A BOYS’ LIFE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
[Illustration:
SYMBOLIC GROUP ERECTED AT TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE (1922).
]
A BOYS’ LIFE
OF
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
BY
W. C. JACKSON
Vice President of the North Carolina College for Women, Greensboro, and
Professor of History
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1922
PREFACE
The single aim in telling the story that follows is to interest boys in
the life of Booker T. Washington.
This man’s life was of such singular and vital importance in the history
of his own race and in the history of our country that it ought to be
familiar to all the youth of the land, and to the negro youth
especially, since it is the greatest inspiration to the latter to be
found in the annals of American history.
There has been no attempt to be original or exhaustive in the treatment.
While a great mass of material has been consulted, it should be frankly
stated that the story follows very closely the material found in
Washington’s “Up from Slavery” and “My Larger Education” and Scott and
Stowe’s “Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization.”
The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to Doubleday, Page
and Company for permission to use extensive quotations from these books.
If some boy by reading this book is inspired to higher ambition and
encouraged to nobler effort, the author will feel that the book is fully
justified.
FOREWORD
This is the story of Booker T. Washington. It is the story of a boy who
was born a slave and who in manhood became the leader of ten million
people; who was born in poverty and ignorance and became the greatest
orator and teacher of the negro race; who was born of an ignorant and
backward race and became the friend of the greatest and best men of all
races of all the world.
He was a brave man. He had courage and backbone. He was not afraid. He
had courage to fight for what he believed to be the right.
He was an energetic man. There was not a lazy bone in him. No man ever
lived a more strenuous life than he did. He loved his work; and few
other men ever did so much work in a lifetime.
He was just and fair-minded. He could see right for the white man as
well as for the negro. He never intentionally did any one, white or
black, an injustice.
He was an honest man; honest in his thinking as well as in his business;
honest, frank, and open in his speeches and his writings. He looked
facts squarely in the face.
He was a wise man. He had intelligence. He had good judgment. He knew
the right thing to do and to say, and he did it and said it.
He was a modest man. He did not boast or brag. He did not try to get
money or office or high position. He was content to do his work as an
honest man.
He was a patriotic man. He loved his country and believed this to be the
greatest nation in the world; and he was ready to give his life for it
if necessary.
He had will power. He made up his mind about things, and, when he had
made a decision, he could not be discouraged nor turned aside. He would
see his plans through, and he would stand by his convictions to the
last.
He had self-control. He did not lose his temper or his tongue. He kept
himself in hand. He did not lose his head or waste his time and thought
and effort on useless and needless things.
He was a great lover of animals. He loved the pigs and the chickens, the
horses and the dogs, the birds and the fishes, and every living thing.
Above all he loved folks. He loved the people of all races. He was a
friend not only to the black man but likewise a friend to the red man,
the yellow, the brown, and the white.
He loved his race. He was not ashamed of it. He was proud of its
history; of its great achievements in the past. He had an abounding
confidence in its future. He believed that in the days that lie ahead
the negro race is to play a wonderful part.
It is well worth while to know about this man.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. EARLY CHILDHOOD 1
II. BOYHOOD DAYS 9
III. PLANNING FOR AN EDUCATION 14
IV. SCHOOL DAYS AT HAMPTON 22
V. BEGINNING LIFE IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 33
VI. BACK AT HAMPTON 40
VII. BUILDING A GREAT SCHOOL 45
VIII. STRENUOUS DAYS 56
IX. RAISING MONEY FOR TUSKEGEE 67
X. MAKING SPEECHES 76
XI. SUCCESS AS EDUCATIONAL LEADER 88
XII. LEADING HIS PEOPLE 105
XIII. POLITICAL EXPERIENCES 112
XIV. VISITS TO EUROPE 118
XV. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON: THE MAN 129
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
SYMBOLIC GROUP ERECTED AT TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE (1922) _Frontispiece_
FOUNDER’S DAY DRILL AT TUSKEGEE 6
CABINETMAKING AT TUSKEGEE 23
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AS A HAMPTON GRADUATE (1875) 24
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S CLASS (1875) AT HAMPTON INSTITUTE 31
TUSKEGEE’S FIRST GROUP OF BUILDINGS 51
A SUNDAY AFTERNOON BAND CONCERT ON THE CAMPUS 58
AUTOMOBILE AND BUGGY TRIMMING AT TUSKEGEE 61
CLASS IN PHYSICAL TRAINING AT TUSKEGEE 65
WHITE HALL; CHAPEL; TATUM HALL, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 69
JOHN A. ANDREW MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 72
CLASS IN PHOTOGRAPHY, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 74
CHEMISTRY CLASS, TUSKEGEE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT 89
TRUCK GARDENING, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 92
DOMESTIC SCIENCE CLASS AT TUSKEGEE 95
THE STUDENTS’ BAND OF A RURAL SCHOOL 99
TAILORING DIVISION, TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 101
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, FIRST PRINCIPAL OF TUSKEGEE
INSTITUTE 119
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND HIS FAMILY 132
ROBERT RUSSA MOTON, SUCCESSOR TO BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AT
TUSKEGEE 139
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND HIS GRANDCHILDREN 141
A BOYS’ LIFE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
CHAPTER I
EARLY CHILDHOOD
No state in the Union has a more interesting history than Virginia. It
is the oldest of the states. It was at Jamestown in 1607 that the first
permanent English settlement was made in America. Before the Revolution,
it shared with Massachusetts the honor of being the leading colony.
During the time of the Revolution, it furnished some of America’s
greatest leaders—Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson. After
the Revolution, it became known as the “Mother of Presidents.” Most of
the battles of the Civil War were fought on its soil, and its capital
was the capital of the Confederacy. Lee and Jackson, the two greatest
leaders of the Confederacy, were Virginians.
It was in this state that slavery in North America began. We must
remember, however, that slavery had been in existence a long, long time.
The ancient Hebrews, we are told in the Old Testament, practiced this
evil custom. So did all the nations about Palestine. The Greeks and the
Romans also kept slaves. We must not think of the people that were
enslaved by the Hebrews and Greeks and Romans as negroes. They were of
all races. Whenever one people conquered another, it mattered not of
what race, the conquerors made their captives slaves. This often
resulted in the most cultured and highly educated people being made
slaves. This was especially the case when the Romans captured Greeks.
Later on in the history of Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, the enslavement of negroes became very general, so that, by
the time North America began to be settled by the people from Europe,
negro slaves were bought and sold throughout the principal European
countries and their colonies.
So it came about that, in Virginia, negro slavery was introduced into
the United States. It was in 1619 that a Dutch ship, after a cruise in
the West Indies, landed at Jamestown, and while there, engaging in trade
with the inhabitants, sold them nineteen negroes. These were the first
slaves sold in North America, and it was from this beginning that the
system grew up in the country.
In Virginia too we had the first big plantations. Tobacco was the most
important crop in the early history of the colony. The planters could
sell tobacco at a great profit in England. Negro slaves could cultivate
tobacco very successfully. The planters, therefore, bought slaves to
raise tobacco, and they sold the tobacco and bought more slaves to raise
more tobacco. The planters bought many hundreds of acres of land and
many slaves to cultivate them. As you know, the slaves lived in cabins.
These cabins were little houses, usually built of logs, and the cracks
were daubed with mud. The cabin usually had one door, one window, and a
dirt floor only. These cabins were all close together, not very far from
the “big house,” and were known as the “quarters.”
The slaves did all the work on the plantation. Most of them worked in
the fields. Some worked about the barn and in the garden. One drove the
master’s carriage and took care of the horses. Another was the butler in
the “big house.” Some of the small boys and girls also worked in the
“big house,” serving their young masters and mistresses. And, of course,
one of the negro women was the plantation cook.
On just such a plantation down in Franklin County, Virginia, Booker T.
Washington was born. His mother was the cook on the plantation of a Mr.
Burroughs who lived near a little crossroads post office, southwest of
Lynchburg, called Hales’ Ford. There, in a little one-room cabin, Booker
was born on April 5, 1856. The cabin had no glass windows. It had only
one door, and it had a dirt floor. There were large cracks that let in
the cold. In the middle of the floor there was a large opening in the
ground in which sweet potatoes were stored. Sometimes as they put the
potatoes in or took them out, Booker got one or two and roasted them.
All of the cooking was done over the open fire in this cabin, for they
had no stove. It was a very uncomfortable place in which to live.
The boy lived a hard life. He says: “I cannot remember a single instance
during my childhood or early boyhood when our entire family sat down to
the table together, and God’s blessing was asked, and the family ate a
meal in a civilized manner. It was a piece of bread here, and a scrap of
meat there. It was a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at
another.”[1]
One day, when he was about five years old, he saw his young mistress and
some visitors out in the yard eating ginger cakes. He said he never saw
anything in his life that looked so good to him as those cakes did; and
he thought that, if he ever got free, the height of his ambition would
be to buy all the ginger cakes he wanted, just like those the young
ladies were eating.
He had to sleep on a pallet. He never slept in a bed until after he was
set free. The first pair of shoes he ever had was made of leather, but
the soles were of wood, and they were very uncomfortable and made a
great noise when he walked. He never thought of wearing anything on his
head. But the worst thing about his dress in those early days was having
to wear a flax shirt. These shirts were made of the roughest and
coarsest part of the flax, and they were very uncomfortable. When new,
they scratched severely. After they were worn awhile and “broken in,”
they were fairly comfortable. His brother John often “broke in” Booker’s
shirts for him, a very kind and generous thing to do.
He had no time to play when he was a boy. When he was a grown man, he
was asked what games he played when he was a boy, and he answered that
he had never played at all. He had to work so hard that no time was left
for play. Even when he was a very small boy, he had to sweep the yards,
carry water to the hands in the fields, help around the “big house,” and
carry in wood. Going to mill was the worst job he had. A farm hand would
put a sack of corn on a horse, put him on top of the sack, and send him
off. It was a long way to the mill. Almost every time he was sent, the
sack of corn would work to one side and then fall off. It was too heavy
for him to put back; so he would have to wait until some one came along
to help him. He sat and cried until some one came. It was often dark
when he got home. He was terribly frightened when he was alone at night,
for he was told that there were deserting soldiers in the woods, and
that when they found little negro boys the first thing they would do
would be to cut off their ears. Of course this was not true, but he
thought it was.
Do you suppose this little boy had any chance to go to school? This is
what he says: “I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave, though I
remember on several occasions I went as far as the schoolhouse door with
one of my young mistresses to carry her books. The picture of several
boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression
upon me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study
in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.”[2] This
is the same boy who came to be the greatest educator of his race; the
head of the greatest negro school in the world.
[Illustration:
FOUNDER’S DAY DRILL AT TUSKEGEE
]
It must be remembered that the conditions under which Booker lived in
these early years of his life were not restricted entirely to the
negroes. Many of the white people were poor also, and many white boys
wore flax shirts and shoes with wooden soles. Just after the Civil War,
especially, all the white people of the South had a very hard time.
White boys as well as negro boys had no time for play. Nor did they have
an opportunity to go to school. In those days many white boys who were
eager for an education had such difficulties to face as those which
loomed up before Booker Washington.
By and by, when Booker was about nine years of age, there came a
thrilling day. For four long years the great war had been going on.
Often he had heard his mother singing freedom songs. He remembered being
awakened one morning and saw his mother by his bed and heard her praying
that Lincoln might be successful, and that her little boy might some day
be free. He had seen some of the soldiers in their uniforms, home on
furlough. He remembered when they brought home the body of “Marse Billy”
and buried him amidst the bitter weeping of the slaves, who loved him as
their friend, for he had often begged for them when they were about to
be punished. While they vaguely knew and felt that the success of
Lincoln meant freedom, and the success of the others meant slavery, they
were still loyal and true to their masters. By means of the “grape vine
telegraph,” that is, by passing news along quickly from one plantation
to another, the slaves had kept pretty well informed of the progress of
the war, and when Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the slaves knew it very
soon.
One night word came to the “quarters” that something very unusual would
happen at the “big house” the next day. There was much excitement.
Nobody slept that night. Early next morning some one came to the
quarters and told the negroes that they were all wanted at the house.
Booker’s mother called her children, and they with all the other slaves
marched up to the house. All the members of the family were on the
porch. They were very quiet and seemed sad and depressed. There was
present a stranger, a man who wore a uniform. He stood up and read a
paper—“The Emancipation Proclamation.” Then the master explained that
the negroes were now free. He told them that they could go wherever they
desired. He also told them that they could live where they were if they
wanted to, and they would be taken care of; but if they preferred, they
could go to any other place. Booker’s mother leaned over her children
and kissed them while the tears streamed down her face. Her prayers had
been answered. Her children were free.