 Chapter 3 of Up From Slavery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington Chapter 3 The Struggle for an Education One day while at work in the coal mine, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for colored people, similar in Virginia. This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college that was more pretentious than the little colored school in our town. In the darkness of the mine, I noiselessly crept as close as I could to the two men who were talking. I heard one tell the other that not only was the school established for the members of any race, but the opportunities that it provided by which poor but worthy students could work out all or a part of the cost of a board and at the same time be taught some trade or industry. As they went on describing the school, it seemed to me that it must be the greatest place on earth and not even heaven presented more attractions for me at that time than did the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia about which these men were talking. I resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where it was or how many miles away or how I was going to reach it. I remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition and that was to go to Hampton. This thought was with me day and night. After hearing of the Hampton Institute, I continued to work for a few months longer in the coal mine. While at work there, I heard of a vacant position in the household of General Lewis Ruffner, the owner of the salt furnace in the coal mine. Mrs. Viola Ruffner, the wife of General Ruffner, was a Yankee woman from Vermont. Mrs. Ruffner had a reputation all through the vicinity for being very strict with her servants and especially with the boys who tried to serve her. Few of them remained with her for more than two or three weeks. They all left with the same excuse she was too strict. I decided, however, that I would rather try Mrs. Ruffner's house than remain in the coal mine and so my mother applied to her for the vacant position. I was hired at a salary of $5 per month. I had heard so much about Mrs. Ruffner's severity that I was almost afraid to see her and trembled when I went into her presence. I had not lived with her many weeks, however, before I began to understand her. I soon began to learn that, first of all, she wanted everything kept clean about her, that she wanted things done promptly and systematically, and at the bottom of everything she wanted absolute honesty and frankness. Nothing must be sloven or slipshod. Every door, every fence must be kept in repair. I cannot now recall how long I lived with Mrs. Ruffner before going to Hampton, but I think it must have been a year and a half. At any rate, I here repeat what I have said more than once before, that the lessons that I learned in the home of Mrs. Ruffner were as valuable to me as any education I have ever gotten anywhere else. Even to this day, I never see bits of paper scattered around the 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. From fearing Mrs. Ruffner, I soon learned to look upon her as one of my best friends. When she found that she could trust me, she did so implicitly. During the one or two winters that I was with her, she gave me an opportunity to go to school for an hour in the day during a portion of the winter months, but most of my studying was done at night, sometimes alone, sometimes under someone whom I could hire to teach me. Mrs. Ruffner always encouraged and sympathized with me in all my efforts to get an education. It was while living with her that I began to get together my first library. I secured a dry goods box, knocked out one side of it, put some shelves in it, and began putting into it every kind of book that I could get my hands upon and called it my library. Notwithstanding my success at Mrs. Ruffner's, I did not give up the idea of going to the Hampton Institute. In the fall of 1872, I determined to make an effort to get there, although, as I have stated, I had no definite idea of the direction in which Hampton was or of what it would cost to go there. I do not think that anyone thoroughly sympathized with me and my ambition to go to Hampton unless it was my mother, and she was troubled with a grave fear that I was starting out on a wild goose chase. At any rate, I only got a half-hearted consent from her that I might start. The small amount of money that I had earned had been consumed by my stepfather and the remainder of the family, with the exception of a very few dollars, and so I had very little with which to buy clothes and pay my traveling expenses. My brother John helped me all that he could, but of course that was not a great deal, for his work was in the coal mine where he did not earn much, and most of what he did earn went in the directions of paying the household expenses. Perhaps the thing that touched and pleased me the most in connection with my starting for Hampton was the interest that many of the older-colored people took into matter. They had spent the best days of their lives in slavery and hardly expected to live to see the time when they would see a member of their race leave home to attend a boarding school. Some of these older people would give me a nickel, others a quarter, or a handkerchief. Finally the great day came and I started for Hampton. I had only a small, cheap satchel that contained a few articles of clothing I could get. My mother at the time was rather weak and broken in health. I hardly expected to see her again, and thus our parting was all the more sad. She, however, was very brave through it all. At that time there were no trains connecting that part of West Virginia with Eastern Virginia. Trains ran only a portion of the way and the remainder of the distance was traveled by stagecoaches. The distance from Maldon to Hampton is about 500 miles. I had not been away from home many hours before it began to grow painfully evident that I did not have enough money to pay my fare to Hampton. One experience I shall long remember. I had been traveling over the mountains most of the afternoon in an old-fashioned stagecoach when, late in the evening, the coach stopped for the night at a common unpainted house called a hotel. All the other passengers except myself were whites. In my ignorance I suppose that the little hotel existed for the purpose of accommodating the passengers who traveled on the stagecoach. The difference that the color of one skin would make I had not thought anything about. After all the other passengers had been shown rooms and were getting ready for supper, I shyly presented myself before the man at the desk. It is true I had practically no money in my pocket with which to pay for bed or food, but I had hoped in some way to beg my way into the good graces of the landlord, for at that season in the mountains of Virginia the weather was cold and I wanted to get indoors for the night. Without asking as to whether I had any money, the man at the desk firmly refused to even consider the manner of providing me with food or lodging. This was my first experience in finding out what the color of my skin meant. In some way I managed to keep warm by walking about and so got through the night. My whole soul was so bent upon reaching Hampton that I did not have time to cherish any bitterness towards the hotelkeeper. By walking, begging rides both in wagons and in the cars, in some way after a number of days I reached the city of Richmond, Virginia about 82 miles from Hampton. When I reached there, tired, hungry, and dirty, it was late in the night. I had never been in a large city and this rather added to my misery. When I reached Richmond, I was completely out of money. I had not a single acquaintance in the place and being unused to 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 and during this I passed by many food stands where fried chicken and half-moon apple pies were piled high and made to present a most empty 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 get neither of these nor anything else to eat. I must have walked the streets till after midnight. At last I became so exhausted that I could walk no longer. I was tired, I was hungry, I was everything but discouraged. Just about the time when I reached extreme physical exhaustion I came upon a portion of a street where the board sidewalk was considerably elevated. I waited for a few minutes till I was sure that no passers-by could see me and then crept under the sidewalk and lay for the night upon the ground with my satchel of clothing for a pillow. Nearly all night I could hear the tramp of feet over my head. The next morning I found myself somewhat refreshed but I was extremely hungry because it had been a long time since I had had sufficient food. As soon as it became light enough for me to see my surroundings I noticed that I was near a large ship and that this ship seemed to be unloading a cargo of pig iron. I went at once to the vessel and asked the captain to permit me to help unload the vessel in order to get money for food. The captain, a white man who seemed to be kindhearted, consented. I worked long enough to earn money for my breakfast and it seems to me, as I remember it now, to have been about the best breakfast I have ever eaten. My work pleased the captain so well that he told me if I desired I could continue working for a small amount per day. This I was very glad to do. I continued working on this vessel for a number of days. After buying food with the small wages I received there was not much left to add on the amount I must get to pay my way to Hampton. In order to economize in every way possible so as to be sure to reach Hampton in a reasonable time I continued to sleep under the same sidewalk that gave me shelter the first night I was in Richmond. Many years after that the colored citizens of Richmond very kindly tendered me a reception at which there must have been 2,000 people present. This reception was held not far from the spot where I slept the first night I spent in the city and I must confess that my mind was more upon the sidewalk that first gave me shelter than upon the recognition agreeable and cordial as it was. When I had saved what I considered enough money with which to reach Hampton I thanked the captain of the vessel for his kindness and started again. At any unusual occurrence I reached Hampton with a surplus of exactly fifty cents with which to begin my education. To me it had been a long eventful journey but the first sight of the large three-story brick school building seemed to have rewarded me for all that I had undergone in order to reach the place. If the people who gave the money to provide that building could appreciate the influence the sight of it had upon me as well as upon thousands of other years they would feel all the more encouraged to make such gifts. It seemed to me to be the largest and most beautiful building I had ever seen. The sight of it seemed to give me new life. I felt that a new kind of existence had now begun that life would now have a new meaning. I felt that I had reached the promised land and I resolved to let no obstacle prevent me from putting forth the highest effort to fit myself to accomplish the most good in the world. As soon as possible after reaching the grounds of the Hampton Institute I presented myself before the head teacher for an assignment to a class. Having been so long without proper food, a bath, and a change of clothing I did not, of course, make a very favorable impression upon her and I could see at once that there were doubts in my mind about the wisdom of admitting me as a student. I felt that I could hardly blame her if she got the idea that I was a worthless loafer or tramp. For some time she did not refuse to admit me nor did she decide in my favor and I continued to linger about her and to impress her with all the ways I could with my worthiness. In the meantime I saw her admitting other students and added greatly to my discomfort for I felt deep down in my heart that I could do as well as they if I could only get a chance to show what was in me. After some hours had passed the head teacher said to me the adjoining recitation room needs sweeping. Take the broom and sweep it. It occurred to me at once that here was my chance. Never did I receive an order with more delight. I knew that I could sweep for Mrs. Ruffner had thoroughly taught me how to do that when I lived with her. I swept the recitation room three times. Then I got a dusting cloth and dusted it four times. All the woodwork around the walls, every bench, table, and desk I went over four times with my dusting cloth. Besides, every piece of furniture had been moved and every closet and corner in the room had been thoroughly cleaned. I had the feeling that in the large measure my future depended upon the impression I made upon the teacher in the cleaning of that room. When I was through I reported to the head teacher. She was a Yankee woman who knew just where to look for dirt. She went into the room and inspected the floor and closets then she took her handkerchief and rubbed it on the woodwork about the walls and over the table and benches. When she was unable to find one bit of dirt on the floor or a particle of dust on any of the furniture she quietly remarked, I guess you will do to enter this institution. I was one of the happiest souls on earth. The sweeping of that room was my college examination and never did any youth pass an examination for entrance into Harvard or Yale that gave him more genuine satisfaction. I have passed several examinations since then, but I have always felt that this was the best one I ever passed. I have spoken of my own experience in entering Hampton Institute. Perhaps few, if any, had anything like the same experience that I had, but about the same period there were hundreds who found their way to Hampton and other institutes after experiencing something of the same difficulties that I went through. The young men and women were determined to secure an education at any cost. The sweeping of the recitation room in the manner that I did it seems to have paved the way for me to get through Hampton. Ms. Mary F. Mackey, the head teacher, offered me a position as janitor. This, of course, I gladly accepted because it was a place where I could work out nearly all the cost of my board. The work was hard and tasking, but I stuck to it. I had a large number of rooms to care for and had to work late into the night while at the same time I had to rise by four o'clock in the morning in order to build the fires and have a little time in which to prepare my lessons. In all my career at Hampton and ever since I have been out in the world, Ms. Mary F. Mackey, the head teacher to whom I have referred, proved one of my strongest and most helpful friends. Her advice and encouragement were always helpful in strengthening me in the darkest hour. I have spoken of the impression that was made upon me by the buildings and the general appearance of the Hampton Institute, but I have not spoken of that which made the greatest and most lasting impression on me, and that was a great man, the novelist, rarest human being that it has ever been my privilege to meet. I refer to the late General Samuel C. Armstrong. It has been my fortunate to meet personally many of what are called great characters, both in Europe and America, but I do not hesitate to say that I never met any man who, in my estimation, was the equal of General Armstrong. Fresh from the degrading influences of the slave plantation and the coal mines, it was a rare privilege for me to be permitted to come into direct contact with such a character as General Armstrong. I shall always remember that the first time I went into his presence, he made the impression upon me of being a perfect man. I was made to feel that there was something about him that was superhuman. It was my privilege to know the General personally from the time I entered Hampton until he died, and the more I saw of him, the greater he grew in my estimation. One might have removed from Hampton all the buildings, classrooms, teachers, and industries, and given the men and women there the opportunity of coming into daily contact with General Armstrong, and that alone would have been a liberal education. The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women. Instead of studying books so constantly, how I wish our schools and colleges might learn to study men and thens. General Armstrong spent two of the last six months of his life in my home at Tuskegee. At that time he was paralyzed to the extent that he had lost control of his body and voice in a very large degree. Notwithstanding his affliction, he worked almost constantly day and night for the cause to which he had given his life. I never saw a man who so completely lost sight of himself. I do not believe that he ever had a selfish thought. He was just as happy in trying to assist some other institute in the South as he was when working for Hampton. Although he fought the Southern white man in the Civil War, I had never heard him utter a bitter word against him afterward. On the other hand, he was constantly seeking to find ways by which he could be of service to the Southern whites. It would be difficult to describe the hold that he had upon the students at Hampton or the faith they had in him. In fact, he was worshiped by his students. It never occurred to me that General Armstrong could fail on anything that he undertook. There was almost no request that he could have made that would not have been complied with. When he was a guest at my home in Alabama and was so badly paralyzed that he had to be wheeled about in an Invalid's chair, I recall that one of the General's former students had occasioned to push his chair up a long steep hill that taxed his strength to the utmost. When the top of the hill was reached, the former student with a glow of happiness on his face exclaimed, I am so glad that I have been permitted to do something that was real hard for the General before he dies. While I was a student at Hampton, the dormitories became so crowded that it was impossible to find a room for all who wanted to be admitted. In order to help remedy the difficulty, the General conceived the plan of putting up tents to be used as rooms. As soon as it became known that General Armstrong would be pleased if some of the older students would live in the tents during the winter, nearly every student in school volunteered to go. I was one of the volunteers. The winter that we spent in those tents was an intensely cold one, and we suffered severely. How much I am sure General Armstrong never knew because we made no complaints. It was enough for us to know that we were pleasing General Armstrong and that we were making it possible for an additional number of students to secure an education. More than once during the cold night, when the stiff gale would be blowing, our tent was lifted bodily and we would find ourselves in the open air. The General would usually pay a visit to the tents early in the morning and his earnest, cheerful, encouraging voice would dispel any feeling of despondency. I have spoken of my admiration for General Armstrong, and yet he was but a type of that Christ-like body of men and women who went into the Negro schools at the close of the war by the hundreds to assist in lifting up my race. The history of the world fails to show a higher, purer, and more unselfish class of men and women than those who found their way into those Negro schools. Life at Hampton was a constant revelation to me. It was constantly taking me into a new world. The matter of having meals at regular hours of eating on the tablecloth, using a napkin, the use of a bathtub and the toothbrush, as well as the use of sheets upon the bed were all new to me. I sometimes feel that almost the most valuable lesson I got at the Hampton Institute was in the use and value of the bath. I learned there for the first time some of its value, not only in keeping the body healthy, but in inspiring self-respect and promoting virtue. In all my travels in the South and elsewhere since leaving Hampton, I have always in some way sought my daily bath. To get it sometimes when I have been the guest of my own people in a single-roomed cabin has not always been easy to do, except by slipping away to some stream in the woods. I have always tried to teach my people that some provision for bathing should be the part of every house. For some time, while a student at Hampton, I possessed but a single pair of socks, but when I had worn these till they became soiled, I would wash them at night and hang them by the fire to dry so that I might wear them again the next morning. The charge for my board at Hampton was ten dollars per month. I was expected to pay a part of this in cash and to work out the remainder. To meet this cash payment, as I have stated, I had just fifty cents when I reached the institute. Apart from a very few dollars that my brother John was able to send me once in Ohio, I had no money with which to pay my board. I was determined from the first to make my work as a janitor so valuable that my services would be indispensable. This I succeeded in doing to such an extent that I was soon informed that I would be allowed the full cost of my board in return for my work. The cost of tuition was seventy dollars a year. This, of course, was wholly beyond my ability to provide. If I had been compelled to pay the seventy dollars for tuition in addition to providing for my board, I would have been compelled to leave the Hampton school. General Armstrong, however, very kindly got Mr. S. Griffiths Morgan of New Bedford, Massachusetts to defray the cost of my tuition during the whole time I was at Hampton. After I finished the course at Hampton and had interned upon my lifework at Tuskegee, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Morgan several times. After having been for a while at Hampton, I found myself in difficulty because I did not have books and clothing. Usually, however, I got around the trouble about books by borrowing from those who were more fortunate than myself. As to clothes, when I reached Hampton I had practically nothing. Everything that I possessed was in a small hand satchel. My anxiety about clothing was increased because of the fact that General Armstrong made a personal inspection of the young men in ranks to see that their clothes were clean. Shoes had to be polished. There must be no buttons off the clothing and no grease spots. To wear one suit of clothing continually while at work and in the classroom and at the same time keep it clean was rather a hard problem for me to solve. In some way I managed to get on till the teachers learned that I was an earnest and meant to succeed. And then some of them were kind enough to see that I was partly supplied with second-hand clothing that had been sent in barrels from the north. These barrels proved a blessing to hundreds of poor but deserving students. Without them I questioned whether I would have ever gotten through Hampton. When I first went to Hampton I do not recall that I had ever slept in a bed that had two sheets on it. In those days there were not many buildings there and room was very precious. There were seven other boys in the same room with me. Most of them, however, students who had been there for some time. The sheets were quite a puzzle to me. The first night I slept under both of them. The second night I slept on top of them. But by watching the other boys I learned my lesson in this and have been trying to follow it ever since and to teach it to others. I was among the youngest of the students who were in Hampton at the time. Most of the students were men and women some as old as 40 years of age. As I now recall the scene of my first year I do not believe that one often has the opportunity of coming into contact with three or four hundred men and women who were so tremendously in earnest as these men and women were. Every hour was occupied in study or work. Nearly all of them had enough actual contact with the world to teach them the need of education. Many of the older ones were, of course, too old to master the textbooks very thoroughly and it was often sad to watch their struggles. But they made up in earnest much of which they lacked in books. Many of them were as poor as I was and besides having to wrestle with books they had to struggle with the poverty which had prevented them having the necessities of life. Many of them had aged parents who were dependent upon them and some of them were men who had wives to support in some way they had to provide for. The great and prevailing idea that seemed to take possession of everyone was to prepare himself to lift up the people at his home. No one seemed to think of himself and the officers and teachers what a rare set of human beings they were. They worked for the students day and night in seasons and out of season. They seemed happy only when they were helping the student in some manner. Whenever it is written, and I hope it will be, the part that the Yankee teachers played in the education of the Negroes immediately after the war will make one of the most thrilling parts of the history of this country. The time is not far distant when the whole South will appreciate this service in a way that it has not yet been able to. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of Up from Slavery This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer. Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Mike Venditti Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington Chapter 4 Helping Others At the end of my first year at Hampton I was confronted with another difficulty. Most of the students went home to spend their vacation. I had no money with which to go home. But I had to go somewhere. In those days very few students were permitted to remain at the school during vacation. It made me feel very sad and homesick to see the other students preparing to leave and starting for home. I not only had no money with which to go home, but I had none with which to go anywhere. In some way, however, I had gotten hold of an extra second-hand coat, which I thought was a pretty valuable coat. This I decided to sell in order to get a little money for traveling expenses. I had a good deal of boys' pride and I tried to hide as far as I could from the other students the fact that I had no money and nowhere to go. I made it known to a few people in the town of Hampton that I had this coat to sell. And after a good deal of persuading, one colored man promised to come to my room to look the coat over and consider the matter of buying it. This cheered my drooping spirits considerably. Early the next morning my prospective customer appeared. After looking the garment over carefully, he asked me how much I wanted for it. I told him I thought it was worth three dollars. He seemed to agree with me as the price, but remarked in the most matter-of-fact way, I tell you what I will do. I will take the coat and will pay you five cents cash down and pay the rest of the money as soon as I can get it. It is not hard to imagine what my feelings were at the time. With this disappointment, I gave up all hope of getting out of the town of Hampton for my vacation work. I wanted very much to go where I might secure work that would at least pay me enough to purchase some much-needed clothing and other necessities. In a few days practically all the students and teachers had left for their homes, and this served to depress my spirits even more. After trying for several days in and near the town of Hampton, I finally secured work in a restaurant at Fortress Monroe. The wages, however, were very little more than my board. At night and between meals I found considerable time for study and reading, and in this direction I improved myself very much during the summer. When I left school at the end of my first year, I owed the institution sixteen dollars, that I had not been able to work out. It was my greatest ambition during the summer to save money enough with which to pay this debt. I felt that this was a debt of honour and that I could hardly bring myself to the point of even trying to enter school again till it was paid. I economised in every way that I could think of, did my own washing, and went without necessary garments. But still I found my summer vacation ending, and I did not have the sixteen dollars. One day during the last week of my stay in the restaurant I found under one of the tables a crisp new ten dollar bill. I could hardly contain myself. I was so happy. As it was not my place of business I felt it to be the proper thing to show the money to the proprietor. This I did. He seemed as glad as I was, but he coolly explained to me that as it was his place of business he had the right to keep the money and he proceeded to do so. This, I confess, was another pretty hard blow to me. I will not say that I became discouraged, for as I now look back over my life I do not recall that I ever became discouraged over anything that set out to that I set out to accomplish. I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who were always ready to explain why one cannot succeed. I determined to face the situation just as it was. At the end of the week I went to the treasure of the Hampton Institute General J. F. B. Marshall and told him frankly my condition. To my gratification he told me that I could re-enter the institution and that he would trust me to pay the debt when I could. During the second year I continued to work as a janitor. The education that I received at Hampton out of the textbooks was but a small part of what I learned there. One of the things that impressed itself upon me deeply, the second year, was the usefulness of the teachers. It was hard for me to understand how any individuals could bring themselves to the point where they could be so happy and working for others. Before the end of the year I think I began learning that those who are happiest are those who do the most for others. This lesson I have tried to carry with me ever since. I also learned a valuable lesson at Hampton by coming into contact with the best breeds of livestock and foals. No student, I think, who has had the opportunity of doing this could go out into the world and content himself with the poorest grades. Perhaps the most valuable thing that I got out of my second year was an understanding of the use and value of the Bible. Miss Natalie Lord, one of the teachers from Portland, Maine, taught me how to use and love the Bible. Before this I had never cared a great deal about it, but now I learned to love to read the Bible, not only for the spiritual help which it gives, but on account of it as literature. The lessons taught me in this respect took such a hold upon me that at the present time when I am at home, no matter how busy I am, I always make it a rule to read a chapter or a portion of a chapter in the morning before beginning the work of the day. Whatever ability I may have as a public speaker I own a measure to Miss Lord. When she found out that I had some inclination in this direction she gave me private lessons in the matter of breathing, emphasis, and articulation. Simply to be able to talk in public for the sake of talking has never had the least attraction to me. In fact, I consider that there is nothing so empty and unsatisfactory as mere abstract public speaking. But from my earliest childhood I have had a desire to do something to make the world better and then to be able to speak to the world about that thing. The debating societies at Hampton were a constant source of delight to me. These were held on Saturday evening and during my whole life in Hampton I do not recall that I missed a single meeting. I not only attended the weekly debating society but was instrumental in organizing an additional society. I noticed that between the time when supper was over and the time to begin evening study there were about twenty minutes, which the young men usually spent in idol gossip. About twenty of us formed a society for the purpose of utilizing this time in debate or in practice in public speaking. Few persons ever derived more happiness or benefit from the use of twenty minutes of time than we did in this way. At the end of my second year at Hampton by the help of some money sent to me by my mother and brother John supplemented by a small gift from one of the teachers at Hampton I was enabled to return to my home in Maldon, West Virginia, to spend my vacation. When I reached home I found that the salt furnaces were not running and that the coal mine was not being operated on account of the miners being on strike. This was something which it seemed usually occurred whenever the men got two or three months ahead in their savings. During the strike of course they spent all that they had saved and would often return to work in debt at the same wages or would move to another mine at considerable expense. In either case my observations convinced me that the miners were worse off at the end of the strike. Before the days of strikes in that section of the country I knew miners who had considerable money in the bank but as soon as the professional labor agitators got control the savings of even the more thrifty ones began disappearing. My mother and other members of my family were of course much rejoiced to see me and to note the improvement that I had made during my two years' absence. The rejoicing on the part of all classes of the colored people and especially the older ones over my return was almost pathetic. I had to pay a visit to each family and take a meal with each and at each place tell the story of my experiences at Hampton. In addition to this I had to speak before the church and Sunday school and at various other places. The thing that I was most in search of, though, worked. I could not find. There was no work on account of the strike. I spent nearly the whole or the first month of my vacation in an effort to find something to do by which I could earn money to pay my way back to Hampton and save a little money to use there after reaching there. Toward the end of the first month I went to a place a considerable distance from my home to try to find employment. I did not succeed and it was a night and it was night before I got started on my return. When I had gotten within a mile or so of my home I was so completely tired out that I could not walk any further and I went into an old abandoned house to spend the remainder of the night. About three o'clock in the morning my brother John found me asleep in this house and broke to me as gently as he could. The sad news that our dear mother had died during the night. This seemed to me the saddest and blankest moment in my life. For several years my mother had not been in good health but I had no idea when I parted from her the previous day that I should never see her alive again. Besides that I had always had an intense desire to be with her when she did pass away. One of the chief ambitions which spurred me on at Hampton was that I might be able to get to be in a position in which I could better make my mother comfortable and happy. She had so often expressed the wish that she might be permitted to live to see her children educated and started out in the world. In a very short time after the death of my mother our little home was in confusion. My sister Amanda, although she tried to do the best she could, was too young to know anything about keeping house because her stepfather was not able to hire a housekeeper. Sometimes we had food cooked for us and sometimes we did not. I remember that more than once a can of tomatoes and some crackers constituted a meal. Our clothing went uncared for and everything about our home was soon in a tumble-down condition. It seems to me that this was the most dismal period of my life. My good friend, Mrs. Ruffner, to whom I have already referred, always made me welcome at her home and assisted me in many ways during this trying period. Before the end of the vacation she gave me some work and this together with work and a coal mine at some distance from my home enabled me to earn a little money. At one time it looked as if I would have to give up the idea of returning to Hampton but my heart was so set on returning that I determined not to give up going back without a struggle. I was very anxious to secure some clothes for the winter but in this I was disappointed except for a few garments which my brother John secured for me. Notwithstanding my need of money and clothing I was very happy in the fact that I had secured enough money to pay my travelling expenses back to Hampton. Once there I knew that I could make myself so useful as a janitor that I could in some way get through the school year. Three weeks before the time of the opening of the term to Hampton I was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from my good friend, Miss Mary F. Mackey. The lady principal asking me to return to Hampton two weeks before the opening of the school in order that I might assist her in cleaning the buildings and getting things in order for the new school year. This was just the opportunity I wanted. It gave me a chance to secure a credit in the treasurer's office. I started for Hampton at once. During these two weeks I was taught a lesson which I shall never forget. Miss Mackey was a member of one of the oldest and most cultured families of the North. And yet for two weeks she worked by my side cleaning windows, dusting rooms, putting beds in order and what not. She felt that things would not be in condition until the opening of school unless every window pane was perfectly clean and she took the greatest satisfaction in helping to clean them herself. The work which I have described she did every year that I was at Hampton. It was hard for me at this time to understand how a woman of her education and social standing could take such delight in performing such service in order to assist in the elevation of an unfortunate race. Ever since then I have had no patience with any school for my race in the South which did not teach its students the dignity of labour. During my last year at Hampton every minute of my time that was not occupied with my duties as a janitor was devoted to hard study. I was determined if possible to make such a record in my class as would cause me to be placed on the honor roll of commencement speakers. This I was successful in doing. It was June of 1875. When I finished the regular course of study at Hampton the greatest benefits that I got out of my life at Hampton Institute perhaps may be classified under two heads. First, was contact with a great man, General S. C. Armstrong, who I repeat was in my opinion the rarest, strongest and most beautiful character that it has ever been my privilege to meet. Second, at Hampton for the first time I learned what education was expected to do for an individual. Before going there I had a good deal of the then rather prevalent idea among our people that to secure an education meant to have a good, easy time free from all necessity for manual labour. At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labour but learned to love labour not alone for its financial value but for labour's own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of usefulness. My first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy. I was completely out of money when I graduated In company with other Hampton students I secured a place as a table-waiter in a summer hotel in Connecticut and managed to borrow enough money with which to get there. I had not been in this hotel long before I found out that I knew practically nothing about waiting on a hotel table. They had waiter, however, supposed that I was an accomplished waiter. He soon gave me charge of the table at which there sat four or five wealthy and rather aristocratic people. My ignorance of how to wait upon them was so apparent that they scolded me in such a severe manner that I became frightened and left their table leaving them sitting there without food. As a result of this I was reduced from the position of waiter to that of a dish-carrier. But I determined to learn the business of waiting and did so within a few weeks and was restored to my former position. I have had the satisfaction of being a guest in this hotel several times since I was a waiter there. At the close of the hotel season I returned to my former home in Maldon and was elected to teach the colored school at that place. This was the beginning of one of the happiest periods of my life. I now felt that I had the opportunity to help the people of my hometown to a higher life. I felt from the first that mere book education was not all that the young people of the town needed. I began my work at eight o'clock in the morning and as a rule it did not end until ten o'clock at night. In addition to the usual routine of teaching I taught the pupils to comb their hair and to keep their hands and faces clean as well as their clothing. I gave special attention to teaching them the proper use of the toothbrush and the bath. In all my teaching I have watched carefully the influence of the toothbrush and I am convinced that there are few single agencies of civilization that are more far-reaching. There were so many of the older boys and girls in the town as well as men and women who had to work in the daytime and still were craving an opportunity for an education that I soon opened to night school. From the first this was crowded every night being about as large as the school that I taught in the day. The efforts of some of the men who in many cases were over fifty years of age to learn were in some cases very pathetic. My day and night school work was not all that I undertook. I established a small reading room and a debating society. On Sundays I taught two Sunday schools one in the town of Maldon in the afternoon and the other in the morning at a place three miles distant from Maldon. In addition to this I gave private lessons to several young men getting to send to the Hampton Institute without regard to pay and with little thought of it. I taught anyone who wanted to learn anything that I could teach him. I was supremely happy in the opportunity of being able to assist somebody else. I did receive however a small salary from the public fund for my work as a public school teacher. During the time that I was a student at Hampton, my older brother John not only assisted me all that he could but worked all of the time in the coal mines in order to support the family. He willingly neglected his own education that he might help me. It was my earnest wish to help him to prepare to enter Hampton and to save money to assist him in his expenses there. Both of these objects I was successful in accomplishing. In three years my brother finished the course at Hampton in an important position of superintendent of industries at Tuskegee. When he returned from Hampton we both combined our efforts and savings to send our adopted brother James through the Hampton Institute. This we succeeded in doing and he is now the postmaster at the Tuskegee Institute. The year 1877 which was my second year of teaching in Maldon I have spent very much as I did the first. It was while my home was at Maldon that what was known as the Ku Klux Klan was in the height of activity. The Ku Klux were bands of men who had joined themselves together for the purpose of regulating the conduct of the colored people especially with the object of preventing the members of the race from exercising any influence in politics. They corresponded somewhat with the patrollers of whom I used to hear a great deal during the days of slavery when I was a small boy. The patrollers were bands of white men usually young men who were organized largely for the purpose of regulating the conduct of the slaves at night in such matters as preventing the slaves from going from one plantation to another without passes and for preventing them from holding any kind of meetings without permission and without presence at those meetings of at least one white man. Like the patrollers operated almost wholly at night they were, however, more cruel than the patrollers. Their objects in the main were to crush out the political aspirations of the Negroes but they did not confine themselves to this because school houses as well as churches were burned by them and many innocent persons were made to suffer. During this period not a few colored people lost their lives. As a young man the acts of these lawless bands made a great impression upon me. I saw one open battle take place at Maldon between some of the colored and white people. There must have been not far from a hundred persons engaged on each side. Many on both sides were seriously injured. Among them General Louis Ruffner the husband of my friend Mrs. Viola Ruffner. General Ruffner tried to defend the colored people and for this he was knocked down and so seriously wounded that he never completely recovered. It seemed to me as I watched this struggle between members of the two races that there was no hope for our people in this country. The Ku Klux period was, I think, the darkest part of the Reconstruction days. I have referred to this unpleasant part of the history of the South to the great change that has taken place since the days of the Ku Klux. Today there are no such organizations in the South and the fact that such ever existed is almost forgotten by both races. There are few places in the South now where public sentiment would permit such organizations to exist. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Up From Slavery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by J. Vance Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington Chapter 5 The Reconstruction Period The years from 1867 to 1878 I think may be called the period of Reconstruction. This included the time that I spent as a student at Hampton and as a teacher in West Virginia. During the whole of the Reconstruction Period two ideas were constantly agitating in the minds of the colored people or at least in the minds of a large part of the race. One of these was the craze for Greek and Latin learning and the other was a desire to hold office. It could not have been expected that a people who had spent generations in slavery and before that generations in the darkest heathenism could at first form any proper conception of what an education meant. In every part of the South during the Reconstruction Period schools both day and night were filled to overflowing with people of all ages and conditions, some being as far along in age as 60 and 70 years. The ambition to secure an education was most praiseworthy and encouraging. The idea, however, was too prevalent that as soon as one secured a little education in some unexplainable way he would be free from most of the hardships of the world and at any rate could live without manual labor. There was a further feeling that a knowledge, however little Greek and Latin languages would make one a very superior human being, something bordering almost on the supernatural. I remember that the first colored man whom I saw who knew something about foreign languages impressed me at the time as being a man of all others to be envied. Naturally, most of our people who received some little education became teachers or preachers. While among those two classes there were many capable, earnest, godly men and women, still a large proportion took up teaching or preaching as an easy way to make a living. Many became teachers who could do little more than write their names. I remember there came into our neighborhood one of this class who was in search of a school to teach and the question arose while he was there as to the shape of the earth and how he could teach the children concerning the subject. He explained his position in the matter by saying that he was prepared to teach that the earth was either flat or round according to the preference of a majority of his patrons. The ministry was the profession that suffered most and still suffers though there has been great improvement on account of not only ignorant but in many cases immoral men who claim that they were called to preach. In the earlier days of freedom almost every colored man who learned to read would receive a call to preach within a few days after he began reading. At my home in West Virginia the process of being called to the ministry was a very interesting one. Usually the call came when the individual was sitting in church without warning the one called would fall upon the floor as if struck by a bullet and would lie there for hours speechless and motionless. Then the news would spread all through the neighborhood that this individual had received a call. If he were inclined to resist the summons he would fall or be made to fall a second or third time. In the end he always yielded to the call. While I wanted an education badly I confess that in my youth I had a fear that when I had learned to read and write very well I would receive one of these calls. But for some reason my call never came. When we add the number of holy ignorant men who preached or exhorted to that of those who possessed something of an education it can be seen at a glance that the supply was large. In fact some time ago I knew a certain church that had a total membership of about 200 and 18 of that number were ministers. But I repeat in many communities in the South the character of the ministry is being improved and I believe that within the next two or three decades a very large proportion of the unworthy ones will have disappeared. The calls to preach I am are not nearly so numerous now as they were formerly and the calls to some industrial occupation are growing more numerous. The improvement that has taken place in the character of the teachers is even more marked than in the case of the ministers. During the whole of the reconstruction period our people throughout the South looked to the federal government for everything very much as a child looks to its mother. This was not unnatural. The central government gave them freedom and the whole nation had been enriched for more than two centuries by the labor of the Negro. Even as a youth and later in manhood I had the feeling that it was cruelly wrong in the central government at the beginning of our freedom to fail to make some provision for the general education of our people in addition to what the states might do so that the people would be the better prepared for the duties of citizenship. It is easy to find fault to remark what might have been done and perhaps after all and under the circumstances those in charge of the conduct of affairs did the only thing that could be done at the time. Still as I look back now over the entire period of our freedom I cannot help feeling that it would have been wiser if some plan could have been put into action which would have made the possession of a certain amount of education or property or both a test for the exercise of the franchise and a way provided by which this test should be made to apply honestly and squarely to both the white and black races. Though I was but little more than a youth during the period of reconstruction I had the feeling that mistakes were being made and that things could not remain in the condition that they were in then very long. I felt that the reconstruction policy so far as it related to my race was in a large measure on a false foundation was artificial and forced. In many cases it seemed to me that the ignorance of my race was being used as a tool with which to help white men into office and that there was an element in the north which wanted to punish the southern white men by forcing the negro into positions over the heads of the southern whites. I felt that the negro would be the one to suffer for this in the end besides the general political agitation drew the attention of our people away from the more fundamental matters of perfecting themselves in the industries at their doors and in securing property. The temptations to enter political life were so alluring that I came very near yielding to them at one time but I was kept from doing so by the feeling that I would be helping in a more substantial way by assisting in the laying of the foundation of the race through a generous education of the hand, head and heart. I saw colored men who were members of the state legislatures and county officers who in some cases could not read or write and whose morals were as weak as their education. Not long ago, when passing through the streets of a certain city in the south, I heard some brick masons calling out from the top of a two-story brick building on which they were working for the governor to hurry up and bring up some more bricks. Several times I heard the command hurry up governor, my curiosity was aroused to such an extent that I made inquiry as to who the governor was and soon found that he was a colored man who at one time had held the position of Lieutenant Governor of his state. But not all the colored people who were in office during reconstruction were unworthy of their positions by any means. Some of them, like the late Senator B. K. Bruce, Governor Pinchback and many others, were strong, upright, useful men. Neither were all the class designated as carpetbaggers dishonorable men. Some of them, like ex-governor Bullock of Georgia were men of high character and usefulness. Of course the colored people so largely without education and wholly without experience in government made tremendous mistakes, just as many people similarly situated would have done. Many of the southern whites have a feeling that if the Negro is permitted to exercise his political rights now to any degree the mistakes of the reconstruction period will repeat themselves. I do not think this would be true because the Negro is a much stronger and wiser man than he was 35 years ago and he is fast learning the lesson that he cannot afford to act in a manner that will alienate his southern white neighbors from him. More and more I am convinced that the final solution of the political end of our race problem will be for each state that finds it necessary to change the law bearing upon the franchise to make the law apply with absolute honesty and without opportunity for double dealing or evasion to both races of the life. Any other course my daily observation in the south convinces me will be unjust to the Negro unjust to the white man and unfair to the rest of the state in the union and will be, like slavery a sin that at some time we shall have to pay for. In the fall of 1878 after having taught school in Maldon for two years and after I have succeeded in preparing several of the young men and women besides my two brothers to enter the Hampton Institute, I decided to spend some months in study at Washington D.C. I remained there for eight months. I derived a great deal of benefit from the studies which I pursued and I came into contact with some strong men and women. At the institution I attended there was no industrial training given to the students and I had an opportunity of comparing the influence of an institution with no industrial training with that of one like the Hampton Institute that emphasizes the industries. At this school I found the students in most cases had more money, more better dressed wore the latest style of all manner of clothing and in some cases were more brilliant mentally. At Hampton it was a standing rule that while the institution would be responsible for securing someone to pay the tuition for the students the men and women themselves must provide for their own board, books, clothing and room wholly by work or partly by work and partly in cash. At the institution at which I now was I found that a large portion of the students by some means had their personal expenses paid for them. At Hampton the student was constantly making the effort through the industries to help himself and that very effort was of immense value in character building. The students at the other school seemed to be less self-dependent. They seemed to give more attention to mere outward appearances. In a word they did not appear to me to be beginning at the bottom of the real solid foundation to the extent that they were at Hampton. They knew more about Latin and Greek when they left school but they seemed to know less about life and its conditions as they would meet it at their homes. Having lived for a number of years in the midst of comfortable surroundings they were not as much inclined as the Hampton students to go into the country districts of the south where there was little of comfort to take work for our people and they were more inclined to yield to the temptation to become hotel waiters and Pullman car porters as their life worked. During the time I was a student at Washington the city was crowded with colored people many of whom had recently come from the south. A large proportion of these people had been drawn to Washington because they felt that they could lead a life of ease there. Others had secured minor government positions and still another large class was there in the hope of securing federal positions. A number of colored men some of them very strong and brilliant were in the House of Representatives at that time and one the honorable B.K. Bruce was in the Senate. All this tended to make Washington an attractive place for members of the colored race. Then two they knew that at all times they could have the protection of the law in the District of Columbia. The public schools in Washington for colored people were better then than they were elsewhere. I took great interest in studying the life of our people there closely at that time. I found that while among them there was a large element of substantial worthy citizens there was also a superficiality about the life of a large class that greatly alarmed me. I saw young colored men who were not earning more than $4 a week spend $2 or more for a buggy on Sunday to ride up and down Pennsylvania Avenue in in order that they might try to convince the world that they were worth thousands. I saw other young men who received $75 or $100 per month from the government who were in debt at the end of every month. I saw men who few months previous were members of Congress then without employment and in poverty. Among a large class there seemed to be a dependence upon the government for every conceivable thing. The members of this class had little ambition to create a position for themselves but wanted the federal officials to create one for them. How many times I wished then and have often wished since that by some power of magic I might remove the great bulk of these people into the county districts and plant them upon the soil upon the solid and never deceptive foundation of mother nature where all nations and races that have ever succeeded have gotten their start. A start that at first may be slow and toilsome but one that nevertheless is real. In Washington I saw girls whose mothers were earning their living by laundering. These girls were taught by their mothers in a rather crude way it is true, the industry of laundering. Later these girls entered the public schools and remained there perhaps six or eight years. When the public school course was finally finished they wanted more costly dresses, more costly hats and shoes. In a word while their wants have been increased their ability to supply their wants had not been increased in the same degree. On the other hand their six or eight years of book education had weaned them away from the occupation of their mothers. The result of this was in too many cases that the girls went to the bad. I often thought how much wiser it would have been to give these girls the same amount of maternal training and I favor any kind of training whether in the languages or mathematics that give strength and culture to the mind. But at the same time to give them the most thorough training in the latest and best methods of laundering and other kindred occupations. During the year that I spent in Washington and for some little time before this there had been considerable agitation in the state of West Virginia over the question of moving the capital of the state from Wheeling to some other central point. As a result of this the legislature designated three cities to be voted upon by the citizens of the state as the permanent seat of government. Among these cities was Charleston and Charleston, and Charleston, among these cities was Charleston only five miles from Maldon, my home. At the close of my school year in Washington I was very pleasantly surprised to receive from a committee of three white people in Charleston an invitation to canvas the state in the interest of that city. This invitation I accepted and spent nearly three months in speaking in various parts of the state. Charleston was successful in winning the prize and is now the permanent seat of government. The reputation that I made as a speaker during this campaign induced a number of persons to make an earnest effort to get me to enter political life but I refused, still believing that I could find other service which would prove of more permanent value to my race. Even then I had a strong feeling that what are people most needed was to get a foundation in education, industry and property and for this I felt that they could better afford to strive than for political preferment. As for my individual self it appeared to me reasonably certain that I could succeed in political life but I had a feeling that it would be a rather selfish kind of success individual success at the cost of failing to do my duty in assisting and laying a foundation for the masses. At this period in the progress of our race a very large proportion of the young men who went to school or to college did so with the express determination to prepare themselves to be great lawyers or congressmen and many of the women planned to become music teachers but I had a reasonably fixed idea even at that early period in my life that there was a need for something to be done to prepare the way for successful lawyers congressmen and music teachers. I felt that the conditions were a good deal like those of an old colored man during the days of slavery who wanted to learn how to play on the guitar. In his desire to take guitar lessons he applied to one of his young masters to teach him but the young man not having much faith in the ability of the slave to master the guitar at his age he stopped to discourage him by telling him Uncle Jake, I will give you guitar lessons but Jake, I will have to charge you three dollars for the first lesson two dollars for the second lesson and one dollar for the third lesson but I will charge you only 25 cents for that last lesson. Uncle Jake answered, All right boss, I hired you on them terms but boss, I want you to be sure and give me that last lesson first. Soon after my work in connection with the removal of the capital I received an invitation which gave me great joy and which at the same time was a very pleasant surprise. This was a letter from General Armstrong inviting me to return to Hampton at the next commencement to deliver what was called the postgraduate address. This is an honor which I had not dreamed of receiving. With much care I prepared the best address that I was capable of. I chose for my subject the force that wins. As I returned to Hampton for the purpose of delivering this address I went over much of the same ground now however entirely covered by railroad that I had traversed nearly six years before when I first sought entrance into Hampton Institute as a student. Now I was able to ride the whole distance in the train. I was constantly contrasting this with my first journey to Hampton. I think I may say without seeming egotism that it is seldom that five years have wrought such a change in the life and aspirations of an individual. At Hampton I received a warm welcome from teachers and students. I found that during my absence from Hampton the institute each year had been getting closer to the real needs and conditions of our people that the industrial reaching as well as that of the academic department had greatly improved. The plan of the school was not modeled after that of any other institution than in existence but every improvement was made under the magnificent leadership of General Armstrong solely with the view of meeting and helping the needs of our people that they presented themselves at the time. Too often it seems to me in missionary and educational work among underdeveloped races people yield to the temptation of doing that which was done a hundred years before or as being done in other communities a thousand miles away. The temptation often is to run each individual through a certain educational mold regardless of the condition of the subject or the end to be accomplished. This was not so at Hampton Institute. The address which I delivered on commencement day seems to have pleased everyone and many kind and encouraging words were spoken to me regarding it. Soon after my return to my home in West Virginia where I had planned to continue teaching I was again surprised to receive a letter from General Armstrong asking me to return to Hampton partly as a teacher and partly to pursue some supplementary studies. This was in the summer of 1879. Soon after I began my first teaching in West Virginia I had picked out four of the brightest and most promising of my pupils in addition to my two brothers to whom I have already referred and had given them special attention with the view of having them go to Hampton. They had gone there and in each case the teachers had found them so well prepared that they entered advanced classes. This fact it seems led to my being called back to Hampton as a teacher. One of the young men that I sent to Hampton in this way is now Dr. Samuel E. Courtney a successful physician in Boston and a member of the school board of that city. About this time the experiment was being tried for the first time by General Armstrong of educating Indians at Hampton. Few people then had any confidence in the ability of the Indians to receive education and to profit by it. General Armstrong was anxious to try the experiment systematically on a large scale. He secured from the reservations in the western states over 100 wild and for the most part perfectly ignorant Indians the greater proportion of whom were young men. The special work which the general desired me to do was to be a sort of housefather to the Indian young men. That is I was to live in the building with them and have the charge of their discipline clothing rooms and so on. This is a very tempting offer but I had become so much absorbed in my work in West Virginia that I dreaded to give it up. However I tore myself away from it. I did not know how to refuse to perform any surface that General Armstrong desired of me. On going to Hampton I took up my residence in a building with about 75 Indian youths. I was the only person in the building who was not a member of their race. At first I had a good deal of doubt about my ability to succeed. I knew that the average Indian felt himself above the white man and of course he felt himself far above the Negro largely on account of the fact that the Negro having submitted to slavery a thing which the Indian would never do. The Indians in the Indian territory owned a large number of slaves during the days of slavery. Aside from this there was a general feeling that the attempt to educate and civilize the red-mannered Hampton would be a failure. All of this made me proceed very cautiously for I felt keenly the great responsibility but I was determined to succeed. It was not long before I had the complete confidence of the Indians and not only this but I think I am safe in saying that I had their love and respect. I found that they were about like any other human beings that they responded to kind treatment and resented ill treatment. They were continually planning to do something that would add to my happiness and comfort. The things that they disliked most I think were to have their long hair cut to give up wearing their blankets and to cease smoking but no white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man's clothes eats the white man's food speaks the white man's language and professes the white man's religion. The difficulty of learning the English language was subtracted. I found that in the matter of learning trades and in mastering academic studies there was little difference between the colored and Indian students. It was a constant delight to me to note the interest which the colored students took in trying to help the Indians in every way possible. There were a few of the colored students who felt that the Indians ought not to be admitted to Hampton but these were in the minority. Whenever they were asked to do so they would ask their classmates in order that they might teach them to speak English and to acquire civilized habits. I have often wondered if there was a white institution in this country whose students would have welcomed the incoming of more than a hundred companions of another race in the cordial way that these black students at Hampton welcomed the red ones. How often I have wanted to say to white students that they lift themselves up in proportion as they help to lift others and the more unfortunate the race and the lower the scale of civilization the more does one raise oneself by giving the assistance. This reminds me of a conversation which I once had with the Honorable Frederick Douglass. At one time Mr. Douglass was traveling in the state of Pennsylvania and was forced on account of his color to ride in the baggage car in spite of the fact that he had paid the same price for his passage that the other passengers had paid. When some of the white passengers went into the baggage car to console Mr. Douglass and one of them said to him sorry Mr. Douglass that you have been degraded in this manner. Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on the box upon which he was sitting and replied they cannot degrade Frederick Douglass the soul that is within me no man can degrade I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment but those who are inflicting it upon me. In one part of the country where the law demands the separation of the races on the railroad trains I saw at one time a rather amusing instance which showed how difficult it is sometimes to know where the black begins and the white ends. There was a man who was well known in his community as a Negro but who was so white that even an expert would have hard work to classify him as a black man. This man was riding in the part of the train set aside for the colored passengers. When the train conductor reached him he showed at once that he was perplexed if the man was a Negro the conductor did not want to send him to the white people's coach at the same time if he was a white man he did not want to insult him by asking him if he was a Negro. The official looked him over carefully examining his hair, eyes, nose and hands but still seemed puzzled. Finally to solve the difficulty he stooped over and peeped at the man's feet. When I saw the conductor examining the feet of the man in question I said to myself that will settle it and so it did. For the train man promptly decided that the passenger was a Negro and let him remain where he was. I congratulated myself that my race was fortunate in not losing one of its members. My experience has been that the time to test a true gentleman is to observe him when he is in contact with individuals of a race that is less fortunate than his own. This is illustrated in no better way than by observing the conduct of the old school type of southern gentleman when he is in contact with his former slaves or their descendants. An example of what I mean is shown in the story told of George Washington who, meeting a colored man in the road once who politely lifted his hat, lifted his own in return. Some of his white friends who saw the incident criticized Washington for his action and replied to their criticism George Washington said, Do you suppose that I am going to permit a poor ignorant colored man to be more polite than I am? While I was in charge of the Indian boys at Hampton I had one or two experiences which illustrate the curious workings of cast in America. One of the Indian boys was taken ill and took him to Washington to deliver him over to the secretary of the interior and get a receipt for him in order that he might be returned to his western reservation. At that time I was rather ignorant of the ways of the world. During my journey to Washington on a steamboat when the bell rang for dinner I was careful to wait and not enter the dining room until after the greater part of the passengers had finished their meal. Then with my charge I went to the dining saloon. The man in charge politely informed me that he had served but that I could not. I never could understand how he knew just where to draw the color line since the Indian and I were of about the same complexion. The steward however seemed to be an expert in this manner. I had been directed by the authorities at Hampton to stop at a certain hotel in Washington with my charge. But when I went to this hotel the clerk stated that he would be glad to receive the Indian into the house but said that he could not accommodate me. An illustration of something of this same feeling after my observation afterward I happened to find myself in a town in which so much excitement and indignation were being expressed that it seemed likely for a time that there would be a lynching. The occasion of the trouble was that a dark-skinned man had stopped at the local hotel. Investigation however developed the fact that this individual was a citizen of Morocco and that while traveling in this country he spoke the English language. As soon as it was learned that he was not an American Negro all the signs of indignation disappeared. The man who was now the innocent cause of the excitement though found it prudent after that not to speak English. At the end of my first year with the Indians there came another opening for me at Hampton which as I look back over my life now seems to have come providentially to help me prepare for my work at Tuskegee later. General Armstrong had found out that there was quite a number of young colored men and women who were intensely in earnest in wishing to get an education but who were prevented from entering Hampton Institute because they were too poor to be able to pay any portion of the cost of their board or even to supply themselves with books. He conceived the idea of starting a night school in connection with the institute into which a limited number of the most promising of these young men and women would be received on condition that they were to work for ten hours during the day and attend school for two hours at night. They were to be paid something above the cost of their board for their work. The greater part of their earnings was to be reserved in the school's treasury as a fund to be drawn on to pay their board when they had become students in the day school after they had spent one or two years in the night school. In this way they would obtain a start in their books and a knowledge of some trade or industry in addition to the other far-reaching benefits of the institution. General Armstrong asked me to take charge of the night school and I did so. At the beginning of this school there were strong earnest men and women who entered the class. During the day the greater part of the young men worked in the school sawmill and the young women worked in the laundry. The work was not easy in either place but in all my teaching I never taught pupils who gave me so much genuine satisfaction as these did. They were good students and mastered their work thoroughly. They were so much in earnest that only the ringing of the retiring bell would make them stop studying for a full hour for going to bed had come. These students showed so much earnestness both in their hard work during the day as well as in their application to their studies at night that I gave them the name of the Plucky Class a name which soon grew popular and spread throughout the institution. After a student had been in the night school long enough to prove what was in him I gave him a printed certificate which read something like this. This is to certify that James Smith is a member of the Plucky Class and is in good and regular standing. The students prized these certificates highly and they added greatly to the popularity of the night school. Within a few weeks this department had grown to such an extent that there were about 25 students in attendance. I have followed the course of many of these 25 men and women ever since then and they are now holding important and useful positions in nearly every part of the south. The night school at Hampton which started with only 12 students now numbers between three and four hundred and is one of the permanent and most important features of the institution. End of Chapter 6 Recording by Lorelle Anderson Sanford, Florida Chapter 7 Early Days at Tuskegee During the time that I had charge of the Indians and the night school at Hampton I pursued some studies myself under the direction of the instructors there. One of these instructors was the Reverend Dr. H. B. Frizzle the present principal of the Hampton Institute General Armstrong's successor. In May 1881 near the close of my first year in teaching the night school in a way that I had not dared expect the opportunity opened for me to begin my life work. One night in the chapel after the usual chapel exercises were over General Armstrong referred to the fact that he had received a letter from some gentleman in Alabama asking him to recommend someone to take charge of what was to be a normal school for the colored people and the little town of Tuskegee in that state. These gentlemen seemed to take it for granted that no colored man suitable for the position could be secured and they were expecting the general to recommend a white man for the place. The next day General Armstrong sent for me to come to his office and much to my surprise and asked me if I thought I could fail the position in Alabama. I told him that I would be willing to try. Accordingly he wrote to the people who had applied to him for the information that he did not know of any white man to suggest but if they would be willing to take a colored man he had one whom he could recommend. In this letter he gave them my name. Several days passed before anything more was heard about the matter. Sometime afterward one Sunday evening during the chapel exercises a messenger came in and handed the general a telegram. At the end of the exercises he read the telegram to the school. In substance these were its words. Booger T. Washington will suit us. Send him at once. There was a great deal of joy expressed among the students and the teachers and I received very hearty congratulations. I began to get ready at once to go to Tuskegee. I went by way of my old home in West Virginia where I remained for several days after which I proceeded to Tuskegee. I found Tuskegee to be a town of about 2,000 inhabitants nearly one half of whom were colored. It was in what was known as the Colors of the South. In the county in which Tuskegee is situated the colored people outnumbered the whites by about three to one. In some of the adjoining and nearby counties the proportion was not far from six colored persons to one white. I have often been asked to define the term black belt. So far as I can learn the term was first used to designate a part of the country by the color of the soil. The part of the country possessing this thick, dark and naturally rich soil was of course the part of the south where the slaves were most profitable and consequently they were taken there in the largest numbers. Later and especially since the war the term seems to be used wholly in a political sense, that is to designate the counties where the black people outnumbered the white. Before going to Tuskegee I hadn't expected to find there a building and all the necessary apparatus ready for me to begin teaching. To my disappointment I found nothing of the kind. I did find though that which no costly building and apparatus can supply hundreds of hungry, earnest souls who wanted to secure knowledge. Tuskegee seemed an ideal place for the school. It was in the midst of the great bulk of the Negro population and was rather secluded being five miles from the main line of railroad with which it was connected by a short line. During the days of slavery and since the town had been a center for the education of the white people. This wasn't at an advantage for the reason that I found the white people possessing a degree of culture and education that is not surpassed by many localities. While the colored people were ignorant they had not, as a rule, degraded and weakened their bodies by vices such as are common to the lower class of people in the larger cities. In general I found the relations between the two races pleasant. For example the largest and I think at that time the only hardware store in the town was owned and operated jointly by a colored man and a white man. This co-partnership continued until the death of the white partner. I found that about a year previous to my going to Tuskegee some of the colored people who had heard something of the work of education being done at Hampton had applied to the state legislature through the representatives for a small appropriation to be used in starting normal school in Tuskegee. This request the legislature had complied with to the extent of granting an annual appropriation of $2,000. I soon learned, however, that this money could be used only for the payment of the salaries of the instructors and that there was no provision for securing land, buildings, or apparatus. The task before me did not seem a very encouraging one. It seemed much like making bricks without straw. The colored people were overjoyed and were constantly offering their services in any way in which they could be of assistance in getting the school started. My first task was to find a place in which to open the school. After looking the town over with some care, the most suitable place that could be secured seemed to be a rather dilapidated shanty near the colored Methodist church together with the church itself as a sort of assembly room. Both the church and the shanty were in about as bad condition as was possible. I recall that during the first months of school that I taught in this building it was in such poor repair that whenever it rains one of the older students would very kindly leave his lessons and hold an umbrella over me while I heard the recitations of the others. I remember also that on more than one occasion my landlady held an umbrella over me while I ate breakfast. At the time I went to Alabama the colored people were taking considerable interest in politics and they were very anxious that I should become one of them politically in every respect. They seemed to have a little distrust of strangers in this regard. I recall that one man who seemed to have been designated by the others to look after my political destiny came to me on several occasions and said with a good deal of earnestness we want you to be sure to vote just like we votes. We can't read the newspapers very much but we know how to vote and we want you to vote just like we votes. He added we watch as the white man and the white man until we find out which way the white man's going to vote and when we find out which way the white man's going to vote then we votes exactly the other way. Then we know we's right. I am glad to add however that at the present time the disposition to vote against the white man merely because he is white is largely disappearing and the race is learning to vote from principle for what the voter considers to be the best interests of both races. I reached Tuskegee as I have said early in June 1881. The first month I spent in finding accommodations for the school and in traveling through Alabama examining into the actual life of the people especially in the court districts and in getting the school advertised among the class of people that I wanted to have attend it. The most of my traveling was done over the country roads with a mule and a cart or a mule and a buggy wagon for conveyance. I ate and slept with the people in their little cabins. I saw their farms, their schools, their churches. Since in the case of most of these visits there had been no notice given in advance that a stranger was expected I had the advantage of seeing the real everyday life of the people. In the plantation districts I found that as a rule the whole family slept in one room and that in addition to the immediate family there sometimes were relatives or others not related to the family who slept in the same room. On more than one occasion I went outside the house to get ready for bed or to wait until the family had gone to bed. They usually contrived some kind of a place for me to sleep either on the floor or in a special part of another's bed. Rarely was there any place provided in the cabin where one could bathe even the face in hands but usually some provision was made for this outside the home in the yard. The common diet of the people was fat pork and cornbread. At times I have eaten in cabins where they had only cornbread and black-eyed peas cooked in plain water. The people seemed to have no other idea than to live on this fat meat and cornbread. The meat and the meal of which the bread was made having been bought at a high price at a store in town. Notwithstanding the fact that the land all about the cabin homes could easily have been made to produce nearly every kind of garden vegetable that is raised anywhere in the country. Their one object seemed to be to plant nothing but cotton and in many cases cotton was planted up to the very door of the cabin. In these cabin homes I often found sewing machines which had been bought or were being bought on installments frequently at a cost of as much as sixty dollars or showy clocks for which the occupants of the cabins had paid twelve or fourteen dollars. I remember that on one occasion when I went into one of these cabins for dinner, when I sat down to the table for a meal with the four members of the family I noticed that while there were five of us at the table there was but one fork for the five of us to use. Naturally there was an awkward pause on my part. In the opposite corner of the cabin was an organ for which the people told me they were paying sixty dollars in monthly installments. One fork and a sixty dollar organ. In most cases the sewing machine was not used. The clocks were so worthless that they did not keep correct time and if they had in nine cases out of ten there would have been no one in the family who could have told the time of day while the organ of course was rarely used for one of a person who could play upon it. In the case to which I have referred where the family sat down to the table for the meal at which I was their guest, I could see plainly that this was an awkward and unusual proceeding and was done in my honour. In most cases when the family got up in the morning, for example the wife would put a piece of meal in a frying pan and put a lump of dough in a skillet as they called it. These utensils would be placed on the fire and in ten or fifteen minutes breakfast would be ready. Frequently the husband would take his bread and meat in his hand and start for the field eating as he walked. The mother would sit down in a corner and eat her breakfast perhaps from a plate and perhaps directly from the skillet or frying pan while the children would eat their portion of the bread and meat while running about the yard. At certain seasons of the year when meat was scarce it was rarely that the children who were not old enough or strong enough to work in the fields would have the luxury of meat. The breakfast over and with practically no attention given to the house the whole family would as a general thing proceed to the cotton field. Every child that was large enough to carry a hoe was put to work and the baby for usually there was at least one baby would be laid down at the end of the cotton row so that its mother could give it a certain amount of attention when she had finished chopping her row. The noon meal and the supper were taken in much the same way as the breakfast. All the days of the family would be spent after much the same routine except Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday the whole family would spend at least half a day and often a whole day in town. The idea in going to town was I suppose to do shopping but all the shopping that the whole family had money for could have been attended to in 10 minutes by one person. Still the whole family remained in town most of the day, spending the greater part of the time in standing on the streets the women too often sitting about somewhere smoking or dipping snuff. Sunday was usually spent in going to some big meeting. With few exceptions I found that the crops were mortgaged in the counties where I went and that most of the colored farmers were in debt. There were no school houses in the country districts and as a rule the schools were taught in churches or in log cabins. More than once while on my journeys I found that there was no provision made in the house used for school purposes for heating the building during winter. And consequently a fire had to be built in the yard and the teacher and pupils with few exceptions I found the teachers in these country schools to be miserably poor in preparation for their work and poor in moral character. The schools were in session from three to five months. There was practically no apparatus in the school houses except that occasionally there was a rough blackboard. I recall that one day I went into a school house or rather into an abandoned log cabin that was being used as a school house and found five pupils who were studying a lesson from one book. Two of these on the front seat were using the book between them. Behind these were two others peeping over the shoulders of the first two and behind the four was a fifth little fellow who was peeping over the shoulders of all four. What I have said concerning the character of the school houses and teachers will also apply quite accurately as the description of the church buildings and the ministers. I met some very interesting characters during my travels. As illustrating the peculiar mental processes of the country people I remember that I asked one colored man who was about sixty years old to tell me something of his history. He said that he had been born in Virginia in Alabama in eighteen forty-five. I asked him how many were sold at the same time. He said there were five of us myself and brother and three mules. In giving all these descriptions of what I saw during my month of travel in the country around Tuskegee I wish my readers to keep in mind the fact that there were many encouraging exceptions to the conditions which I have described. I have stated in such plain words what I saw, mainly for the reason that later I want to emphasize the encouraging changes that have taken place in the community not wholly by the work of the Tuskegee school but by that of other institutions as well.