BUILDING A SCHOOL AROUND A PROBLEM
One of the first questions that I had to answer for myself after
beginning my work at Tuskegee was how I was to deal with public opinion
on the race question.
It may seem strange that a man who had started out with the humble
purpose of establishing a little Negro industrial school in a small
Southern country town should find himself, to any great extent, either
helped or hindered in his work by what the general public was thinking
and saying about any of the large social or educational problems of the
day. But such was the case at that time in Alabama; and so it was that I
had not gone very far in my work before I found myself trying to
formulate clear and definite answers to some very fundamental questions.
The questions came to me in this way: Coloured people wanted to know why
I proposed to teach their children to work. They said that they and
their parents had been compelled to work for two hundred and fifty
years, and now they wanted their children to go to school so that they
might be free and live like the white folks—without working. That was
the way in which the average coloured man looked at the matter.
Some of the Southern white people, on the contrary, were opposed to any
kind of education of the Negro. Others inquired whether I was merely
going to train preachers and teachers, or whether I proposed to furnish
them with trained servants.
Some of the people in the North understood that I proposed to train the
Negro to be a mere “hewer of wood and drawer of water,” and feared that
my school would make no effort to prepare him to take his place in the
community as a man and a citizen.
Of course all these different views about the kind of education that the
Negro ought or ought not to have were deeply tinged with racial and
sectional feelings. The rule of the “carpet-bag” government had just
come to an end in Alabama. The masses of the white people were very
bitter against the Negroes as a result of the excitement and agitation
of the Reconstruction period.
[Illustration:
THE SITE OF TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE WHEN IT WAS FIRST BOUGHT
Two of the buildings are still in use as dormitories
]
On the other hand, the coloured people—who had recently lost, to a very
large extent, their place in the politics of the state—were greatly
discouraged and disheartened. Many of them feared that they were going
to be drawn back into slavery. At this time also there was still a great
deal of bitterness between the North and the South in regard to anything
that concerned political matters.
I found myself, as it were, at the angle where these opposing forces
met. I saw that, in carrying out the work I had planned, I was likely to
be opposed or criticised at some point by each of these parties. On the
other hand, I saw just as clearly that in order to succeed I must in
some way secure the support and sympathy of each of them.
I knew, for example, that the South was poor and the North was rich. I
knew that Northern people believed, as the South at that time did not
believe, in the power of education to inspire, to uplift, and to
regenerate the masses of the people. I knew that the North was eager to
go forward and complete, with the aid of education, the work of
liberation which had been begun with the sword, and that Northern people
would be willing and glad to give their support to any school or other
agency that proposed to do this work in a really fundamental way.
It was, at the same time, plain to me that no effort put forth in behalf
of the members of my own race who were in the South was going to succeed
unless it finally won the sympathy and support of the best white people
in the South. I knew also—what many Northern people did not know or
understand—that however much they might doubt the wisdom of educating
the Negro, deep down in their hearts the Southern white people had a
feeling of gratitude toward the Negro race; and I was convinced that in
the long run any sound and sincere effort that was made to help the
Negro was going to have the Southern white man’s support.
Finally, I had faith in the good common-sense of the masses of my own
race. I felt confident that, if I were actually on the right track in
the kind of education that I proposed to give them and at the same time
remained honest and sincere in all my dealings with them, I was bound to
win their support, not only for the school that I had started, but for
all that I had in my mind to do for them.
Still it was often a puzzling and a trying problem to determine how best
to win and hold the respect of all three of these classes of people,
each of which looked with such different eyes and from such widely
different points of view at what I was attempting to do. The temptation
which presented itself to me in my dealings with these three classes of
people was to show each group the side of the subject that it would be
most willing to look at, and, at the same time, to keep silent about
those matters in regard to which they were likely to differ with me.
There was the temptation to say to the white man the thing that the
white man wanted to hear; to say to the coloured man the thing that he
wanted to hear; to say one thing in the North and another in the South.
Perhaps I should have yielded to this temptation if I had not perceived
that in the long run I should be found out, and that if I hoped to do
anything of lasting value for my own people or for the South I must
first get down to bedrock.
There is a story of an old coloured minister, which I am fond of
telling, that illustrates what I mean. The old fellow was trying to
explain to a Sunday-school class how it was and why it was that Pharaoh
and his party were drowned when they were trying to cross the Red Sea,
and how it was and why it was that the Children of Israel crossed over
dry-shod. He explained it in this wise:
“When the first party came along it was early in the morning and the ice
was hard and thick, and the first party had no trouble in crossing over
on the ice; but when Pharaoh and his party came along the sun was
shining on the ice, and when they got on the ice it broke, and they went
in and got drowned.”
Now there happened to be in this class a young coloured man who had had
considerable schooling, and this young fellow turned to the old minister
and said:
“Now, Mr. Minister, I do not understand that kind of explanation. I have
been going to school and have been studying all these conditions, and my
geography teaches me that ice does not freeze within a certain distance
of the equator.”
The old minister replied: “Now, I’se been expecting something just like
this. There’s always some fellow ready to spile all the theology. The
time I’se talkin’ about was before they had any jogerphies or ’quaters
either.”
Now this old man, in his plain and simple way, was trying to brush aside
all artificiality and to get down to bedrock. So it was with me. There
have always been a number of educated and clever persons among my race
who are able to make plausible and fine-sounding statements about all
the different phases of the Negro problem, but I saw clearly that I
should have to follow the example of the old preacher and start on a
solid basis in order to succeed in the work that I had undertaken.
So, after thinking the matter all out as I have described, I made up my
mind definitely on one or two fundamental points. I determined:
First, that I should at all times be perfectly frank and honest in
dealing with each of the three classes of people that I have mentioned;
Second, that I should not depend upon any “short-cuts” or expedients
merely for the sake of gaining temporary popularity or advantage,
whether for the time being such action brought me popularity or the
reverse. With these two points clear before me as my creed, I began
going forward.
One thing which gave me faith at the outset, and increased my confidence
as I went on, was the insight which I early gained into the actual
relations of the races in the South. I observed, in the first place,
that as a result of two hundred and fifty years of slavery the two races
had become bound together in intimate ways that people outside of the
South could not understand, and of which the white people and coloured
people themselves were perhaps not fully conscious. More than that, I
perceived that the two races needed each other and that for many years
to come no other labouring class of people would be able to fill the
place occupied by the Negro in the life of the Southern white man.
I saw also one change that had been brought about as a result of
freedom, a change which many Southern white men had, it seemed to me,
failed to see. As long as slavery existed, the white man, for his own
protection and in order to keep the Negro contented with his condition
of servitude, was compelled to keep him in ignorance. In freedom,
however, just the reverse condition exists. Now the white man is not
only free to assist the Negro in his effort to rise, but he has every
motive of self-interest to do so, since to uplift and educate the Negro
would reduce the number of paupers and criminals of the race and
increase the number and efficiency of its skilled labourers.
Clear ideas did not come into my mind on this subject at once. It was
only gradually that I gained the notion that there had been two races in
slavery; that both were now engaged in a struggle to adjust themselves
to the new conditions; that the progress of each meant the advancement
of the other; and that anything that I attempted to do for the members
of my own race would be of no real value to them unless it was of equal
value to the members of the white race by whom they were surrounded.
As this thought got hold in my mind and I began to see further into the
nature of the task that I had undertaken to perform, much of the
political agitation and controversy that divided the North from the
South, the black man from the white, began to look unreal and artificial
to me. It seemed as if the people who carried on political campaigns
were engaged to a very large extent in a battle with shadows, and that
these shadows represented the prejudices and animosities of a period
that was now past.
On the contrary, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me
that the kind of work that I had undertaken to do was a very real sort
of thing. Moreover, it was a kind of work which tended not to divide,
but to unite, all the opposing elements and forces, because it was a
work of construction.
Having gone thus far, I began to consider seriously how I should proceed
to gain the sympathy of each of the three groups that I have mentioned
for the work that I had in hand.
I determined, first of all, that as far as possible I would try to gain
the active support and coöperation, in all that I undertook, of the
masses of my own race. With this in view, before I began my work at
Tuskegee, I spent several weeks travelling about among the rural
communities of Macon County, of which Tuskegee is the county seat.
During all this time I had an opportunity to meet and talk individually
with a large number of people representing the rural classes, which
constitute 80 per cent. of the Negro population in the South. I slept in
their cabins, ate their food, talked to them in their churches, and
discussed with them in their own homes their difficulties and their
needs. In this way I gained a kind of knowledge which has been of great
value to me in all my work since.
As years went on, I extended these visits to the adjoining counties and
adjoining states. Then, as the school at Tuskegee became better known, I
took advantage of the invitations that came to me to visit more distant
parts of the country, where I had an opportunity to learn still more
about the actual life of the people and the nature of the difficulties
with which they were struggling.
In all this, my purpose was to get acquainted with the masses of the
people—to gain their confidence so that I might work with them and for
them.
In the course of travel and observation I became more and more impressed
with the influence that the organizations which coloured people have
formed among themselves exert upon the masses of the people.
The average man outside of the Negro race is likely to assume that the
ten millions of coloured people in this country are a mere disorganized
and heterogeneous collection of individuals, herded together under one
statistical label, without head or tail, and with no conscious common
purpose. This is far from true. There are certain common interests that
are peculiar to all Negroes, certain channels through which it is
possible to touch and influence the whole people. In my study of the
race in what I may call its organized capacity, I soon learned that the
most influential organization among Negroes is the Negro church. I
question whether or not there is a group of ten millions of people
anywhere, not excepting the Catholics, that can be so readily reached
and influenced through their church organizations as the ten millions of
Negroes in the United States. Of these millions of black people there is
only a very small percentage that does not have formal or informal
connection with some church. The principal church groups are: Baptists,
African Methodists, African Methodist Episcopal Zionists, and Coloured
Methodists, to which I might add about a dozen smaller denominations.
I began my work of getting the support of these organizations by
speaking (or lecturing, as they are accustomed to describe it) to the
coloured people in the little churches in the country surrounding the
school at Tuskegee. When later I extended my journeys into other and
more distant parts of the country, I began to get into touch with the
leaders in the church and to learn something about the kind and extent
of influence which these men exercise through the churches over the
masses of the Negro people.
It has always been a great pleasure to me to meet and to talk in a
plain, straightforward way with the common people of my own race
wherever I have been able to meet them. But it is in the Negro churches
that I have had my best opportunities for meeting and getting acquainted
with them.
It has been my privilege to attend service in Trinity Church, Boston,
where I heard Phillips Brooks. I have attended service in the Fifth
Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, where I heard the late Dr. John
Hall. I have attended service in Westminster Abbey, in London. I have
visited some of the great cathedrals in Europe when service was being
held. But not any of these services have had for me the real interest
that certain services among my own people have had. Let me describe the
type of the service that I have enjoyed more than any other in all my
experience in attending church, whether in America or Europe.
In Macon County, Ala., where I live, the coloured people have a kind of
church-service that is called an “all-day meeting.” The ideal season for
such meetings is about the middle of May. The churchhouse that I have in
mind is located about ten miles from town. To get the most out of the
“all-day meeting” one should make an early start, say eight o’clock.
During the drive one drinks in the fresh fragrance of forests and wild
flowers. The church building is located near a stream of water, not far
from a large, cool spring, and in the midst of a grove or primitive
forest. Here the coloured people begin to come together by nine or ten
o’clock in the morning. Some of them walk; most of them drive. A large
number come in buggies, but many use the more primitive wagons or carts,
drawn by mules, horses, or oxen. In these conveyances a whole family,
from the youngest to the eldest, make the journey together. All bring
baskets of food, for the “all-day meeting” is a kind of Sunday picnic or
festival. Preaching, preceded by much singing, begins at about eleven
o’clock. If the building is not large enough, the services are held out
under the trees. Sometimes there is but one sermon; sometimes there are
two or three sermons, if visiting ministers are present. The sermon
over, there is more plantation singing. A collection is taken—sometimes
two collections—then comes recess for dinner and recreation.
Sometimes I have seen at these “all-day meetings” as many as three
thousand people present. No one goes away hungry. Large baskets, filled
with the most tempting spring chicken or fresh pork, fresh vegetables,
and all kinds of pies and cakes, are then opened. The people scatter in
groups. Sheets or table-cloths are spread on the grass under a tree near
the stream. Here old acquaintances are renewed; relatives meet members
of the family whom they have not seen for months. Strangers, visitors,
every one must be invited by some one else to dinner. Kneeling on the
fresh grass or on broken branches of trees surrounding the food, dinner
is eaten. The animals are fed and watered, and then at about three
o’clock there is another sermon or two, with plenty of singing thrown
in; then another collection, or perhaps two. In between these sermons I
am invited to speak, and am very glad to accept the invitation. At about
five o’clock the benediction is pronounced and the thousands quietly
scatter to their homes with many good-bys and well-wishes. This, as I
have said, is the kind of church-service that I like best. In the
opportunities which I have to speak to such gatherings I feel that I
have done some of my best work.
In carrying out the policy which I formed early, of making use of every
opportunity to speak to the masses of the people, I have not only
visited country churches and spoken at such “all-day meetings” as I have
just described, but for years I have made it a practice to attend,
whenever it has been possible for me to do so, every important
ministers’ meeting. I have also made it a practice to visit town and
city churches and in this way to get acquainted with the ministers and
meet the people.
During my many and long campaigns in the North, for the purpose of
getting money to carry on Tuskegee Institute, it has been a great
pleasure and satisfaction to me, after I have spoken in some white
church or hall or at some banquet, to go directly to some coloured
church for a heart-to-heart talk with my own people. The deep interest
that they have shown in my work and the warmth and enthusiasm with which
coloured people invariably respond to any one who talks to them frankly
and sincerely in regard to matters that concern the welfare of the race,
make it a pleasure to speak to them.
Many times on these trips to the North it has happened that coloured
audiences have waited until ten or eleven o’clock at night for my
coming. This does not mean that coloured people may not attend the other
meetings which I address, but means simply that they prefer in most
cases to have me to speak to them alone. When at last I have been able
to reach the church or the hall where the audience was gathered, it has
been such a pleasure to meet them that I have often found myself
standing on my feet until after twelve o’clock. No one thing has given
me more faith in the future of the race than the fact that Negro
audiences will sit for two hours or more and listen with the utmost
attention to a serious discussion of any subject that has to do with
their interest as a people. This is just as true of the unlettered
masses as it is of the more highly educated few.
Not long ago, for example, I spoke to a large audience in the Chamber of
Commerce in Cleveland, Ohio. This audience was composed for the most
part of white people, and the meeting continued rather late into the
night. Immediately after this meeting I was driven to the largest
coloured church in Cleveland, where I found an audience of something
like twenty-five hundred coloured people waiting patiently for my
appearance. The church building was crowded, and many of those present,
I was told, had been waiting for two or three hours.
As I entered the building an unusual scene presented itself. Each member
of the audience had been provided with a little American flag, and as I
appeared upon the platform, the whole audience rose to its feet and
began waving these flags. The reader can, perhaps, imagine the picture
of twenty-five hundred enthusiastic people each of whom is wildly waving
a flag. The scene was so animated and so unexpected that it made an
impression on me that I shall never forget. For an hour and a half I
spoke to this audience, and, although the building was crowded until
there was apparently not an inch of standing room in it, scarcely a
single person left the church during this time.
Another way in which I have gained the confidence and support of the
millions of my race has been in meeting the religious leaders in their
various state and national gatherings. For example, every year, for a
number of years past, I have been invited to deliver an address before
the National Coloured Baptist Convention, which brings together four or
five thousand religious leaders from all parts of the United States. In
a similar way I meet, once in four years, the leaders in the various
branches of the Methodist Church during their general conferences.
Invitations to address the different secret societies in their national
gatherings frequently come to me also. Next to the church, I think it is
safe to say that the secret societies or beneficial orders bring
together greater numbers of coloured people and exercise a larger
influence upon the race than any other kind of organization. One can
scarcely shake hands with a coloured man without receiving some kind of
grip which identifies him as a member of one or another of these many
organizations.
I am reminded, in speaking of these secret societies, of an occasion at
Little Rock, Ark., when, without meaning to do so, I placed my friends
there in a very awkward position. It had been pretty widely advertised
for some weeks before that I was to visit the city. Among the plans
decided upon for my reception was a parade in which all the secret and
beneficial societies in Little Rock were to take part. Much was expected
of this parade, because secret societies are numerous in Little Rock,
and the occasions when they can all turn out together are rare.
A few days before I reached that city some one began to make inquiry as
to which one of these orders I belonged to. When it finally became known
among the rank and file that I was not a member of any of them, the
committee which was preparing for the parade lost a great deal of its
enthusiasm, and a sort of gloom settled down over the whole proceeding.
The leading men told me that they found it quite a difficult task after
that to make the people understand why they were asked to turn out to
honour a person who was not a member of any of their organizations.
Besides, it seemed unnatural that a Negro should not belong to some kind
of order. Somehow or other, however, matters were finally straightened
out; all the organizations turned out, and a most successful reception
was the result.
Another agency which exercises tremendous power among Negroes is the
Negro press. Few if any persons outside of the Negro race understand the
power and influence of the Negro newspaper. In all, there are about two
hundred newspapers published by coloured men at different points in the
United States. Many of them have only a small circulation and are,
therefore, having a hard struggle for existence; but they are read in
their local communities. Others have built up a national circulation and
are conducted with energy and intelligence. With the exception of about
three, these two hundred papers have stood loyally by me in all my plans
and policies to uplift the race. I have called upon them freely to aid
me in making known my plans and ideas, and they have always responded in
a most generous fashion to all the demands that I have made upon them.
It has been suggested to me at different times that I should purchase a
Negro newspaper in order that I might have an “organ” to make known my
views on matters concerning the policies and interests of the race.
Certain persons have suggested also that I pay money to certain of these
papers in order to make sure that they support my views.
I confess that there have frequently been times when it seemed that the
easiest way to combat some statement that I knew to be false, or to
correct some impression which seemed to me peculiarly injurious, would
be to have a paper of my own or to pay for the privilege of setting
forth my own views in the editorial columns of some paper which I did
not own.
I am convinced, however, that either of these two courses would have
proved fatal. The minute it should become known—and it would be
known—that I owned an “organ,” the other papers would cease to support
me as they now do. If I should attempt to use money with some papers, I
should soon have to use it with all. If I should pay for the support of
newspapers once, I should have to keep on paying all the time. Very soon
I should have around me, if I should succeed in bribing them, merely a
lot of hired men and no sincere and earnest supporters. Although I might
gain for myself some apparent and temporary advantage in this way, I
should destroy the value and influence of the very papers that support
me. I say this because if I should attempt to hire men to write what
they do not themselves believe, or only half believe, the articles or
editorials they write would cease to have the true ring; and when they
cease to have the true ring, they will exert little or no influence.
So, when I have encountered opposition or criticism in the press, I have
preferred to meet it squarely. Frequently I have been able to profit by
these criticisms of the newspapers. At other times, when I have felt
that I was right and that those who criticised me were wrong, I have
preferred to wait and let the results show. Thus, even when we differed
with one another on minor points, I have usually succeeded in gaining
the confidence and support of the editors of the different papers in
regard to those matters and policies which seemed to me really
important.
In travelling throughout the United States I have met the Negro editors.
Many of them have been to Tuskegee. It has taken me twenty years to get
acquainted with them and to know them intimately. In dealing with these
men I have not found it necessary to hold them at arm’s-length. On the
contrary, I am in the habit of speaking with them frankly and openly in
regard to my plans. A number of the men who own and edit Negro
newspapers are graduates or former students of the Tuskegee Institute. I
go into their offices and I go to their homes. We know one another; they
are my friends, and I am their friend.
In dealing with newspaper people, whether they are white or black, there
is no way of getting their sympathy and support like that of actually
knowing the individual men, of meeting and talking with them frequently
and frankly, and of keeping them in touch with everything you do or
intend to do. Money cannot purchase or control this kind of friendship.
Whenever I am in a town or city where Negro newspapers are published, I
make it a point to see the editors, to go to their offices, or to invite
them to visit Tuskegee. Thus we keep in close, constant, and sympathetic
touch with one another. When these papers write editorials endorsing any
project that I am interested in, the editors speak with authority and
with intelligence because of our close personal relations. There is no
more generous and helpful class of men among the Negro race in America
to-day than the owners and editors of Negro newspapers.
Many times I have been asked how it is that I have secured the
confidence and good wishes of so large a number of the white people of
the South. My answer in brief is that I have tried to be perfectly frank
and straightforward at all times in my relations with them. Sometimes
they have opposed my actions, sometimes they have not, but I have never
tried to deceive them. There is no people in the world which more
quickly recognizes and appreciates the qualities of frankness and
sincerity, whether they are exhibited in a friend or in an opponent, in
a white man or in a black man, than the white people of the South.
In my experience in dealing with men of my race I have found that there
is a class that has gained a good deal of fleeting popularity for
possessing what was supposed to be courage in cursing and abusing all
classes of Southern white people on all possible occasions. But, as I
have watched the careers of this class of Negroes, in practically every
case their popularity and influence with the masses of coloured people
have not been lasting. There are few races of people the masses of whom
are endowed with more common-sense than the Negro, and in the long run
these common people see things and men pretty much as they are.
On the other hand, there have always been in every Southern community a
certain number of coloured men who have sought to gain the friendship of
the white people around them in ways that were more or less dishonest.
For a number of years after the close of the Civil War, for example, it
was natural that practically all the Negroes should be Republicans in
politics. There were, however, in nearly every community in the South,
one or two coloured men who posed as Democrats. They thought that by
pretending to favour the Democratic party they might make themselves
popular with their white neighbours and thus gain some temporary
advantage. In the majority of cases the white people saw through their
pretences and did not have the respect for them that they had for the
Negro who honestly voted with the party to which he felt that he
belonged.
I remember hearing a prominent white Democrat remark not long ago that
in the old days whenever a Negro Democrat entered his office he always
took a tight grasp upon his pocket-book. I mention these facts because I
am certain that wherever I have gained the confidence of the Southern
people I have done so, not by opposing them and not by truckling to
them, but by acting in a straightforward manner, always seeking their
good-will, but never seeking it upon false pretences.
I have made it a rule to talk _to_ the Southern white people concerning
what I might call their shortcomings toward the Negro rather than talk
_about_ them. In the last analysis, however, I have succeeded in getting
the sympathy and support of so large a number of Southern white people
because I have tried to recognize and to face conditions as they
actually are, and have honestly tried to work with the best white people
in the South to bring about a better condition.
From the first I have tried to secure the confidence and good-will of
every white citizen in my own county. My experience teaches me that if a
man has little or no influence with those by whose side he lives, as a
rule there is something wrong with him. The best way to influence the
Southern white man in your community, I have found, is to convince him
that you are of value to that community. For example, if you are a
teacher, the best way to get the influence of your white neighbours is
to convince them that you are teaching something that will make the
pupils that you educate able to do something better and more useful than
they would otherwise be able to do; to show, in other words, that the
education which they get adds something of value to the community.
In my own case, I have attempted from the beginning to let every white
citizen in my own town see that I am as much interested in the common,
every-day affairs of life as himself. I tried to let them see that the
presence of Tuskegee Institute in the community means better farms and
gardens, good housekeeping, good schools, law and order. As soon as the
average white man is convinced that the education of the Negro makes of
him a citizen who is not always “up in the air,” but one who can apply
his education to the things in which every citizen is interested, much
of opposition, doubt, or indifference to Negro education will disappear.
During all the years that I have lived in Macon County, Ala., I have
never had the slightest trouble in either registering or casting my vote
at any election. Every white person in the county knows that I am going
to vote in a way that will help the county in which I live.
Many nights I have been up with the sheriff of my county, in
consultation concerning law and order, seeking to assist him in getting
hold of and freeing the community of criminals. More than that, Tuskegee
Institute has constantly sought, directly and indirectly, to impress
upon the twenty-five or thirty thousand coloured people in the
surrounding county the importance of coöperating with the officers of
the law in the detection and apprehension of criminals. The result is
that we have one of the most orderly communities in the state. I do not
believe that there is any county in the state, for example, where the
prohibition laws are so strictly enforced as in Macon County, in spite
of the fact that the Negroes in this county so largely outnumber the
whites.
[Illustration:
THE HOUSE IN MALDEN, W. VA., IN WHICH MR. WASHINGTON LIVED WHEN HE
BEGAN TEACHING
]
Whatever influence I have gained with the Northern white people has come
about from the fact, I think, that they feel that I have tried to use
their gifts honestly and in a manner to bring about real and lasting
results. I learned long ago that in education as in other things nothing
but honest work lasts; fraud and sham are bound to be detected in the
end. I have learned, on the other hand, that if one does a good, honest
job, even though it may be done in the middle of the night when no eyes
see but one’s own, the results will just as surely come to light.
My experience has taught me, for example, that if there is a filthy
basement or a dirty closet anywhere in the remotest part of the school
grounds it will be discovered. On the other hand, if every basement or
every closet—no matter how remote from the centre of the school
activities—is kept clean, some one will find it and commend the care and
the thoughtfulness that kept it clean.
It has always been my policy to make visitors to Tuskegee feel that they
are seeing more than they expected to see. When a person has
contributed, say, $20,000 for the erection of a building, I have tried
to provide a larger building, a better building, than the donor expected
to see. This I have found can be brought about only by keeping one’s
eyes constantly on all the small details. I shall never forget a remark
made to me by Mr. John D. Rockefeller when I was spending an evening at
his house. It was to this effect: “Always be master of the details of
your work; never have too many loose outer edges or fringes.”
Then, in dealing with Northern people, I have always let them know that
I did not want to get away from my own race; that I was just as proud of
being a Negro as they were of being white people. No one can see through
a sham more quickly, whether it be in speech or in dress, than the
hard-headed Northern business man.
I once knew a fine young coloured man who nearly ruined himself by
pretending to be something that he was not. This young man was sent to
England for several months of study. When he returned he seemed to have
forgotten how to talk. He tried to ape the English accent, the English
dress, the English walk. I was amused to notice sometimes, when he was
off his guard, how he got his English pronunciation mixed with the
ordinary American accent which he had used all of his life. So one day I
quietly called him aside and said to him: “My friend, you are ruining
yourself. Just drop all those frills and be yourself.” I am glad to say
that he had sense enough to take the advice in the right spirit, and
from that time on he was a different man.
The most difficult and trying of the classes of persons with which I am
brought in contact is the coloured man or woman who is ashamed of his or
her colour, ashamed of his or her race and, because of this fact, is
always in a bad temper. I have had opportunities, such as few coloured
men have had, of meeting and getting acquainted with many of the best
white people, North and South. This has never led me to desire to get
away from my own people. On the contrary, I have always returned to my
own people and my own work with renewed interest.
I have never at any time asked or expected that any one, in dealing with
me, should overlook or forget that I am a Negro. On the contrary, I have
always recognized that, when any special honour was conferred upon me,
it was conferred not in spite of my being a Negro, but because I am a
Negro, and because I have persistently identified myself with every
interest and with every phase of the life of my own people.
Looking back over the twenty-five and more years that have passed since
that time, I realize, as I did not at that time, how the better part of
my education—the education that I got after leaving school—has been in
the effort to work out those problems in a way that would gain the
interest and the sympathy of all three of the classes directly
concerned—the Southern white man, the Northern white man, and the Negro.
In order to gain consideration from these three classes for what I was
trying to do I have had to enter sympathetically into the three
different points of view entertained by those three classes; I have had
to consider in detail how the work that I was trying to do was going to
affect the interests of all three. To do this, and at the same time
continue to deal frankly and honestly with each class, has been indeed a
difficult and at times a puzzling task. It has not always been easy to
stick to my work and keep myself free from the distracting influences of
narrow and factional points of view; but, looking back on it all after a
quarter of a century, I can see that it has been worth what it cost.