Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
accommodation of the classes. The number of students was increasing
daily. The more we saw of them, and the more we travelled through the
country districts, the more we saw that our efforts were reaching, to
only a partial degree, the actual needs of the people whom we wanted to
lift up through the medium of the students whom we should educate and
send out as leaders.
The more we talked with the students, who were then coming to us from
several parts of the state, the more we found that the chief ambition
among a large proportion of them was to get an education so that they
would not have to work any longer with their hands.
This is illustrated by a story told of a coloured man in Alabama, who,
one hot day in July, while he was at work in a cotton-field, suddenly
stopped, and, looking toward the skies, said: “O Lawd, de cotton am so
grassy, de work am so hard, and the sun am so hot dat I b’lieve dis
darky am called to preach!”
About three months after the opening of the school, and at the time
when we were in the greatest anxiety about our work, there came into
market for sale an old and abandoned plantation which was situated
about a mile from the town of Tuskegee. The mansion house—or “big
house,” as it would have been called—which had been occupied by the
owners during slavery, had been burned. After making a careful
examination of the place, it seemed to be just the location that we
wanted in order to make our work effective and permanent.
But how were we to get it? The price asked for it was very little—only
five hundred dollars—but we had no money, and we were strangers in the
town and had no credit. The owner of the land agreed to let us occupy
the place if we could make a payment of two hundred and fifty dollars
down, with the understanding that the remaining two hundred and fifty
dollars must be paid within a year. Although five hundred dollars was
cheap for the land, it was a large sum when one did not have any part
of it.
In the midst of the difficulty I summoned a great deal of courage and
wrote to my friend General J.F.B. Marshall, the Treasurer of the
Hampton Institute, putting the situation before him and beseeching him
to lend me the two hundred and fifty dollars on my own personal
responsibility. Within a few days a reply came to the effect that he
had no authority to lend me the money belonging to the Hampton
Institute, but that he would gladly lend me the amount needed from his
own personal funds.
I confess that the securing of this money in this way was a great
surprise to me, as well as a source of gratification. Up to that time I
never had had in my possession so much money as one hundred dollars at
a time, and the loan which I had asked General Marshall for seemed a
tremendously large sum to me. The fact of my being responsible for the
repaying of such a large amount of money weighed very heavily upon me.
I lost no time in getting ready to move the school on to the new farm.
At the time we occupied the place there were standing upon it a cabin,
formerly used as a dining room, an old kitchen, a stable, and an old
hen-house. Within a few weeks we had all of these structures in use.
The stable was repaired and used as a recitation-room, and very
presently the hen-house was utilized for the same purpose.
I recall that one morning, when I told an old coloured man who lived
near, and who sometimes helped me, that our school had grown so large
that it would be necessary for us to use the hen-house for school
purposes, and that I wanted him to help me give it a thorough cleaning
out the next day, he replied, in the most earnest manner: “What you
mean, boss? You sholy ain’t gwine clean out de hen-house in de
day-time?”
Nearly all the work of getting the new location ready for school
purposes was done by the students after school was over in the
afternoon. As soon as we got the cabins in condition to be used, I
determined to clear up some land so that we could plant a crop. When I
explained my plan to the young men, I noticed that they did not seem to
take to it very kindly. It was hard for them to see the connection
between clearing land and an education. Besides, many of them had been
school-teachers, and they questioned whether or not clearing land would
be in keeping with their dignity. In order to relieve them from any
embarrassment, each afternoon after school I took my axe and led the
way to the woods. When they saw that I was not afraid or ashamed to
work, they began to assist with more enthusiasm. We kept at the work
each afternoon, until we had cleared about twenty acres and had planted
a crop.
In the meantime Miss Davidson was devising plans to repay the loan. Her
first effort was made by holding festivals, or “suppers.” She made a
personal canvass among the white and coloured families in the town of
Tuskegee, and got them to agree to give something, like a cake, a
chicken, bread, or pies, that could be sold at the festival. Of course
the coloured people were glad to give anything that they could spare,
but I want to add that Miss Davidson did not apply to a single white
family, so far as I now remember, that failed to donate something; and
in many ways the white families showed their interest in the school.
Several of these festivals were held, and quite a little sum of money
was raised. A canvass was also made among the people of both races for
direct gifts of money, and most of those applied to gave small sums. It
was often pathetic to note the gifts of the older coloured people, most
of whom had spent their best days in slavery. Sometimes they would give
five cents, sometimes twenty-five cents. Sometimes the contribution was
a quilt, or a quantity of sugarcane. I recall one old coloured women
who was about seventy years of age, who came to see me when we were
raising money to pay for the farm. She hobbled into the room where I
was, leaning on a cane. She was clad in rags; but they were clean. She
said: “Mr. Washin’ton, God knows I spent de bes’ days of my life in
slavery. God knows I’s ignorant an’ poor; but,” she added, “I knows
what you an’ Miss Davidson is tryin’ to do. I knows you is tryin’ to
make better men an’ better women for de coloured race. I ain’t got no
money, but I wants you to take dese six eggs, what I’s been savin’ up,
an’ I wants you to put dese six eggs into the eddication of dese boys
an’ gals.”
Since the work at Tuskegee started, it has been my privilege to receive
many gifts for the benefit of the institution, but never any, I think,
that touched me so deeply as this one.
Chapter IX.
Anxious Days And Sleepless Nights
The coming of Christmas, that first year of our residence in Alabama,
gave us an opportunity to get a farther insight into the real life of
the people. The first thing that reminded us that Christmas had arrived
was the “foreday” visits of scores of children rapping at our doors,
asking for “Chris’mus gifts! Chris’mus gifts!” Between the hours of two
o’clock and five o’clock in the morning I presume that we must have had
a half-hundred such calls. This custom prevails throughout this portion
of the South to-day.
During the days of slavery it was a custom quite generally observed
throughout all the Southern states to give the coloured people a week
of holiday at Christmas, or to allow the holiday to continue as long as
the “yule log” lasted. The male members of the race, and often the
female members, were expected to get drunk. We found that for a whole
week the coloured people in and around Tuskegee dropped work the day
before Christmas, and that it was difficult for any one to perform any
service from the time they stopped work until after the New Year.
Persons who at other times did not use strong drink thought it quite
the proper thing to indulge in it rather freely during the Christmas
week. There was a widespread hilarity, and a free use of guns, pistols,
and gunpowder generally. The sacredness of the season seemed to have
been almost wholly lost sight of.
During this first Christmas vacation I went some distance from the town
to visit the people on one of the large plantations. In their poverty
and ignorance it was pathetic to see their attempts to get joy out of
the season that in most parts of the country is so sacred and so dear
to the heart. In one cabin I notice that all that the five children had
to remind them of the coming of Christ was a single bunch of
firecrackers, which they had divided among them. In another cabin,
where there were at least a half-dozen persons, they had only ten
cents’ worth of ginger-cakes, which had been bought in the store the
day before. In another family they had only a few pieces of sugarcane.
In still another cabin I found nothing but a new jug of cheap, mean
whiskey, which the husband and wife were making free use of,
notwithstanding the fact that the husband was one of the local
ministers. In a few instances I found that the people had gotten hold
of some bright-coloured cards that had been designed for advertising
purposes, and were making the most of these. In other homes some member
of the family had bought a new pistol. In the majority of cases there
was nothing to be seen in the cabin to remind one of the coming of the
Saviour, except that the people had ceased work in the fields and were
lounging about their homes. At night, during Christmas week, they
usually had what they called a “frolic,” in some cabin on the
plantation. That meant a kind of rough dance, where there was likely to
be a good deal of whiskey used, and where there might be some shooting
or cutting with razors.
While I was making this Christmas visit I met an old coloured man who
was one of the numerous local preachers, who tried to convince me, from
the experience Adam had in the Garden of Eden, that God had cursed all
labour, and that, therefore, it was a sin for any man to work. For that
reason this man sought to do as little work as possible. He seemed at
that time to be supremely happy, because he was living, as he expressed
it, through one week that was free from sin.
In the school we made a special effort to teach our students the
meaning of Christmas, and to give them lessons in its proper
observance. In this we have been successful to a degree that makes me
feel safe in saying that the season now has a new meaning, not only
through all that immediate region, but, in a measure, wherever our
graduates have gone.
At the present time one of the most satisfactory features of the
Christmas and Thanksgiving season at Tuskegee is the unselfish and
beautiful way in which our graduates and students spend their time in
administering to the comfort and happiness of others, especially the
unfortunate. Not long ago some of our young men spent a holiday in
rebuilding a cabin for a helpless coloured women who was about
seventy-five years old. At another time I remember that I made it known
in chapel, one night, that a very poor student was suffering from cold,
because he needed a coat. The next morning two coats were sent to my
office for him.
I have referred to the disposition on the part of the white people in
the town of Tuskegee and vicinity to help the school. From the first, I
resolved to make the school a real part of the community in which it
was located. I was determined that no one should have the feeling that
it was a foreign institution, dropped down in the midst of the people,
for which they had no responsibility and in which they had no interest.
I noticed that the very fact that they had been asking to contribute
toward the purchase of the land made them begin to feel as if it was
going to be their school, to a large degree. I noted that just in
proportion as we made the white people feel that the institution was a