Booker T. Washington, the author of the following sketch of slavery in
America, was himself born a slave, and the story of his life begins
where "The Story of Slavery" leaves off. He was born about 1858 or 1859
on a plantation near Hales Ford, Va., about twenty-five miles east of
the city of Roanoke, in a region which, now almost deserted, was in
slavery days a flourishing tobacco country. A few years ago he was
invited to speak at the annual fair at Roanoke, and took advantage of
the opportunity to drive out to the old plantation to visit again the
scene of his childhood. He met there several members of the Burroughs
family to which he had formerly belonged, and with them he went through
the old Burroughs house, which is standing, and talked over the old
days.
It was while he was living there that he was awakened one morning to
find his mother kneeling on the earth floor of the little cabin in which
they lived, praying that "Lincoln and his armies might be successful and
that one day she and her children might be free." It was here a little
later on, as he tells us in the book, "Up From Slavery," in which he has
related the story of his life, that he heard the announcement that he
and all the other slaves were free.
"I recall," he says, "that some man who seemed to be a stranger and who
was undoubtedly a United States official, made a little speech and then
read a rather long paper--the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After
the reading we were told that we were all free and could go where we
pleased.
"My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her
children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us
what it all meant; that this was the day for which she had so long been
praying, but fearing she would never live to see.
"For some minutes," he continues, "there was great rejoicing, and
thanksgiving and wild scenes of ecstasy. But there was no feeling of
bitterness. In fact, there was pity among the slaves for our former
owners. The wild rejoicing of the emancipated colored people lasted but
a brief period, for I noticed that by the time they returned to their
cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of
being free, of having charge of themselves and their children, of having
to plan for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of
them. To some it seemed, now that they were in actual possession of it,
freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected to find.
Gradually one by one, stealthily at first, the older slaves began to
wander back to the 'big house' to have whispered conversations with
their former owners as to their future."
Thus it was that freedom came to Washington and so it came, perhaps, to
some three and one-half millions of others on their plantations
throughout the South.
Shortly after the "surrender," as the Southern people say, young
Washington made a long journey across the mountains with his mother to
West Virginia where his stepfather was then living, and it was in Malden
he grew up to young manhood. Malden is situated in the mining region of
West Virginia, and after a time young Washington went to work in the
mines. It was while he was working down in the coal mines of West
Virginia that he one day overheard one of the miners reading from a
paper concerning a school at Hampton, Virginia, where a Negro in earnest
would be given a chance to work his way through school. He determined at
once that he would seek out and find that school. So it was that a few
months later he set out afoot across the mountain in the direction of
Richmond to find his way to Hampton Institute. In his remarkable
biography he has described how he made that journey; how he arrived
hungry and penniless in the city of Richmond; how he slept for several
nights under the sidewalk in Richmond until he was able to earn enough
money to reach the famous school of which he had read.
In this same biography he has told, also, of how the teacher in charge,
who was very doubtful about admitting him at first, finally, in place of
asking him any questions about what he had learned in school, set him to
work sweeping and dusting the schoolroom.
"I swept that recitation room three times," he said, "then I got a
dusting cloth and I dusted it four times. All the woodwork around the
walls, every bench, table and desk, I went over four times with my
dusting cloth. I had the feeling that my future depended upon the way I
dusted that room."
When he had finished the teacher came and looked very critically over
the results of his work. Then she said: "I guess you will do," and that
was his entrance examination. This rather peculiar entrance examination
illustrates the spirit of the institution in which Booker Washington
gained his first forward preparation for life.
At the time that young Washington entered Hampton Institute, General
Armstrong, the founder of the school, was engaged in a great and
interesting experiment. His purpose was to create a school which would
give the sons of the freedmen education in character as well as in
books. Booker Washington saw that this education was the thing above all
others that the masses of the Negro people needed at this time, and
realized better than any other of the graduates of the institution the
significance and bearing of the work that General Armstrong was trying
to do. He made up his mind then that he would go out into some part of
the South and establish a school which would do for other members of his
race what Hampton had done for him. His opportunity came when a call
came to Hampton for a man to take charge of a school at Tuskegee,
Alabama. It was thus in 1881 that the famous Tuskegee Institute came to
be started.
This school, which was started on July 4, 1881, in a little shanty
church, with one teacher and thirty students, has grown until it now has
a student body of 1600, with 165 teachers and officers, 103 buildings
and property to the value of $1,500,000.
In 1895 Mr. Washington was invited to speak at the Atlanta Cotton States
Exposition on Negroes Day. In that speech he made an appeal for peace
between the races, and formulated a program for mutual cooperation
between black and white which has been the basis of all his efforts
since that time.
From that time on his fame has grown steadily, both in this country and
abroad. In 1896 Harvard University conferred upon him the honorary
degree of Master of Arts for service in the education of his race. He
has received numerous other honors since that time and has spoken in
every state of the Union in favor of Negro education. A few years ago
when he went abroad he was invited to dinner by the King of Denmark. In
April, 1912, there was held under his leadership at Tuskegee an
international conference on the Negro to which representatives came from
many parts of Africa as well as the West Indies and South America. The
result of this was a plan to form a permanent international organization
to study the Negro problem in all parts of the world and hold meetings
triennially.
Mr. Washington is the author of several books in addition to his
autobiography, "Up From Slavery," which has been translated into every
civilized language in the world, including Japanese.
The most noted of these books are, "Working with the Hands," "The Story
of the Negro," in two volumes, "My Larger Education," and "The Man
Farthest Down," which is a record of a journey of observation and study
of the working and peasant peoples of Europe.
[Illustration: Booker T. Washington]