SCHOOL PROBLEMS OF A TUSKEGEE GRADUATE.
"Two distinct problems face the Tuskegee graduate who goes forth as a
leader of his people: the problem of extending education to the masses
of our people and the problem of so adjusting the people to their actual
conditions that the two races will be able to live and work together in
harmony and helpfulness.
It may as well be admitted at the outset that the public schools in the
rural districts of the lower South are not working toward this end. The
condition of the public schools for our people in the Black Belt section
of this state is disheartening. As unreasonable as it may seem, it is a
fact that as the Negro population increases, in this section, the
appropriation for Negro schools decreases. In many places the schools
have been abolished altogether.
From almost every nook and corner of the South there comes a cry that
the Negro as a laborer is unsatisfactory. It is said that he is
inefficient, unreliable, indolent, lazy, in short, that he is unfit to
do the work the South wants done. Less than two decades ago it was just
the opposite. Then, it was said that the Negro was unfit for everything
else except work. How inconsistent! We admit that there is a labor
problem in the South, but we deny that it is due wholly to the
inefficiency of the Negro as a laborer. In the first place, the natural
increase of the population of the South has not kept pace with the
marvelous growth and development of her industries. This in itself would
explain a scarcity of labor. Furthermore, it should be remembered that
the most industrious, the most frugal, and the most thrifty Negroes of
the South are rapidly changing from the wage hands, to contract hands,
and the day laborers, to the renters of their own farms, while thousands
of Negroes in different parts of the South are establishing independent
business enterprises for themselves. The South cannot hire that class of
Negroes from their work. This, again has a tendency to make labor
scarce. Added to this is the fact that thousands of Negroes are moving
into the cities. Some are going into other states seeking on the one
hand better educational opportunities for their children, and on the
other hand, protection from mobs and lynchers. This again has a
depressing effect upon labor.
While these underlying causes seem sufficient to account for the present
labor troubles of the South, we must admit that there are entirely too
many Negroes, particularly among those who work as wage-hands,
contract-hands, and day laborers, who are ignorant and superstitious,
too many who are gamblers and drunkards. Naturally, their work is not
satisfactory. But they are not wholly to blame since they have had
neither adequate educational opportunities, nor the proper home
training. If they lack character, it is largely because they lack
training. This is, as I understand it, what the President means when he
says that "ignorance is the most costly crop that any community can
produce."
Graduates from Tuskegee, a few years ago, received from our illustrious
Principal the injunction, "Go ye into all parts of the South and change
these conditions."
I will now try to give an account of my stewardship. I hail from Snow
Hill, which is located in the heart of the Black Belt of this State, in
a section where the colored people outnumber the white seven to one, and
in the center of a colored population of more than 200,000. When we
started work there twenty-five years ago the people as a whole were
poor, ignorant, superstitious and greatly in debt. They had no special
love for industrial training and not much general love for any kind of
education. The so-called public schools were then running three months
in the year and paying the teachers nine and ten dollars per month. We
started work in a dilapidated one-room log cabin with three students and
fifty cents in money. There was no state appropriation, neither was any
church or society responsible for one dollar of its expenses.
Today we have an institution of more than four hundred students and
twenty-two teachers and officers. We have 1940 acres of land,
twenty-four buildings, counting large and small, and fourteen industries
in constant operation. Being in a farming section, however, we are
putting more stress upon agriculture.
It is the aim of our institution to teach the beauty and dignity of all
labor and inculcate a love for the soil and for agricultural life. In
spite of the denial of political rights and of the poor educational
opportunities, and many other unjust discriminations, the South, just
now, is the best place in this country for the Negro, and especially the
agricultural section. We might as well recognize this fact and teach our
people to act accordingly.
Again, we aim to train leaders for the masses of our people; for this
purpose we need young men and young women imbued with the spirit of
sacrifice and service who will go into these rural sections and teach
our people how to live, how not to die; teach them how to live
economically, to pay their debts, to buy land, to build better homes,
better schools, better churches, and above all, how to lead pure and
upright lives and become useful and helpful citizens in the community in
which they live. Finally, we aim to train a high class of domestic
servants. There need be no fear or uneasiness for we have an abundance
of material for each class. But the worth of an institution is not
determined by the acquisition of houses and land, neither by the bare
statement of its aims, but by its actual power to serve the practical,
daily needs of the community in which it exists.
As a result of our twenty-five years' work at Snow Hill, we have about
one thousand graduates and ex-students who have either finished the full
or partial course at the institution and are now out in the world doing
creditable work as teachers, farmers, mechanics, and domestic workers.
Over fifty per cent of our students have bought homes since leaving
school. Many have houses with five and six rooms. Wherever a Snow Hill
student teaches the school term is lengthened and the people are
encouraged to buy land, build better homes, better school-houses and
better churches.
The people have not only been helped by our students and graduates, but
they have been helped directly through our Negro conference and Black
Belt Improvement Society.
Twenty-five years ago the people in the neighborhood of the school did
not own more than ten acres of land, while today they own more than
twenty thousand acres. Twenty-five years ago the one-room log cabin was
the rule, today it is the exception. Twenty-five years ago the majority
of the farmers were in heavy debt and mortgaged their crops, today many
of the farmers now have bank accounts, while a few years ago they did
not know what a bank account was. Throughout the community they are
building better homes, better churches, better school-houses, and the
relation between the races is cordial.
Just a word about our Black Belt Improvement Society. This organization
has ten degrees of membership and any one of good moral standing
desiring to better his condition, can become a member of the first
degree. A member of the second degree, however, must own a little
property, at least three chickens, and a pig. A member of the third
degree must own a cow, of the fourth degree he must own an acre of land,
a member of the fifth degree must have erected on that acre a house
having at least three rooms, a member of the sixth degree must own
twenty acres of land, of the seventh degree must own forty acres of
land, and of the eighth degree must own sixty acres, etc., until they
reach the tenth degree.
Then we have an annual fair at which prizes are given to those who have
excelled in any of the agricultural products, or those who have had the
best gardens, or who have kept the best house during the year. A special
prize is given to the party who has bought the most land during the
year.
This society has several committees. It has a committee on education.
This committee holds meetings in the various communities to arouse in
the people an interest in education. It encourages them to build better
school-houses, to extend the school term and it keeps their children in
school. It is the duty of the committee on labor to gather together
those of our race who still work as contract-hands, wage-hands,
day-laborers, and domestic servants, and impress upon them the necessity
of rendering the best service, tell them that the race is judged more by
what they do than what we do, and how great their responsibility is.
The farming committee is always active, trying to create in the people a
real love for agricultural life, trying to show them that the
opportunities which the country offers us are superior to those offered
in the cities. Other committees are the committee on good government,
committee on business, and committee on good roads. The influence for
good this society is exerting throughout the section can hardly be
estimated. Such is the nature of the work we are doing at Snow Hill.