the roughest and
coarsest part of the flax, and they were very uncomfortable. When new,
they scratched severely. After they were worn awhile and “broken in,”
they were fairly comfortable. His brother John often “broke in” Booker’s
shirts for him, a very kind and generous thing to do.
He had no time to play when he was a boy. When he was a grown man, he
was asked what games he played when he was a boy, and he answered that
he had never played at all. He had to work so hard that no time was left
for play. Even when he was a very small boy, he had to sweep the yards,
carry water to the hands in the fields, help around the “big house,” and
carry in wood. Going to mill was the worst job he had. A farm hand would
put a sack of corn on a horse, put him on top of the sack, and send him
off. It was a long way to the mill. Almost every time he was sent, the
sack of corn would work to one side and then fall off. It was too heavy
for him to put back; so he would have to wait until some one came along
to help him. He sat and cried until some one came. It was often dark
when he got home. He was terribly frightened when he was alone at night,
for he was told that there were deserting soldiers in the woods, and
that when they found little negro boys the first thing they would do
would be to cut off their ears. Of course this was not true, but he
thought it was.
Do you suppose this little boy had any chance to go to school? This is
what he says: “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
boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression
upon me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study
in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.”[2] This
is the same boy who came to be the greatest educator of his race; the
head of the greatest negro school in the world.
[Illustration:
FOUNDER’S DAY DRILL AT TUSKEGEE
]
It must be remembered that the conditions under which Booker lived in
these early years of his life were not restricted entirely to the
negroes. Many of the white people were poor also, and many white boys
wore flax shirts and shoes with wooden soles. Just after the Civil War,
especially, all the white people of the South had a very hard time.
White boys as well as negro boys had no time for play. Nor did they have
an opportunity to go to school. In those days many white boys who were
eager for an education had such difficulties to face as those which
loomed up before Booker Washington.
By and by, when Booker was about nine years of age, there came a
thrilling day. For four long years the great war had been going on.
Often he had heard his mother singing freedom songs. He remembered being
awakened one morning and saw his mother by his bed and heard her praying
that Lincoln might be successful, and that her little boy might some day
be free. He had seen some of the soldiers in their uniforms, home on
furlough. He remembered when they brought home the body of “Marse Billy”
and buried him amidst the bitter weeping of the slaves, who loved him as
their friend, for he had often begged for them when they were about to
be punished. While they vaguely knew and felt that the success of
Lincoln meant freedom, and the success of the others meant slavery, they
were still loyal and true to their masters. By means of the “grape vine
telegraph,” that is, by passing news along quickly from one plantation
to another, the slaves had kept pretty well informed of the progress of
the war, and when Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the slaves knew it very
soon.
One night word came to the “quarters” that something very unusual would
happen at the “big house” the next day. There was much excitement.
Nobody slept that night. Early next morning some one came to the
quarters and told the negroes that they were all wanted at the house.
Booker’s mother called her children, and they with all the other slaves
marched up to the house. All the members of the family were on the
porch. They were very quiet and seemed sad and depressed. There was
present a stranger, a man who wore a uniform. He stood up and read a
paper—“The Emancipation Proclamation.” Then the master explained that
the negroes were now free. He told them that they could go wherever they
desired. He also told them that they could live where they were if they
wanted to, and they would be taken care of; but if they preferred, they
could go to any other place. Booker’s mother leaned over her children
and kissed them while the tears streamed down her face. Her prayers had
been answered. Her children were free.
CHAPTER II
BOYHOOD DAYS
When the slaves were set free, one of the first things that many of them
did was to change their names. Most of the slaves had only one name. As
free people they felt that they should have the same sort of names as
other free people; so they began to add a last name, and usually an
initial. If a man had been called “Tom” all his life, he was now called
“Tom L. Johnson.” The “L” stood for nothing. It was simply a part of his
“entitles,” as Washington says. Another thing they did was to leave
their old home place. They could not realize that they were really free
unless they tested the matter by going away from the place of their
servitude.
Booker Washington’s stepfather had left Virginia during the war and had
gone to West Virginia. Just as soon as the war was over, he sent for his
wife and children to come to him in West Virginia.
He lived at Malden, five miles from Charleston, the capital of the
state. It was several hundred miles from the old home in Virginia, but
the family determined to go. They bundled up their goods and put them in
a cart, the children walking. They traveled the entire distance in this
way. They would stop by the roadside to do their cooking and to camp at
night.
One night they stopped near an empty cabin. They decided to spend the
night in the cabin. They went in and built a fire and spread a pallet on
the floor. Suddenly a big black snake rolled down out of the chimney and
on to the pallet. You can imagine that they did not care to stay longer
in that house. They got outside at once and made a camp.
After several weeks, they completed their journey, and the family
reached the town of Malden. Salt was mined there, and Booker’s
stepfather worked in the salt furnaces. Small as he was, Booker had to
begin this work too. It was very hard work, and it was terrible that
this child should be compelled to do it. But it was just like Booker to
turn the situation to an advantage. The first thing he ever did in the
way of reading was to learn the figure “18,” which was the number put on
the barrels of salt made by his father. Booker was anxious to learn to
read; but he had no one to teach him. His own mother could not even
teach him his letters. She bought him an old Webster’s “blue-back”
speller, and he began his first study in this book.
About this time a private school was established in the community.
Booker was greatly excited over this, for he had an overwhelming desire
to go to school. He was a good worker, however, and was earning money;
so his father said “no,” and he could not go. Booker was terribly
disappointed. He went on with his work with a heavy heart, but he never
missed a chance to urge his stepfather to let him go to school. Finally,
his father agreed to let him go for a part of the day, provided he would
get up early each morning and work until nine o’clock and then work two
hours after school was out.
It was a glorious day for him when he found himself going to school.
However, he soon encountered two great difficulties. One was that he did
not have a hat. He had never worn a hat or cap in his life. Since all
the other boys had them, he felt that he must have one. So he went home
and told his mother about the situation. She explained to him that she
had no money with which to buy a “store” hat, but she got two old pieces
of “homespun” or jeans, and sewed them together for a cap. The next day
Booker proudly walked to school with one difficulty solved.
Listen to his own story of his second difficulty: “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 had never occurred to me that it was needful or appropriate to
have an additional name.
“When I heard the school roll called, I noticed that all the children
had at least two names, and some of them indulged in what seemed to me
the extravagance of having three. I was in deep perplexity, because I
knew that the teacher would demand of me at least two names, and I had
only one. By the time the occasion came for the enrolling of my name, an
idea occurred to me which I thought would make me equal to the
situation; and so, when the teacher asked me what my full name was, I
calmly told him ‘Booker Washington,’ as if I had been called by that
name all my life; and by that name I have since been known.
“Later in my life I found that my mother had given me the name of
‘Booker Taliaferro’ (pronounced Tol-li-ver) soon after I was born, but
in some way that part of my name seemed to disappear, and for a long
while was forgotten, but as soon as I found out about it, I revived it
and made my full name ‘Booker Taliaferro Washington.’ I think there are
not many men in our country who have had the privilege of naming
themselves in the way that I have.”[3]
Booker was not permitted to go to school very long. His stepfather put
him back to work but he went to school at night for a while. Here he
learned how valuable the nighttime was, and he afterwards used it a
great deal in teaching others.
Near Malden was a coal mine. This business became prosperous, and Booker
was sent to work in the coal mines. He hated this work worse than any he
ever did. The work was very dirty. It was pitch dark in the mines. It
was also very dangerous, for they used dynamite to blast out the coal.
His work was a mile from the entrance of the mine. Furthermore, there
were many big rats in the place. Because there were many large chambers
to the mine and he never could learn all of them, he often got lost.
Then his light would go out, and sometimes he would have to wait for
hours for some one to come to his aid. This was terrible work for a boy
only ten or twelve years of age.
CHAPTER III
PLANNING FOR AN EDUCATION
Later in life Washington said: “There was never a time in my youth, no
matter how dark and discouraging the days might be, when one resolve did
not continually remain with me, and that was to secure an education at
any cost.”[4]
This was the thought that was in his mind as he toiled from day to day
in the dark and dirty coal mine. He had never heard of any school except
the little one he had attended for a short time in Malden. But he was
sure that somewhere and in some way he would find a place that would
give him what he so much desired.
One day, while digging away in the mine, he heard a miner say something
to another about a big school for negroes. He was greatly excited and on
his hands and feet he crept through the dark, as close to the two men as
he dared, and listened. They kept on talking and Booker heard a
conversation something like this: “I wish my boy could go to that school
over in Virginia,” said one miner. “They say it is the best school
anywhere in the country.”
“What school are you talking about?” said the other.
“The one at a place called Hampton, over in Virginia,” was the reply.
“Well, suppose there is a good school there; negro boys can’t go to it,
can they?” was asked.
“Yes, they can,” said the other. “It is a school just for negro boys and
girls, and they teach the boys and girls something besides books, too.
They are taught some useful trades so that they can go out and make a
good living and be independent and have pleasant work to do.”
“Well,” said the other miner, “that sounds pretty good, but nobody but
rich folks can afford such a school as that; so I don’t see where it is
going to help us any.”
“There is where you are mistaken again,” was the answer, “for poor boys
and girls can go to this school. That is what I have heard. They say
that they give the boys and girls different kinds of work to do, so that
they can pay their own way through school.”
Booker heard no more. He returned to his work very greatly excited. That
certainly was the place for him. He then and there made up his mind that
he would go to that school no matter what happened. He did not know
where the place was, but he determined that he would find it. From that
day on, one thought was in his mind—to go to Hampton.
He wanted to quit work in the mines, because the work was so dangerous,
and because he was not making enough money. A few days after he heard
the conversation about Hampton, he heard that Mrs. Ruffner wanted a
servant. She was the wife of General Lewis Ruffner, the owner of the
salt furnaces and the coal mines. The lady, Mrs. Viola Ruffner, was said
to be very strict with her servants, and consequently no servant would
stay with her long at a time.
When Booker heard that she was looking for another servant, he decided
to apply for the place. He was terribly frightened when he went into her
presence; and he was surprised to find her very kind and considerate.
She employed him, giving him five dollars a month. She became very fond
of this boy, who worked so hard and so well and tried to do the work so
as to please her. She showed her interest in his ambition to get an
education, by letting him off a part of the day to study, and by
encouraging him to go to the night school.
Washington says also that he learned from Mrs. Ruffner many valuable
lessons in cleanliness, promptness, and order. He says: “Even to this
day, I never see bits of paper scattered around a house or in the street
that I do not want to pick them up at once. I never see a filthy yard
that I do not want to clean it, a paling off a fence that I do not want
to put it on, an unpainted or unwhitewashed house that I do not want to
paint or whitewash it; or a button off one’s clothes, or a grease spot
on them or on a floor, that I do not want to call attention to it.”[5]
It was while working for Mrs. Ruffner that he started his first
“library.” He got an old drygoods box, knocked out one side of it,
nailed it up against the wall, arranged some shelves, and then put into
it every book that he could lay his hands on.
But Booker was restless. He wanted to get started to school. He had not
saved much money, for he had not been working for himself very long, but
he determined to start with what little money he had.
What did his determination mean? Look at your map and you will see that
Hampton is about five hundred miles from Malden. Booker was a boy of
sixteen years. He did not know a soul beyond the borders of his own
community. He had but a few dollars. His mother was not well, and he
doubted very much whether he would ever see her alive again. But he must
go and learn, and his good mother, noble and brave as she was,
encouraged her boy and helped him to get away.
All the people in the community were much interested in his going. While
they had never had a chance, they wanted to encourage this boy who was
so determined to get an education. Some of them would give him a nickel,
some a quarter, and others a handkerchief to show their desire to help
him. By and by the day for his departure came. He put his few dollars in
his pocket, picked up the little satchel containing his few clothes,
said good-by to the neighbors, kissed his weeping mother good-by, and
turned his face towards Hampton.
There was no through train in those days, and he had to travel by
stagecoach as well as by train. He had no idea, when he started, how
costly it was to travel, and he had not gone far before he realized that
he did not have enough money to take him to Hampton. So he walked much
of the way. He would ask for a ride with passers-by, and in this way
made fairly good progress.
Early in his journey he had a new and trying experience. He had been
riding, together with a number of white passengers, all day in the
stagecoach. At nightfall they stopped at a house which was called a
hotel, and all the passengers went in and were given rooms. When Booker
went in and asked for a room, he was told that they could not take him,
that they did not take negroes. He had not intended to offend. He
himself says it was simply the first time that he realized that the
color of his skin made a difference. He was so intent upon getting to
Hampton, he never thought of getting angry. He simply walked about all
night, as it was rather cold, and went on his journey next morning.
Let him tell his own story of another incident of this famous journey.
“By walking,” he says, “begging rides both in wagons and in the cars, in
some way, after a number of days, I reached the city of Richmond, Va.,
about eighty-two miles from Hampton. When I reached there, tired,
hungry, and dirty, it was late in the night. I had never been in a large
city, and this was rather to add to my misery. When I reached Richmond,
I was completely out of money. I had not a single acquaintance in that
place, and being unused to city ways, I did not know where to go.
“I applied at several places for lodging, but they all wanted money, and
that was what I did not have. Knowing nothing else better to do I walked
the streets. In doing so, I passed by many places and foodstands where
fried chicken and half-moon apple pies were piled high and made to
present a most tempting appearance. At that time it seemed to me that I
would have promised all that I expected to possess in the future to have
gotten hold of one of those chicken legs or one of those pies. But I
could not get either of these, nor anything else to eat.
“I must have walked till after midnight. At last I became exhausted and
I could walk no longer. I was tired. I was hungry. I was everything but
discouraged. Just about the time when I reached extreme physical
exhaustion, I came upon a portion of the street where the board sidewalk
was considerably elevated. I waited for a few minutes, till I was sure
that no passer-by could see me, and then crept under the sidewalk, and
lay for the night upon the ground with my satchel for a pillow.”[6]
When he awoke in the morning, he found that he was near a large ship
which was unloading a cargo of pig iron. He went directly to the ship,
told the captain his situation, and asked for work in order that he
might earn money with which to buy some food. The captain gave him work
and was so well pleased with him that he gave him employment for several
days. Washington was anxious to get enough money to take him to Hampton
as soon as possible. So in order to save as much of his wages as
possible, he continued to sleep under the sidewalk where he slept the
first night he arrived.
Many years after that, he was given a great reception in Richmond, at a
place near this spot, and Washington says that his mind was more upon
that sidewalk that night than it was upon the great reception given him
by the two thousand people present.
After a few days of work in unloading the vessel, he felt that he had
enough money to take him to Hampton; so he continued his journey.
Several days later he reached Hampton, with just exactly fifty cents.
What a wonderful journey it had been! And now at its end, as the big
buildings of the school came into view, he had a thrill that more than
repaid him for all the hardships of his trip. He was supremely happy,
for he had reached the end of his rainbow and had found his great
treasure.
CHAPTER IV
SCHOOL DAYS AT HAMPTON
At the close of the Civil War one of the most important needs of the
country was to provide some kind of education for the negroes. They had
never had any schools. If they were to become good citizens, they must
have the proper training. A great many good men in the North and in the
South recognized this fact, and set to work to establish schools. Among
these men was General Samuel C. Armstrong. The General’s parents had
been missionaries to Hawaii. He had been educated in the United States,
had entered the army as soon as the war began, and had made such a
brilliant record as a soldier that, when the war was over, he had risen
to the rank of general.
He had seen a great deal of the negro as a soldier during the war. He
knew about the conditions in the South, and he felt that the greatest
service he could render would be to give his life to the cause of
education. He went to work at once, and, through the aid of a number of
Southern men, he established a school for negro boys and girls at
Hampton, Virginia, and called it Hampton Institute.
His main purpose was to give negro boys and girls an opportunity to
learn some useful trade. He believed that people must first learn to
make a good living before they could make much progress in any other
direction. He wanted the negroes to have good food and good clothes and
good homes. He wanted them to be able to earn these things. Likewise, he
wanted them to be good farmers, good carpenters, good brick masons, good
mechanics, and good workmen in all kinds of trades. He wanted these
trades taught in the schools. Then, as the race progressed, he wished to
have the higher branches of study given, such as Latin, mathematics, and
literature.
[Illustration:
CABINETMAKING AT TUSKEGEE
]
[Illustration:
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AS A HAMPTON GRADUATE (1875)
]
Thus was begun one of the greatest schools in America. Every negro boy
knows about Hampton. Thousands of the best negroes in the country were
trained there. General Armstrong was president of the school and did a
wonderful work. He seemed to inspire every student who entered to become
a good and useful citizen. Too much cannot be said in praise of him and
the great school he founded.
It was here that Booker arrived in the fall of 1872, with a little
satchel of clothes, fifty cents in his pocket, a happy heart, and a
determination to succeed.
Just as soon as he was able to get an interview, he went to the head
teacher, Mary F. Mackie, and told her that he wanted to enter school.
She stared at him. He was dirty after his long and hard journey. His
clothes were soiled. He realized at once that he was making a bad
impression, and it was not his fault. Miss Mackie would not say whether
she would admit him or not. She made him wait. He was worried. All he
wanted was a chance to show her that he meant business. Then a very
interesting thing happened. Booker Washington tells the story himself.
He called it his examination.
“After some time had passed,” he says, “the head teacher said: ‘The
adjoining recitation room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it.’
“It occurred to me at once that here was my chance. Never did I receive
an order with more delight. I knew that I could sweep, for Mrs. Ruffner
had thoroughly taught me how to do that when I lived with her.
“I swept the recitation room three times. Then I got a dusting-cloth and
I dusted it four times. All the woodwork around the walls, every bench,
table, and desk, I went over four times with my dusting-cloth. Besides,
every piece of furniture had been moved and every closet and corner in
the room had been thoroughly cleaned. I had the feeling that in a large
measure my future depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher
in the cleaning of that room.
“When I was through, I rapped on the door, and reported to the teacher.
She was a ‘Yankee’ woman who knew just where to look for dirt. She went
into the room and inspected the floor and closets; then she took her
handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about the walls, and over the
table and benches. When she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the
floor, or a particle of dust on any of the furniture, she quietly
remarked, ‘I guess you will do to enter this institution.’
“I was one of the happiest souls on earth. The sweeping of that room was
my college examination, and never did any youth pass an entrance
examination into Harvard or Yale that gave him more genuine
satisfaction. I have passed several examinations since then, but I have
always felt that this one was the best one I ever passed.”[7]
As a result of his sweeping the room, he was permitted to enter his
classes and was also given a job as janitor, and his college career
began. It was a new, strange life. He sat down at a table, which had a
cloth on it, to eat his meals. He slept in a bed that had sheets on it.
These sheets gave him trouble. The first night he slept under both of
them. He didn’t think that was right, so the next night he slept on top
of both of them. The third night he watched his roommates,—there were
seven of them in the same room,—and he saw how the thing was done. After
that, he did as the others did and slept between the sheets.
“I sometimes feel,” he says, “that almost the most valuable lesson I got
at Hampton Institute was in the use and value of a bath. I learned
there, for the first time, some of its value was not only in keeping the
body healthy, but in inspiring selfrespect and promoting virtue. In all
my travels in the South and elsewhere since leaving Hampton Institute, I
have always in some way sought my daily bath. To get it sometimes when I
have been the guest of my own people in a single-roomed cabin has not
been easy to do except by slipping away to some stream in the woods. I
have always tried to teach my people that some provision for bathing
should be a part of every house.”[8]
For some time he had only one pair of socks. He had a time of it with
these socks. When they were too soiled to wear, he would wash them out
at night, hang them by the fire and dry them out, and put them on the
next morning. He also had a hard time with his clothes. They had
inspection every morning. The students were lined up, and General
Armstrong passed along the lines and carefully examined every one. If a
button was off, or if the clothes were torn or soiled in any way, the
General would see it. Booker had a hard time keeping his clothes in such
a condition that they would pass muster.
His work as janitor was very hard. He often had to work late at night,
for he had many rooms to clean. He always got up at four o’clock in the
morning to build his fires and do some of his studying. He had a hard
time working and making expenses too. He usually borrowed his books from
other students. He soon got some more clothing from the barrels of
clothing sent to the school by people from the North. Board was ten
dollars a month, part of which he could pay by his work as janitor, but
a part of it he was supposed to pay in cash, and he had no cash. His
work was so satisfactory, however, that in a short while he was told
that his work would pay all of his board. S. Griffitts Morgan, of New
Bedford, Massachusetts, paid his tuition. At the end of the year he owed
the college only sixteen dollars.
When the college closed at the end of the term, all the students went
home. Booker could not go. It was too far, and he had no money. He
wanted to get away and get a job, so that he could pay the sixteen
dollars he owed. He had an extra secondhand coat; so he decided to sell
that to get money to go away on. He cleaned and pressed the coat, and
then let it be known that it was for sale. After a while a man came to
see it. He looked at it and asked the price. Booker told him three
dollars. The man said, “Well, I think I will take it. I will tell you
what I will do. I will pay you five cents cash, and the rest as soon as
I can get it.” How do you suppose Booker felt about that?
He finally got a job as a waiter in a restaurant at Fortress Monroe.
They did not pay him enough for him to save anything. One day when he
was cleaning up the place, he found a nice, crisp ten-dollar bill under
a table. He was very happy. Now he could pay back the money he owed at
Hampton. However, he thought he ought to tell the proprietor about
finding the ten dollars. He did so, and the proprietor coolly took the
ten-dollar bill, saying that, since the place belonged to him,
everything that was found in it naturally belonged to him.
After vacation was over, he returned to Hampton and was told that he
could have as long to pay the sixteen dollars as he wanted, and that he
could have a job as janitor again. So, his second year passed much the
same as the first. He devoted much of his time this year and the next to
the debating societies. He says that he never missed a single meeting
while he was at Hampton. He also organized a new society. He had twenty
minutes every night after supper before work began. Most of the
students, he observed, wasted this time. He proposed that good use be
made of this period in reading and speaking, and he organized a society
for that purpose. He says that no time he spent in college was more
valuable than this.
After the close of his second year, he went home to Malden to spend his
vacation. His brother John had sent him some money, and he had earned
some extra money. So he had enough to take him home. Everybody was
delighted to see him, but most of all, his mother. All the neighbors
insisted on his visiting them and taking a meal with them and telling
all about his college days. He also spoke at Sunday schools, at the day
school, and at churches, telling about his life at Hampton.
This was all very nice, but he wanted some work, so that he could earn
enough to take him back to Hampton in the fall. He was unable to find
any work because the salt furnaces and the coal mines were closed. One
day he went further than usual looking for something to do but without
success. On his way home he became so tired that he went into a deserted
cabin by the road to spend the night. About three o’clock some one woke
him up. It was his brother John, who told him that their mother had just
died.
This was a terrible shock to Booker. He had had no idea his mother was
so ill. He had always wanted to be with her and care for her. He had
looked forward to the time when he might make enough money for her to
live in comfort. He loved her very dearly, and her death was the hardest
blow he had ever received.
It was not long after this that he got some work and saved enough money
to take him back to Hampton. During his third year at college he worked
harder than ever. He was still working as janitor, but every single
minute he had after his work was done he spent on his studies. College
boys in those days did not have time to play football, baseball, and
tennis. They did not have time to go on picnics or have dances.
[Illustration:
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S CLASS (1875) AT HAMPTON INSTITUTE
Washington is the second from the left in the front row. Miss Mary
Mackie is the first on the left in the row of women. General
Armstrong is standing directly behind Miss Mackie.
]
The highest honor at Hampton was to be selected as commencement speaker.
This honor Booker was anxious to win. He worked very hard for it, and,
when commencement day came in June, 1875, he sat on the platform among
the honor men of his class as one of the orators. He was given his
diploma, and his college days were over.
He had done a good job. He had done the kind of work that makes real
men. He had trained his mind and his hands. He had built character. He
was not ashamed. He could hold his head up and look the world in the
face. He had learned to help himself. He was independent and had gained
self-confidence and self-control. He knew little of Latin, but he knew
much of labor. He knew no Greek, but he knew how to dig. He knew the
soil. He knew people. He was ready for the great work that lay before
him.
CHAPTER V
BEGINNING LIFE IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD
General Armstrong handed Washington his diploma in June, 1875, and he
walked forth from the college walls a very proud and happy boy. He had a
right to be. No boy had ever striven harder for an education. For three
years, day and night, he had worked, as few people ever had. But he had
enjoyed it. Don’t get the idea that Washington was discouraged or that
he was unhappy, for he was not. He got an immense amount of genuine
satisfaction and pleasure out of his school days. His teachers were good
to him, and he was devoted to them. His classmates were always kind to
him and helpful and thoughtful. Everybody was his friend. No boy ever
left Hampton with more warm friends, was more beloved by students and
faculty, than Booker Washington. And these friendships were truly worth
winning, because they were greater and better than anything else in the
world.
One of the fine things about Washington was his independence. He knew
how to take care of himself. He knew he could make his own way in the
world. He was unusually robust, because he had always taken good care of
himself. With health, with an education, and with an overwhelming desire
to help his people, he left Hampton and started his life in the outside
world.
Washington left Hampton in exactly the same financial condition as when
he entered. He had a diploma in his pocket but no money. However, he was
not ashamed of work, if it was honorable, and he was not afraid of any
amount of it. Along with some other Hampton boys, he was offered a job
in a summer hotel in Connecticut.
When he began his new work, he had an embarrassing experience. The head
waiter, somehow, got the idea that he had done this kind of work before.
He sent him to serve at a table where several rich people were seated.
Washington was very awkward and confused, and the people scolded him
soundly. It frightened him so that he went away and would not return to
the table, leaving the guests without anything to eat.
For this offense, the head waiter reduced him from his position as
waiter and put him to washing dishes. Thereupon, he made up his mind
that he would learn to do this job well. So successful was he that the
head waiter soon put him back at serving, and he made one of the best
waiters in the hotel.
When his summer’s work was done, Washington returned to his old home at
Malden. Soon after his arrival, he was chosen to teach the school there.
He accepted the place and began the work at once. He taught this school
for two years, and it is doubtful if he ever did better work in his life
than during these two years.
All his life the idea had been in Washington’s mind that he must help
his people. This was what he wanted most to do. This was why he wanted
an education. Many people want an education for selfish reasons, such
as, to make money for themselves, to have an easy time or to get honors
for themselves, but this was never true of Booker Washington. His great
desire was to help his people. He looked about him and saw how poor and
helpless and ignorant they were, and his heart was touched. He wanted to
do something that would make his people better and happier.
Now he had his first chance. He went at his work with great joy. He
opened his school at eight o’clock in the morning, and he usually quit
work about ten o’clock at night. He taught the children reading,
writing, geography and arithmetic, but he taught them something else
too. He made them comb their hair. He made them keep their hands and
faces clean. He taught them to keep their clothing clean. He taught them
to use a toothbrush, and to know the value of a bath.
He organized a debating society for the men and boys. He opened a night
school so that those who worked and could not go to school during the
day could go at night. He established a reading room. He taught several
boys privately in order to get them ready to enter Hampton. He taught in
two Sunday schools. In fact, he did more to make his community a good,
clean, happy community than anybody had ever done before.
One of the good things he did was to help his brother John who had
helped him so much while he was at Hampton and now wanted to go to
school himself. What a joy it was to Booker to be able to do something
for this kind and generous brother! John did go to Hampton, as did
another brother, James, who was an adopted child; and both helped
Washington loyally in later years at Tuskegee.
After teaching two years at Malden, Washington decided to go to school
again. This time he went to Washington, D. C., and entered Wayland
Seminary, where he remained eight months. He did not care so much for
his work here. It was very different from the work at Hampton. The
students were all well dressed. They did not have to work as they did at
Hampton. They had plenty of money, and their studies were different.
They did not have trades, industries, agricultural work, or dairying, or
anything of that kind. They had Latin and Greek and literature and
higher mathematics and other studies of a similar kind. Washington felt
that he did not get the benefit that he did at Hampton.
Nor did he like Washington any better than he liked this school. He saw
too much extravagance to suit him. Too many people were trying to get
something for nothing. Too many of them were trying to get jobs with the
Federal Government that would be easy work and high pay. Many of the
negroes seemed to think it was the business of the Federal Government to
support them. Washington did not think this was right. He thought all
men should do good, honest work, and that, if they didn’t, they would
sooner or later find trouble. He was glad to get away, for he felt that
the life that most of the negroes lived at that time in Washington was
most unsatisfactory.
At the end of the eight months, he returned to Malden again. At this
time there was a big campaign on in West Virginia to remove the capital,
which was located at Wheeling. It was far up in the northern part of the
state. Many of the people wanted another city to be chosen. The
legislature selected three cities to be voted upon by the people and
Charleston was one of these. Malden, you remember, was five miles from
Charleston. Just after he returned from Washington, Booker was greatly
pleased to receive an invitation from a committee of white men to come
to Charleston and then go on a speaking tour in behalf of that city. He
accepted the invitation, and for three months he went about the state
speaking for Charleston as the capital. When the election was held,
Charleston won; and no small part of the credit was due to the brilliant
speeches made by the young negro teacher of Malden.
He made such a reputation as a speaker in this campaign that everybody
took it for granted that he would now study law and enter politics. A
well-known judge tried to persuade him to do this and offered to teach
him law. This was very flattering, and for a while Washington considered
it. But all the time he had the feeling that there was something else he
must do. He felt that he could succeed in law and politics, but he also
felt that it would be selfish; that he would be doing something largely
to benefit himself only.
Most of the negro men in politics, at that time, were vicious and
ignorant. Of course there were many exceptions; but, as a general thing,
the negro who was in politics during that period was uneducated and
often dishonest. Washington tells of passing a crowd of men one day as
they were at work on a building. He heard the men saying to one of the
others, “Hurry up, Gov.,” and “Hurry, Governor.” He paid no attention at
first but finally made inquiry and found that the negro spoken to had at
one time been the lieutenant governor of the state.
Washington felt that the greatest thing he could do was to engage in the
kind of work that would help his own people most. He did not want to
preach. He thought there were too many preachers already. He had the
belief that the most important thing to do was to engage in the kind of
work that would fit men of his own race to be good preachers, good
teachers, and good citizens.
In the midst of these thoughts, and before he had definitely made up his
mind as to his career, he received a letter from General Armstrong,
inviting him to deliver the “postgraduate” address at Hampton at
commencement, 1879. This honor brought Washington great joy. He accepted
the invitation and chose as his subject, “The Force That Wins.” He
worked hard for three months on his speech. It made a great impression
on all who heard it, and he was acclaimed one of the real orators of his
race.
CHAPTER VI
BACK AT HAMPTON
There is an old saying that “opportunity knocks but once” upon our door.
This is not true. Opportunities will certainly continue to come to us.
The important thing is to be ready for them when they come. We never
know what incident may turn out to be our greatest opportunity. If we
will do our best to meet every situation that confronts us, we may be
sure that there will be plenty of opportunities for us. It is the boy
that does not do his best on all occasions that loses out. So
Washington, when invited to speak at Hampton commencement, worked hard
for three months preparing that speech. When the time came, he did his
very best. Then he forgot the matter and went home. Just a few days
after he got home, he had a great surprise. There came a letter to him
from General Armstrong. It said, “We need you here at Hampton. We want
you to come and help us run the school.”
That was a very happy moment in the life of Washington. He thought more
of General Armstrong than of any other man in the world. To be asked by
this man to come and work for him made Washington an exceedingly happy
man. He immediately wrote that he would accept the position. Some weeks
later he reached Hampton, ready to enter upon his new duties.
His job was a rather peculiar one. The Indians in the United States, who
had been put upon certain territories out West, after being taken from
their land in the South and Southwest, had no system of education and
were entirely without schools of any kind.
General Armstrong wanted to help them. He said he believed that they
could be educated, and he wanted to try it. The Government of the United
States gave its consent and agreed to cooperate with him.
They brought from the West to Hampton about one hundred Indian boys to
be educated. These boys were very ignorant; Booker Washington says that
they were almost wild.
Washington’s task was to live in the same building with these Indian
boys and look after them—to be a sort of “house father” to them.
He had a hard job. The Indians are a very proud people. They felt
themselves superior to the white race, as well as to the black race.
They had a special dislike for the negro because he had been a slave,
and the Indians would not be slaves; they preferred death to slavery.
These boys were not only very ignorant, but it was very hard to make
them understand, as they did not know the English language well.
Furthermore, everybody expected them to fail.
We usually do just about what people expect of us. If they think we are
going to succeed, it helps us to succeed. If they think we are going to
fail, it makes attainment of success harder for us. Booker Washington
said: “I will succeed. I will show these people that these Indians can
be educated.” So for an entire year he worked with them. He soon won
their confidence and respect. That they all liked him was evident, for
they did everything they could to satisfy him and please him. He found
them ready to work hard and intelligent enough to be taught. They
learned the different kinds of trades just about as well as the negroes
did. At the end of the year everybody was willing to admit that
Washington had made a success of teaching the Indians. Ever since then
Indians have been going to Hampton, and many of them are students there
to-day.
Washington says his hardest task was to get them to give up some of
their old habits and customs. They did not want to part with their long
hair; they did not want to quit wearing blankets or quit smoking.
However, since these customs were not customs at Hampton, they all
agreed to do as the others did there.
Now came another very important work for Washington. After he had worked
with the Indians for a year, General Armstrong said, “I have another
hard job for you.”
“Show it to me,” Washington replied.
A great many people who did not have any money were trying to enter
Hampton; they were as poor as Washington was when he entered. General
Armstrong did not want to turn them away. He finally determined that he
would arrange it so these people could work all day at some trade or
other line of work and thus pay their living expenses and have something
left over to go into the treasurer’s office to their account. They had
to work ten hours a day to do this. Then they went to school two hours
at night. After a year or two they would have enough money saved up from
their work to enable them to enter the day school. This plan proved to
be a very fine one, and many of the best students from Hampton began in
the night school.
It was this night school that General Armstrong wanted Washington to
teach. He took charge of it and made a great success of it. There were
about twelve in the class to begin with. The boys worked in the sawmill
in the daytime, and the girls in the laundry. They were such good
workers that he named them the “Plucky Class.” After a boy or a girl had
been in this class long enough to show that he or she meant business and
was going to stick to the job, Washington would give a certificate that
read as follows:
“This is to certify that James Smith is a member of the Plucky Class of
the Hampton Institute and is in good and regular standing.”[9]
The students were very proud of these certificates. It was not long
before everybody at Hampton was talking about the “Plucky Class.” In a
little while there were twenty-five in the group. The number kept on
growing the next year, and in a few years the class had several hundred
members. It is a big part of Hampton and Tuskegee to-day, for Washington
used the same idea at Tuskegee.
Washington had a way of succeeding in everything he undertook. This was
because he determined to succeed and worked so hard and so well that
success was certain.
CHAPTER VII
BUILDING A GREAT SCHOOL
At Hampton the chapel exercises were at night. Here they sang the
beautiful old negro melodies and listened to a talk by General
Armstrong, or some other good speaker. One Sunday night in May, 1881,
after the regular exercises, General Armstrong, who had a way of taking
the students into his confidence as well as keeping them informed of
matters of interest to the race, announced that he had received a very
interesting letter. He then told them that the Legislature of Alabama at
its last session had set aside some money for the establishment of a
negro normal school, and that they were looking for a man to be the head
of this school and that he had been asked to recommend such a man. Of
course they wanted a white man. However, the next day General Armstrong
sent for Booker Washington and said: “Washington, you heard the
announcement last night about the men in Alabama who want a man to be
the head of their school. I have decided that you are the man for them.
Will you take the place if it is offered to you?”
This was surely a great surprise, but Booker Washington was always
ready. He said: “I think I can fill the place, and I am willing to try.”
General Armstrong wrote at once about Washington. The next Sunday night,
during the chapel exercises, a telegram was handed to General Armstrong.
It was from the committee in Alabama. He opened it, and read it to the
audience. It said: “Booker Washington will suit us. Send him at
once.”[10]
Washington prepared to go at once to his new field. After finishing his
work at Hampton, he paid a visit to his old home at Malden, and a couple
of weeks later, early in June, he arrived at Tuskegee, Alabama, to begin
his new task.
Tuskegee at this time was a quiet little town of about two thousand
inhabitants. It is on a small branch railroad, five miles from the main
line, which runs from Atlanta, Georgia, to Montgomery, Alabama. The town
is about fifty miles from Montgomery. It is right in the heart of what
is known as the “Black Belt” in the South. A large and typical
population lived round about. The town was the county seat of Macon
County, in which lived a large number of negro farmers, all living very
much as the negro family lived in the South at that time. The white
people and the negroes were about equal in population in the town and
lived in cordial and friendly relations.
Booker Washington had a great surprise awaiting him when he reached
Tuskegee. He thought that this school that he was to be the head of was
already in existence and naturally looked about to find the schoolhouse,
of course expecting to see a nice building. Imagine his surprise when he
found that there was as yet no school at all and absolutely no building,
no sign of a school whatsoever. He was to start this school himself from
the very beginning. The legislature had simply set aside two thousand
dollars a year to be used only for paying salaries, and no provision had
been made for building and grounds.
Was Booker Washington discouraged? Not for a single minute did he sit
down and whine and complain and say that he might as well give up. He
went right out into the town, looked up some of the leading men of both
races, and told them that he was going to start something; that he was
going to open a school. And the men, a little amazed at first, caught
his enthusiasm and said: “Good for you. We are with you. You can count
on us. We will help.”
His first effort was to find a house to use as a school building, and he
finally secured a little shanty that stood near the A. M. E. Church. It
was agreed that he could use this building for meetings of any kind, and
that he could teach in the shanty. After consulting again with his
friends, he announced that on July 4, 1881, the Tuskegee Institute would
open.
Now that he had a place in which to begin work, his next job was to get
students for his school. He began to visit around in the country, making
talks in the churches at the regular service or at Sunday school and at
preaching services in schoolhouses and other places. He visited in the
homes of the people, and everywhere he told them of his school plans.
In this way he came to know the people just as they lived, and they
learned how sympathetic Washington was, and how he was trying to help
them. Most of those he visited he found living in one- or two-room
houses, with fat pork and corn bread as their principal food. But they
always treated him kindly and entertained him the best they could. One
thing that distressed him was the discovery that many of these people
had been persuaded to buy such things as costly sewing machines and
organs, when they didn’t have enough to eat and to wear. At one place
where he took dinner there were four in the family, and when they sat
down at the table, he found that there was but one fork for all five of
them.
Their lives were filled with much drudgery and hard work and almost no
opportunities for improvement. It was nearly impossible for them to make
a living, much less save any money. Their schools, if they had any at
all, had very short terms and were taught by teachers who knew very
little more than the children. It was a discouraging situation to any
one except a man like Booker Washington. “These are my people,” he said.
“They need help. They need education and the kind of education that will
give them cleaner and happier homes, healthier bodies, better schools,
and better life in every way. I am going to help them.”
The school opened on July 4, 1881, with thirty students. Washington was
the only teacher. A large number of students wanted to enter, but he
decided not to admit any under fifteen years of age. Some of these
students were boys, and some were girls; some were grown men and women.
Most of them had been teachers. None of them was very well prepared,
however, for they had been very poorly taught. But the teacher found all
of them eager to learn and ready to work.
Soon there were more students calling for admission. Within six weeks
there were fifty students. It was necessary to have a new teacher, and
the person secured for this work was Olivia Davidson, who afterwards
became Booker Washington’s second wife.
She was a great help to him, and she agreed with him that they must do
something for the students besides merely teaching them books.
Washington says that they wanted to teach them how to be clean; how to
take care of their teeth and clothing; what and how to eat; and how to
make a living.
All these pupils lived on the farm, as did nearly all the people of the
South. Washington wanted to so teach them that they would continue to
live among their own people and their lives would be happier and better
in every way. He did not want them to get a false idea about education.
Many of them had the wrong impression already. They thought that getting
an education consisted in reading big books and then of being able to
earn a living without work. Both of these ideas were wrong. He wanted to
teach them something that would make them useful and happy and
prosperous on the land in their native state.
He certainly could not do this while teaching in a little old shanty
with one room that was in such bad condition that one of the pupils had
to hold an umbrella over the teacher when it rained. He had this same
experience at his boarding house, where his landlady often held an
umbrella over him while he ate his breakfast.
About three months after the opening of his school, a small farm about
one mile from town was offered for sale. Washington went out and looked
it over and came to the conclusion that it was just the place for the
kind of school that he intended to build. But the price was $500, and he
didn’t have a dollar. The owner said: “Pay me $250 cash, and I will give
you one year to pay the other.” Washington borrowed $250 and closed the
deal.
He decided to move the school at once to the new home. On this farm were
four buildings. The “big house” had been burned, but there was left
standing a little cabin, formerly used as a dining room, an old kitchen,
a stable, and a henhouse. Booker Washington and his growing school moved
into these four buildings.
[Illustration:
TUSKEGEE’S FIRST GROUP OF BUILDINGS
]
The buildings were thoroughly cleaned and worked over and put in as good
condition as possible. Washington says, “I recall one morning, when I
told an old colored man who lived near, and who sometimes helped me,
that our school had grown so large that it would be necessary for us to
use the henhouse for school purposes, and that I wanted him to help me
give it a thorough cleaning out the next day, he replied, in a most
earnest manner, ‘What do you mean, boss? You sholy ain’t going to clean
out the henhouse in the daytime!’”[11]
Do you know what a “chopping bee” is? Well, the students of Tuskegee
didn’t know until Booker Washington taught them. After they had been in
their new quarters for several weeks, Washington walked in one day and
said: “To-morrow we are going to have a ‘chopping bee.’ Now all of you
that have an axe bring it to school with you. Those of you who do not
have one, let me know, and I’ll get one for you. We will dismiss school
early and go to the ‘bee.’”[12]
Next day everybody had an axe, and all of them were wondering what sort
of game a “chopping bee” was. They had never been to one, and they were
much excited over it.
Soon after dinner Washington got his axe and threw it on his shoulder
and told the boys to come on. They eagerly followed. He led them out to
the woods and began cutting down a tree, and told them to do the same
thing. They did so. Washington, swinging his axe faster and better than
any of them, led the crowd, though all of them were doing their best.
And as they just kept on at this, it presently dawned on them that a
“chopping bee,” after all, was nothing but plain cutting down trees and
clearing land. Some of the students became angry. They said they did not
come to school to do that kind of work; they came to study books. But
they looked at Washington, who was an educated man, and they saw that he
was not ashamed to do this kind of work. After a time they began to see
what Washington’s purpose was, and they quit complaining and gladly
helped with all their might to get this needful work done.
There was another way in which Washington secured the assistance of
others to build up his school. He had no way of going about over the
country except by walking. He did not have a horse or a mule, and he
could not cover much territory by walking. So he would watch for some
old negro with a mule and wagon and go to him and tell him all about his
plans. Then he would say: “Now, Uncle, don’t you want to help in this
good work? Well, come around early Saturday morning with your mule and
wagon and take me out in the country, where I can see the people and
tell them about our school,”[13] and the old man would be there on time.
So, with the cordial coöperation of the students and friends in the
town, the school was making progress. Land was being cleared, and the
buildings and grounds were being improved. Washington was spreading the
fame of his school throughout the country and every one was becoming
interested.
But that debt of five hundred dollars for the land on which the school
was being built had not been paid. Where was the money coming from? That
was the hard question. Miss Davidson started the plan of having suppers
or “festivals.” She would go about town and get friends to donate a
chicken or a cake or a pie for a supper. In this way a good sum was
raised. Washington wrote to his friends, explained the situation, and
asked for contributions. He asked the negroes as well as the white
people in town to give, and they did. Washington says that sometimes
they would give five cents, or twenty-five cents, or a quilt or some
sugar cane. “I recall one old colored woman,” he says, “who was about
seventy years of age,—she hobbled into the room where I was, leaning on
a cane. She was clad in rags, but they were clean. She said: ‘Mr.
Washington, God knows I spent de bes’ days of my life in slavery. God
knows I’s ignorant and poor; but I know what you and Miss Davidson is
tryin’ to do. I knows you is tryin’ to make better men and women for de
colored race. I ain’t got no money, but I wants you to take dese six
eggs, what I’s been savin’ up, and I wants you to put dese eggs into de
eddication of dose boys and gals.’”[14] Washington says that he has
received many gifts for Tuskegee, but none that affected him more deeply
than this one.
Needless to say, by the end of the year the five hundred dollars had
been raised and the debt paid.
Thus ended the first year of the history of Tuskegee. If you go there
now and see the many fine buildings, the broad acres, the hundreds of
students, and everything that goes to make up a great and wonderful
college, it would be very hard to realize that it started off with one
little shanty with a leaky roof, one teacher, and thirty students. From
this simple and humble, but very earnest beginning, Tuskegee grew by
leaps and bounds until it came to be the most remarkable negro school in
the South.
CHAPTER VIII
STRENUOUS DAYS
As Booker Washington began the second year of his school, he met a new
obstacle. That was nothing unusual for him, however. He was usually
facing a hard job. He spent his life working on difficult tasks, and he
never found one that he did not finish with satisfaction. He tackled
this problem at once and with confidence.
There were two parts to it. In the first place, although he had a fine
farm of five hundred acres all paid for, he had no buildings, except
that old kitchen, stable, and henhouse, in which to house his students.
When school opened in the fall of 1882, there were about one hundred and
fifty students present. These three or four little old shacks would not
take care of that crowd. What was he to do? This was his first
difficulty.
His other problem was this. His school was just outside the town of
Tuskegee. It adjoined the town. A great many people in Tuskegee thought
that this school ought not to be built. Many were opposed to Booker
Washington. Many were opposed to educating negroes, and they believed
that negroes went to school simply to get out of work, and that an
educated negro was “sorry” and troublesome. Then there were some who
said: “This man means well, but he is just a negro, and, of course, he
can’t succeed.” Then, there were others who said: “This man Washington
is all right. I believe in him and trust him. He is doing a good thing.
He is going to succeed. I am counting on him.” So, his second job was to
win the friendship and good will of all the people in the town and round
about and not to disappoint those who believed in him. He worked out
these two problems together, as we shall see from what happened.
The very first thing needed by the students after all was not a building
but something to eat. So the first move Washington made was to start the
students to work on the farm in raising a crop. Every day, after the
students had studied and recited their lessons, they would go to the
fields and work. We have already learned how they found out what a
“chopping bee” was. Now they were working in the fields where they had
previously cut down the trees. Some of them did not like this work at
first. They said: “We did not come to school to do work like this. We
have had enough of this at home.” But Washington kept right on, working
hard himself and showing his students that he was not ashamed to do hard
work with his hands.
The next thing in order was a building—a good building, large and
comfortable and useful. He began to make plans for it. He knew he had to
have it, and, although he really did not have any money at all in hand,
he went right ahead and planned a fine building to cost six thousand
dollars. He did not know where he would get the money, but he had a firm
belief that in some way the money would be secured.
[Illustration:
A SUNDAY AFTERNOON BAND CONCERT ON THE CAMPUS
]
When it was learned that he expected to put up this building, a man who
lived near Tuskegee and who owned a sawmill came to Washington and said
to him: “I have been watching you. I know what kind of a man you are.
You will keep your word, and you will pay your debts. I see that you
need some help. I just want to say that I will furnish you all the
lumber you need for this building at once, and you can pay just whenever
you are able.” Washington explained that, while he hoped to be able to
raise the money to pay for the building, he had not yet secured any of
it. The man replied: “That’s all right. Your credit is good with me; I
will trust you.”
We can see from this incident how well he was succeeding in making
friends with his neighbors.
As soon as he had raised a part of the money, he let the man put the
material on the ground. Then the building was begun, and again the
students did all the work. They first digged the foundations, and some
of them became so disgusted with this work that they left the place
altogether. Washington was sorry that they left, but he said that any
one who was too proud to work with his hands and help out at a time like
this did not belong in his school. However, most of the students
remained and were perfectly willing to do the work. Rapid progress was
made, the foundations were finished, and they were ready for the laying
of the corner stone.
The laying of the corner stone of this building is an important event in
the history of the education of the negro. There was a great crowd
present. Washington, his teachers, his students and their parents, and a
large number of other negroes were there. There were present, also, a
large number of white people,—the mayor of the town, the councilmen, the
sheriff and all the other county officers, and all the prominent
business and professional men of the community.
In a way this ceremony marks an epoch in Negro history in America. Just
seventeen years before, it was against the law for a negro to be taught
books at all in Alabama. Just seventeen years before, the negroes were
slaves,—for this was in 1882 and in the “Black Belt,” in the very heart
of the South. That this large group of white men should gather with the
negroes for the purpose of dedicating a building to negro education
shows what wonderful change of sentiment had taken place. It shows also
how thoroughly Booker Washington had won the confidence of all the
people among whom he was working.
All his students were from Alabama. Most of them were from the country.
He knew that most of them would spend their lives on the farm or in
occupations of some kind. He wanted them to be practical; to know how to
do well the things they would surely be compelled to do. So he
determined from the very beginning that his students should learn how to
do practical things as well as learn from books. He had them clear the
land for the school; he had them farm the cleared lands; he had them do
the cooking; he had them make the brick and build the buildings of the
school. He says that his idea was to teach the students the best methods
of labor and how to derive the greatest benefit from their work. He
wanted them to learn new ways of work,—how to use steam, water, and
electricity. He also wanted to teach them that work was dignified and
honorable and that no man should be ashamed to do any kind of honest
work.
[Illustration:
AUTOMOBILE AND BUGGY TRIMMING AT TUSKEGEE
]
He followed this plan till his death, and nearly every one of the many
buildings that stood at Tuskegee when he died was built entirely by the
students themselves.
They planned to build this first large building—“Porter Hall” they
called it—of brick; so they went out to make the brick right there. The
students did not like this work. It was hard and it was dirty. However,
they went at it and, after several trials, found some brick clay.
They molded the brick, built the kiln, fired it, and waited. When the
burning was done, they found that they had made a complete failure. None
of the brick could be used. At once they built another kiln. This also
turned out to be a failure. Some of them were discouraged at this, and
said: “Let’s quit.” But others said: “We must succeed.” So a third kiln
was built. This kiln seemed to be burning splendidly when suddenly, on
the last night, it fell.
This was surely discouraging, but Washington was not to be stopped by
failure. He was now without a dollar to continue this work. He happened
to think, however, of a watch he owned. He took the watch to Montgomery,
Alabama, near by, pawned it for fifteen dollars, came home, called the
workers together once more, built another kiln, and this time the kiln
was a success.
Later, when he went back to get his watch, it was gone; but he never
regretted losing it in such a good cause.
Now that he was successful in making bricks, the work progressed on the
buildings, and soon Porter Hall was finished, and other buildings were
started.
There were two other things Washington wanted for his school. One was a
place for his students to board, and the other, a place for them to
room. Washington said that he had nothing but the students and their
appetites to begin a boarding department with. However, they got busy,
dug a large amount of earth from beneath Porter Hall, and opened this
basement up for a dining room. They had no dishes, no knives and forks
to speak of, at first; they had poor arrangements of every kind. And
they had bad luck. Something went wrong almost every day at first. They
would spill the soup, burn the meat, or leave the salt out of the bread.
Meals were served with no sort of regularity.
Washington says that one morning he was at the dining room when
everything went wrong. The breakfast was a failure. One of the girls who
failed to get any breakfast went to the well to get a drink of water,
and found the well rope broken. Washington heard her say: “You can’t
even get water to drink at this school.”[15] He says that remark came
nearer discouraging him than anything that ever happened to him.
He may have been discouraged, but he kept on, and in a little while
things were coming out all right. And to-day, one of the greatest sights
at Tuskegee is the great dining hall with its white tablecloths,
napkins, and vases of flowers, with elegant meals served in excellent
style and order and on time.
The next thing was rooms for the boarders. Students were coming from a
distance. There was no place for them at the school. Besides, Washington
wanted them at the school so that he could help them learn best how to
keep their rooms and live as folks ought to live. They used the cabins
first for sleeping quarters, but they had almost no furniture. They made
mattresses of pine needles. Their bedclothes were so scant the first
winter that several were frostbitten.
Soon a good house was built, however, for all the students, and now they
began to live as people ought. Among other things, Washington insisted
that they use toothbrushes. He said that perhaps no one thing meant more
in the real training of the negro than the proper use of this article.
He went from room to room himself to see whether the students had them.
“We found one room,” he says, “that contained three girls who had
recently arrived at the school. When I asked them if they had
toothbrushes, one of the girls replied, pointing to a brush, ‘Yes, sir,
that is our brush. We bought it together yesterday.’ It did not take
them long to learn a different lesson.”[16]
In many ways, he was able to help these students learn the proper ways
of living—how to sleep properly, how to care for their bodies, and how
to take care of their clothes.
This second year of the school was truly a strenuous one in clearing
land, raising a crop, making bricks, building Porter Hall, starting a
boarding department and a rooming department. Everybody had been busy
doing good work, and everybody was happy. They were making a great
beginning.
[Illustration:
CLASS IN PHYSICAL TRAINING AT TUSKEGEE
]
A very important event of this year was the marriage of Washington to
Fannie M. Smith. They had known each other back in Malden, and, as soon
as Washington’s work was well begun, they were married. She lived only
two years after her marriage, dying in 1884, and leaving a daughter,
Portia M. Washington. Several years later Washington married Olivia
Davidson, the teacher who had been associated with him in the school
almost from the first, and who had done so much to help him in getting
the school started.
CHAPTER IX
RAISING MONEY FOR TUSKEGEE
Tuskegee grew rapidly and steadily. Students began to pour in from all
parts of the country. Girls were coming as well as boys. It was
absolutely necessary to find some place for these students to live and
carry on their school work. Tuskegee Institute had no money. You will
remember that the Legislature of Alabama appropriated two thousand
dollars a year for the payment of teachers, but gave nothing for
buildings or land or equipment. So if new buildings were to be erected,
it meant that the money would have to be raised by some other means.
This was not a church school, and it could not, therefore, appeal to any
religious denomination for help. There was only one way to secure funds
for its development and growth and that was by going out and asking
people directly for aid.
Washington did not like to do this, but, recognizing the necessity for
it, he went bravely ahead. And perhaps no man was ever more successful
in this work than he was. President Charles W. Eliot, of Harvard
University, had to raise money in the same way for Harvard. He was so
successful that it was said of him, “When he goes to rich men they just
throw up their hands and say, ‘Don’t shoot! How much do you want?’” And
President Eliot said that Washington could beat him raising money.
Before Washington’s death in 1915, it required from $250,000 to $300,000
a year to run Tuskegee. That is a big sum of money. A very large part of
it had to be raised by personal solicitation. And it had to be raised
almost entirely in the North. This meant that Washington had to spend a
large part of his time away from Tuskegee, traveling over the country,
making speeches, and talking to individual men. It was hard work, and it
took a great deal of strength and effort as well as time. He had many
remarkable experiences. He met many great and good people, who were glad
to help him. He had an opportunity to tell them about his school and
about his people in the South; and an opportunity to hear this
remarkable man was given to many people.
This is the way he was led to undertake this work. When the girls began
coming to school, they had to have a dormitory. The boys had been
staying in the attic of Porter Hall, living in the shanty, or boarding
in town. But this would not do for the girls. They must have different
accommodations. The boys ought to have, but the girls _must_ have better
surroundings. So they proceeded to plan a dormitory. They did not have
any money with which to build a house. It was just like starting Porter
Hall. But they said they could at least plan the kind of building they
would build if they had the money. They made plans for a building that
would cost ten thousand dollars, and named it Alabama Hall. But that
Alabama Hall was on paper only and in the minds of folks; so they could
not use it very well.
[Illustration:
WHITE HALL (Girls’ dormitory), CHAPEL (rear), TATUM HALL (right),
TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE
]
Then an interesting thing happened. Have you noticed how often something
interesting turned up with Washington? Perhaps there is a good reason
for it. “Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a
result of hard work,” Washington himself has said. It was not just an
accident after all that these good things were happening. It was because
Washington by his work and his good sense had made lasting impressions
upon people who were in positions to give him help.
This is what happened. While thinking about how he could get the ten
thousand dollars for Alabama Hall, he received a letter from General
Armstrong, asking if he would agree to go with him on a tour of the
North; if so, to come to Hampton at once. Washington was delighted and
accepted the invitation. To his great surprise he found that General
Armstrong had planned to take a quartette of singers from Hampton and go
himself with Washington on a tour of the North in the interests of
Tuskegee. Washington thought the trip was planned for Hampton, of
course, and, when he found that General Armstrong had been so unselfish
as to plan it for him, he was overcome with gratitude.
They had a great trip. General Armstrong had Washington do most of the
speaking. “Give them an idea for every word,” he said to Washington as
they started. And Washington did. It was on this trip that Washington
first introduced Tuskegee to the people of the North, and that the
people first got acquainted with Washington. When he returned from this
trip, he was able to begin work on Alabama Hall, and it was soon
completed and paid for. From this time on Washington went North a great
deal to speak publicly and to talk privately to men about the needs of
Tuskegee.
He met a great many rich men. He had many interesting experiences with
them. He did not “beg” from them. He says he always followed two simple
rules in this work: first, to do his full duty in presenting the needs
of the school, and, second, not to worry about the results. He found
these rich men unlike what he had expected. He said they were among the
best and kindest and most generous people in the world. While he
sometimes received discourteous treatment, as a rule he was gladly
received and treated with great respect, and help was gladly given.
Three of the rich men who helped Washington a great deal were: Collis P.
Huntington, the great railroad builder; H. H. Rogers, of the Standard
Oil Company; and Andrew Carnegie, the philanthropist, who had made a
fortune in the steel industry. Washington says that the first time he
interviewed Mr. Huntington he received a donation of two dollars. Two
dollars from a multi-millionaire! But the last donation he received from
Mr. Huntington was a check for fifty thousand dollars. And between the
two gifts there had been gifts of many thousands. Mr. Rogers also gave
many thousands of dollars and helped particularly in the great extension
work of the college.
[Illustration:
JOHN A. ANDREW MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE
]
The most liberal giver was Andrew Carnegie. As soon as Carnegie heard of
the work that Washington was doing, he sent for him to come to New York
City. The result was that Carnegie gave him fifteen thousand dollars
with which to build a library. Washington and his coworkers spent a
great deal of time working out the plans for this building. All the work
was done by the students of Tuskegee. When it was completed, Carnegie
was amazed that such a beautiful and useful building had been built for
that sum of money. It convinced him that these people could be trusted
to spend money wisely. He therefore determined to give a large sum to
the school. Thus it happened, in 1903, that the President of the Board
of Trustees of Tuskegee received the following letter:
NEW YORK, _April 17, 1903_.
My dear Mr. Baldwin:
I have instructed Mr. Franks, Secretary, to deliver to you as Trustee
of Tuskegee $600,000 of 5 per cent U. S. Steel Co. bonds to complete
the Endowment Fund as per circular.
One condition only—the revenue of one hundred and fifty thousand of
these bonds is to be subject to Booker Washington’s order to be used
by him first for his wants, and those of his family during his life or
the life of his widow. If any surplus is left he can use it for
Tuskegee. I wish that great and good man to be free from pecuniary
cares that he may devote himself wholly to his great mission.
To me he seems one of the foremost of living men, because his work is
unique,—the Modern Moses, who leads his race and lifts it through
Education to ever better and higher things than a land overflowing
with milk and honey. History is to know two Washingtons,—one white,
the other black, both fathers of their people. I am satisfied that the
serious race question of the South is to be solved wisely only by
following Booker Washington’s policy, which he seems to have been
especially born—a slave among slaves—to establish, and, even in his
own day, greatly to advance.
So glad to be able to assist this good work in which you and others
are engaged.
Yours truly,
(Signed) Andrew Carnegie.
To Mr. William H. Baldwin, Jr.,
New York City, N. Y.[17]
One other name must be mentioned, and that is Julius Rosenwald of
Chicago. Mr. Rosenwald not only gave large sums himself—and is still
giving enormous amounts not only to Tuskegee but to the cause of negro
education throughout the South—but frequently left his own business and
helped to raise money among his friends for Tuskegee.
[Illustration:
CLASS IN PHOTOGRAPHY, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE
]
There were many large gifts from many men and women, all of whom cannot
be mentioned here of course, but most of the money that was given to
Tuskegee came in small amounts from a large number of people,—from
churches, Sunday schools, missionary societies, and other organizations;
from preachers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, farmers—from every class of
people came gifts, sometimes large and sometimes small. All the
graduates of Tuskegee were loyal and gave something, however small the
amount might be. The Alabama Legislature gave more and more as the
school grew. The Slater Fund and the Peabody Fund also began to make
annual contributions to the school.
It was through all these channels that the money came pouring into
Tuskegee in such amounts that it was possible for it to grow and develop
in a remarkable way. Building after building went up. New students came.
New equipment was purchased. Additional faculty members were secured.
And the school grew in size and usefulness and in favor in the eyes of
the people.
CHAPTER X
MAKING SPEECHES
Frederick Douglass and Booker Washington rank as the greatest orators
the negro race has ever produced. This is a high place to occupy, for
the race has produced many remarkable speakers.
Douglass was the great spokesman for the race just before the Civil War
and during the troublesome days of reconstruction. Washington began his
career just at the time that Douglass ended his. Douglass was a very
eloquent man; perhaps more eloquent at times than Washington. On the
other hand, Washington was a better educated man than Douglass and
probably had a more lasting influence upon his generation.
Booker Washington made thousands of speeches in his life. He spoke to
white and black; in the North and in the South; in Europe as well as in
America. He spoke in churches; at school commencements; at conventions;
at educational and religious meetings; at county fairs; and to every
kind and condition of people. He spoke before kings and presidents; he
spoke to the lowliest men of his own race in the heart of the black belt
in Alabama. It is a wonderful thing to be an orator; to speak to men and
women in such a way that they will be helped and inspired and made
happier and more useful.
When Washington was at Hampton, he began to learn the art of speaking.
You remember how he organized a debating society which met for the
twenty minutes they had between supper and time to begin work. You
remember how he spoke and spoke at these meetings, doing his best to
learn how to express himself well. One of his teachers, Miss Mackie,
knew of his ambition to become a good speaker, and she gave him a great
deal of help, teaching him how to stand, how to pronounce his words, and
how to control his voice and gestures. By much hard work he came to be
the best speaker among the boys at Hampton.
You will recall, too, how General Armstrong invited him to deliver the
alumni address in 1879, and what a big success he made of that. All this
time he was speaking at Sunday schools, at churches, at educational
meetings, and everywhere he had an opportunity. His trip North with
General Armstrong gave him much valuable experience.
The first speech that he made that attracted the attention of all the
people was at the National Education Association, in Madison, Wis. The
most important thing he said in this speech was 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.” He said that any one
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.”[18] He also said that the two races ought to be
brought closer together and cultivate the most cordial and friendly
relations, rather than become bitter toward each other.
But the greatest speech of Washington’s life was the Atlanta speech. In
the year 1895 the people of Georgia determined to hold a great Cotton
States Exposition, in Atlanta, which would set forth the progress of the
South since the Civil War. In order to make the exposition a great
success it was necessary to have the financial assistance of Congress.
So a committee was appointed to go to Washington to confer with a
committee from Congress. Booker Washington was appointed on this Georgia
committee; and his speech in Washington before the Congressional
committee was one of unusual force. Many said it was the best speech
made. Congress gave the assistance asked.
When the authorities came to plan the exposition in detail, they decided
to have a Negro Division. The negroes were asked to take part, and they
gladly agreed to do so. They built one of the best buildings on the
grounds. This building was planned by a negro architect and was erected
entirely by negro labor. It contained exhibits prepared altogether by
negroes. It was one of the most interesting parts of the entire
exposition.
When the exposition was formally opened in September, 1895, Booker
Washington was invited to make an address as a representative of the
negro race. James Creelman, a noted newspaper man, the correspondent of
the New York _World_, heard that speech, and he wrote to the _World_
about it. This is what he wrote:
“Mrs. Thompson, one of the other speakers on the program, had hardly
taken her seat, when all eyes were turned on a tall, tawny negro,
sitting in the front row of the platform. It was Professor Booker T.
Washington, President of the Tuskegee (Alabama) Normal and Industrial
Institute, who must rank from this time forth as the foremost man of
his race in America. Gilmore’s Band played the ‘Star-spangled Banner,’
and the audience cheered. The tune changed to ‘Dixie’ and the audience
roared with shrill ‘hi-yi’s.’ Again the music changed, this time to
‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the clamor lessened.
“All this time the eyes of the thousands present looked straight at
the negro orator. A strange thing was to happen. A black man was to
speak for his people, with none to interrupt him. As Professor
Washington strode to the edge of the stage, the low, descending sun
shot fiery rays through the windows into his face. A great shout
greeted him. He turned his head to avoid the blinding light, and moved
about the platform for relief. Then he turned his wonderful
countenance to the sun without a blink of the eyelids, and began to
talk.
“There was a remarkable figure; tall, bony, straight as a Sioux chief,
high forehead, straight nose, heavy jaws, and strong, determined
mouth, with big white teeth, piercing eyes, and a commanding manner.
The sinews stood out on his bronzed neck, and his muscular right arm
swung high in the air, with a lead pencil grasped in the clinched
brown fist. His big feet were planted squarely, with the heels
together and the toes turned out. His voice rang out clear and true,
and he paused impressively as he made each point. Within ten minutes
the multitude was in an uproar of enthusiasm—handkerchiefs were waved,
canes were flourished, hats were tossed in the air. The fairest women
of Georgia stood up and cheered. It was as if the orator had bewitched
them.
“And when he held his dusky hand high above his head, with the fingers
stretched wide apart, and said to the white people of the South, on
behalf of his race, ‘In all things that are purely social we can be as
separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential
to mutual progress,’ the great wave of sound dashed itself against the
walls, and the whole audience was on its feet in a delirium of
applause.
“I have heard the great orators of many countries, but not even
Gladstone himself could have pleaded a cause with more consummate
power than did this angular negro, standing in a nimbus of sunshine,
surrounded by the men who once fought to keep his race in bondage. The
roar might swell ever so high, but the expression of his earnest face
never changed.
“A ragged, ebony giant, squatted on the floor in one of the aisles,
watched the orator with burning eyes and tremulous face until the
supreme burst of applause came, and then the tears ran down his face.
Most of the negroes in the audience were crying, perhaps without
knowing just why.
“At the close of the speech Governor Bulloch rushed across the stage
and seized the orator’s hand. Another shout greeted this
demonstration, and for a few minutes the two men stood facing each
other, hand in hand.”[19]
It was a wonderful speech. It contained much good advice both to the
whites and to the negroes. It was fair to both. As Clark Howell, editor
of the _Atlanta Constitution_, said, “It was a platform upon which both
races, black and white, could stand with full justice to each
other.”[20] In the speech he told the following story: “A ship lost at
sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of
the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: ‘Water, water; we die of
thirst.’ The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, ‘Cast
down your buckets where you are.’ A second time the signal, ‘Water,
water, send us water,’ ran up from the distressed vessel, and was
answered, ‘Cast down your buckets where you are.’ And a third and a
fourth signal for water was answered, ‘Cast down your buckets where you
are.’ The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the
injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh,
sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River.” Washington then
appealed to his own people to “cast down their buckets where they were,”
by making friends with their white neighbors in every manly way, by
training themselves where they were in agriculture, in mechanics, in
commerce, instead of trying to better their condition by immigration.
And, finally, to the white Southern people, he appealed to “cast down
their buckets where they were,” by using and training the negroes whom
they knew rather than seeking to import laborers whom they did not
know.[21]
Frederick Douglass had died only a few months before this great speech
was made. At once from all parts of the country came the statement,
“Here is the man who will take the place of Douglass as leader of the
negro race.” And from that time on, Booker Washington was the accepted
leader of his people in this country.
He was immediately called upon to speak in all parts of the country. He
was offered big sums of money to lecture. One speaker’s bureau offered
him fifty thousand dollars a year. He refused all these offers of money,
saying that he must give his time to Tuskegee and to the interests of
his people, rather than try to make money for himself.
Another of his great speeches was made at Cambridge, Mass., in 1896.
Harvard University, the oldest and most famous university in America,
conferred the honorary degree of master of arts upon Mr. Washington in
1896. This was the first time in the history of America that a college
or university of such high standing had ever conferred an honorary
degree upon a negro. Washington says this honor was the greatest
surprise of his life. At the time the ceremony of conferring this degree
took place, he made a speech that won great applause from the audience.
It is very interesting to read Washington’s own account of his
experiences. “People often ask me,” he says, “if I feel nervous before
speaking, or else suggest that, since I speak so often, they suppose I
get used to it. In answer to this question I have to say that I always
suffer intensely from nervousness before speaking. More than once, just
before I was to make an important address, this nervous strain has been
so great that I have resolved never again to speak in public. I not only
feel nervous before speaking, but after I have finished I usually feel a
sense of regret, because it seems to me as if I had left out of my
address the best thing that I had meant to say.... Nothing tends to
throw me off my balance so quickly, when I am speaking, as to have some
one leave the room. To prevent this, I make up my mind, as a rule, that
I will try to make my address so interesting, will try to state so many
interesting facts one after another, that no one will leave.”[22]
Washington made it a rule never to say anything to a Northern audience
that he would not say to a Southern audience. He also made it a rule
never to say to a negro audience anything that he would not say to a
white audience. In this honest and fair way he kept close to the truth,
and at the same time never offended fair-minded people of either race.
He was a capital story-teller, but he did not make a practice of telling
jokes and funny stories in his speeches, just to make people laugh. He
always had a serious purpose in his stories. He had two or three stories
that he told frequently, because they were so full of meaning. This was
one of them: One day he was going along the road, and he met old Aunt
Caroline, with a basket on her head. He said, “Good morning, Aunt
Caroline. Where are you going this morning?” And she replied, “Lor’
bless yer, Mister Washington, I dun bin where I’s er goin.” “And so,” he
would then say, “some of the races of the earth have done been where
they was er goin’. But the negro race is not one of them. Its future
lies before it.”[23]
Another of his stories was about a good old negro who accompanied
Washington on one of his tours. At a certain city they found that they
had several hours before the train left; so this old man decided to
stroll about to see the town. Presently, he looked at his watch and
found that it was just about time for his train to leave, and he was
some distance from the station. He rushed to a hack stand, and called
out to the first driver he came to, who happened to be a white man,
“Hurry up, and take me to the station; I’s gotta get the 4:32 train.” To
which the white driver replied, “I ain’t never drove a nigger in my hack
yit, an’ I ain’t goin’ ter begin now. You can git a nigger driver ter
take ye down.”[24]
To this the old colored man replied with perfect good nature, “All
right, my friend, we won’t have no misunderstanding or trouble; I’ll
tell you how we will settle it; you jest hop in on der back seat an’ do
der ridin’ an’ I’ll set in front an’ do der drivin’.” In this way they
reached the station on good terms, and the old man caught his train.
Like this old negro, Washington always devoted his energies to catching
the train, and it made little difference to him whether he sat on the
front or back seat.
Two other speeches of Washington attracted wide attention. One of these
was delivered in Boston in 1897, at the time of the dedication of a
monument to Robert Gould Shaw. Shaw was the Colonel of the famous negro
regiment of soldiers from Massachusetts in the Civil War. It was in this
regiment that Sergeant William H. Carney served,—the man who
triumphantly carried the flag in the great battle of Fort Wagner, and
exclaimed after the fight, “The old flag never touched the ground!”
Colonel Shaw lost his life in the battle of Fort Wagner, while leading
his negro regiment. The people of Boston erected a monument to his
memory, and Washington’s speech at its dedication was one of the
greatest he ever made.
One other speech was delivered in Chicago in 1898 at a great Peace
Celebration, following the close of the Spanish-American War. There was
an enormous crowd—the largest he ever spoke to, Washington says. There
were sixteen thousand people present. President McKinley was there,
together with several cabinet members and other distinguished guests.
“The President was sitting in a box at the right of the stage,” says
Washington. “When I addressed him I turned to the box, and as I finished
the sentence thanking him for his generosity, the whole audience rose
and cheered again and again, waving hats and handkerchiefs and canes,
until the President arose in the box, and bowed his acknowledgments. At
that the enthusiasm broke out again, and the demonstration was almost
indescribable.”[25]
The demands for him to speak were so great that it was impossible for
him to meet them all. He often spoke three and four times a day. He was
away from Tuskegee, making speeches, a large part of his time. He made
extended tours, by special train, all over the states of Virginia, North
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and
Tennessee. On these tours he spoke to thousands and thousands of people.
Everywhere he went all the people, white and black, heard him gladly.
The good that this man did through his oratory cannot be overestimated.
CHAPTER XI
SUCCESS AS EDUCATIONAL LEADER
Booker Washington spent his life in the education of the negro. Negroes
of ability in his day usually became preachers or they entered politics.
The negro preacher had rendered a greater service to his people,
perhaps, than any one else. Before 1865, the ministry was practically
the only place where negro leadership could find expression. It was much
the same way for many years after the Civil War. However, after
emancipation, there was an opportunity for leadership in politics, and a
great many negroes of ability entered this field, many of them holding
offices.
Washington was urged by some of his friends to enter the ministry.
Others urged him to study law and enter politics. Undoubtedly he could
have made a great success in either of these fields of work. But from
the very beginning of his education, he had a strong conviction that his
life must be spent in helping to educate his people.
He felt that education was the greatest need of his race. Before the
war, it had been against the law for a slave to be taught from books. At
the close of the war, then, there were no schools, no teachers, and no
books. The whole race could neither read nor write. The whole race had
had no training of any kind except in agriculture. It is true a few, but
a very few, had had a little training in certain trades such as
bricklaying, blacksmithing, and carpentry. The race, therefore, through
no fault of its own, was very ignorant. It had never had an opportunity.
[Illustration:
CHEMISTRY CLASS, TUSKEGEE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT
]
But now that the opportunity had come with emancipation, the entire race
was eager to learn. Old men and old women, as well as boys and girls,
began with great zeal to learn to read and write. The race started to
school. It was determined to get an education, and it was to help in
this great work that Washington early determined to devote his life.
Just after the war there was much confusion and doubt about the best
plan to follow in educating the negro. The Freedmen’s Bureau brought a
large number of teachers from the North to assist in the task, and much
valuable work was done in the negro schools by these teachers. The
different Southern states also began to make provision for the negro’s
education, by organizing schools, building schoolhouses, and making
provision for training teachers.
There was much difference of opinion as to just what should be taught
the negro. As a rule, the plan followed was to teach him just what had
been taught in the white schools. This meant that he would study
reading, writing, arithmetic and grammar, and later, Latin, Greek,
mathematics and literature.
So much of this kind of teaching was done, and it was so poorly done,
and it was so poorly adapted to the needs of the negro at the time, that
a great many people began to doubt the wisdom of trying to educate the
negro at all. But Washington insisted that the mistake was made in the
kind of education they were trying to give him. In answer to the
question, “Does it pay to educate the negro?” Washington often told the
story of what had taken place in Macon County, Alabama, the county in
which Tuskegee is located. In that county, he and Mr. H. H. Rogers
decided to build, with the coöperation of the people themselves, a
system of excellent schools, and try out as thoroughly as possible the
question of the effect of education upon the negro, under favorable
conditions. They put up good schoolhouses, secured good teachers, taught
practical subjects, and ran the schools for eight or nine months in the
year.
What was the result? In a short time people began to come from all parts
of the state and outside the state to buy land or to work within reach
of these excellent schools. Land advanced in price. Desirable citizens
flocked in. Homes were improved. Good roads were built. Better farms
appeared. Crime diminished. The sheriff said that he practically had no
further use for the jail. Cordial relations existed between the white
and negro people. In every way Macon County came to be a better place to
live in. The race problem was solved in that county. People were happy
and prosperous. They were living clean, wholesome, contented lives. The
whole problem of living was, in a large measure, solved. And it was all
due to education of the people, and education of the right kind. What
was good for Macon County, Alabama, would be good for every county in
the country.
Washington’s ideas of education were very simple. He had studied
carefully the needs of his people. What he wanted was a system of
education that would help people directly and immediately; that would
enable them to make better crops; build better homes; wear better
clothes; eat better food; live cleaner and purer and happier lives. He
wanted his people to learn to live; and he believed the school was the
place to learn that lesson.
[Illustration:
TRUCK GARDENING, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE
]
He wanted the children to study practical things; the things they
needed. He thought, therefore, that the school ought to be very closely
related to life. His idea was that that school was best which turned out
students who could earn their own living at once; who had the ability to
take care of themselves in whatever environment they happened to be; and
who had genuine character. “My experience has taught me,” he says, “that
the surest way to success in education, and in any other line for that
matter, is to stick close to the common and familiar things—things that
concern the greater part of the people the greater part of the
time.”[26]
It was this belief in the close relation between school and life that
caused him to have his students, at the beginning of the building of
Tuskegee, cut down the trees, plant the crops, make the bricks, build
the buildings, cook the food, care for the dormitories, look after the
live stock, and do everything that was to be done about the place. He
wanted his students to learn to do well all these tasks that they would
face in later life. And he also wanted them to learn that it was a
perfectly honorable and dignified and sensible thing to labor, to work,
to do anything that was honest and useful.
Perhaps there is no better way of understanding Washington’s ideas of
education and just what he was striving to do at Tuskegee than to
describe the commencement exercises at this school.
“On the platform before the audience is a miniature engine to which
steam has been piped, a miniature frame house in course of construction,
and a piece of brick wall in process of erection. A young man in jumpers
comes on the platform, starts the engine and blows the whistle.
Whereupon young men and women come hurrying from all directions, and
each turns to his or her appointed task. A young carpenter completes the
little house, a young mason finishes the laying of the brick wall, a
young farmer leads forth a cow and milks her in full view of the
audience, a sturdy blacksmith shoes a horse, and, after this patient,
educative animal has been shod, he is turned over to a representative of
the veterinary division to have his teeth filed. At the same time, on
the opposite side of the platform one of the girl students is having a
dress fitted by one of her classmates, who is a dressmaker. She at
length walks proudly from the platform in her completed new gown, while
the young dressmaker looks anxiously after to make sure that it ‘hangs
right behind.’ Other girls are doing washing and ironing with the
drudgery removed in accordance with advanced Tuskegee methods. Still
others are hard at work on hats, mats, and dresses, while boys from the
tailoring department sit cross-legged working on suits and uniforms. In
the background are arranged the finest specimens which scientific
agriculture has produced on the farm and mechanical skill has turned out
in the shop. The pumpkin, potatoes, corn, cotton, and other agricultural
products predominate, because agriculture is the chief industry at
Tuskegee, just as it is among the negro people of the South.
[Illustration:
DOMESTIC SCIENCE CLASS AT TUSKEGEE
]
“This form of commencement exercise is one of Booker Washington’s
contributions to education which has been widely copied by schools for
whites as well as blacks. That it appeals to his own people is
eloquently attested by the people themselves, who come in ever-greater
numbers as the commencement days recur. At three o’clock in the morning
of this great day, vehicles of every description, each loaded to
capacity with men, women, and children, begin to roll in, in an unbroken
line which sometimes extends along the road for three miles. Some of the
teachers at times objected to turning a large area of the Institute
grounds into a hitching-post station for the horses and mules of this
great multitude, but to all such objections Mr. Washington replied,
‘This place belongs to the people and not to us.’ Less than a third of
these eight or nine thousand people are able to crowd into the chapel to
see the actual graduation exercises; but all can see the graduation
procession as it marches through the grounds to the chapel, and all are
shown through the shops and over the farm and through the special
agricultural exhibits, and even through the offices, including that of
the principal. It is significant of the respect in which people hold the
Institute, and in which they held Booker Washington, that in all these
years there has never been on these occasions a single instance of
drunkenness or disorderly conduct.”[27]
“One of our students in his commencement oration last May gave a
description of how he planted and raised an acre of cabbages. Piled high
upon the platform by his side were some of the largest and finest
cabbages I have ever seen. He told how and where he had obtained the
seed; he described his method of preparing and enriching the soil, of
working the land, and harvesting the crop; and he summed up by giving
the cost of the whole operation. In the course of his account of this
comparatively simple operation, this student had made use of much that
he had learned in composition, grammar, mathematics, chemistry, and
agriculture. He had not merely woven into his narrative all these
various elements that I have referred to, but he had given the audience
(which was made up largely of colored farmers from the surrounding
country) some useful and practical information in regard to a subject
which they understood and were interested in. I wish that any one who
does not believe it possible to make a subject like cabbages interesting
in a commencement oration could have heard the hearty cheers which
greeted the speaker when, at the close of his speech, he held up one of
the largest cabbages on the platform for the audience to look at and
admire. As a matter of fact there is just as much that is interesting,
strange, mysterious and wonderful; just as much to be learned that is
edifying, broadening, and refining in a cabbage as there is in a page of
Latin. There is, however, this distinction; it will make very little
difference to the world whether one negro boy, more or less, learns to
construe a page of Latin. On the other hand, as soon as one negro boy
has been taught to apply thought and study and ideas to the growing of
cabbages, he has started a process which, if it goes on and continues,
will eventually transform the whole face of things as they exist in the
South to-day.”[28]
It can be readily seen from these two accounts just what kind of
education Washington believed in and tried to give his students at
Tuskegee. It was quite different from most of the training that had been
given the negro after the war. In those early days of freedom, many of
the negroes seemed to have the idea that the bigger the book and the
harder the words in it, the better the education was that they secured.
Some of them thought, too, that they were not educated unless they
studied Latin and Greek and higher mathematics, and other similar
subjects. Booker Washington did not mean that history, literature, and
foreign languages should not be studied and had no value. What he was
emphasizing was the fact that boys and girls should first get a clear
idea of things about them. Then they would be able better to understand
and appreciate such subjects as history and literature.
One other feature of the kind of education that Tuskegee stands for
ought to be mentioned, and that is the extension work. This work has
become a very large part of the Institute. The extension work is not so
much a matter of teaching, of education in the usual sense, as it is an
effort to give direct and practical help to people outside the college
walls. Most of this extension work has been done in Macon and adjoining
counties. From the first month of his school, Washington began to go
into the country round about and mingle with his people. He went to
their homes, their churches, their schools. He saw their poor farms,
their lean stock, their dilapidated houses, their lack of the comforts
and necessities of good living. The homes, the churches, the
schoolhouses were in bad condition. Washington had the greatest sympathy
for these people, knowing why they were in poverty and ignorance, and he
had a great desire to help them. And it is through this extension work
that these people are helped.
[Illustration:
The students’ band of this rural school is instructed by a band
student of Tuskegee Institute.
]
The Institute sends its workers throughout the surrounding country to
show the farmers improved farm machinery, better methods of farming,
better breeds of live stock of all kinds, better methods of dairying,
and better ways of preparing food, keeping house, and caring for the
children. They insist on improving the school buildings, the churches,
and the homes. As a result of this work, there are now in Macon County a
number of neat new schoolhouses, with a teacher’s house alongside each
school, several acres of land adjoining, and a good church close by.
Thus clean, pleasant, and thoroughly happy communities are created. In
such communities there is the smallest amount of crime, and there is the
largest amount of prosperity and contentment and enjoyment.
All the graduates of Tuskegee are enthusiasts for education and
community builders. Wherever they go, they stand for the best in life.
They are devoted to Tuskegee and its spirit and its ideals. It is this
devotion which makes them industrious and capable and law-abiding and
helpful in every possible way in the communities in which they live.
Hundreds of small schools have been established all over the South by
these graduates, patterned on Tuskegee. It is impossible to overestimate
the good they have done.
[Illustration:
TAILORING DIVISION, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE
]
Tuskegee has grown to be one of the greatest schools in the country, and
the greatest of all schools for the negroes. It has grown from 100 acres
and three little buildings to a plant of 2100 acres and 111 buildings.
Instead of one teacher with 30 pupils there are now more than 200
teachers and 1500 students. The institution has a large endowment, and
it owns 20,000 acres of land given it by the United States Government.
It keeps a large dairy herd, runs a large farm, a poultry farm, and
keeps a large number of pigs, horses and sheep. Every phase of education
is taught, but the main work is industrial,—carpentry, brick masonry,
basket making, metal working, draughting, auto-mechanics, blacksmithing,
telegraphy, farming, dairying, lumbering, building, cooking, sewing,
nursing, housekeeping—all these and a large number of other callings are
taught. It is through such training as this that Washington believed
that the negroes, in largest numbers, would first get their best start
in life.
Life is strenuous in this school. Here is an outline of the daily work:
“5 A.M., rising bell; 5:50 A.M., warning breakfast bell; 6:00 A.M.,
breakfast bell; 6:20 A.M., breakfast over; 6:20–6:50 A.M., rooms
cleaned; 6:50 A.M., work bell; 7:30 A.M., morning study hour; 8:20 A.M.,
morning school bell; 8:25 A.M., inspection of young men’s dress in
ranks; 8:40 A.M., devotional exercises in chapel; 8:55 A.M., ‘five
minutes with the daily news’; 9:00 A.M., class work begins; 12:00 M.,
class work ends; 12:15 P.M., dinner; 1:00 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; 6:00 P.M., supper; 7:10 P.M., evening prayers; 7:30 P.M.,
evening study hour: 8:45 P.M., evening study hour closes; 9:20 P.M.,
warning bell; 9:30 P.M., retiring bell.”[29]
Washington has done more for the education of the negro than any other
one man, white or black. His work at Tuskegee, his great educational
campaigns, and his speeches and writings have combined to make his
accomplishments of supreme value. Not only has he done this for the
negro, but his work has helped the cause of education for the white
people very greatly. All education in the South was backward. Like his
great teacher, General Armstrong, Washington realized that in their
progress the two races were bound together in the South, and that they
must grow or step backward together. It is impossible for the negro to
make his best progress unless the white man does so at the same time.
And of course this works both ways. Because he believed this, Washington
was anxious for school conditions for white people to change just as
well as the school conditions for negroes. Besides, he wanted all the
people to have the advantages of education. He did not hate anybody, and
consequently did not want anybody to be deprived of the best there was
in life. He did not want anybody, white or black, to fail to have his
best opportunity. So he worked for the advancement of the cause of the
white schools as well as the black, and his services to the white
schools were great.
The future of negro education is very bright. Schools and colleges are
being built every year. Better teachers are being prepared. Children are
going to school in larger numbers than ever before, and their work is
more satisfactory.
Every year the states appropriate more and more money for negro
education. The negro is now able to pay a large part of the cost of his
own education, and he is very willingly doing so.
The negro is determined to get an education. When he gets it, he will be
a better citizen. And the better the citizens of a country are, the
better life is in every way, and the more completely are all our
problems solved.
CHAPTER XII
LEADING HIS PEOPLE
Immediately following Washington’s great speech in Atlanta in 1895,
there came the statement from all parts of the country, “Here is the new
leader of the negro race.” During the last years of slavery, and the
Civil War, and on for years after the war, Frederick Douglass, as has
been said, was the acknowledged leader of the negro in the United
States. Douglass had died in the early part of the year 1895. It seemed
that this man Washington had been raised up to take his place. The
Atlanta speech continued to be a topic of discussion throughout the
country, and coupled with this discussion was invariably the statement
that here was the new leader of the race.
Washington says that he was at a great loss to know what people meant
when they referred to him as the leader of his people. Of course, this
leadership was not a thing that he had sought. The people thrust this
duty upon him, and of course no man has a right to shun or dodge
responsibility that is thus bestowed.
He was not in doubt long as to what it meant to be a leader. One of the
first things that happened was the large number of invitations that came
to him to deliver addresses. These requests came from all parts of the
country and from all sorts of organizations. A very large number of
these invitations he was compelled to refuse. However, when he felt he
could serve his institution and his people, he always accepted. He
represented the Negro at the unveiling of the monument of R. G. Shaw, in
Boston; and at the Peace Convention in Chicago in 1898, at which time
President McKinley spoke. He attended most of the large religious
gatherings of his people throughout the country, and spoke before them.
Almost immediately there began to pour in on him a perfect flood of
letters from all parts of the country, from white and black, high and
low, rich and poor, asking a thousand different questions. Now it would
be a letter from a railroad president asking about some problem of
dealing with his employees; now from a school man asking about the
segregation of the races in schools. Again, from a legislator, asking
advice on some legislation; but principally the letters came from his
own people, asking all sorts of questions about a multitude of things.
One man wanted Washington to use his influence to secure the adoption of
a flag for the negro race; another wanted his backing for a patent
medicine that would take the curl out of the negro’s hair. Another
wanted to know if the negro race was dying out; another, if the race was
being blended with the white race; another, if he thought the negro was
being treated right politically. Perhaps the most remarkable request,
however, was from a woman, who wanted him to find her husband who had
deserted her some years before. And in order that he might be easily
identified she describes him: “This is the hith of him 5–6 light eyes
dark hair unwave shave and a Suprano Voice his age 58 his name
Steve.”[30]
To all of these letters he replied in the fullest and frankest and
kindest way.
Whenever there was race friction in the South, he was invariably called
upon either to go in person or to send a message. For example, when the
Atlanta riots occurred in 1906, Washington was in the North. He took the
first train South. He went among his own people in Atlanta first, and
then he went to the white people—to the Governor, the Mayor, the leading
citizens, ministers and merchants. Largely through his wise counsel and
efforts order was restored, and plans were made for the future.
As a spokesman for his people he wrote constantly for the press. Such
papers as the _Montgomery Advertiser_, the _Atlanta Constitution_, the
_New Orleans Picayune_, the Louisville _Courier Journal_, the Chicago
_Inter-Ocean_, and the Boston and New York papers gladly published his
articles. He also contributed frequent articles to the weekly journals,
such as _The Outlook_, and to the monthly magazines, such as _The
Century Magazine_.
He carried this phase of his leadership even further than the current
press, in that he made some notable contributions to the historical
literature of his race. The first book he wrote was “Up from Slavery.”
This is one of the greatest pieces of literature published in America.
The Hon. Walter H. Page, late Ambassador to Great Britain, said: “The
only books that I have read a second time or ever cared to read in the
whole list (of literature relating to the negro) are ‘Uncle Remus,’ and
‘Up from Slavery,’ for these are the great literature of the
subject.”[31]
Believing the accomplishments of the race should be better known to his
own people, Washington determined to write a history of the Negro. “The
Story of the Negro—the Rise of the Race from Slavery” was the title of
the book he wrote, setting forth the wonderful progress of his people.
Other books by him were, “My Larger Education,” “Learning with the
Hands,”—about eleven titles in all. These books are of high literary
merit, and in no other way, perhaps, did Washington so definitely place
himself as a leader of his people as in the realm of authorship. These
books, in addition to their literary value, were of great benefit to the
white race as well as to his own race, in getting before all the people
a proper estimate of the real accomplishments of the negro.
One of the most important phases of his leadership of the negro was in
the organization of the _National Negro Business League_. It was one of
Washington’s strongest beliefs that the negro must prove himself able to
exist and prosper in business matters. The race—individually and
collectively—must demonstrate its ability to take care of itself in all
phases of industrial life. Another of his important principles was that
the negro should emphasize his opportunities rather than his drawbacks.
As he went about the country, he noted the wonderful progress made by
the negro in all lines of business. He felt that it would be a great
inspiration to those who had achieved success or leadership to know each
other, and a still greater encouragement to all the people if they knew
the real progress being made. Acting upon these ideas, he called a
meeting of representatives of a large number of businesses to be held in
Boston, in August, 1900. Here was organized the _National Negro Business
League_. Washington was made president and continued to hold this office
until his death in 1915.
The organization brought together from year to year all the
representative negro business men of the country. They made reports of
their progress and planned for future advancement. The league has been a
wonderful factor in the development of the business life of the negro.
Several other organizations, such as the Negro Press Association, the
Negro Bar Association, the Negro Funeral Directors’ Association, and
others have grown out of this league. It was through this league, as
perhaps through no other agency, that the negro learned of his own great
wealth, of his success in banking, in manufacturing, in merchandise, in
the undertaking business, and in a large number of other industries. It
gave him a wonderful pride in the accomplishments of his race. He knew
that the negro was proving to the world that he possessed all the
elements necessary for handling any phase of his economic life. He could
take care of himself in the business world.
Washington did a great deal for the negro farmer. It has already been
pointed out how he served the people of his county, and how the
extension work of the Institute was used to help the farmer. In addition
to this he organized the Tuskegee Negro Conference. In the beginning,
this was a sort of agricultural experience meeting on a large scale. The
good farmers from all the surrounding country were brought in, and each
was asked to relate his successful experience. Every phase of farm life
was covered. Every person present was profited by the experience and the
success of his neighbor. This conference has greatly broadened in scope
and has grown to be of large proportions and great influence.
Washington was truly the Moses of his people, as Andrew Carnegie had
said. He led them with great wisdom in their thought and their conduct.
He was their spokesman, their interpreter. He guided them to higher and
better things. He made the white man and the negro know each other
better and understand each other better. He lessened the friction
between the races and increased the good will. He brought encouragement
and inspiration to his own race and gained the sympathy and coöperation
of the white race. Everywhere he opposed ignorance and prejudice and
injustice in any form. Because of his wisdom and tact as a leader, not
only the negro but the entire nation was helped.
CHAPTER XIII
POLITICAL EXPERIENCES
Most of the negroes who gained any prominence or influence in the years
just after the Civil War entered politics. Bruce and Revels had been
United States Senators; Elliott and Smalls and a dozen others had been
Congressmen; Pinchback, Lynch, Langston, Gibbs, and Greener had been
sent for diplomatic service to foreign countries, and others had held
high State offices; and a multitude of negroes had been county and city
officials of various kinds.
Everybody expected Washington to accept some kind of political position,
but he steadfastly refused. Time after time, men of his own race and
white men urged him to run for office, or accept an appointment by the
President to high office. This he absolutely refused to do. He said that
his service, whatever it was worth, would be given, not in politics but
in education. He believed that entirely too much emphasis had been
placed on holding office by the negro, just after the war. He was more
concerned about whether or not his people could have the opportunity to
earn an honest living than he was about getting some political job.
He was often misunderstood about his ideas on holding office and the
whole question of the part the negro should take in politics; for he was
convinced that there were other things far more important at that time
to the negro than the matter of voting.
There was one phase of politics, however, that Washington did keep in
close touch with. This can be best explained by giving some of his
correspondence.
“Theodore Roosevelt, immediately after taking the oath of office as
President of the United States, in Buffalo, after the death of President
McKinley, wrote Mr. Washington the following note:
BUFFALO, N. Y.
_September 14, 1901_.
Dear Mr. Washington:
I write you at once to say that to my deep regret my visit South must
now be given up.
When are you coming North? I must see you as soon as possible. I want
to talk over the question of possible appointments in the South
exactly on the lines of our last conversation together.
I hope my visit to Tuskegee is merely deferred for a short season.
Faithfully yours,
(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.
Booker T. Washington, Esq.
Tuskegee, Ala.
“In response to the above note Mr. Washington went to the White House
and discussed with the President ‘possible future appointments in the
South.’”[32]
Immediately following this conference with the President, there was a
vacant judgeship in Alabama which gave the President an opportunity to
carry out his ideas about Southern appointments. He called upon
Washington for advice, and Washington, being unable to go himself at the
time, sent his secretary, Emmett J. Scott, to Washington as his
representative. Largely upon the recommendation of Washington, Judge
George Jones, a Democrat, was appointed to this position. This was an
event of great significance indeed, when a Republican President of the
United States appointed a Southern Democrat to office. It was done in
accordance with the ideas of both the President and Washington,—that
only men of the highest fitness, regardless of color or party, should
receive appointment.
From this time on, Washington was one of the President’s chief advisers
in Southern appointments.
President Roosevelt, of course, appointed many negroes also. He believed
that, when negroes possessed the proper qualifications for offices, they
should have a share in them. Washington did not try to get very many
negroes appointed, but he did try to get the very best negro when one
was appointed. In other words, he was trying to improve the quality
rather than increase the quantity of negro officeholders. After one of
Washington’s speeches, in which he laid special emphasis on this idea,
President Roosevelt sent him the following letter:
My dear Washington:
That is excellent; and you have put epigrammatically just what I am
doing—that is, though I have rather reduced the quantity, I have done
my best to raise the quality of Negro appointments.
With high regards,
Sincerely yours,
Theodore Roosevelt.[33]
Throughout the administrations of President Roosevelt and President
Taft, Washington was constantly called into conference and rendered a
lasting service to his own race and to the people of the country in
giving wise counsel, not only about politics but about a great many
things pertaining to the welfare of his people.
Washington was often criticized very severely by members of his own race
for his position with reference to voting. His ideas on this question
are well stated in the following quotation:
“I am often asked to express myself more freely than I do upon the
political condition and the political future of my race.... My own
belief is, although I have never before said so in so many words, that
the time will come when the negro in the South will be accorded all the
political rights which his ability, character, and material possessions
entitle him to. I think, though, that the opportunity to freely exercise
such political rights will not come in any large degree through outside
or artificial forcing, but will be accorded to the negro by the Southern
white people themselves, and that they will protect him in the exercise
of these rights. Just as soon as the South gets over the feeling that it
is being forced by ‘foreigners’ or ‘aliens’ to do something which it
does not want to do, I believe that the change in the direction that I
have indicated is going to begin.”[34]
Again he says: “I contend that, in relation to his vote, the negro
should more and more consider the interests of the community in which he
lives, rather than seek alone to please some one who lives a thousand
miles from him and his interests.”[35]
While he believed, theoretically, in universal, free suffrage, he very
frankly admitted that the peculiar conditions existing in the South made
it necessary to put restrictions upon the ballot. He was opposed,
however, to any discriminations in the law; and he urged with all his
power that the negro be given good educational and business advantages,
so that he might fit himself for the full responsibilities and duties of
life.
Washington himself never had any trouble about voting. He always
registered and always voted, and no one ever raised an objection to his
doing so.
CHAPTER XIV
VISITS TO EUROPE
Washington was a great traveler. He was away from his home at least half
of each year and often more than that. He traveled principally in the
North, making speeches and interviewing people who might help Tuskegee.
While on these trips, he did most of his reading and writing. He was
very fond of newspapers and magazines. When he started on a long
journey, he surrounded himself with a large number of papers and
magazines and books, which he thoroughly enjoyed. History was his
favorite field of reading outside of newspapers and magazines. He was
especially fond of biography—of reading about real men, men of action
and thought and great talents. Much of his greatest inspiration as a boy
came from reading the lives of great men. Lincoln was his greatest hero.
He said that he had read practically every recorded word of Lincoln’s.
Washington also did much of his writing on these trips. He kept his
stenographer with him all the time, and, when he was not reading, he was
usually dictating a speech, or a letter, or an article for a magazine. A
large part of his greatest book, “Up from Slavery,” was written while he
was on the train or waiting at stations between trains. It is remarkable
that he should have been able to accomplish so much under such
circumstances, for traveling was hard work. He often had to get up in
the middle of the night to catch a train and then ride all day, often
without Pullman accommodations. He said that he had slept in three
different beds in one night, so broken was his rest and so often did he
have to change trains in order to keep engagements. Undoubtedly it was
this hard traveling that helped to break down his great strength and
wear him out.
[Illustration:
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, FIRST PRINCIPAL OF TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE
]
In 1899 he made a speech in Boston, and some of his friends noticed that
he seemed extremely tired. He remained in Boston several days. One day
during his stay a friend asked him if he had ever been to Europe. He
replied that he had not. He was asked very casually whether he thought
that he would enjoy a trip to Europe. He said that he certainly would,
but he did not ever expect to have such a pleasure. A day or two later
some of his friends came to him and told him they had a little surprise
for him, that they had made arrangements for him and his wife to go to
Europe in the summer and spend several months on a vacation.
Washington was very greatly surprised. He thanked his friends very
cordially for their interest but told them that he could not afford to
take the trip. Whereupon they told him that all the money for the
expenses of the trip had already been raised, and that it would not cost
him a cent. He thanked them again very sincerely but told them he could
not think of leaving his work that long,—that money had to be raised for
Tuskegee, and that he had to stay right on the job to get it. Then they
told him that a group of his friends had already raised enough money to
keep Tuskegee going until he got back. He then gave another excuse. He
was afraid people would say that he was “stuck up”; that since he had
made some success in the world he was trying to show off and play the
big man. His friends told him that sensible people would not think such
a thing, and that he need not bother about the people who had no sense.
Washington thought, too, that he had no right to quit work so long. He
had worked all his life. There was a world of work yet he had to do. To
go off on a vacation of several months, when there was so much to be
done, and when other people were at work, seemed wrong to him. But he
realized finally that a reasonable amount of rest, when one is tired,
means more and better work in the long run.
So it came about that, on May 10, 1899, Washington and his wife went
aboard the ship _Friesland_ in New York harbor and sailed for Europe. It
was a wonderful experience for Washington. In the first place, as he
went aboard the ship, he received a message from two of his friends
telling him that they had decided to give him the money to build a
magnificent new building at Tuskegee. That was a good “send-off.”
Washington was a bit uneasy about how people would treat him aboard
ship. He knew what unfortunate experiences some members of his race had
had in times past. But the captain received him cordially, and everybody
on board was exceedingly courteous to him and to his wife in every way.
Washington on his way to Europe! It seemed to him like a dream. Again
and again he had thought of Europe,—much as he did of heaven,—a goodly
place, but far away. It had never even occurred to him that he would
ever go to Europe. And now he was on his way! He was like a schoolboy;
he was happy over the prospect of a wonderful trip.
He did not get seasick on the voyage, as most of the passengers did. The
weather was fine, and he had a glorious voyage. But he did not know how
tired and worn out he was until he relaxed. About the second day he
began to sleep, and he says that from then on until they landed he slept
at least fifteen hours every day. He continued the habit of long hours
devoted to sleep all the time he was gone, and it was one of the means
by which he restored his depleted strength.
After a fine voyage of ten days, they landed at Antwerp, a famous old
city of Belgium. Here they spent a few quiet days, finding it extremely
interesting to observe the people with their dress and manners and
customs, different from anything they had ever seen before.
Then they went on a delightful journey through the picturesque country
of Holland. Washington, always interested in farming and especially
dairy farming, was greatly delighted on this trip. On every hand were
the wonderful farms of the Dutch. He had never seen such intensive
cultivation of land. Every foot of ground was used. Vegetables were
grown in boxes, one row above another, on the back porches of the
houses, so precious was the scarce land. Ten or twelve acres was a good
big farm. Coming from a country where land is so abundant and cheap and
so extravagantly wasted and so carelessly cultivated, these beautiful
farms were a delight to him. And the herds of fine Holstein cattle
pleased him immensely. He loved cows; and these seemed to be the finest
herds he had ever seen in his life.
Out of Holland and back into the historic and now heroic Belgium, the
party went, going to Waterloo, the famous battlefield of Napoleon’s
defeat, and to other places of interest; and from here to Paris, the
gayest and brightest of all the cities of Europe, the capital of France.
While in Paris, Washington met a number of distinguished Americans. He
made two or three important speeches and was given a reception by the
American ambassador at Paris. He met ex-President Harrison, General
Horace Porter, our ambassador, Justices Fuller and Harlan, of the United
States Supreme Court, and other distinguished men, all of whom were most
cordial and friendly.
The American whom he found most interesting in Paris, however, was a
negro—Henry O. Tanner. Tanner is an artist, a painter. He is the son of
the beloved Bishop Tanner and was born in America. He showed marked
talent for painting in his youth. When he grew up, he determined to go
to the greatest city in the world for art. He went to Paris and became
so successful in his work that he has continued to live there. He has
several paintings in the Louvre, the greatest and most exclusive art
gallery in the world. A picture cannot be put in the Louvre unless it is
recognized and accepted as a great work of art. Washington spent much
time with Tanner and was greatly pleased to see what marked success had
been won by this American negro. He took it as proof of his contention
that, when a negro proves himself really worthy, he will be recognized
and honored, for Tanner enjoyed the esteem and regard of all his
associates, regardless of race. And they esteemed him because of his
worth, and not because of his color.
From Paris the Washingtons went to London. Here they visited many places
of historic interest,—the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s,
and the House of Commons. They met many interesting people,—the Duke and
Duchess of Sutherland, Joseph H. Choate, American ambassador to England,
Henry M. Stanley, the great African explorer, with whom Washington
conversed at length. They were also received by Queen Victoria, at
Windsor Castle.
It had been a wonderful trip. Washington had learned many lessons from
the Old World. He had seen and talked with men who helped him in the
better understanding of his own great task. He had had a wonderfully
good time. He was thoroughly rested—a new man. He plunged into his work
again upon his return with great vigor and enthusiasm.
Washington made two other trips to Europe during his lifetime. The
second one was largely like the first—a trip for recreation and pleasure
and rest. But the third trip was undertaken with a serious purpose. He
wanted to see how the poor people of Europe lived, and how their living
conditions compared with those of the workingman in the United States.
He was particularly anxious to see how conditions there compared with
those affecting the negro population of the South. He also wanted to see
whether or not he could find anything in Europe that would justify the
system of education he had established at Tuskegee. So this time he left
the usual highways of travel and went far into the interior, visiting
the peasant in his hut, in the remotest regions of the country,—the
miner toiling underground, the laborer in the quarry, and the poor man
at his work whatever it was and wherever he could be found. He visited
the farms in the remote parts of Poland, Austria, and Italy. He went to
the sulphur mines in Campo Franco. At Catania he saw the grape harvest
and the men barelegged, treading the wine press as they did in Bible
times.
In a very remote part of Poland, away up in the mountains, he stopped at
a little thatched-roof cottage. Desiring to see how the place looked on
the inside, he knocked at the door. In response a man opened the door,
and Washington said something to him in English, thinking, of course,
that the man would not understand, but that he would be able to see
inside the hut. To his utter astonishment, the man answered him in
English. Upon further conversation, he found that this man had once
lived in Detroit, Michigan.
When he was in the mines at Campo Franco, Sicily, he by chance met a man
who had once worked in the mines near Malden, West Virginia, where
Washington himself had worked when a boy. The world is not such a big
place after all!
As a result of his observations of conditions in Europe, Washington came
to the conclusion that the negro in the South is, generally speaking, in
far better condition than the peasant of Europe. He also noted that,
wherever conditions were fairly good, where the natives owned the land
and had developed reasonably good farming conditions, there was no
emigration from that region to America. But where conditions were bad,
where farms were not well kept, where the people were not permitted or
encouraged to own their own homes, from such sections there was always
much emigration to America. In other words, good local conditions, land
ownership, good schools, and so on, tended to make the people happy,
contented, and desirous of remaining where they were. In this fact he
saw a great lesson for his own people. He believed that the South is the
home of the negro, that here it is possible for him to do his best. He
was, therefore, tremendously anxious for the negroes to learn how to
cultivate the soil to the best possible advantage, to buy land, to build
schools, to establish churches, and in every way to become real citizens
of the country where they were.
Washington wrote an interesting book describing all that he saw and
learned on this trip. It is called, “The Man Farthest Down.” As stated
before, he pointed out that there were many, many people “farther down”
than the American negro; that compared to most of the people of Europe,
he ought to be exceedingly thankful that his condition is as good as it
is. Of course he did not mean by this that conditions with the negro
were what they ought to be; but that the negro should be thankful for
the progress that he has made; that he should take courage, and go
forward to better things.
The most interesting experience of this trip to Europe was his visit to
the King and Queen of Denmark, at Copenhagen. On his first visit to the
palace he was received by the King. Washington was much impressed by the
King’s cordiality and simplicity, by his knowledge of America, and by
his acquaintance even with the work Washington was doing at Tuskegee. At
the close of the interview, the King invited him to dine at the palace
that night.
Now the invitation of a king is the same as a command, and one is always
expected to accept. Of course Washington was delighted to accept this
invitation.
Washington spent the rest of the day preceding the dinner hour visiting
the country people near Copenhagen. He was late getting home, and he was
terrified when he realized that he might be late for dinner. To keep the
King and Queen waiting would be a terrible offense. He dressed as
rapidly as he could. But in his haste, he pulled his necktie to
pieces,—the only one he had fit for the occasion! He pinned it together
the best he could and put it on; but he says that he was in great
distress throughout the dinner lest the tie come to pieces again.
He reached the palace just in time for the dinner. He was taken directly
to the King, who led him to where the Queen was standing, and presented
him to her. She was very cordial and gracious. She spoke English
perfectly; and Washington was again surprised to find that she, too, was
thoroughly familiar with affairs in the United States, and that she also
knew about Tuskegee.
There was a very distinguished group of people present. The dinner was
given in the magnificent Summer Palace, and everything was truly royal
in its elegance and splendor. Washington says, “As I ate food for the
first time in my life out of gold dishes, I could not but recall the
time when as a slave boy I ate my syrup from a tin plate.”[36]
CHAPTER XV
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON: THE MAN
Booker Washington at home, with his wife and children, his garden, his
chickens, his pigs, his horses and cows, is far more interesting than
Washington the orator, the writer, the teacher, the traveler, the
college principal.
No man ever loved his home more than Washington. He had to be away from
it much of the time. He was away at least half of each year. This was a
great hardship to him, and just as often as was possible he got away
from his exacting duties and returned to Tuskegee to find rest and quiet
and comfort and joy with his own family.
He was an early riser, when at home, getting up always at 6 o’clock. His
first morning task was to gather the fresh eggs. He was very fond of
chickens and always kept a number of them. “I begin my day,” he says,
“by seeing how many eggs I can find, or how many little chicks there are
that are just beginning to creep through the shells.... I like to find
the new eggs myself, and I am selfish enough to permit no one else to do
this....”[37]
He was very fond of animals of all kinds, but the pig was his favorite.
He always kept a number of the very finest breeds of Berkshires and
Poland Chinas. After gathering the fresh eggs, his next job was feeding
the pigs. After that came a visit to the cows. He always kept a good
garden, too, and a part of the early morning was given to working in it.
He had a very peculiar custom or idea about his garden work. He always
worked barefooted. He said that there was something in the soil that
gave one strength and health and power,—but you had to get it by direct
contact with the soil.
After this early morning round of work was done, he mounted his horse
for an hour’s ride. He usually rode over the college farm and thoroughly
inspected it; then to the dairy, and all over the college grounds, to
see that everything was going as it should.
After breakfast, he went to his office and gave his attention to the
day’s mail, which averaged daily about 125 incoming and 800 outgoing
letters. Later in the day he would visit classrooms, inspect the
building that was going on, go to the great dining hall at dinner, go to
the shops, talk to the students and to the members of the faculty as he
met them. Just before supper he would call for his horse again and go
off for an hour’s ride or for a hunt. Sometimes he would walk rather
than ride. While on these walks, he would often run for a couple of
miles at top speed. After supper, there was usually a meeting of some
kind,—a committee or faculty meeting, or conference with a delegation of
visitors. Chapel exercises, devotional in character, came at 8:30. And
after that, very frequently, there was an inspection of the dormitories.
He had three children, Portia, Booker, and Davidson. One of his greatest
pleasures was to take the children for a long walk on Sunday afternoons.
They would tramp for miles through the fields and woods, gathering
flowers or nuts or berries. They studied the trees, the flowers, and the
birds. They waded in the streams, ran footraces, and played games.
Every night after supper he would romp and play with the children. He
would roll on the floor, let the children ride on his back, play all
sorts of jolly games, or he would tell stories. He was an excellent
story-teller, and it was always a treat to hear the wonderful tales he
could tell.
Washington was married three times. His first wife, as stated in a
previous chapter, was Fannie M. Smith, of Malden, who died in 1884,
leaving a daughter, Portia. The second marriage was to Olivia Davidson,
who had been a teacher at Tuskegee from its beginning. She had been of
wonderful assistance to Washington in the early days of Tuskegee. She
was the mother of the two boys, Booker, Jr., and Davidson. His third
marriage was to Margaret Murray, of Mississippi, a graduate of Fisk
University and for several years a teacher at Tuskegee. This marriage
occurred in 1892. Mrs. Washington has had a very useful and
distinguished career. No woman of her race has helped her people so much
in recent years. She will be remembered not merely as the wife of Booker
Washington, but for her own remarkable service to her people.
[Illustration:
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND HIS FAMILY
]
Washington was a man of unusual personal appearance. From the
description that James Creelman gave of him on the occasion of his
famous speech in Atlanta, it can readily be seen that he was a man of
commanding and striking personality. Wherever he went he attracted
attention.
He was an untiring worker. He went at tremendous speed all the time. He
could do as much, as a rule, as three or four ordinary men. He kept a
stenographer with him all the time. As he went about the grounds he
would dictate suggestions and ideas for changes and improvements. He
would often awaken his stenographer at night to dictate a letter or a
speech or a statement for the papers. In this way he never overlooked an
important thought or idea that occurred to him, and his ideas were
always taken down while fresh and vivid in his mind. He often confounded
his faculty by his tremendous energy. He would call them in and lay out
enough work for them to keep busy for a week and, then, almost before
they could get started, demand results. He could work so fast himself
and do so much, he never realized that it took other people longer to
finish a task.
He had a very active mind. He could think quickly. He was also a good
judge of men and knew the worth of a man almost at sight. When any
subject was presented to him, he would arrive at conclusions quickly and
accurately.
As he grew older, he exhibited a certain amount of absentmindedness,
due, perhaps, to concentration of mind. He would meet his best friends
on the street and not speak to them. He was so preoccupied by his
thinking that he simply did not recognize folks when he met them.
Washington was a proud and independent man. Many people thought he was
conceited. He was far too great a man for that. He was not vain and he
was not ashamed of himself or his race. He held his head high. He could
not be cowed. He had great self-confidence. He knew his abilities and
powers and thought it his duty to appraise them properly. This he did in
a very intelligent and sensible way. But he was not boastful; in fact,
he was very humble. Many of the things which he said and did that were
often taken for personal vanity and boastfulness were not personal at
all but were evidences of his pride in his race.
Washington had great sympathy for the unfortunate. He was constantly
bringing up in faculty meeting the case of some poor negro who was in
distress,—who couldn’t pay the rent, was without food or clothes, or was
in hard luck in some way. He insisted that these people be helped
regardless of how they came to be in their unfortunate condition.
Scarcely a day passed that he did not give aid to some one who needed
it.
There was an old, crack-brained preacher who would come to the Institute
and speak by the hour right outside the office, but Washington would not
let him be disturbed and always gave him a little contribution.
There was another old negro who had great ability in getting
contributions from Washington. “One day, when Washington was driving
down the main street of Tuskegee behind a pair of fast and spirited
horses, this old man rushed out into the street and stopped him as
though he had a matter of the greatest urgency to impart to him. When
Mr. Washington had with difficulty reined his horses and asked him what
he wanted, the old man said breathlessly, ‘I’se got a tirkey for yo’
Thanksgivin’!’
“‘How much does it weigh?’ inquired Mr. Washington.
“‘Twelve to fifteen poun’.’
“After thanking the old man warmly, Mr. Washington started to drive on,
when the old fellow added, ‘I jest wants to borrow a dollar for to
fatten yo’ tirkey for you!’
“With a laugh, Mr. Washington handed the old man a dollar, and drove on.
He never could be made to feel that by these spontaneous generosities he
was encouraging thriftlessness and mendicancy. He was incorrigible in
his unscientific open-handedness with the poor, begging older members of
his race.”[38]
“Old man Harry Varner was the night watchman of the school in its early
days, and a man upon whom Mr. Washington very much depended. He lived in
a cabin opposite the school grounds. After hearing many talks about the
importance of living in a real house instead of a one- or two-room
cabin, old Uncle Harry finally decided that he must have a real house.
Accordingly he came to his employer, told him his feeling in the matter,
and laid before him his meagre savings, which he had determined to spend
for a real house. Mr. Washington went with him to select the lot and
added enough out of his own pocket to the scant savings to enable the
old man to buy a cow and a pig and a garden plot as well as the house.
From then on, for weeks, he and old Uncle Harry would have long and
mysterious conferences over the planning of that little four-room
cottage. It is doubtful if Mr. Washington ever devoted more time or
thought to planning any of the great buildings of the Institute. No
potentate was ever half as proud of his palace as Uncle Harry of his
four-room cottage, when it was finally finished and painted and stood
forth in all its glory to be admired of all men. And Booker Washington
was scarcely less proud than Uncle Harry.
“With Uncle Harry Varner, ‘Old man’ Brannum, the original cook of the
school, and Lewis Adams, of the town of Tuskegee, whom Mr. Washington
mentions in ‘Up from Slavery,’ as one of his chief advisers, all
unlettered-before-the-war negroes, his relationship was always
particularly intimate. These three old men enjoyed the confidence of the
white people of the town of Tuskegee to an unusual extent and often
acted as ambassadors of good will between the head of the school and his
white neighbors, when from time to time the latter showed a disposition
to look askance at the rapidly growing institution on the hill beyond
the town.
“Another intimate friend of Mr. Washington’s was Charles L. Diggs, known
affectionately on the school grounds as ‘Old man’ Diggs. The old man had
been body servant to a Union officer in the Civil War, and after the war
had been carried to Boston, where he became the butler in a fashionable
Back Bay family. When Mr. Washington first visited Boston, as an humble
and obscure young negro school-teacher, pleading for his struggling
school, he met Diggs, and Diggs succeeded in interesting his employers
in the sincere and earnest young teacher. When, years afterward, the
Institute had grown to the dignity of needing stewards, Mr. Washington
employed his old friend as steward of the Teachers’ Home. In all the
years thereafter hardly a day passed when Mr. Washington was at the
school without having some kind of powwow with ‘Old man’ Diggs regarding
some matter affecting the interests of the school.
“To the despair of his family Booker Washington seemed to go out of his
way to find forlorn old people whom he could befriend. He sent
provisions weekly to an humble old black couple from whom he had bought
a tract of land for the school. He did the same for old Aunt Harriet and
her deaf, dumb, and lame son, except that to them he provided fuel as
well. On any particularly cold day, he would send one or more students
over to Aunt Harriet’s to find out if she and her poor helpless son were
comfortable. Also every Sunday afternoon, to the joy of this pathetic
couple, a particularly appetizing Sunday dinner unfailingly made its
appearance. And these were only a few of the pensioners and
semipensioners whom Booker Washington accumulated as he went about his
kindly way.”[39]
Washington had the capacity of making friends. He had the gift of
friendship. His white friends were as numerous and staunch as were those
of his own race. His close friendship with such men as William H.
Baldwin, Jr., H. H. Rogers, and others has already been mentioned. It
would be unfair to him and to them to leave the impression that their
relations were merely those of benefactor and beggar. They were friends
as man to man. Washington and Roosevelt were friends in the same way.
It would be unfairer still to leave the impression that Washington’s
friends were rich men only and men in the North only. This was not the
case. Perhaps his strongest friends were in the South, many of whom were
not in the public eye. He himself records the fact that few men in his
entire career were of such genuine help to him as Captain Howard,
conductor on the W. & A. Railroad. He did not have an enemy in his own
town of Tuskegee. All through the South were men whom Washington counted
among his warmest personal friends.
[Illustration:
ROBERT RUSSA MOTON, SUCCESSOR TO BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AT TUSKEGEE
]
Among his own people, he was no less fortunate in his friendships. He
knew and loved Moton and Scott and Banks and Carver and Fortune and
Scarborough, and a great host of others. All these were his most loyal
and devoted friends. But none of these were really any closer to him
than “Old man” Diggs or Rufus Herron or many a lowly man of Macon
County. There was such sincerity, such a genuineness about this man that
all true men were drawn to him.
Washington had a keen sense of humor. This is the reason he was always
so even-tempered. He kept perfect control of himself at all times, and
it was largely his sense of humor that enabled him to do so. He saw the
ridiculous side of things. He could tell perfectly side-splitting
stories, particularly about his own people. These stories were always
clean and without a sting, and always had some point to them. He was
thoroughly good-natured, and every one in his presence felt refreshed
and happy by reason of having come in contact with him.
He had a strong sense of justice. He believed the problems of the white
race as well as those of the black race must be settled on a basis of
justice, if they were ever to be settled right. The fact that he
constantly spoke of justice and fair dealing toward the white race
showed that there was no color boundary to this great attribute of his
character. He was not quarrelsome; he did not hate; he did not lose his
temper when he saw injustice being done to his people. However, he never
did condone such injustice; he was ever ready to denounce it. He labored
unceasingly to bring about a mutual understanding between the two races
and to inspire in his own race those principles which he saw with such
clear vision. He said that the negro ought to put more time on improving
his opportunities than crying over his disadvantages. He believed that
the first and most important thing was for the negro to become well
prepared for the ballot, and by and by he would get it. He argued that
the negroes should work and save and study and conduct themselves in the
proper way, and that in course of time recognition would come to them.
Sooner or later, the right, the just thing, would prevail, and the
important thing for the negro was to know he was right.
[Illustration:
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND HIS GRANDCHILDREN
]
Washington had the courage to denounce those members of his own race,
particularly some of the ministers, who did not live as they should.
This was a bold thing to do and brought much criticism upon him, but, in
the long run, it was a great service to his race and to the whole
country.
In spite of the fact that Washington was a man of unusual health and
strength, his hard work and the great responsibilities he carried began
finally to tell on him. But he kept on. He had wonderful will power, and
he would drive himself to his work from day to day, when other men would
have taken to their beds. He could not admit to himself that he was
losing strength. Right up to the last, he did an enormous amount of
work.
In the early fall of 1915, he went North to deliver an address before
the National Council of Congregational Churches, held in New Haven,
Connecticut. Although he had not been entirely well for some time, no
one had any idea that he was seriously ill. Shortly after the address in
New Haven, he collapsed. His friends in New York City had him removed to
St. Luke’s Hospital there.
The physicians made a careful examination and frankly told him that he
was critically ill and could live but a few hours. When he learned that
he must die, he insisted on starting for home at once. The doctors told
him that he could not go; that it would mean certain death; that he
could not live through the journey. His reply was: “I was born in the
South, I have lived and labored in the South, and I expect to die and be
buried in the South.”
Arrangements were hurriedly made for the journey to Tuskegee. No one
believed that he would reach there alive. One of the doctors had said
that it was “uncanny to see a man up and about who ought, by all the
laws of nature, to be dead.” When they reached the railway station in
New York a rolling chair had been provided for Washington, but he
refused to use it and walked to the train leaning on the arms of his
friends.
As the train pulled out and headed for his beloved Southland, his
spirits began to revive, and he seemed much stronger. He was determined
to beat death in this race. As they journeyed on, he would ask the names
of the stations. When he was told that they were passing Greensboro, a
triumphant look came into his eyes. Charlotte, Greenville, Atlanta—he
was winning! Finally they came to Chehaw, the little station five miles
from Tuskegee, the junction point of the railroad from Tuskegee to the
main line.
A few more minutes, and he saw the familiar and much loved scenes of his
own Tuskegee.
He had won!
But his victory was a short one. For when the sun came up on the next
morning, the fourteenth day of November, 1915, Booker Washington was
dead.
INDEX
Alabama Hall, 69–70.
Alabama Legislature, 45, 75.
Armstrong, Gen. S. C., accompanies Washington on tour, 70;
founder of Hampton, 23–24;
invites Washington as commencement speaker, 32, 77;
sends Washington to Tuskegee, 45;
sketch of, 22.
_Atlanta Constitution_, 81.
Atlanta Speech, 79–81.
Baldwin, William H. Jr., President of Board of Trustees, Tuskegee
Institute, 73, 138.
Belgium, Washington’s visit to, 122.
Books, written by Washington, 108.
Buildings, first at Tuskegee, 50–51, 58.
Bulloch, Gov., of Ga., 81.
Business League, National Negro, 109.
Cabbages, an oration on, 96.
Cabin, description of a, 3.
Capital, campaign for removal, W. Va., 37.
Carnegie, Andrew, 71, 73, 111.
Carney, Sergeant William H., 85.
Chicago Peace Convention, 106.
“Chopping bee,” 52.
Coal mine, 12–13.
Coat, sale of, 28.
Commencement exercises at Tuskegee, 93–95.
Copenhagen, Washington’s visit to, 127.
Corner stone, first building at Tuskegee, 59–60.
Cotton States Exposition, 78.
Creelman, James, 79.
Davidson, Olivia, 49, 66.
Denmark, Washington’s visit to, 127.
Douglass, Frederick, 76, 82, 105.
Education of negro, effect of, 90–91;
future of, 104;
negro education after Civil War, 22;
Washington’s idea of, 91–93, 98, 103.
Eliot, President C. W., 67.
“Emancipation Proclamation,” 8.
“Entitles,” 9.
Europe, Washington’s trips to, 119–128.
Extension work of Tuskegee, 100.
Farm, purchase of, 50–51.
“Festivals,” 54.
Freedmen’s Bureau, 90.
Gifts to Tuskegee, 54, 74–75.
Hales’ Ford, Washington’s birthplace, 3.
Hampton Institute, 15, 17, 20, 22–23, 26–27, 29–30, 32, 34.
Harvard University, 82.
Holland, Washington’s visit to, 122.
Howard, Captain, conductor on the W. and A. R. R., 139.
Howell, Clark, editor of _Atlanta Constitution_, 81.
Huntington, Collis P., 71.
Indians, at Hampton Institute, 41–42.
Jamestown, 1–2.
Jones, Judge George, 114.
“Learning with the Hands,” 108.
“Library,” Washington’s first, 17.
Library, Carnegie, 72.
Lincoln, President, 7, 118.
London, Washington’s visit to, 124.
Mackie, Mary F., 24, 77.
McKinley, President, 106, 113.
Macon County, Ala., 46, 48, 90.
Madison, Wis., speech at, 77.
Malden, W. Va., 9–10, 12, 14, 17, 29, 34, 37, 126.
“Man Farthest Down,” 127.
Marriages, Washington’s, 65, 131–132.
Master of Arts degree, 82.
Morgan, S. Griffitts, 28.
Mother, Washington’s, 3, 10, 30.
Moton, R. R., successor to Washington, 139.
Murray, Margaret, 132.
“My Larger Education,” 108.
Name, Washington’s change of, 9.
National Council of Congregational Churches, 142.
Negro, 15, 18, 22, 37, 41, 56, 59–60, 77–78, 80, 82, 85, 106, 108–110,
126.
Negro Bar Association, 110.
Negro Business League, National, 109.
Negro Funeral Directors’ Association, 110.
Negro Press Association, 110.
New Haven, Conn., 142.
Newspapers, contributions to, 107.
Night school, 35, 43.
Paris, Washington’s visit to, 123.
Peabody Fund, 75.
“Plucky Class,” 43.
Politics, Washington’s interest in, 38.
Porter Hall, 62, 68.
“Quarters,” 3.
Rogers, H. H., 71, 91, 138.
Roosevelt, President, 113–115.
Rosenwald, Julius, 74.
Ruffner, General Lewis, 16.
Ruffner, Mrs., 16–17.
School, first, taught by Washington, 34.
Scott, Emmett J., 114.
Shaw, Robert Gould, 85.
Slater Fund, 75.
Smith, Fannie M., 65.
South, condition of, after the Civil War, 22.
Stanley, Sir Henry M., 124.
Story-teller, Washington as a, 84–85.
Students, first, at Tuskegee, 49–50.
Students’ work at Tuskegee, 61.
Taft, President, 115.
Tanner, Henry O., 123.
Tuskegee, town of, 46, 143.
Tuskegee Institute: beginnings of, 46–47;
Carnegie Library at, 72;
character of students of, 49–50;
commencement exercises of, 93–94;
extension work of, 100;
first buildings of, 50–51;
first year of, 54–55;
growth of, 101;
laying corner stone of, 59–60;
negro conferences at, 110;
opening of, 49.
“Up from Slavery,” 108.
Vessel, unloading, in Richmond, 19.
Virginia, 1, 14.
Washington, Booker T., Atlanta speech, 78–82;
birth, 3;
books by, 108;
character of, vii-viii, 134;
children of, 131;
coal mine experiences, 12;
commencement speaker, 32;
contributor to press, 108;
death of, 143;
early life of, 4–6;
education, his ideas of, 60–61, 91–93, 98, 103;
“examination” at Hampton, 25;
founds Tuskegee, 46–51;
home life, 129–134;
hotel waiter, employed as, 34;
janitor, works as, 26–27, 29;
journey to Hampton, 17–18;
last illness of, 142;
leader of race, 82, 105;
league, organizer of, 109;
life at Hampton, 27–30;
marriages of, 65, 131–132;
Master of Arts degree, 82;
names himself, 11–12;
orator, makes a reputation as, 70, 76, 82–86;
personal appearance, 80;
politics, takes an interest in, 112, 115–116;
raising money, 67;
service, his ideas of, 88–89;
Shaw Monument speech, 85;
story-teller, as a, 84–85;
teacher at Hampton, 40, 44;
teacher at Malden, 34;
trips to Europe, 119–128;
vacations, while a student, 29–30.
Washington, Booker T. Jr., 131.
Washington, Davidson, 131.
Washington, John, 5, 35.
Washington, Portia, 66.
Wayland Seminary, 36.
Wheeling, West Virginia, 37.
-----
Footnote 1:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 9.
Footnote 2:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, pp. 6–7.
Footnote 3:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, pp. 34–35.
Footnote 4:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 37.
Footnote 5:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 44.
Footnote 6:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, pp. 48–49.
Footnote 7:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, pp. 52–53.
Footnote 8:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 58.
Footnote 9:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 105.
Footnote 10:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 107.
Footnote 11:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 130.
Footnote 12:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
p. 6.
Footnote 13:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
p. 7.
Footnote 14:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 132.
Footnote 15:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 161.
Footnote 16:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 175.
Footnote 17:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
pp. 258–259.
Footnote 18:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 202.
Footnote 19:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, pp. 239–240.
Footnote 20:
_Ibid._, p. 226.
Footnote 21:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 219.
Footnote 22:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, pp. 242, 244.
Footnote 23:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
p. 30.
Footnote 24:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
pp. 30–31.
Footnote 25:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 255.
Footnote 26:
“My Larger Education,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 139.
Footnote 27:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
pp. 57–59.
Footnote 28:
“My Larger Education,” by Booker T. Washington, pp. 141–143.
Footnote 29:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 314.
Footnote 30:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
p. 45.
Footnote 31:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, Introduction, p. xx.
Footnote 32:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
p. 49.
Footnote 33:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
p. 56.
Footnote 34:
“Up from Slavery,” by Booker T. Washington, p. 234.
Footnote 35:
_Ibid._, p. 202.
Footnote 36:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
p. 157.
Footnote 37:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
p. 307.
Footnote 38:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
p. 144.
Footnote 39:
“Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization,” by Scott and Stowe,
pp. 145–147.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last
chapter.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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