September 2, 2025 • 20 mins
Discover a rich tapestry of voices in Black Experience in America, 18th-20th Century. This collection features a diverse range of non-fiction, fiction, poetry, drama, and speeches sourced from Project Gutenberg, highlighting works by and about African Americans. From the poignant epistolary exchanges of late 18th-century black Baptist preachers to the powerful testimonies of ex-slaves from the 1930s, this anthology offers a profound exploration of the African American journey through time. (Summary by BellonaTimes)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section fifteen of The Black Experience in America Eighteenth to
twentieth century. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Donald fitzgild Junior,
(00:22):
Black Experience in America Eighteenth to twentieth Century by various
excerpt from the Future of the American Negro by Booker T. Washington.
In this chapter, I wish to show how at Tuskegee
we are trying to work out the plan of industrial training,
and trust I shall be pardoned the seeming egotism if
(00:45):
I preface the sketch with a few words by way
of example, as to the expansion of my own life
and how I came to undertake the work at Tuskegee.
My earliest recollection is of a small one room life
hut on a slave plantation in Virginia. After the close
of the war, while working in the coal mines of
(01:07):
West Virginia for the support of my mother, I heard
in some accidental way of the Hampton Institute. When I
learned that it was an institution where a black boy
could study, could have a chance to work for his
board and at the same time be taught to work
and to realize the dignity of labor. I resolved to
(01:28):
go there, bidding my mother goodbye. I started out one
morning to find my way to Hampton, although I was
almost penniless and had no definite idea as to where
Hampton was. By walking, begging rides, and paying for a
portion of the journey on the steam cars, I finally
succeeded in reaching the city of Richmond, Virginia. I was
(01:51):
without money or friends. I slept on a sidewalk, and
by working on a vessel the next day, I earned
money enough to continue my way to the institute, where
I arrived with the capital of fifty cents. At Hampton,
I found the opportunity in the way of buildings, teachers,
and industries provided by the generous to get training in
(02:13):
the classroom, and by practical touch with industrial life to
learn thrift, economy and push. I was surrounded by an
atmosphere of business, Christian influence and spirit of self help
that seemed to have awakened every faculty in me and
caused me for the first time to realize what it
meant to be a man instead of a piece of property.
(02:34):
While there, I resolved, when I had finished the course
of training, I would go into the far South, into
the black belt of the South, and give my life
to providing the same kind of opportunity for self reliance,
self awakening that I had found provided for me at Hampton.
My work began at Tuskegee, Alabama, in eighteen eighty one,
(02:57):
in a small shanty church with one teacher and thirty
students without a dollar's worth of property. The spirit of
work and of industrial thrift, with aid from the state
and generosity from the North, have enabled us to develop
an institution which now has about one thousand students gathered
from twenty three states, and eighty eight instructors. Counting students,
(03:21):
instructors and their families, we have a resonant population upon
the school grounds of about twelve hundred persons. The institution
owns two thousand, three hundred acres of land, seven hundred
of which are cultivated by student labor. There are six
hundred head of livestock, including horses, mules, cows, hogs, and sheep.
(03:45):
There are over forty vehicles that have been made and
are now used by the school. Training is given in
twenty six industries. There is work in wood, in iron,
in leather in ten and all forms of domestic economy
are engaged in. Students are taught mechanical and architectural drawing,
(04:06):
received training as agriculturists, dairymen, masons, carpenters, contractors, builders, as machinists, electricians, printers,
dressmakers and milliners, and in other directions. The value of
the property is three hundred thousand dollars. There are forty
(04:26):
two buildings, counting large and small, all of which, with
the exception of four, have been erected by the labor
of the students. Since this work started, there has been
collected and spent for its founding and support eight hundred
thousand dollars. The annual expense is now not far from
seventy five thousand dollars. In a humble, simple manner, the
(04:49):
effort has been to place a great object lesson in
the heart of the South for the elevation of the
colored people, where there should be, in a high sense
that union of head, art and hand, which has been
the foundation of the greatness of all races since the
world began. What is the object of all this outlay?
(05:10):
It must be first born in mind that we have
in the South a peculiar and unprecedented state of things.
The cardinal needs among the eight million colored people in
the South, most of whom are found to be on
the plantations, may be stated as food, clothing, shelter, education,
proper habits, and a settlement of race relations. These millions
(05:33):
of colored people of the South cannot be reached directly
by any missionary agent, but they can be reached by
sending out among them strong selected young men and women
with proper training of head, hand and heart, who will
live among them and show them how to lift themselves up.
The problem that the Tuskegee Institute keeps before itself constantly
(05:57):
is how to prepare these leaders from the outs upset.
In connection with religious and academic training, it has emphasized
industrial or hand training as a means of finding the
way out of present conditions. First, we have found the
industrial teaching useful in giving the student a chance to
work out a portion of his expenses while in school. Second,
(06:21):
the school furnishes labor that has an economic value, and
at the same time gives the student a chance to
acquire knowledge and skill while performing the labor. Most of all,
we find the industrial system valuable in teaching economy, thrift,
and the dignity of labor, and in giving moral backbone
to students. The fact that a student goes into the
(06:43):
world conscious of his power to build a house or
a wagon, or to make a set of harness gives
him a certain confidence in moral independence that he would
not possess without such training. A more detailed example of
our methods at Tuskegee may be of interest. For example,
we cultivate by student labor seven hundred acres of land.
(07:06):
The object is not only to cultivate the land in
a way to make it pay our boarding department, but
at the same time to teach the students, in addition
to the practical work, something of the chemistry of the soil,
the best methods of drainage, dairying, cultivation of fruit, the
care of livestock, and tools, and scores of other lessons
(07:27):
needed by people whose main dependence is on agriculture. Friends,
some time ago provided means for the erection of a
large new chapel at Tuskegee. Our students made the bricks
for this chapel. A large part of the timber was
sought by the students at our sawmill. The plans were
drawn by our teacher of Architectural and Mechanical drawing. The
(07:49):
students did the brick masonry, the plastering, the painting, the
carpentry work, the tinning, the slating, and made most of
the furniture. Practically, the whole chapel was built and furnished
by student labor. Now the school has this building for
permanent use, and the students have a knowledge of the
trades employed in its construction. While the young men do
(08:12):
the kinds of work I have mentioned, young women, to
a large extent, make mend and laundry the clothing of
the young men. They also receive instruction in dairying, horticulture,
and other valuable industries. One of the objections sometimes urged
against industrial education for the negro is that it aims
(08:33):
merely to teach him to work on the same plan
that he worked on when in slavery. This is far
from being the object at Tuskegee. At the head of
each of the twenty six industrial divisions, we have an
intelligent and competent instructor, just as we have in our
history classes, so that the student is taught not only
practical brick masonry, for example, but also the underlying principles
(08:58):
of that industry, mathematics, and the mechanical and architectural drawing.
Or he has taught how to become master of the
forces of nature, so that instead of cultivating corn in
the old way, he can use a corn cultivator that
lays off the furrows, drops the corn into them, and
covers it. And in this way he can do more
work than three men by the old process of corn planting,
(09:21):
while at the same time much of the toil is
eliminated and labor is dignified. In a word, the constant
aim is to show the student how to put brains
into every process of labor, how to bring his knowledge
of mathematics and sciences, and farming, carpentry, forging, foundry work,
how to dispense as soon as possible with the old
(09:43):
form of anteballum labor. In the erection of the chapel
referred to, instead of letting the money which was given
to us go into outside hands, we made it accomplish
three objects. First, it provided the chapel. Second, it gave
the students a chance to get a practical knowledge of
the trades connected with the building, and third it enabled
(10:06):
them to earn something toward the payment of their board
while receiving academic and industrial training. Having been fortified at
Tuskegee by education of mind, skill of hand, Christian character,
ideas of thrift, economy and push, and a spirit of independence,
the student is sent out to become a center of
(10:26):
influence and light in showing the masses of our people
in the Black Belt of the South how to lift
themselves up? Can this be done? I get but one
or two examples. Ten years ago, a young colored man
came to the institute from one of the large plantation districts.
He studied in the classroom a portion of the time,
and received practical and theoretical training on the farm the
(10:48):
remainder of the time. Having finished his course at Tuskegee,
he returned to his plantation home, which was in a
county where the colored people outnumbered the white six to one.
As his true in many of the counties in the
Black Belt of the South, he found the negroes in debt.
Ever since the war. They had been mortgaging their crops
for the food on which to live. While the crops
(11:10):
were growing, The majority of them were living from hand
to mouth on rented land in small, one room log cabins,
and attempting to pay a rate of interest on their
advances that ranged from fifteen to forty percent per annum.
The school had been taught in a wreck of a
log cabin with no apparatus, and had never been in
(11:31):
session longer than three months out of twelve. He found
the people as many as eight or ten persons of
all ages and conditions, and of both sexes, huddled together
and living in one room cabins year after year, and
with the minister, whose only aim was to work upon
the emotions. One can imagine something of the moral and
(11:51):
religious state of the community. But the remedy in spite
of the evil. The Negro got the habit of work
from slavery. The rank and file of the race, especially
those on the southern plantations, work hard, but the trouble
is that what they earned gets away from them in
high rents, crop mortgages, whiskey snuff, cheap jewelry, and the like.
(12:14):
The young man just referred to had been trained at Tuskegee,
as most of our graduates are, to meet just this
condition of things. He took the three months public school
as a nucleus for his work. Then he organized the
older people into a club or conference that held meetings
every week. In these meetings he taught the people, in
(12:35):
a plain, simple manner, how to save their money, how
to farm in a better way, how to sacrifice to
live on bread and potatoes if necessary, till they could
get out of debt and begin the buying of lands.
Soon a large proportion of the people were in a
condition to make contracts for the buying of homes. Land
(12:56):
is very cheap in the South, and to live without
mortgage their crops. Not only this, under the guidance and
leadership of this teacher, the first year that he was
among them, they learned how and built, by contributions in
money and labor, a neat comfortable schoolhouse that replaced the
wreck of law cabin formerly used. The following year, the
(13:20):
weekly meetings were continued and two months were added to
the original three months of school. The next year two
more months were added. The improvement has gone until these
people have every year an eight months school. I wish
my readers could have the chance that I have had
of going into this community. I wish they could look
(13:40):
into the faces of the people and see them beaming
with hope and delight. I wish they could see the
tow or three room cottages that have taken the place
of the usual one room cabin, see the well cultivated
farms in the religious life of the people that now
mean something more than the name. The teacher has a
good cottage and well kept farm that serve as models.
(14:04):
In a word, a complete revolution has been wrought in
the industrial, educational, and religious life of this whole community
by reason of the fact that they have had this leader,
this guide and object lesson to show them how to
take the money and effort that had hitherto been scattered
to the wind in mortgages and high rents, in whissi
(14:25):
and gewgaws, and how to concentrate it in the direction
of their own uplifting. One community on its feet presents
an object lesson for the adjoining communities, and soon improvements
show themselves in other places. Another student, who received academic
and industrial training at Tuskegee established himself three years ago
(14:47):
as a blacksmith and will ride in a community, and
in addition to the influence of a successful business enterprise,
he is fast making the same kind of changes in
the life of the people about him that I have
just recounted, it would be easy for me to fill
many pages describing the influence of the Tuskegee graduates. In
every part of the South. We keep it constantly in
(15:10):
the minds of our students and graduates that the industrial
or material condition of the masses of our people must
be improved as well as the intellectual before there can
be any permanent change in their moral and religious life.
We find it a pretty hard thing to make a
good Christian of a hungry man. No matter how much
our people get happy and shout in church, if they
(15:33):
go home at night from church hungry, they are at
tempted to find something to eat before morning. This is
a principle of human nature and is not confined alone
to the Negro. The negro has within him immense power
for self uplifting, but for years it will be necessary
to guide him and stimulate his energies. The recognition of
(15:54):
this power led us to organize five years ago what
is known as the Tuskegee Negro comp Difference, a gathering
that meets every February and is composed of about eight
hundred representatives colored men and women from all sections of
the Black Belt. They come in ox carts, mule carts, buggies,
on mule back, and horseback, on foot by railroad. Some
(16:18):
travel all night in order to be present. The matters
considered at the conference of those that the colored people
have it in their own power to control, such as
the evils of the mortgage system, the one room cabin,
buying on credit, the importance of owning a home and
putting money in the bank, how to build schoolhouses and
prolong the school term, and to improve their moral and
(16:39):
religious condition. As a single example of the results, one
delegate reported that since the conference was started seven years ago,
eleven people in this neighborhood had bought homes, fourteen had
gotten out of debt, and a number had stopped mortgaging
their crops. Moreover, a schoolhouse had been built by the
people themselves in the school du term had been extended
(17:01):
from three to six months, and with a look of triumph,
he exclaimed, we'd done living in the ashes. Besides this
Negro Conference for the masses of the people, we now
have a gathering at the same time known as the
Tuskegee Workers Conference, composed of the officers and instructors of
the leading colored schools in the South. After listening to
(17:22):
the story of the condition and needs from the people themselves,
the Worker's Conference finds much food for thought and discussion.
Let me repeat, from its beginning, this institution has kept
in mind the giving of thorough mental and religious training,
along with such industrial training as would enable the student
to appreciate the dignity of labor and become self supporting
(17:45):
and valuable as a producing factor. Keeping in mind the
occupations open in the South to the average man of
the race, this institution has now reached the points where
it can begin to judge of the value of its work,
as seen in its graph. Some years ago we noted
the fact, for example, that there was quite a movement
(18:05):
in many parts of the South to organize and start dairies.
Soon after this, we opened a dairy school where a
number of young men could receive training in the best
and most scientific methods of dairying. At present we have
calls mainly from Southern white men, for twice as many
dairymen as we are able to supply. The reports indicate
(18:26):
that our young men are giving the highest satisfaction and
are fast changing and improving the dairy product in the
communities where they labor. I have used the dairy industry
simply as an example. What I have said of this
industry is true in a larger or less degree of
the others. I cannot but believe, and my daily observation
(18:47):
and experience confirm me in it that as we continue
placing men and women of intelligence, religion, modesty, conscience and
skill in every community in the South, who will prove
by actual results their value to the community, this will
constitute the solution for many of the present political and
sociological difficulties. It is with this larger and more comprehensive
(19:12):
view of improving present conditions and laying the foundation wisely,
that the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute is training men
and women as teachers and industrial leaders. Over four hundred
students have finished the course of training at this institution
and are now scattered throughout the South doing good work.
(19:33):
A recent investigation shows that about three thousand students who
have taken only a partial course are doing commendable work.
One young man, who is able to remain in school
but two years, has been teaching in one community for
ten years. During this time, he has built a new schoolhouse,
extended the school term from three to seven months, and
(19:54):
has bought a nice farm upon which he has erected
a neat cottage. The example of this young man has
inspired many of the colored people in the community to
follow his example in some degree, and this is one
of many such examples. Wherever our graduates and next students go,
they teach, by precept an example, the necessary lesson of
(20:16):
thrift economy and property getting, and friendship between the races.
End of the excerpt of the Future of the American
Negro by Booker T. Washington. Recording by Donald Fitzgill, Junior,
Section fifteen of The Black Experience in America Eighteenth to
twentieth century. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Donald fitzgild Junior,
(00:22):
Black Experience in America Eighteenth to twentieth Century by various
excerpt from the Future of the American Negro by Booker T. Washington.
In this chapter, I wish to show how at Tuskegee
we are trying to work out the plan of industrial training,
and trust I shall be pardoned the seeming egotism if
(00:45):
I preface the sketch with a few words by way
of example, as to the expansion of my own life
and how I came to undertake the work at Tuskegee.
My earliest recollection is of a small one room life
hut on a slave plantation in Virginia. After the close
of the war, while working in the coal mines of
(01:07):
West Virginia for the support of my mother, I heard
in some accidental way of the Hampton Institute. When I
learned that it was an institution where a black boy
could study, could have a chance to work for his
board and at the same time be taught to work
and to realize the dignity of labor. I resolved to
(01:28):
go there, bidding my mother goodbye. I started out one
morning to find my way to Hampton, although I was
almost penniless and had no definite idea as to where
Hampton was. By walking, begging rides, and paying for a
portion of the journey on the steam cars, I finally
succeeded in reaching the city of Richmond, Virginia. I was
(01:51):
without money or friends. I slept on a sidewalk, and
by working on a vessel the next day, I earned
money enough to continue my way to the institute, where
I arrived with the capital of fifty cents. At Hampton,
I found the opportunity in the way of buildings, teachers,
and industries provided by the generous to get training in
(02:13):
the classroom, and by practical touch with industrial life to
learn thrift, economy and push. I was surrounded by an
atmosphere of business, Christian influence and spirit of self help
that seemed to have awakened every faculty in me and
caused me for the first time to realize what it
meant to be a man instead of a piece of property.
(02:34):
While there, I resolved, when I had finished the course
of training, I would go into the far South, into
the black belt of the South, and give my life
to providing the same kind of opportunity for self reliance,
self awakening that I had found provided for me at Hampton.
My work began at Tuskegee, Alabama, in eighteen eighty one,
(02:57):
in a small shanty church with one teacher and thirty
students without a dollar's worth of property. The spirit of
work and of industrial thrift, with aid from the state
and generosity from the North, have enabled us to develop
an institution which now has about one thousand students gathered
from twenty three states, and eighty eight instructors. Counting students,
(03:21):
instructors and their families, we have a resonant population upon
the school grounds of about twelve hundred persons. The institution
owns two thousand, three hundred acres of land, seven hundred
of which are cultivated by student labor. There are six
hundred head of livestock, including horses, mules, cows, hogs, and sheep.
(03:45):
There are over forty vehicles that have been made and
are now used by the school. Training is given in
twenty six industries. There is work in wood, in iron,
in leather in ten and all forms of domestic economy
are engaged in. Students are taught mechanical and architectural drawing,
(04:06):
received training as agriculturists, dairymen, masons, carpenters, contractors, builders, as machinists, electricians, printers,
dressmakers and milliners, and in other directions. The value of
the property is three hundred thousand dollars. There are forty
(04:26):
two buildings, counting large and small, all of which, with
the exception of four, have been erected by the labor
of the students. Since this work started, there has been
collected and spent for its founding and support eight hundred
thousand dollars. The annual expense is now not far from
seventy five thousand dollars. In a humble, simple manner, the
(04:49):
effort has been to place a great object lesson in
the heart of the South for the elevation of the
colored people, where there should be, in a high sense
that union of head, art and hand, which has been
the foundation of the greatness of all races since the
world began. What is the object of all this outlay?
(05:10):
It must be first born in mind that we have
in the South a peculiar and unprecedented state of things.
The cardinal needs among the eight million colored people in
the South, most of whom are found to be on
the plantations, may be stated as food, clothing, shelter, education,
proper habits, and a settlement of race relations. These millions
(05:33):
of colored people of the South cannot be reached directly
by any missionary agent, but they can be reached by
sending out among them strong selected young men and women
with proper training of head, hand and heart, who will
live among them and show them how to lift themselves up.
The problem that the Tuskegee Institute keeps before itself constantly
(05:57):
is how to prepare these leaders from the outs upset.
In connection with religious and academic training, it has emphasized
industrial or hand training as a means of finding the
way out of present conditions. First, we have found the
industrial teaching useful in giving the student a chance to
work out a portion of his expenses while in school. Second,
(06:21):
the school furnishes labor that has an economic value, and
at the same time gives the student a chance to
acquire knowledge and skill while performing the labor. Most of all,
we find the industrial system valuable in teaching economy, thrift,
and the dignity of labor, and in giving moral backbone
to students. The fact that a student goes into the
(06:43):
world conscious of his power to build a house or
a wagon, or to make a set of harness gives
him a certain confidence in moral independence that he would
not possess without such training. A more detailed example of
our methods at Tuskegee may be of interest. For example,
we cultivate by student labor seven hundred acres of land.
(07:06):
The object is not only to cultivate the land in
a way to make it pay our boarding department, but
at the same time to teach the students, in addition
to the practical work, something of the chemistry of the soil,
the best methods of drainage, dairying, cultivation of fruit, the
care of livestock, and tools, and scores of other lessons
(07:27):
needed by people whose main dependence is on agriculture. Friends,
some time ago provided means for the erection of a
large new chapel at Tuskegee. Our students made the bricks
for this chapel. A large part of the timber was
sought by the students at our sawmill. The plans were
drawn by our teacher of Architectural and Mechanical drawing. The
(07:49):
students did the brick masonry, the plastering, the painting, the
carpentry work, the tinning, the slating, and made most of
the furniture. Practically, the whole chapel was built and furnished
by student labor. Now the school has this building for
permanent use, and the students have a knowledge of the
trades employed in its construction. While the young men do
(08:12):
the kinds of work I have mentioned, young women, to
a large extent, make mend and laundry the clothing of
the young men. They also receive instruction in dairying, horticulture,
and other valuable industries. One of the objections sometimes urged
against industrial education for the negro is that it aims
(08:33):
merely to teach him to work on the same plan
that he worked on when in slavery. This is far
from being the object at Tuskegee. At the head of
each of the twenty six industrial divisions, we have an
intelligent and competent instructor, just as we have in our
history classes, so that the student is taught not only
practical brick masonry, for example, but also the underlying principles
(08:58):
of that industry, mathematics, and the mechanical and architectural drawing.
Or he has taught how to become master of the
forces of nature, so that instead of cultivating corn in
the old way, he can use a corn cultivator that
lays off the furrows, drops the corn into them, and
covers it. And in this way he can do more
work than three men by the old process of corn planting,
(09:21):
while at the same time much of the toil is
eliminated and labor is dignified. In a word, the constant
aim is to show the student how to put brains
into every process of labor, how to bring his knowledge
of mathematics and sciences, and farming, carpentry, forging, foundry work,
how to dispense as soon as possible with the old
(09:43):
form of anteballum labor. In the erection of the chapel
referred to, instead of letting the money which was given
to us go into outside hands, we made it accomplish
three objects. First, it provided the chapel. Second, it gave
the students a chance to get a practical knowledge of
the trades connected with the building, and third it enabled
(10:06):
them to earn something toward the payment of their board
while receiving academic and industrial training. Having been fortified at
Tuskegee by education of mind, skill of hand, Christian character,
ideas of thrift, economy and push, and a spirit of independence,
the student is sent out to become a center of
(10:26):
influence and light in showing the masses of our people
in the Black Belt of the South how to lift
themselves up? Can this be done? I get but one
or two examples. Ten years ago, a young colored man
came to the institute from one of the large plantation districts.
He studied in the classroom a portion of the time,
and received practical and theoretical training on the farm the
(10:48):
remainder of the time. Having finished his course at Tuskegee,
he returned to his plantation home, which was in a
county where the colored people outnumbered the white six to one.
As his true in many of the counties in the
Black Belt of the South, he found the negroes in debt.
Ever since the war. They had been mortgaging their crops
for the food on which to live. While the crops
(11:10):
were growing, The majority of them were living from hand
to mouth on rented land in small, one room log cabins,
and attempting to pay a rate of interest on their
advances that ranged from fifteen to forty percent per annum.
The school had been taught in a wreck of a
log cabin with no apparatus, and had never been in
(11:31):
session longer than three months out of twelve. He found
the people as many as eight or ten persons of
all ages and conditions, and of both sexes, huddled together
and living in one room cabins year after year, and
with the minister, whose only aim was to work upon
the emotions. One can imagine something of the moral and
(11:51):
religious state of the community. But the remedy in spite
of the evil. The Negro got the habit of work
from slavery. The rank and file of the race, especially
those on the southern plantations, work hard, but the trouble
is that what they earned gets away from them in
high rents, crop mortgages, whiskey snuff, cheap jewelry, and the like.
(12:14):
The young man just referred to had been trained at Tuskegee,
as most of our graduates are, to meet just this
condition of things. He took the three months public school
as a nucleus for his work. Then he organized the
older people into a club or conference that held meetings
every week. In these meetings he taught the people, in
(12:35):
a plain, simple manner, how to save their money, how
to farm in a better way, how to sacrifice to
live on bread and potatoes if necessary, till they could
get out of debt and begin the buying of lands.
Soon a large proportion of the people were in a
condition to make contracts for the buying of homes. Land
(12:56):
is very cheap in the South, and to live without
mortgage their crops. Not only this, under the guidance and
leadership of this teacher, the first year that he was
among them, they learned how and built, by contributions in
money and labor, a neat comfortable schoolhouse that replaced the
wreck of law cabin formerly used. The following year, the
(13:20):
weekly meetings were continued and two months were added to
the original three months of school. The next year two
more months were added. The improvement has gone until these
people have every year an eight months school. I wish
my readers could have the chance that I have had
of going into this community. I wish they could look
(13:40):
into the faces of the people and see them beaming
with hope and delight. I wish they could see the
tow or three room cottages that have taken the place
of the usual one room cabin, see the well cultivated
farms in the religious life of the people that now
mean something more than the name. The teacher has a
good cottage and well kept farm that serve as models.
(14:04):
In a word, a complete revolution has been wrought in
the industrial, educational, and religious life of this whole community
by reason of the fact that they have had this leader,
this guide and object lesson to show them how to
take the money and effort that had hitherto been scattered
to the wind in mortgages and high rents, in whissi
(14:25):
and gewgaws, and how to concentrate it in the direction
of their own uplifting. One community on its feet presents
an object lesson for the adjoining communities, and soon improvements
show themselves in other places. Another student, who received academic
and industrial training at Tuskegee established himself three years ago
(14:47):
as a blacksmith and will ride in a community, and
in addition to the influence of a successful business enterprise,
he is fast making the same kind of changes in
the life of the people about him that I have
just recounted, it would be easy for me to fill
many pages describing the influence of the Tuskegee graduates. In
every part of the South. We keep it constantly in
(15:10):
the minds of our students and graduates that the industrial
or material condition of the masses of our people must
be improved as well as the intellectual before there can
be any permanent change in their moral and religious life.
We find it a pretty hard thing to make a
good Christian of a hungry man. No matter how much
our people get happy and shout in church, if they
(15:33):
go home at night from church hungry, they are at
tempted to find something to eat before morning. This is
a principle of human nature and is not confined alone
to the Negro. The negro has within him immense power
for self uplifting, but for years it will be necessary
to guide him and stimulate his energies. The recognition of
(15:54):
this power led us to organize five years ago what
is known as the Tuskegee Negro comp Difference, a gathering
that meets every February and is composed of about eight
hundred representatives colored men and women from all sections of
the Black Belt. They come in ox carts, mule carts, buggies,
on mule back, and horseback, on foot by railroad. Some
(16:18):
travel all night in order to be present. The matters
considered at the conference of those that the colored people
have it in their own power to control, such as
the evils of the mortgage system, the one room cabin,
buying on credit, the importance of owning a home and
putting money in the bank, how to build schoolhouses and
prolong the school term, and to improve their moral and
(16:39):
religious condition. As a single example of the results, one
delegate reported that since the conference was started seven years ago,
eleven people in this neighborhood had bought homes, fourteen had
gotten out of debt, and a number had stopped mortgaging
their crops. Moreover, a schoolhouse had been built by the
people themselves in the school du term had been extended
(17:01):
from three to six months, and with a look of triumph,
he exclaimed, we'd done living in the ashes. Besides this
Negro Conference for the masses of the people, we now
have a gathering at the same time known as the
Tuskegee Workers Conference, composed of the officers and instructors of
the leading colored schools in the South. After listening to
(17:22):
the story of the condition and needs from the people themselves,
the Worker's Conference finds much food for thought and discussion.
Let me repeat, from its beginning, this institution has kept
in mind the giving of thorough mental and religious training,
along with such industrial training as would enable the student
to appreciate the dignity of labor and become self supporting
(17:45):
and valuable as a producing factor. Keeping in mind the
occupations open in the South to the average man of
the race, this institution has now reached the points where
it can begin to judge of the value of its work,
as seen in its graph. Some years ago we noted
the fact, for example, that there was quite a movement
(18:05):
in many parts of the South to organize and start dairies.
Soon after this, we opened a dairy school where a
number of young men could receive training in the best
and most scientific methods of dairying. At present we have
calls mainly from Southern white men, for twice as many
dairymen as we are able to supply. The reports indicate
(18:26):
that our young men are giving the highest satisfaction and
are fast changing and improving the dairy product in the
communities where they labor. I have used the dairy industry
simply as an example. What I have said of this
industry is true in a larger or less degree of
the others. I cannot but believe, and my daily observation
(18:47):
and experience confirm me in it that as we continue
placing men and women of intelligence, religion, modesty, conscience and
skill in every community in the South, who will prove
by actual results their value to the community, this will
constitute the solution for many of the present political and
sociological difficulties. It is with this larger and more comprehensive
(19:12):
view of improving present conditions and laying the foundation wisely,
that the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute is training men
and women as teachers and industrial leaders. Over four hundred
students have finished the course of training at this institution
and are now scattered throughout the South doing good work.
(19:33):
A recent investigation shows that about three thousand students who
have taken only a partial course are doing commendable work.
One young man, who is able to remain in school
but two years, has been teaching in one community for
ten years. During this time, he has built a new schoolhouse,
extended the school term from three to seven months, and
(19:54):
has bought a nice farm upon which he has erected
a neat cottage. The example of this young man has
inspired many of the colored people in the community to
follow his example in some degree, and this is one
of many such examples. Wherever our graduates and next students go,
they teach, by precept an example, the necessary lesson of
(20:16):
thrift economy and property getting, and friendship between the races.
End of the excerpt of the Future of the American
Negro by Booker T. Washington. Recording by Donald Fitzgill, Junior,
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