Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
Soon after beginning our third year’s work we were surprised to receive
money from three special sources, and up to the present time we have
continued to receive help from them. First, the State Legislature of
Alabama increased its annual appropriation from two thousand dollars to
three thousand dollars; I might add that still later it increased this
sum to four thousand five hundred dollars a year. The effort to secure
this increase was led by the Hon. M.F. Foster, the member of the
Legislature from Tuskegee. Second, we received one thousand dollars
from the John F. Slater Fund. Our work seemed to please the trustees of
this fund, as they soon began increasing their annual grant. This has
been added to from time to time until at present we receive eleven
thousand dollars annually from the Fund. The other help to which I have
referred came in the shape of an allowance from the Peabody Fund. This
was at first five hundred dollars, but it has since been increased to
fifteen hundred dollars.
The effort to secure help from the Slater and Peabody Funds brought me
into contact with two rare men—men who have had much to do in shaping
the policy for the education of the Negro. I refer to the Hon. J.L.M.
Curry, of Washington, who is the general agent for these two funds, and
Mr. Morris K. Jessup, of New York. Dr. Curry is a native of the South,
an ex-Confederate soldier, yet I do not believe there is any man in the
country who is more deeply interested in the highest welfare of the
Negro than Dr. Curry, or one who is more free from race prejudice. He
enjoys the unique distinction of possessing to an equal degree the
confidence of the black man and the Southern white man. I shall never
forget the first time I met him. It was in Richmond, Va., where he was
then living. I had heard much about him. When I first went into his
presence, trembling because of my youth and inexperience, he took me by
the hand so cordially, and spoke such encouraging words, and gave me
such helpful advice regarding the proper course to pursue, that I came
to know him then, as I have known him ever since, as a high example of
one who is constantly and unselfishly at work for the betterment of
humanity.
Mr. Morris K. Jessup, the treasurer of the Slater Fund, I refer to
because I know of no man of wealth and large and complicated business
responsibilities who gives not only money but his time and thought to
the subject of the proper method of elevating the Negro to the extent
that is true of Mr. Jessup. It is very largely through this effort and
influence that during the last few years the subject of industrial
education has assumed the importance that it has, and been placed on
its present footing.
Chapter XIII.
Two Thousand Miles For A Five-Minute Speech
Soon after the opening of our boarding department, quite a number of
students who evidently were worthy, but who were so poor that they did
not have any money to pay even the small charges at the school, began
applying for admission. This class was composed of both men and women.
It was a great trial to refuse admission to these applicants, and in
1884 we established a night-school to accommodate a few of them.
The night-school was organized on a plan similar to the one which I had
helped to establish at Hampton. At first it was composed of about a
dozen students. They were admitted to the night-school only when they
had no money with which to pay any part of their board in the regular
day-school. It was further required that they must work for ten hours
during the day at some trade or industry, and study academic branches
for two hours during the evening. This was the requirement for the
first one or two years of their stay. They were to be paid something
above the cost of their board, with the understanding that all of their
earnings, except a very small part, were to be reserved in the school’s
treasury, to be used for paying their board in the regular day-school
after they had entered that department. The night-school, started in
this manner, has grown until there are at present four hundred and
fifty-seven students enrolled in it alone.
There could hardly be a more severe test of a student’s worth than this
branch of the Institute’s work. It is largely because it furnishes such
a good opportunity to test the backbone of a student that I place such
high value upon our night-school. Any one who is willing to work ten
hours a day at the brick-yard, or in the laundry, through one or two
years, in order that he or she may have the privilege of studying
academic branches for two hours in the evening, has enough bottom to
warrant being further educated.
After the student has left the night-school he enters the day-school,
where he takes academic branches four days in a week, and works at his
trade two days. Besides this he usually works at his trade during the
three summer months. As a rule, after a student has succeeded in going
through the night-school test, he finds a way to finish the regular
course in industrial and academic training. No student, no matter how
much money he may be able to command, is permitted to go through school
without doing manual labour. In fact, the industrial work is now as
popular as the academic branches. Some of the most successful men and
women who have graduated from the institution obtained their start in
the night-school.
While a great deal of stress is laid upon the industrial side of the
work at Tuskegee, we do not neglect or overlook in any degree the
religious and spiritual side. The school is strictly undenominational,
but it is thoroughly Christian, and the spiritual training of the
students is not neglected. Our preaching service, prayer-meetings,
Sunday-school, Christian Endeavour Society, Young Men’s Christian
Association, and various missionary organizations, testify to this.
In 1885, Miss Olivia Davidson, to whom I have already referred as being
largely responsible for the success of the school during its early
history, and I were married. During our married life she continued to
divide her time and strength between our home and the work for the
school. She not only continued to work in the school at Tuskegee, but
also kept up her habit of going North to secure funds. In 1889 she
died, after four years of happy married life and eight years of hard
and happy work for the school. She literally wore herself out in her
never ceasing efforts in behalf of the work that she so dearly loved.
During our married life there were born to us two bright, beautiful
boys, Booker Taliaferro and Ernest Davidson. The older of these,
Booker, has already mastered the brick-maker’s trade at Tuskegee.
I have often been asked how I began the practice of public speaking. In
answer I would say that I never planned to give any large part of my
life to speaking in public. I have always had more of an ambition to
_do_ things than merely to talk _about_ doing them. It seems that when
I went North with General Armstrong to speak at the series of public
meetings to which I have referred, the President of the National
Educational Association, the Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, was present at
one of those meetings and heard me speak. A few days afterward he sent
me an invitation to deliver an address at the next meeting of the
Educational Association. This meeting was to be held in Madison, Wis. I
accepted the invitation. This was, in a sense, the beginning of my
public-speaking career.
On the evening that I spoke before the Association there must have been
not far from four thousand persons present. Without my knowing it,
there were a large number of people present from Alabama, and some from
the town of Tuskegee. These white people afterward frankly told me that
they went to this meeting expecting to hear the South roundly abused,
but were pleasantly surprised to find that there was no word of abuse
in my address. On the contrary, the South was given credit for all the
praiseworthy things that it had done. A white lady who was teacher in a
college in Tuskegee wrote back to the local paper that she was
gratified, as well as surprised, to note the credit which I gave the
white people of Tuskegee for their help in getting the school started.
This address at Madison was the first that I had delivered that in any
large measure dealt with the general problem of the races. Those who
heard it seemed to be pleased with what I said and with the general
position that I took.
When I first came to Tuskegee, I determined that I would make it my
home, that I would take as much pride in the right actions of the
people of the town as any white man could do, and that I would, at the
same time, deplore the wrong-doing of the people as much as any white
man. I determined never to say anything in a public address in the
North that I would not be willing to say in the South. I early learned
that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and
that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the
praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all
the evil done.
While pursuing this policy I have not failed, at the proper time and in
the proper manner, to call attention, in no uncertain terms, to the
wrongs which any part of the South has been guilty of. I have found
that there is a large element in the South that is quick to respond to
straightforward, honest criticism of any wrong policy. As a rule, the
place to criticise the South, when criticism is necessary, is in the
South—not in Boston. A Boston man who came to Alabama to criticise
Boston would not effect so much good, I think, as one who had his word
of criticism to say in Boston.
In this address at Madison I took the ground that the policy to be
pursued with references to the races was, by every honourable means, to
bring them together and to encourage the cultivation of friendly
relations, instead of doing that which would embitter. I further
contended that, in relation to his vote, the Negro should more and more
consider the interests of the community in which he lived, rather than
seek alone to please some one who lived a thousand miles away from him
and from his interests.
In this address I said that the whole future of the Negro rested
largely upon the question as to whether or not he should make himself,
through his skill, intelligence, and character, of such undeniable
value to the community in which he lived that the community could not
dispense with his presence. I said that any individual who learned to
do something better than anybody else—learned to do a common thing in
an uncommon manner—had solved his problem, regardless of the colour of
his skin, and that in proportion as the Negro learned to produce what
other people wanted and must have, in the same proportion would he be
respected.
I spoke of an instance where one of our graduates had produced two
hundred and sixty-six bushels of sweet potatoes from an acre of ground,
in a community where the average production had been only forty-nine
bushels to the acre. He had been able to do this by reason of his
knowledge of the chemistry of the soil and by his knowledge of improved
methods of agriculture. The white farmers in the neighbourhood
respected him, and came to him for ideas regarding the raising of sweet
potatoes. These white farmers honoured and respected him because he, by
his skill and knowledge, had added something to the wealth and the
comfort of the community in which he lived. I explained that my theory
of education for the Negro would not, for example, confine him for all
time to farm life—to the production of the best and the most sweet
potatoes—but that, if he succeeded in this line of industry, he could
lay the foundations upon which his children and grand-children could