Many requests have been made of me to write something of the story of my life. Until recently I have never given much consideration to these requests, for the reason that I have never thought that I had done enough in the world to warrant anything in the way of an autobiography; and I hope that my life work, by reason of my present age, lies more in the future than in the past. My daughter, Portia, said to me, not long ago: “Papa, do you know that you have never told me much about your early life, and your children want to know more about you.” Then it came upon me as never before that I ought to put something about my life in writing for the sake of my family, if for no other reason.

I will not trouble those who read these lines with any lengthy historical research concerning my ancestry, for I know nothing of my ancestry beyond my mother. My mother was a slave on a plantation near Hale's Ford, in Franklin County,

I am indebted to and beg to thank Mr. E. Webber for valuable assistance rendered in connection with the preparation of this publication. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

We began life in West Virginia in a little shanty, and lived in it for several years. My step-father soon obtained work for my brother John and myself in the salt furnaces and coal mines, and we worked alternately in them until about the year 1871. Soon after we reached West Virginia a school teacher, Mr. William Davis, came into the community, and the colored people induced him to open a school. My step-father was not able to spare me from work, so that I could attend this school, when it was first opened, and this proved a sore disappointment to me. I remember that soon after going to Malden, West Virginia, I saw a young colored man among a large number of colored people, reading a newspaper, and this fired my ambition to learn to read as nothing had done before. I said to myself, if I could ever reach the point where I could read as this man was doing, the acme of my ambition would be reached. Although I could not attend the school, I remember that, in some way, my mother secured a book for me, and although she could not read herself, she tried in every way possible to help me to do so.

Every barrel of salt that was packed in the mines was marked, and by watching the letters that were put on the salt barrels I soon learned to read. As time went on, after considerable persuasion on my part, my step-father consented to permit me to attend the public school half of the day, provided I would get up very early in the morning and perform as much work as possible before school time. This permission brought me great joy. By four o'clock in the morning I was up and at my work, which continued until nearly nine o'clock. The first day I entered school, it seems to me, was the happiest day that I have ever known. The first embarrassment I experienced at school was in the matter of finding a name for myself. I had always been called “Booker,” and had not known that one had use for more than one name. Some of the slaves took the surnames of their owners, but after freedom there was a prejudice against doing this, and a large part of the colored people gave themselves new names. When the teacher called the roll, I noticed that be called each pupil by two names, that is a given name and a surname. When he came to me he asked for my full name, and I told him to put me down as “Booker Washington,” and that name I have borne ever since. It is not every school boy who has the privilege of choosing his own name. In introducing me to an audience in Essex Hall, London, during my visit to Europe, in the summer of 1899, Honorable Joseph H. Choate, the American Ambassador, said that I was one of the few Americans that had had the opportunity of choosing his own name, and in exercising the rare privilege I had very naturally chosen the best name there was in the list.

My step-father seemed to be over careful that I should continue my work in the salt furnace until nine o'clock each day. This practice made me late at school, and often caused me to miss my lessons. To overcome this I resorted to a practice of which I am not now very proud, and it is one of the few things I did as a child of which I am now ashamed. There was a large clock in the salt furnace that kept the time for hundreds of workmen connected with the salt furnace and coal mine. But, as I found myself continually late at school, and after missing some of my lessons, I yielded to the temptation to move forward the hands on the dial of the clock so as to give enough time to permit me to get to school in time. This went on for several days, until the manager found the time so unreliable that the clock was locked up in a case.

It was in Malden that I first found out what a Sunday school meant. I remember that I was playing marbles one Sunday morning in the road with a number of other boys, and an old colored man passed by on his way to Sunday school. He spoke a little harshly to us about playing marbles on Sunday, and asked why we did not go to Sunday school. He explained in a few broken though plain words what a Sunday school meant and what benefit we would get from it by going. His words impressed me so that I put away my marbles and followed him to Sunday school, and thereafter was in regular attendance. I remember that, some years afterwards, I became one of the teachers in this Sunday school and finally became its superintendent.

No matter how dark the days or how discouraging the circumstances, there was never a time in my youth when the firm resolution to secure an education, at any cost, did not constantly remain with me. Next came the unpleasant coal mine experience.

My step-father was not able, however, to permit me to continue in school long, even for a half day at the time. I was soon taken out of school and put to work in the coal mine. As a child I recall now the fright which, going a long distance under the mountain into a dark and damp coal mine, gave me. It seemed to me that the distance from the opening of the mine to the place where I had to work was at least a mile and a half. Although I had to leave school I did not give up my search for knowledge. I took my book into the coal mine, and during the spare minutes I tried to read by the light of the little lamp which hung on my cap. Not long after I began to work in the mines my mother hired some one to teach me at night, but often, after walking a considerable distance for a night's lesson, I found that my teacher knew but little more than I did. This, however, was not the case with Mr. William Davis, my first teacher.

After working in the coal mine for some time, my mother secured a position for me as house boy in the family of General Lewis Ruffner. I went to live with this family with a good many fears and doubts. General Ruffner's wife, Mrs. Viola Ruffner, had the reputation of being very strict and hard to please, and most of the boys who had been employed by her had remained only a short time with her. After remaining with Mrs. Ruffner a while, I grew weary of her exact manner of having things done, and, without giving her any notice, I ran away and hired myself to a steamboat captain who was plying a boat between Malden and Cincinnati. Mrs. Ruffner was a New England woman, with all the New England ideas about order, cleanliness and truth. The boat captain hired me as a waiter, but before the boat had proceeded many miles towards Cincinnati he found that I knew too little about waiting on the table to be of any service, so he discharged me before I had been on his boat for many hours.

After my mother and brother John had secured me a few extra garments, with what I could provide for myself, I started for Hampton, about the first of October, 1872. How long I was on this journey I have at this time no very definite idea. Part of the way I went by railroad, part in a stage, and part on foot. I remember that when I got as far as Richmond, Virginia, I was completely out of money, and knew not a single person in the city. Besides, I had never been in a city before. I think it was about nine o'clock at night that I reached Richmond. I was hungry, tired and dirty, and had no where to go. I wandered about the streets until about midnight, when I felt completely exhausted.

By chance I came to a street that had a plank sidewalk, and I crept under this sidewalk and spent the night. The next morning I felt very much rested, but was still quite hungry, as it had been some time since I had a good meal. When I awoke, I noticed some ships not far from where I had spent the night. I went to one of these vessels and asked the captain to permit me to work for him, so that I could earn some money to get some food. The captain very kindly gave me work, which was that of helping to unload pig iron from the vessel. In my rather weak and hungry condition I found this hard work, but I stuck to it, and was given enough money to buy a little food. My work seemed to have pleased the master of the vessel so much that he furnished me with work for several days, but I continued to sleep under the sidewalk each night, for I was anxious to save enough money to pay my passage to Hampton.

After working on this vessel for some days, I started again for Hampton, and arrived there in a day or two, with a surplus of fifty cents in my pocket. I did not let any one know how forlorn my condition was. I feared that if I did, I would be rejected as one that was altogether too unpromising. The first person I saw after reaching the Hampton Institute was Miss Mary F. Mackie, the Lady Principal. After she had asked me many searching questions, with a good deal of doubt and hesitation in her manner, I was assigned to a room. She remarked at the same time that it would be decided later whether I could be admitted as a student. I shall not soon forget the impression that the sight of a good, clean, comfortable room and bed made upon me, for I had not slept in a bed since I left my home in West Virginia. Within a few hours I presented myself again before Miss Mackie to hear my fate, but she still seemed to be undecided. Instead of telling me whether or not I could remain, I remember, she showed me a large recitation room and told me to sweep it. I felt at once that the sweeping of that room would decide my case. I knew I could sweep, for Mrs. Ruffner had taught me that art well. I think that I must have swept that room over as many as three times, and dusted it the same number of times. After awhile Miss Mackie came into the room and rubbed her handkerchief over the tables and benches to see if I had left any dust, but not a particle could she find. She remarked with a smile, “I guess we will try you as a student.” At that moment I think I was the happiest individual that ever entered the Hampton Institute.

After I had been at the Hampton Institute a day or two I saw General Armstrong, the Principal, and he made the impression upon me of being the most perfect specimen of man, physically, mentally and spiritually, that I had ever seen; and I have never had occasion to change my first impression. In fact, as the years went by and as I came to know him better, the feeling grew. I have never seen a man in whom I had such confidence. It never occurred to me that it was possible for him to fail in anything that he undertook to accomplish. I have sometimes thought that the best part of my education at Hampton was obtained by being permitted to look upon General Armstrong day by day. He was a man who could not endure for a minute hypocrisy or want of truth in any one. This moral lesson he impressed upon every one who came in contact with him.

After I had succeeded in passing my “sweeping examination,” I was assigned by Miss Mackie to the position of assistant janitor. This position, with the exception of working on the farm for awhile, I held during the time I was a student at Hampton. I took care of four or five class rooms; that is, I swept and dusted them and built the fires when needed. A great portion of the time I had to rise at four o'clock in the morning in order to do my work and find time to prepare my lessons.

Everything was very crude at Hampton when I first went there. There were about two hundred students. There was but one substantial building, together with some old government barracks. There were no table cloths on the meal tables, and that which was called tea or coffee was served to us in yellow bowls. Corn bread was our chief food. Once a week we got a taste of white bread.

Before starting for Tuskegee I found it almost impossible to find the town on any map, and had difficulty in learning its exact location. I reached Tuskegee about the middle of June, 1881 I found it to be a town of some 2,000 inhabitants, about half of whom were Negroes, and located in what is commonly called the “Black Belt,” that is, the section of the South where the Negro race largely outnumbers the white population. The county in which Tuskegee is located is named Macon. Of Tuskegee and Macon County I prefer to quote the words of Maj. W. W. Screws, the editor of the “Montgomery (Alabama) Daily Advertiser,” who visited Tuskegee in 1898, seventeen years after the Tuskegee Institute was founded. Maj. Screws says:

“Just at this time there is probably no place in the United States, of similar size, so well known to the people of the country, as this lovely little city. It has always possessed merits which brought it conspicuously before Alabamians, for in every locality in this and many Southern States are noble men and women who received their educational training here.

“Thomas S. Woodward was one of the earliest white settlers in Macon County, and was one of the commissioners appointed to lay off the site for the court house. He built the first house in the new town, which they called Tuskegee, a corruption of the old Indian name, Tuskigi, which is said by Dr. Gatschet to be a contraction of Taskialgi (warriors). The old Indian town stood in the fork of the Coosa and was the home, part of the time, of the famous half-breed statesman, Alexander McGillivray. The name passed in its present form to the county seat of the new county.

“Tuskegee was settled by men who were well to do in a material point of view. They owned rich lands on the creeks and streams and in the prairie section of the county. This point is on a high, dry ridge, and from time immemorial has been noted for its healthfulness. Here came those who wished to build homes for their families, to have congenial company and to give their children educational advantages. They did not desire the projectors of the Montgomery and West Point, Railroad to put the town on its route, because of the interruption it was feared would be occasioned to the schools. From the very beginning of its existence, education has been the main feature of Tuskegee, and through its schools and colleges a population gathered here which has never been excelled in point of refinement, politeness and all the gentle amenities which tend to make life comfortable.

“The town of Tuskegee was first settled about 1830. James Dent built the first house. The town was first laid out in 1833. Mr. G. W. Campbell came to the county with his father from Montgomery in 1835, and at that time perhaps 150 people were in and about what now comprises Tuskegee's territorial limits. There was no court house building, and court sessions were held in a small log house with a dirt floor. When court was not in session the building was used as a school house. The Creek Indians were in great numbers in the neighborhood, but they were friendly and peaceful, and in 1836 commenced to move to their far Western home, going overland to Montgomery, where they took steamer for New Orleans. Tuskegee is one of the model towns in the way of good order.

“Among the white settlers here are Dr. W. J. Gautier, and Messrs. G. W. Campbell, J. W. Bilbro, J. O. A. Adams and W. H. Wright. They have a perfect wealth of interesting reminiscence connected with the early days of all East Alabama. Although they have passed the three score years, they are hale, healthy men, engaged in business, and set a splendid example of energy and active life to the younger generation. The firm of Campbell & Wright has been in existence, possibly, longer than any other in Alabama.

“The Montgomery and West Point Railroad is about five miles distant from Tuskegee, the nearest station being Chehaw: From there to Tuskegee, until about twenty years ago, the usual mode of conveyance for passengers and baggage was stage coach and omnibus; while all goods were transported by wagon. It was a tiresome, troublesome and expensive method. This difficulty has been overcome through the Tuskegee Railroad which now connects the two points.

“The population of Macon County before 1860, was largely heavy landed proprietors. They suffered immensely by the results of the war from disorganized labor, and reverses stripped them of much of their property. The county is almost exclusively agricultural, and the average yield year by year, of corn, cotton, peas, potatoes and other things grown on well regulated farms, is fairly good.”

When I reached Tuskegee, I found that Mr. Lewis Adams, a colored man of great intelligence and thrift, who was born a slave near Tuskegee, had first started the movement to have some kind of Normal School in Tuskegee for the education of colored youth. At the time he conceived this idea Hon. W. F. Foster and Hon. A. L. Brooks, both white Democrats, were members of the Alabama Legislature, and Mr. Adams so interested them in the movement that they promised to use their influence in the Legislature to secure an annual appropriation of $2,000 toward the expenses of a Normal School, provided one could be properly organized and started. Mr. Foster and Mr. Brooks were successful in their efforts to secure the appropriation, which was limited in its use to helping to pay teachers. A Board of three Commissioners was appointed to control the expenditure of this $2,000. When the school was first started this board consisted of Mr. Geo. W. Campbell, Mr. M. B. Swanson and Mr. Lewis Adams. After the death of Mr. Swanson, Mr. C. W. Hare was elected in his stead.

When I reached Tuskegee, the only thing that had been done toward the starting of a school was the securing of the $2,000. There was no land, building, or apparatus. I opened the school, however, on the 4th of July, 1881, in an old church and a little shanty that was almost ready to fall down from decay. On the first day there was an attendance of thirty students, mainly those who had been engaged in teaching in the Public schools of that vicinity. But these little buildings, inadequate as they were, were most gladly furnished by the colored people, who from the first day that I went to Tuskegee to the present time have done everything within their power to further the interests of the school.

One curious thing that happened in connection with the students was, as additional pupils began to come in, that some of them had been attending schools taught by some of those who came to the Tuskegee school, and, in several cases, it happened that former pupils entered higher classes than their former teachers.

After the school had been in session in the old church and little shanty for several months, I began to see the necessity of having a permanent location for the institution, where we could have the students not only in their class rooms, but get hold of them in their home life, and teach them how to take care of their bodies in the matter of bathing, care of the teeth, and in general cleanliness. We also felt that we must not only teach the students how to prepare their food, but how to serve and eat it properly. So long as we had the students only a few hours in the class room during the day, we could give attention to none of these important matters, which our students had not had an opportunity of learning before leaving their homes. Few of the students who came during the first year were able to remain during the nine months' session, for lack of money, so we felt the necessity of having industries where the students could pay a part of their board in cash. It was rather noticeable that, notwithstanding the poverty of most of the students who came to us in the earlier months of the institution, most of them had the idea of getting an education in order that they might find some method of living without manual labor; that is, they had the feeling that to work with the hands was not conducive to the development of the highest type of lady or gentleman. This feeling we wanted to change as fast as possible, by teaching students the dignity, beauty and civilizing power of intelligent labor.

After a few months had passed, I wrote Gen. J. F. B. Marshall, at that time treasurer of the Hampton Institute, and put our condition before him, telling him that there was an abandoned farm about a mile from the town of Tuskegee in the market which I could secure at a very cheap price for our institution. As I had absolutely no money with which to make the first payment on the farm, I summoned the courage to ask Gen. Marshall to lend me $500 with which to make the first payment. To my surprise a letter came back in a few days enclosing a check for $500. A contract was made for the purchase of the farm, which at that time consisted of 100 acres. Subsequent purchases and gifts of adjacent lands have increased the number of acres at this place to 700, and this is the present site of the Tuskegee Institute. This has again been enlarged from time to time by purchases and gifts of land not adjacent until at present the school owns farm lands to the number of about 2,500 acres.

After the school had been in session three months, Miss Olivia A. Davidson, a graduate of the Hampton Institute and later a graduate of the Framingham, Mass., Normal School, was employed as an assistant teacher.

Miss Davidson was teaching among her people near Memphis, Tennessee, in 1879, when the yellow fever drove her away. She went to Hampton, entered the senior class and graduated the following spring. She did not go to Hampton, however, until her application to return to Memphis to help nurse the yellow fever patients had been refused by the authorities there. Through friends she was able to enter the Normal School at Framingham, Massachusetts, and graduated in the summer of 1881; and, when an assistant at Tuskegee was called for, she accepted the work. Her enthusiasm had won the admiration of her schoolmates, and from them she received much assistance for the school at Tuskegee in after years.

The success of the school, especially during the first half dozen years of its existence, was due more to Miss Davidson than any one else. During the organization of the school and in all matters of discipline she was the one to bring order out of every difficulty. When the last effort had apparently been exhausted and it seemed that things must stop, she was the one to find a way out. Not only was this true at the school, but when a campaign for money had ended unsuccessfully, she would start for the North, and money was sure to be found.

Our hardest struggle began after we had made the first payment on the farm. We not only had to secure the money within a few months with which to repay Gen. Marshall's loan, but had to get the means with which to meet future payments, and also to erect a building on the farm. Miss Davidson went among the white and colored families in Tuskegee and told them our plans and needs, and there were few of either race who did not contribute either something in cash or something that could be turned into cash at the many festivals and fairs which were held for the purpose of raising money to help the school. In many cases the white ladies in Tuskegee contributed chickens or cakes that were sold for the benefit of our new enterprise. I do not believe there was a single Negro family or scarcely an individual in Tuskegee or its vicinity that did not contribute something in money or in kind to the school. These contributions were most gladly made, and often at a great sacrifice.

Perhaps I might as well say right here that one of the principal things which made it easy to start

From 1884 to 1894 comparatively little was heard of the school in the public press, yet that was a period of constant and solid growth. In 1884 the enrollment was 169. In 1894 the enrollment had increased to 712, and 54 officers and teachers were employed. Besides the growth in the number of students and instructors, there had also been quite an increase in the number of buildings, and in every way the students were made more comfortable in their surroundings. By 1893 we had upon the school grounds thirty buildings of various kinds and sizes, practically all built by the labor of the students.

Between 1884 and 1894, I think, the hardest work was done in securing money. Regularly, during this period, we were compelled, on account of lack of accommodations, to refuse many students, but very often they would come to us under such circumstances that, though lacking in accommodations, we could not have the heart to turn them away, especially after they had traveled long distances, as was true in many cases. Students seemed willing to put up with almost any kind of accommodations if they were given a chance to secure an education.

During this period either Miss Davidson or myself, or sometimes both of us, spent a great deal of time in the North getting funds with which to meet our ever increasing demands. This, of course, was the hardest and most trying part of the work. Beginning early in the morning, the day was spent in seeing individuals at their homes or in their offices; and in the evening, and sometimes during the day, too, addresses were delivered before churches, Sunday Schools, or other organizations. On many occasions I have spoken as many as five times at different churches on the same Sabbath.

The large increase in the number of students tempted us often to put up buildings for which we had no money. In the early days of the institution by far the larger proportion of the buildings were begun on faith. I remember at one time we began a building which cost in the end about $8,000, and we had only $200 in cash with which to pay for it; nevertheless the building was completed after a hard struggle and is now in constant use.

I remember at one time we were very much in need of money with which to meet pressing obligations. I borrowed $400 from a friend, with the understanding that the money must be returned within thirty days. On the morning of the day that the thirty days expired we were without the $400 with which to repay the loan, and were, of course, very much depressed in consequence. The mail, however, came in at about eleven o'clock, and brought a check from a friend for exactly $400. I could give a number of other such instances illustrating how we were relieved from embarrassing circumstances in ways that have always seemed to me to have been providential. Although the institution has had occasion many times to give promissory notes in order to meet its obligations, there has never been a single instance when any of its notes have gone to protest, and its credit and general financial standing have always been good with the commercial world. I have felt deeply obligated to the white and colored citizens of Tuskegee for their kindness in helping the school financially when it did not have money to meet its obligations. We have never applied to an individual or to either of the banks in Tuskegee for aid that we did not get it when the banks or individuals were able to aid us. The banks have been more than kind, often seemingly inconveniencing themselves in order to be of service to our institution. In the earlier days of the institution, when we had little in the way of income, on several occasions I have started to the depot, when I had to make a journey away from Tuskegee, with no money in my pocket, but felt perfectly sure of meeting a friend in the town of Tuskeg