A BATTLE AGAINST PREJUDICE
When the first few students began to come to Tuskegee I faced these
questions which were inspired by my personal knowledge of their lives
and surroundings:
What can these young men and women find to do when they return to their
homes?
What are the industries in which they and their parents have been
supporting themselves?
The answers were not always to my liking, but this was not the point
at issue. I had to meet a condition, not a theory. What I might have
wanted them to be doing was one thing; what they were actually doing
was the bed-rock upon which I hoped to lay the foundation of the work
at Tuskegee.
It was known that a large majority of the students came from
agricultural districts and from homes in which agriculture in some form
was the mainstay of the family. I had learned that nearly eighty per
cent of the population of what are commonly called the Gulf States are
dependent upon agricultural resources, directly or indirectly. These
facts made me resolve to attempt in downright earnest to see what the
Tuskegee Institute could do for the people of my race by teaching the
intelligent use of hands and brains on the farm, not by theorising, but
by practical effort. The methods in vogue for getting enough out of
the soil to keep body and soul together were crude in the extreme. The
people themselves referred to this heart-breaking effort as "making a
living." I wanted to teach them how to make more than a living.
I have little respect for the farmer who is satisfied with merely
"making a living." It is hardly possible that agricultural life will
become attractive and satisfactory to ambitious young men or women in
the South until farming can be made as lucrative there as in other
parts of the country where the farmer can be reasonably sure of being
able to place something in the bank at the end of the year. For the
young farmer to be contented he must be able to look forward to owning
the land that he cultivates, and from which he may later derive
not only all the necessities of life, but some of the comforts and
conveniences. The farmer must be helped to get to the point where he
can have a comfortable dwelling-house, and in it bathtubs, carpets,
rugs, pictures, books, magazines, a daily paper, and a telephone. He
must be helped to cherish the possibility that he and his family will
have time for study and investigation, and a little time each year for
travel and recreation, and for attending lectures and concerts.
[Illustration: GRINDING SUGAR-CANE AT THE SCHOOL'S SUGAR-MILL]
But the average farmer whom I wanted to help through the medium of the
Tuskegee Institute was far from this condition. I found that most of
the farmers in the Gulf States cultivated cotton. Little or nothing in
the form of stock or fowls, fruits, vegetables, or grain was raised
for food. In order to get the food on which man and live stock were to
live while the cotton crop was being grown, a mortgage or lien had to
be given upon the crop, or rather upon the expected crop, for the legal
papers were usually signed months in advance of the planting of the
crop.
Cotton in the South has been known for years as "the money crop."
This means that it is the one product from which cash may be expected
without question as soon as the crop is harvested. The result of this
system has been to discourage raising anything except cotton, for the
man who holds the mortgage upon the crop discourages, and in some cases
prevents, the farmer from giving much of his time and strength to the
growing of anything except cotton, since the money-lender is not sure
that he can get his money back from any other crop.
The result of this has been that, beginning in January, the farmer had
to go to the store or to the money-lender for practically all of his
food during the year. The rate of interest which the farmer had to pay
on his "advances" was in many cases enormous. The farmer usually got
his "advances" or provisions from a storekeeper. The storekeeper in
turn borrowed money from the local bank. The bank, as a general thing,
borrowed from New York. By the time the money reached the farmer he had
to pay in not a few cases a rate of interest which ranged from 15 to 30
per cent. If he failed to make his payment at the end of the year he
was likely to be "cleaned up"--that is, everything in sight in the way
of crops or live stock was taken from him. After being "cleaned up" he
would either try to make another crop on the same rented farm--trusting
to Providence or the weather for better luck--or else move to another
farm and go in search of some one else to "run him," as the local
expression describes the process. Not a few of the farmers whom I met
had been "cleaned up" half a dozen times or more.
In addition to having to pay the high rate of interest for food
supplies and clothing advanced, the ground rent was also to be paid.
By far the greater part of the land was rented. This, of course, had a
hurtful effect. Because the man who tilled the land did not own it, his
main object was to get all he could out of the property and return to
it as little as possible. The results were shown in the wretched cabins
and surroundings. If a fence was out of repair, or the roof of the
house leaked, the tenant had no personal interest in keeping up the
premises, because he was always expecting to move, and he did not want
to spend money upon the property of other people.
Instead of returning the cotton-seed to the ground to help enrich
the soil, he sold this valuable fertiliser. The land, of course, was
more impoverished each year. Ditching and terracing received little
attention. The mules with which the crops were made were rented or were
being bought "on time," as a rule, and the farmer did not have enough
direct interest in them to encourage him to spend money in keeping them
in prime condition. Besides, the food fed to the animals was not raised
on the place, but had to be bought.
Another serious result of the "one-crop" system was that the farmers
handled almost no cash except in the fall. To the ignorant and
inexperienced men of my race this was hurtful. If by any chance they
were able to pay their ground rent, and the principal and exorbitant
interest charged for their "advances," and have a few dollars in cash
left, the money did not remain with them long, for it came into their
hands about Christmas time, when the temptation to spend it for whisky,
cheap jewelry, cheap buggies, and such unprofitable articles was too
strong to be resisted. Had the same value been in the hands of the
farmer in the form of corn, vegetables, fruit, stock, or fowls it would
have been not only less likely to be wasted, but it would also have
been available for the farmer and his family during the whole or the
greater part of the year.
The conditions which I have described had a discouraging effect upon
many people who tried to get their living from the soil. As numbers of
them expressed it to me, if they worked hard during the year they came
out at the end in debt, and if they did not work they found themselves
in debt anyhow. Some went so far as to perform only sufficient work
to "make a show" of raising enough cotton on which to get "advances"
during the year, with no thought of ridding themselves of debt or of
coming out ahead.
Notwithstanding these conditions, there were instances each year
of individuals who triumphed over all these difficulties and
discouragements and came out with considerable money or cotton to their
credit. These men soon got to the point where they could begin to buy
their own homes.
In justice to the class of men in the South who advance money or
provisions each year to the farmers, I ought to say that many of them
deplore the state of affairs to which I have referred as much as any
one, but with them it is simply a system of lending money on uncertain
security. If these advances were not made, in many instances the
farmers and their families would starve. The average merchant prefers
to deal with the man who owns his land and can pay cash for his goods,
but the many ramifications of the mortgage system make both the farmer
and the money-lender slaves to the one-crop plan. If cotton fails, or
if the tenant abandons the crop before it is matured, the money-lender
is bound to lose. Both with the farmer and the money-lender it has
been like the old story of the man hugging the bear, each desperately
anxious to find a way to get free.
From the first I was painfully conscious of the fact that I could do
very little through the work of the Tuskegee Institute to help the
situation, but I was determined to make an effort to do what I could.
Many of my own race had been reduced to discouragement and despair.
Before the school could begin its practical help I spent all the time
that could be spared in going about among the people, holding meetings,
and talking with individual leaders, to arouse their ambition, and
inspire in them hope and confidence.
My first effort was to try to help the masses through the medium of
the thing that was nearest to them, and in which they had the most
vital and practical interest. I knew that if we could teach a man's son
to raise forty bushels of corn on an acre of ground which had before
produced but twenty bushels, and if he could be taught to raise this
corn with less labour than before, we should gain the confidence and
sympathy of that boy's father at once.
In this connection I have often thought that missionaries in foreign
countries would make greater progress if at first more emphasis were
placed upon the industrial and material side than upon the purely
spiritual side of education. Almost any heathen family would, I
believe, appreciate at once the difference between a shack and a
comfortable house, while it might require years to make them appreciate
the truths of the Bible. Through the medium of the home the heart could
be reached. Not long ago I was asked by a missionary who was going into
a foreign field what, in my opinion, he ought to teach the people, and
how he ought to begin. I asked him what the principal occupation of
the people was among whom he was going, and he replied that it was the
raising of sheep. I advised him, then, to begin his missionary work
by teaching the people how to raise more sheep than they were raising
and better sheep, and said that I thought the people would soon decide
that a man who could excel them in the raising of sheep might also
excel them in the matter of religion, and that thus the foundation for
effectual mission work might be laid.
The first few students of our school came largely from the farming
districts. The earliest need at the Tuskegee School was food for
teachers and students. I said: "Let us raise this food, and while doing
so teach the students the latest and best methods of farming." At the
same time we could teach them the dignity and advantages of farm life
and of work with their hands. It was easy to see the reasons for doing
this, and easy to resolve to do it, but I soon found that there were
several stubborn and serious difficulties to be overcome. The first
and perhaps the hardest of these was to conquer the idea, by no means
confined to my race, that a school was a place where one was expected
to do nothing but study books; where one was expected not to study
things, but to study about things. Least of all did the students feel
that a school was a place where one would be taught actually to _do_
things. Aside from this, the students had a very general idea that work
with the hands was in a large measure disgraceful, and that they wanted
to get an education because education was something which was meant to
enable people to live without hand work.
In addition to the objections named, I found that when I began to
speak very gently and even cautiously to the students about the plan
of teaching them to work on the farm, two other objections manifested
themselves with more or less emphasis. One was that most of the
students wanted to get out of the country into a town or a city,
and the other that many of them said they were anxious to prepare
themselves for some kind of professional life, and that they therefore
did not need the farm work. The most serious obstacle, however, was
the argument that since they and their parents for generations back had
tilled the soil, they knew all there was to be known about farming, and
did not need to be taught any more about it while in school.
These objections on the part of the students were reinforced by the
parents of many of them. Not a few of the fathers and mothers urged
that because the race had been worked for two hundred and fifty
years or more, now it ought to have a chance to rest. With all of my
earnestness and argument I was unable in the earlier years of the
school to convert all the parents and students to my way of thinking,
and for this reason many of the students went home of their own accord
or were taken home by their parents. None of these things, however,
turned the school aside from doing the things which we were convinced
the people most needed to have done for them.
I shall always remember the day when we decided actually to begin the
teaching of farming--not out of books, but by real and tangible work.
In the morning I explained to the young men our need of food to eat,
and the desire of the school to teach them to work with their hands.
I told them that we would begin with the farm, because that was the
most important need. The young men were greatly surprised when the hour
came to begin work to find me present with my coat off, ready to begin
digging up stumps and clearing the land. As my first request was more
in the form of an invitation than a command, I found that only a few
reported for work. I soon learned, too, that these few were ashamed
to have any one see them at work. After we had put in several hours
of vigorous toil I noticed that their interest began to grow, because
they came to realise that it was not _my_ farm they were helping to
cultivate, but that it belonged to the school, in which we all had a
common interest. The next afternoon a larger number reported for duty.
They were still shy about having any one see them at work, however, and
were especially timorous at the idea of being caught in the field by
the girl students.
Gradually, year by year, the difficulties which I have enumerated
began to melt away, but not without constant effort and very trying
embarrassments. It soon became evident that the students had practical
knowledge of only one industry, and that was the cultivation of cotton
in the manner in which it had been grown by their fathers for years.
Another defect soon became evident, and that was that they had little
idea of caring for tools or live stock. Plows, hoes, and other farming
implements were left in the field where they were last used. If
quitting time came when the hoe was being used in the middle of a field
or at the end of a row, the tool remained there over night. Where the
last plowing in the fall was done, there the plow would most likely
spend the winter. No better care than this was given to wagons or
harness, and mules and horses shared this impartial neglect.
It was the custom in the earlier days of the school--as it is now--for
students and teachers to assemble in the evening for prayers. After
considerable ineffective effort to teach the students to put their
implements away properly at night, I caused a mild sensation at evening
prayers by calling the names of three students who had left their
implements in the field. I said that these three students would be
excused from the room to attend to this duty, and that we would not
proceed with the service until their return, and that I felt sure they
would be more benefited by prayer and song after having done their work
well than by leaving it poorly done. A few lessons of this kind began
to work a notable betterment in the care with which the students looked
after their implements, and attended to other details of their daily
round.
[Illustration: THE REPAIR SHOP
All of the broken furniture of the school is mended here]