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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition,
1998
[Cover Image]
William J. Edwards
[Frontispiece Image]
[Title Page Image]
[Title Page Verso Image]
BY
ILLUSTRATED
Copyright, 1918
by
THE CORNHILL COMPANY
TO MY LOVING WIFE WHO ENCOURAGED ME IN ALL MY
EARLY STRUGGLES AND AIDED ME IN
ALL MY ACHIEVEMENTS
In bringing this book before the public, it is my hope that the friends of the Snow Hill School and all who are interested in Negro Education may become more familiar with the problems and difficulties that confront those who labor for the future of a race. I have had to endure endless hardships during these twenty-five years, in order that thousands of poor negro youths might receive an industrial education, - boys and girls who might have gone into that demoralized class that is a disgrace to any people and that these friends may continue their interest in not only Snow Hill but all the schools of the South that are seeking to make better citizens of our people. I also hope that the interest may be sustained until the State and Nation realize that it is profitable to educate the black child as well as the white.
To me, these have been twenty-five years of self denial, of self sacrifice, of deprivation, even of suffering, but when I think of the results, I am still encouraged to go on; when I think of the work that Mr. McDuffie is doing at Laurinburg, N. C., Brown at Richmond, Ala., Knight at Evergreen, Ala., Mitchell at W. Butler, Ala., Carmichael at Perdue Hill, Ala., Brister at Selma, Ala., and hundreds of others, I feel that the sacrifice has not been in vain, so I continue believing
that after all the great heart of the American people is on the right side. I think that to-day, the Negro faces the dawn, - not the twilight, - the morning, - not the evening.
In my passionate desire to hasten that time and with the crying needs of my race at heart, I choose this opportunity for making an appeal in their behalf.
"Lord, and what shall this man do?" (John 21.)
Man is a relative being and should be thus considered. The status of my brother then will always serve as a standard of value by which my own conduct can be measured; by his standard mine may become either high or low, broad or narrow, deep or shallow. This is the theory that underlies all humanitarian work. This is the great dynamic force of the Christian life.
No question is being asked by the American people more earnestly today than this one: "Lord, What shall this man, the Negro, do, - this black man upon whom centuries of ignorance have left their marks?" He has made a faithful slave, a courageous soldier, and when trained and educated, an industrious and law-abiding citizen, yet he is troubled on every side. What shall he do? Uneducated, undisciplined, untrained, he is often ferocious or dangerous; he makes a criminal of the lowest type for he is the product of ignorance.
Crime has increased in proportion as educational privileges have been withdrawn. This brings the Negro face to face with a most dangerous criminal force. What shall this man do? It is true that the white man is further up on the ladder of civilization than the Negro, but the Negro desires to climb and has made rapid strides, according to his chances.
Christ's answer to Peter was, "What is that to thee, follow thou Me." John's future welfare evidently depended upon Peter's ability to follow Christ. So the future work and welfare of the Negro in the Black-Belt of the South depend largely upon the Christian work of the southern white man. The Negro needs justice and mercy from the courts of the land and asks for equal rights in educational opportunities.
We admit that there is a difference between the white man and the Negro, but the difference is not as great as was the difference between Christ and His disciples. We admit that the white man is above the Negro, but not so high as was Christ above His disciples. The very fact that Christ was superior to His disciples served to Him as a reason why He should minister unto them. The superiority of the white man to his black brother can only be shown by the white man's willingness to minister unto him. Lord, what shall this black man do?
Many great problems confront the people of the rural South, namely, this Negro Problem and the problem of sufficient labor supply. In a practical way I wish to consider the relation of the Negro to the labor problem of the rural South. It is a fact that today many of the best farms of the South have been turned into pastures because of the lack of labor; other farms have been sold, and still others are growing up in weeds because there is no one to till them. This condition obtains in a very marked degree in almost every southern state. Certainly in most of the Agricultural Sections.
Before investigating the cause of this condition, men
of influence and power have hastened to proclaim through the press and otherwise, that the responsibility rests upon the Negro. They say that the Negro is lazy, worthless, criminal and will not work and therefore they are compelled to have immigrants to work these fields. That there are lazy, worthless and criminal Negroes, we do not deny, but we do deny that as a race they are such.
The facts are these: first, the South, unlike other sections of the country, has not had thousands of immigrants to come into her borders year after year to do her work, but has depended solely upon the increase in her native population for this purpose. This increase has not kept pace with the marvellous growth and development of that section, hence, the cry for labor. Second, scarcity of labor in that section is due in part, to ignorance and a false idea of real freedom. Men with such ideas do not work long in any one place, but rove from section to section and work enough to keep themselves living. This labor is not only unprofitable to the individual, but is not satisfactory to the employers. Third, the labor trouble in the rural South is due mostly to the way in which the landlords and merchants treat their tenants and customers.
The great mass of Negroes in the South either rent the lands or work them on shares. This rent varies according to the kind of crops that are made. If the tenant makes a good crop this year, he must expect to pay more rent the next year, or his farm will be rented to another at higher figures. Of course, the Negroes are ignorant and are unable to keep their own accounts. Sometimes these Negro farmers pay as much
as 50%, 75% and 100% on the goods and provisions which they consume during the year.
This method of renting lands and selling goods according to the condition of the crops, is repeated year after year. I know ignorant farmers who have been working under these conditions for twenty-five and thirty years, who have never been able to get more than $15 or $20 in any one year during this period. These are not worthless and shiftless Negroes, but persons who work hard from Monday morning until Saturday night. As a rule, they are on their farms at sunrise, and remain there until sunset. They have their dinners brought to them in the fields. I have seen small families grow into large ones under these conditions. I have also seen infants grow to manhood under same. Now, these people who have been working in this way for twenty-five and thirty years are becoming discouraged. When you ask them why they do not ditch, fertilize, and improve their farms, their answer is, that if they do this, the next year they will either have to pay more rent or hunt another home for themselves.
It seems to be the policy of the landlords and the merchants of the rural South to keep their tenants and customers in debt. It is this abominable method of the landlords and tenants of the rural South more than anything else, that has caused many of the best farming lands there to be turned into pastures, others to be sold at sheriff sale, and still others to be growing up in weeds. Another menace is loss of fertility of the soil.
The problem is, how can we stop these people from
leaving the country for the cities and other places of public works and again reclaim these waste fields? It was once thought that the places of these Negroes could be supplied by immigrants from foreign countries, but this hope is now almost abandoned. In fact, the few immigrants who have gone into that section have, in many instances, been oppressed almost as much as the Negroes, many have gone to other parts of the country or have returned to their homes. So we find ourselves face to face with large and fertile agricultural areas in the South with no labor to till them.
The remedy of these evils lies in the Negro himself. He is best suited to the work, best adapted to the climate, and understands the southern white man better than anyone else. Furthermore, he knows the white man; knows his disposition and inclinations, and therefore, knows what is so called his place. He feels that justice is wanting in the courts of the South and he therefore tries to avoid all troubles. Most of all, he prays for a chance to work and educate his children. He labors and waits thus patiently because he has faith in the American people. He believes that ere long the righteous indignation of this people will be aroused and like the great wave of prohibition, will sweep this country from center to circumference, and then every man will be awarded according to his several abilities.
These waste places can be reclaimed and the guttered hills made to blossom, only by giving the Negro a common education combined with religious, moral and industrial training and the opportunity to at least
own his home, if not the land he cultivates. The Negro must be taught to believe that the farmer can become prosperous and independent; that he can own his home and educate his children in the country. If he can, and he can be taught these things, in less than ten years, every available farm in the rural South will be occupied.
WILLIAM J. EDWARDS.
All that I know of my ancestors was told to me by my people. I learned from my grandfather on my mother's side that the family came to Alabama from South Carolina. He told me that his mother was owned by the Wrumphs who lived in South Carolina, but his father belonged to another family. For some cause, the Wrumphs decided to move from South Carolina to Alabama; this caused his mother and father to be separated, as his father remained in South Carolina. The new home was near the village of Snow Hill. This must have been in the Thirties when my grandfather was quite a little child. He had no hope of ever seeing his father again, but his father worked at nights and in that way earned enough money to purchase his freedom from his master. So after four or five years he succeeded in buying his own freedom from his master and started out for Alabama. When he arrived at Snow Hill, he found his family, and Mr. Wrumphs at once hired him as a driver. He remained with his family until his death, which
occurred during the war. At his death one of his sons, George, was appointed to take his place as driver.
As I now remember, my grandfather told me that his mother's name was Phoebe and that she lived until the close of the war. My grandfather married a woman by the name of Rachael and she belonged to a family by the name of Sigh. His wife's mother came directly from Africa and spoke the African language. It is said that when she became angry no one could understand what she said. Her owner allowed her to do much as she pleased.
My grandfather had ten children, my mother being the oldest girl. She married my father during the war and, as nearly as I can remember, he told me that it was in 1864. Three children were born to them and I was the youngest; there was a girl and another boy.
I know little of my father's people, excepting that he repeatedly told me that they came from South Carolina. So it is, that while I can trace my ancestry back to my great-grandparents on my mother's side, I can learn nothing beyond my grandparents on my father's side. My grandfather was a local preacher and could read quite well. Just how he obtained this knowledge, I have never been able to learn. He had the confidence and respect of the best white and colored people in the community and sometimes he would journey eight or ten miles to preach. Many times at these meetings there were nearly as many whites as colored people in the audience. He was indeed a grand old man. His name was James and his father's name was Michael. So after freedom he took the name of James Carmichael.
One of the saddest things about slavery was the separation of families. Very often I come across men who tell me that they were sold from Virginia, South Carolina or North Carolina, and that they had large families in those states. Since their emancipation, many of these have returned to their former states in search of their families, and while some have succeeded in finding them, there are those who have not been able to find any trace of their families and have come back again to die.
Sometimes we hear people attempt to apologize for slavery, but slavery at its best was hard and cruel. Often the old slaves tell me of their bitter experience. Even today, there are everywhere in the South many ex-slaves who lived their best days before and during the civil war. Many of these men and women found themselves alone at the close of the war, having been sold away from their families while they were slaves.
I was born at Snow Hill, Wilcox County, Alabama, September 12th, 1869, three-quarters of a mile east of where Snow Hill Institute now stands. My mother died September 9th, 1870, at which time I lacked three days of being one year old. From all I can learn my mother was very religious. She was a great praying woman and almost at every meeting held in the neighborhood she would be called upon to pray. In fact, she was sent for miles around to pray at these meetings. My mother's death left my father with three children, I being the youngest. He succeeded in getting his mother, who was cooking for her white people in Selma, Alabama, to come and take us in charge. My name was Ulyses Grant Edwards, but my grandmother,
who had been with white people since emancipation, changed my name to William. I afterward added to this my grandfather's name of James.
My father went away to work and I remained with my grandmother. We lived about one mile from the "quarter," - that is, the collection of slaves' cabins. We had about three acres of ground cleared around our cabin and my grandmother and I farmed. I do not know how old I was when I began working, for I have been a farm hand ever since I could remember anything. We usually made one bale of cotton each year and about twenty-five or thirty bushels of corn. Sometimes my grandfather would do our plowing and at other times, - as we had no stock, - my grandmother and I worked out for others to get our plowing done.
In the summer time it was the custom for little Negro boys to wear only one garment, a shirt. Sometimes, however, my grandmother would be unable to get one for me and in that case she would take a crocus sack or corn sack and put two holes in it for my arms and one for my head. In putting on a sack shirt for the first time the sensation was extremely irritating. It seemed as if a thousand pins were sticking me all at once, but after a few days it would become all right and I could wear it comfortably. For several summers this was my only garment.
Sometimes we would raise a pig during the summer to kill in the winter and sometimes we had a cow to milk. At such times we had plenty to eat, but at other times we had neither a pig nor a cow and then we had hard times in the way of getting something to eat.
Some days our only diet was corn-bread and corn coffee.
When I was old enough, I was sent to school for two or three months each winter. Here again I had a hard time, as we usually carried our dinner in a little tin bucket. Sometimes I had nothing but bread and when recess came for dinner, I went away by myself and ate my bread and drank water. As long as I could keep out of the way of the other children, no one was the wiser and I did not mind it, but some of the children began to watch me and in that way found that I had nothing but bread, and when they told the others, they would laugh and make fun of me. This would make me feel badly and sometimes I cried, but I did not stop school for this. My one desire was to learn to read the Bible for my old grandmother, who like my mother, was very religious. At last I was able to read the Bible for her. She would listen for hours and too, she would sing such songs as, "Roll, Jordan Roll."
Saturdays were mill days and I had to take the corn on my shoulder and go to the mill, which was four or five miles away. It always took me from four to five hours to make this trip, as I had to stop by the way several times to rest.
By this time my brother and sister were large enough to do good work on the farm. My grandfather and grandmother for whom they were working, now desired to take them wholly from my old grandmother. The Justice of the Peace said that the children might decide the matter. My brother chose to go to my grandfather's but my sister came back home with the grandmother who had reared us from infants.
Of course, I did not go to court, because they all knew that there was no chance of my leaving my grandmother.
In the early spring of 1880 while on one of my trips to the mill the thought dawned upon me that my grandmother was very old and must soon die. I cried all the way to the mill and back. I could not see how I would live after she was gone. I did not tell anybody why I was crying. On a June night, she became severely ill and died. All she said to us during her illness was: "Children, I have been waiting for this hour a long time."
After the death of my grandmother, her daughter Marina Rivers, who was herself a widow and well on in years, came to live with us that year. I soon learned to love her as I had my grandmother and never once thought of leaving her for my mother's people. We gathered the crop that fall and when all was over, my father, whom I had not seen for five or six years, came to carry my sister and myself to Selma, where he was staying. The thought of going to the city filled me with joy and the time to go could not come too soon for me.
We arrived in Selma several days before Christmas. Here everything was strange to me, as I had never been in a city before. I did not know any one and it was not long before I was crying to return to Snow Hill. My father gave me to understand then, that Selma was my home now and that I should not be permitted to return to Snow Hill. He said that he was going to put me in school when the New Year came, but when the time came nothing was said about school. He gave us little care and often we were in need of food and clothes.
After spending a few weeks doing nothing, I went out one day to hunt for work and succeeded in getting a job at the compress, where they reduced the size of a bale of cotton by one-half and clipped the tires. My job was to straighten out the bent tires. I got twenty-five cents a day for this. That week I made one dollar and fifty cents. This was the most money I had ever had. I spent almost all of it for provisions and that night my sister cooked a great supper. Finally, my father said that he would save my wages for me, but if he did he has it still, as I never have seen any that he collected.
I had not been in Selma long before I was taken ill. That misfortune changed my whole life. I had no
medical attendance and suffered greatly. Sometimes I prayed and sometimes I cried. The news reached Snow Hill that I was sick and not being cared for. As soon as she could, my aunt Rina came to Selma for me and carried me home.
On my return to Snow Hill I was sick and emaciated, but few people welcomed me. Many tried to discourage my aunt for bringing me back. They gave me about three months to live. I was glad to be at home again and had the consolation of knowing that should I die I would be buried in the old burying ground.
I was unable at the time to do any work on the farm, so I was put to the task of raising chickens. I took personal interest in the little chicks. I had a name for each one of them. I would follow them around the yard and see them work for their food. When I was weary of this I would go to an old deserted cabin nearby, taking a few old books and the Bible; there unmolested I would spend hours at a time reading the Bible and pondering over the books. One of the books was an old Davies' Practical Arithmetic. Nothing gave me more pleasure than working out new sums for the first time. I kept up this practice until I had read the New Testament through several times and had worked every problem in the arithmetic. In addition to this I would gather up wood and carry it home for the people to cook with.
My aunt and her daughter were very poor and had to work each day for what they could get to eat. It pained me because I could not go out and work for something to eat as I had done in Selma. I never ate
a full meal although my aunt and her daughter insisted upon my doing so; I felt that I had no right to eat up what they had worked so hard to get, while I was doing nothing that was worth while. My aunt's daughter had a son who was one month older than I; he was well grown for his age and always was the picture of health. We all lived in a one-room cabin and there were three beds in it, besides it was the kitchen and dining-room as well. My aunt and her daughter wanted me to sleep at nights with their boy, but he objected, so I would not force myself upon him. I asked them to give me one or two old quilts and I would spread these upon the door of the cabin at night for my bed. I would get up early and roll them up and store them away in some dark corner of the cabin until the next night. I slept in this manner for several years.
After I had been at home for several months and my condition did not improve, my aunt went about begging people for nickels and dimes to take me to the local physician. I think she raised about three dollars in this way and succeeded in getting a doctor to treat me, but he gave my aunt to understand that she had to pay cash for each treatment.
I shall never forget one Sunday when a great many of the neighbors came to our home, they began telling my aunt what they would do with me if they were in her place. At the time I was in the back-yard watching the chicks. Some one said that she should send me to the poorhouse, others said that she had done so much for me, it was time that some of my other people should take me and share in the burden, while others
said that I should be driven away and go wherever I could find shelter. I was so offended at hearing this that I hobbled down the hill and there under a pine tree, which now stands, I prayed for an hour or more for God to let me die. After this prayer I lay down, folded my arms and closed my eyes, to see if my prayer would be answered. After waiting for awhile I finally decided to get up and I felt better then than I had felt for several months. I have made many prayers since then, but never since have I prayed to die.
None of the solicitations and advices from our good friends could change my aunt's attitude towards me. In fact, she was more determined now than ever to care for me. The next year she rented a little patch and worked it as best she could and that fall she cleared a little money. As the local physician had done me no good, she took me to Dr. George Keyser who lived in the town of Richmond, eight or ten miles away. Dr. Geyser had the reputation of being the best physician in that section of the state and people would come for twenty-five and thirty miles around to be treated by him. But we had also heard that he was a man who would not treat any one without having his money down. As I remember, my aunt paid him five dollars on the first visit and each time after that she would send whatever she could get. I used to borrow a mule from one of the neighbors to ride to see him. Sometimes when my medicine gave out and I had to go without any money, I would pray to God the whole distance that he might soften the doctor's heart so that he would let me have my medicine. I don't know
whether my prayers were needed or not, but I do know that the doctor always treated me kindly and finally he told me that I could be treated whenever my medicine gave out, money or no money. He treated me in this way until the early fall of 84 when he told my aunt that I needed an operation and she must try and get me a place to stay nearby so that he could see me daily. After looking around she found on the doctor's place an old fellow-servant, that is, an old lady who belonged to the same man my aunt did in slavery time. Her name was Lucy George; she was near the age of my aunt, and had never been married. They were indeed glad to meet and she readily consented to take me to her little cabin where she lived alone. The doctor visited his plantation two or three times a week and usually came to see me. He operated on me twice during my stay there.
The boy was kind, courteous and polite to every one, white and
colored, and all sympathized with him in his great affliction, and
manifested their sympathy in a very substantial way, by sending
him many good things to eat. This enabled me to build up his
general health.
I had to remove the dead bone (necrosed bone) from his arm and
heel many times. He always stood the operation patiently and
manifested so great a desire to get well, I kept him near me a long
time and patiently watched his case.
After four years' treatment his heel cured up nicely, and he was
enabled to walk very well, and the following fall he picked cotton.
With prudence, care and close application to cotton picking, he saved
money enough to very nearly pay his medical account, and his fare
to Booker Washington's School at Tuskegee, Alabama.
The work of this pupil of Booker Washington, - carried on under
adverse circumstances, - is worthy of emulation. He has, and is
now, doing much good work for his race. He has won the confidence
and esteem of all the white and colored citizens of this section
of the country. He is a remarkable man, a great benefactor to
his race, and it affords me great pleasure to testify as to his history
and character. Mr. R. O. Simpson, on whose plantation he lived
and who aided him materially, - is one of the Trustees of his
Institute."
GEORGE W. KEYSER, M. D.
For three months after my
first operation I could
not walk. My aunt would come from Snow Hill once
a week to bring my rations and to see how I was getting
along. I always cried when she went home.
During my first month's stay on the doctor's place,
"Aunt Lucy" George with whom I lived, was at
home most of the time, but when the cotton season
came on, she had to go to the doctor's field, which was
a mile away, to pick cotton. This left me alone for
five days in the week. "Aunt Lucy" would get up
early and prepare her breakfast, take her lunch to
the field with her, and would not return until night.
She would also leave me something to eat, and I could
crawl about the house and get such other things as I
needed.
The first few days that I was alone were the most
miserable days of my life. I tried to walk, but fainted
once or twice at these attempts, so I had to be contented
with crawling. Soon, however, I began crawling
about the yard. I found several red ants' nests
within about twenty or twenty-five yards of the house,
and soon made friends of the ants. I would crawl
from nest to nest and watch them do their work. I
became so interested in them that I would spend the
whole day watching and following them about the
yard. I would be anxious for the nights to pass that
I might return to them the next day.
I found that the ants worked by classes. One class
would bring out the dirt, another would go out in
search of food, another would take away the dead, another
would over look those that worked, and still another
class, though few in numbers, would come out
and look around and then return. These had much
larger heads than the average. Some few, however,
with great heads, would come out once or twice a day.
I never learned what their business was, as they did
not seem to do much of anything. They very seldom
went more than a few inches from the nests. I noticed,
too, that those that went in search of food and
failed to get it, would come back to the nests and stand
around and consult with the guards and then would
return. They did this several times. Sometimes they
would go away and get into the weeds and rest awhile.
However, when they saw others coming, they would
start out again. Sometimes, after making several
trips without success, I would give them crumbs of
bread, and they would hasten away to their nests.
They never hesitated when they had food, but would
run right in. This was great fun for me, and I spent
most of the remainder of my time in this manner.
This was during the fall of '84. By the first week in
December I had recovered sufficiently to be able to
walk very well with a stick and could do a little work.
I then returned to Snow Hill with my aunt, and,
though I was anxious to return home, I hated very
much to leave my little friends. I got home in time to
make toy wagons for my Christmas money.
The following year, although far from being well,
I could do a little work on my aunt's farm. I ought
not to call it a farm, because it was only a few acres
which she rented from one of the tenants on Mr.
Simpson's plantation. The habit of sub-renting was
very prevalent on this plantation. A tenant with one
mule would rent twenty-five acres, if he had two
mules he would rent fifty acres. Now in order to get
work done on his farm, he would sub-rent four or five
acres, to some one who would do this work for him.
It was in this way that my ant could get land to work.
We usually made on these few acres about twenty
bushels of corn and sometimes a half a bale or a whole
bale of cotton.
Having to work for our plowing and to pay the rent
of the land, we had but little chance to do much work
for ourselves. We very seldom had enough to eat.
Some days we would work from the rising of the sun
until dark without anything but water. Then my aunt
would go out among the neighbors in the evening and
borrow a little corn meal or get a little on condition
that she would work to pay for it the next day. While
my aunt would go to hunt for the bread I would go out
and beg for some milk from some of our friends. I
would always add water to my milk to make it go a
long way. This bread and half-water-and-milk constituted
our supper for many nights.
In spite of these hard times I always found time to
study my books. Sometimes I borrowed books from
the boys and girls who had them. We were too poor
to buy oil so I would go to the woods and get a kind
of pine that we called light-wood. This would make
an excellent light and I could study some nights until
twelve o'clock. When the blackberries, peaches, apples
and plums were ripe, we fared better, as these
grew wild and we could have a plenty of them to eat.
As the season came for the corn to mature, we would
sometimes make a meal of green corn. When the corn
became too hard for us to use in this way, we used to
make a grater out of an old piece of tin and would
grate the corn and make meal of it in this way until
it was hard enough to go to the mill.
When the cotton picking season came on we could
pick cotton for the neighbors and in that way could
have a plenty to eat. They paid fifty cents a hundred
pounds for picking cotton. I sometimes picked two
hundred pounds a day, but by picking at night, I occasionally
got almost three hundred. We children
thought it great fun to go into the swamps at night to
pick cotton. We would go at seven o'clock in the evening
and spend the whole night in the cotton fields.
When we got sleepy we would lie down in the cotton
row with our cotton sacks under our heads. We would
sleep a few hours and get up and begin picking again.
In the swamps at night the owls and frogs made
plenty of music for us. Such was my life for several
years.
During all these years the one thing uppermost in
my mind was the desire to attend some school, but I
could not see how I would ever be able to do so. I
had heard much of Talladega College, the school at
Normal and the state school at Montgomery, but board
at these schools was from seven to eight dollars per
month and this had to be paid in cash. This, of
course, would keep me out, as I could never see how
I could get so much money.
It was during the month of August '87 that I first
heard of Tuskegee. There was a revival meeting going
on at one of the churches at Snow Hill. I was
determined to visit this meeting. I did not have suitable
clothes, neither did I have any shoes, so my people
told me that I would not be able to attend church.
I had not been to church in seven years, and I was
very anxious to hear some preaching. Notices were
sent out that on a Wednesday night a Presiding Elder
would speak. This man had the reputation of being
a great preacher. All of our people prepared early,
and went to church. When I thought the services had
begun, I too went. Though I was far from being well,
I did not have much trouble in reaching there. I did
not go in, however, but went around to the rear of the
church. The building was a large, box-like cottage,
and contained many cracks. One could hear as well
on the outside as on the inside. I stood directly behind
the pulpit and heard all that the preacher said.
At the close of his sermon he spoke of the school at
Tuskegee, where, he said, poor boys and girls could
go without money and without price, and work for an
education. From that night I decided to go to Tuskegee.
Before the meeting closed, I returned home, and
when the others got there, I was in my place fast
asleep. I wrote Mr. Washington the next day, and he
sent me a catalogue immediately.
In the fall of '87 I told
my aunt that I wanted to go
to Tuskegee the next year, and that in addition to her
little farm, I wanted to rent an acre of land and work
it for that purpose. She encouraged me in this idea
and said that she wished so much that she could do
something for me that was worth while, but she was
poor and could do but little, as she was now well advanced
in years. She said, however, that she would
help me to work my patch.
About this time I learned that my brother Washington,
who had been away for a number of years, was
living at Hazen, Alabama, about fifty miles northeast
of Snow Hill. He was working in the bridge-gang on
a railroad and was making good money. I learned
also that my father and sister had died several years
before. Now as there were but two of us, and I was
cripple, I thought that I would write my brother and
get him to help me go to Tuskegee. So I started out
for Hazen and reached there after two days' journey
on foot. My brother did not seem to care for me and
gave me no encouragement whatever. This was a
sore disappointment to me and I did not remain there
more than a few days. I returned to Snow Hill very
much discouraged, but the warmth with which my old
aunt greeted and welcomed me back home, helped me
much.
Soon we were all busy getting ready to plant our
little farms. That year there were four of us still living
in the one room log cabin, my aunt, her daughter,
her grandson and myself. Each of us had a little
farm. About mid-summer when our provisions had
given out, my aunt's daughter and her son mortgaged
their crops for something to eat, and wanted that we
should do the same, but I would not agree to do so.
This, of course, made it hard for me to get anything
to eat. My cousin and her son were perfectly willing
that their mother and grandmother should share
in their provisions, but would see to it that I got none.
I did not think hard of them for this, because I felt
that I had no right to what they had. I continued to
live on water and bread, and sometimes I would get a
little milk from the neighbors as I had formerly done.
I asked them, however, if I might have the water in
which they boiled their vegetables whenever they had
a boiled dinner. We called this water "pot liquor."
Of course, they readily consented to this and sometimes
I would get enough of this liquor to last me two
or three days. In fact, I was poorly nourished all the
time.
About this time someone came through the county
selling clocks, on condition that we pay for them later
in the fall. I objected to this but the other members
of the family over-ruled my objections and the clock
was bought on the condition stated above. The clock
cost $12 and each of us agreed to pay $3.00 each.
When the time came to pay for this clock no one had
any money, and so I paid what I had saved to prepare
myself for Tuskegee. I thought now that I would
never get to that school as I had spent most of my
money in paying for a worthless clock. However, I
picked cotton day and night for almost two weeks, and
succeeded in making all the money back which I had
spent for the clock. I was now able to finish paying
Dr. Keyser and get a few clothes and start for Tuskegee.
For a long time the people in the quarter did
not believe that I was going, and many tried to discourage
me. Had it not been for my aunt's encouraging
words and sincere efforts, I believe that I could
not have overcome the efforts of others to keep me
from going. When, however, they all found that I
was determined to go, they all became my friends and
each would give me a nickel or a dime to help me off.
The night before I left for Tuskegee, one of the
neighbors told me that while he did not have anything
to give me, he had a contract to get a cord of wood to
the woodyard for the train by six o'clock the next
morning and if I would take his team and haul it, he
would give me one dollar for my services. I agreed
to do it and at two o'clock the next morning I was at
his home hitching up the team to haul the wood. I
had to go about two miles for the wood and there was
a very heavy frost that morning. By five o'clock I
had hauled the wood and had the team back to my
neighbor's home waiting for my dollar. I thought
this to be the coldest morning that I had ever experienced
up to that time. I then got my few things together
and was off for school.
I reached Tuskegee the first day of '89. I found
things there very strange indeed. Hundreds of students
were going to and fro. Some were playing football,
others were having band practice, and still others
were going around doing nothing, as the first day of
the New Year was a holiday. I was placed with a
crowd of boys from Pensacola, Fla. I learned afterwards
that they were the roughest boys in school.
They made it very unpleasant for me, so much so that
I decided to return home. In going back to the office
I met Mr. Washington for the first time. He wanted
to know why I was not satisfied, and after I told him
my troubles, he said that he would remedy them. I
was deeply impressed with him and from that day to
this, I loved him as a father. He changed my room
and I found a crowd of very congenial boys.
The next ordeal through which I was to pass, was
going into the dining-room and using knives and
forks, but I avoided all humiliation by simply watching.
I have made it a rule of my life to never be the
first to try new things, nor the last to lay old ones
aside.
After supper, I was worried about sleeping. I had
heard the boys talking about night shirts and I knew I
had none; in fact, I did not know their purpose. So
when time came to retire, one of the boys in my room
who had several, gave me one, then I was undecided
just whether it was to go over my day shirt or over my
undershirt, but I did not want to ask how it should
be worn, so I decided to sit up until some one had gone
to bed and by watching him I knew I would learn just
how to use mine. In this way I came through all right.
The habit of using the tooth-brush was not so hard.
The next day the regular routine work of the school
began and I was given my examination. I took examination
for the B-Middle class. This is the second
year normal. Miss Annie C. Hawley of Portland,
Maine, who was then a teacher there, gave me the examination.
I made the class in all of the subjects except
grammar. Of this subject I knew absolutely
nothing. I did not know what a sentence was. I could
not tell the subject from the predicate, so I was put
back two years into what is called the A-Prep. class.
After my examination I was assigned to my work.
I was placed in the tin shop, which was then being
placed as one of the industries, under Mr. Lewis
Adams. I was the first student to work in this shop,
but it did not take two days to learn that I could
never be a tidocsouth. Next I was assigned to the printing
office, but here too I found that I could never become
a printer; so finally, I was put on the farm and
there I remained during my whole stay at Tuskegee.
The farm manager at that time, Mr. C. W. Green, had
charge of the brick-yard, poultry, dairy, landscape
gardening, horticulture, as well as the general farm
and truck-farm. I worked some in all of these departments
and enjoyed my work immensely. I considered
the work in the brick-yard as being the hardest of all
and that was the only work which I could not do without
suffering great pain because of my physical condition.
Still I was willing to endure suffering if by
so doing I could obtain an education.
I did not go to night school because I was given extra
work, such as keeping the clocks on the campus
regulated and making fires in the girls' buildings, and
too, they had a system of electric bells which were
used for the passing of classes, and I kept these in
order. In this way I worked enough each month to
pay my board and stay in day school. Of course, I
did not have, or get any money for my work, but I
did not worry about that. Miss Maggie Murray (afterwards
Mrs. Washington) kept me well supplied
with clothes from the supply of second hand garments
which came to the school from northern friends.
The remainder of the time that I was at Tuskegee
was spent in practically the same way that I have already
described. Many of the students would complain
about the food, but the fact that I was getting
three regular meals a day was enough for me. And
too, I was now sleeping in a bed, something that I
seldom had done.
When burning bricks they would pay students cash
for working at night, and it was by this work that I
got a little money now and then. It usually takes
from seven to eight days to burn a kiln of brick and
sometimes I would work every night until the kiln had
been burned.
The one thing that made the deepest impression on
me while at Tuskegee was Mr. Washington's Sunday
evening talks to the students. He used to tell us that
after getting our education we should return to our
homes and there help the people. He said that the
people were supporting Tuskegee in order that we
might be able to help the masses of our people. I
could understand every word he said, and too, I felt
always that he was talking directly to me. These
talks of Dr. Washington's changed the course of my
whole life and they are responsible for my being at
the Snow Hill School today.
It was when I reached the senior class that I came
in personal touch with Dr. Washington, as he taught
that class in two or three subjects. Here I could
study him as I was never able to do before. He had
a thorough grasp upon all subjects he taught and
would accept nothing but the same from his students.
As the time was nearing for my graduation, I was
deeply worried about my Commencement suit. All
of the other members of the class were sending home
for their suits or for the money with which to get
them, but I knew that my aunt was not able to help
me, so I was at a loss to know where I should get
mine. Finally, I decided to write to Mr. R. O.
Simpson of Furman, Alabama, the man on whose
plantation I was reared, and ask him to loan me fifteen
dollars. I prayed during the entire time it took
me to write the letter and when I had sealed it I
prayed over it again. In two days' time I had an answer
with the fifteen dollars. So all of my troubles
and worries were banished and I proceeded to get
ready for Commencement. I graduated second, with
a class of twenty, on May 17, 1893. Our class motto
was "Deeds Not Words."
The morning of May 18th found me packing my
few clothes in an old trunk which one of the young
men had given me, and getting ready to return to
Snow Hill. All the while I was thinking of what I
could do to live up to this new training which I had
received at Tuskegee, and above all, how could I make
good our class motto: "Deeds Not Words." Although
it has been now well nigh 25 years since my
graduation, those words still ring in my ears: "Deeds
Not Words." I should like so to live that when the
summons come for me to join Dr. Washington in the
Great Beyond, these words might be written as an
epitaph on my tomb:
When I returned
from Tuskegee on the 19th of
May, 1893, I found my old aunt, her daughter and her
grandson still living in the one-room log cabin in
which I had left them four and a half years before.
Their condition was much the same as when I left
them. My first work was to build another end, a log
pen, to the one room cabin; this gave us two rooms,
something we never had before. As it was too late
for me to pitch a crop, I worked with them until their
crop was clean of weeds and then I went from farm to
farm in the neighborhood, helping all the farmers that
I could. The only pay I received was three meals a
day wherever I worked. I usually worked from one
to three days on each farm. All the while I was making
a close study of the people's condition. I continued
working in this way until I was convinced that
I had a thorough knowledge of their condition. I then
ventured to carry the investigation into other sections
of Wilcox County and the adjoining counties. I
visited most of the places in the counties of Monroe,
Butler, Dallas and Lowndes. These constitute most
of the Black Belt counties of the State. I made the
entire journey on foot.
It was a bright beautiful morning in July when I
started from my home, a log cabin. More than two
hundred Negroes were in the nearby fields plowing
corn, hoeing cotton and singing those beautiful songs
often referred to as plantation melodies: "I am going
to roll in my Jesus' arms," "O, Freedom," and
"Before I'd be a Slave, I'd be carried to my Grave."
With the beautiful fields of corn and cotton outstretched
before me, and the shimmering brook like a
silver thread twining its way through the golden
meadows, and then through verdant fields, giving
water to thousands of creatures as it passed, I felt
that the earth was truly clothed in His beauty and the
fulness of His glory.
But I had scarcely gone beyond the limits of the
field when I came to a thick undergrowth of pines.
Here we saw old pieces of timber and two posts.
"This marks the old cotton-gin house," said Uncle
Jim, my companion, and then his countenance grew
sad; after a sigh, he said: "I have seen many a Negro
whipped within an inch of his life at these posts. I
have seen them whipped so badly that they had to be
carried away in wagons. Many never did recover."
From this our road led first up-hill, then down, and
finally through a stretch of woods until we reached
Carlowville. This was once the most aristocratic
village of the Southern part of Dallas County. Perhaps
no one who owned less than a hundred slaves
was able to secure a home within its borders. Here
still are to be seen stately mansions and among the
names of the owners are those of Lyde, Lee, Wrumph,
Bibb, Youngblood and Reynolds. Many of these
mansions have been partly rebuilt and remodeled to
conform to modern styles of architecture, while others
have been deserted and are now fast decaying.
Usually the original families have sold out or many
have died out.
In Carlowville stands the largest white church in
Dallas or Wilcox Counties. It has a seating capacity
of 1,000, excluding the balcony, which during slavery
was used exclusively for the Negroes of the families
attending.
Our stay in Carlowville was necessarily short, as
the evening sun was low and the nearest place for
lodging was two miles ahead. Before reaching this
place we came to a large one-room log cabin, 30 by 36
feet on the road-side, with a double door and three
holes for windows cut in the sides. There was no
chimney nor anything to show that the room could be
heated in cold weather. This was the Hopewell Baptist
Church. Here five hundred members congregated
one Sunday in each month and spent the entire day in
eating, shouting, and praising God for His goodness
toward the children of men. Here also the three
months' school was taught during the winter. A few
hundred yards beyond this church brought us to the
home of a Deacon Jones. He was living in the house
occupied by the overseer of the plantation during
slavery. It was customary for Deacon Jones to care
for strangers who chanced to come into the community,
especially for the preachers and teachers. So
here we found rest. At supper Deacon Jones told of
the many preachers he had entertained and their fondness
for chicken.
After supper I spent some time in trying to find
out the real condition of the people in this section.
Mr. Jones told me how for ten years he had been trying
to buy some land, and had been kept from it more
than once, but that he was still hopeful of getting the
right deeds for the land for which he had paid. He
also told of many families who had recently moved
into this community. These newcomers had made a
good start for the year and had promising crops, but
they were compelled to mortgage their growing crops
in order to get "advances" for the year.
When asked of the schools, he said that there were
more than five hundred children of school age in his
township, but not more than two hundred of these had
attended school the previous winter, and most of these
for a period not longer than six weeks. He also said
that the people were very indifferent as to the necessity
of schoolhouses and churches. Quite a few who
cleared a little money the previous year had spent it
all in buying whiskey, in gambling, in buying cheap
jewelry, and for other useless articles. After spending
two hours in such talk, I retired for the evening.
Thus ended the first day of my search for first-hand
information.
Instead of going farther northward, we turned our
course westward for the town of Tilden, which is only
eight miles west of Snow Hill. The road from Carlowville
to Tilden is somewhat hilly, but a very pleasant
one, and for miles the large oak trees formed an
almost perfect arch.
On reaching Tilden we learned that there would be
a union meeting of two churches that night. I decided
that this would give me an opportunity to study the
religious life of these people for myself. The members
of churches number one and number two assembled
at their respective places at eight o'clock. The
members of church number two had a short praise
service and formed a line of procession to march to
church number one. All the women of the congregation
had their heads bound in pieces of white cloth,
and they sang peculiar songs as they marched. When
the members of church number two were within a few
hundred yards of the church number one, the singing
then alternated, and finally, when the members of
church number two came to church number one, they
marched around this church three times before entering
it.
After entering the church, six sermons were
preached to the two congregations by six different
ministers, and at least three of these could not read a
word in the Bible. Each minister occupied at least
one hour. Their texts were as often taken from
Webster's blue-back speller as from the Bible, and
sometimes this would be held upside down. It was
about two o'clock in the morning when the services
were concluded. Here, again, we found no schoolhouses,
and the three months' school had been taught
in one of the little churches.
The next day we started for Camden, a distance of
sixteen miles. This section between Tilden and Camden
is perhaps the most fertile section of land in the
State of Alabama. Taking a southwest course
from Tilden, I crossed into Wilcox County again, where I
saw acres of corn and miles of cotton, all being cultivated
by Negroes.
The evening was far advanced when we reached
Camden, but having been there before, we had no difficulty
in securing lodging. Camden is the seat of
Wilcox County, and has a population of about three
thousand. The most costly buildings of the town were
the courthouse and jail, and these occupied the most
conspicuous places. Here great crowds of Negroes
would gather on Saturdays to spend their earnings of
the week for a fine breakfast or dinner on the following
Sunday, or for useless trivialities.
On Saturday evenings, on the roads leading to and
from Camden, as from other towns, could be seen
groups of Negroes gambling here and there, and buying
and selling whiskey. As the county had voted
against licensing whiskey-selling, this was a violation
of the law, and often the commission merchant, a Negro,
was imprisoned for the offense, while those who
supplied him went free.
In Camden I found one Negro school-house; this
was a box-like cottage, 20 by 16 feet, and was supposed
to seat more than one hundred students. This
school, like those taught in the churches, was opened
only three months in the year.
After a two days' stay in Camden, I next visited
Miller's Ferry on the Alabama River, twelve miles
west of Camden. The road from Camden is one of the
best roads in the State, and for miles and miles one
could see nothing but cotton and corn.
At Miller's Ferry a Negro school-house of ample
proportions had been built on Judge Henderson's
plantation. Here the school ran several months in
the year, and the colored people in the community
were prosperous and showed a remarkable degree of
intelligence. Their church was as attractive as their
school-house.
Judge Henderson was for twelve years Probate
Judge of Wilcox County. He proved to be one of the
best judges this county has ever had, and even unto
this day he is admired by all, both white and black,
rich and poor, for his honesty, integrity, and high
sense of justice.
From Judge Henderson's place we traveled southward
to Rockwest, a distance of more than fifteen
miles. During this journey hundreds of Negroes were
seen at work in the corn and cotton fields. These
people were almost wholly ignorant, as they had
neither schools nor teachers, and their ministers were
almost wholly illiterate. At Rockwest I found a very
intelligent colored man, Mr. Darrington, who had attended
school at Selma for a few years. He owned
his home and ran a small grocery. He told of the
hardships with which he had to contend in building
up his business, and of the almost hopeless condition
of the Negroes about there. He said that they usually
made money each year, but that they did not know
how to keep it. The merchants would induce them
to buy buggies, machines, clocks, etc., but would never
encourage them to buy homes. We were very much
pleased with the reception which Mr. Darrington gave
us, and felt very much like putting into practice our
State motto, "Here We Rest," at his home, but our
objective point for the day was Fatama, sixteen miles
away.
On our journey that afternoon we saw hundreds of
UNCLE CHARLES LEE AND HIS HOME IN THE BLACKBELT
Negro one-room log cabins. Some of these were located
in the dense swamps and some on the hills, while
others were miles away from the public road. Most
of these people had never seen a locomotive.
We reached Fatama about seven o'clock that night,
and here for the first time we were compelled to divide
our crowd in order to get a night's lodging. Each of
us had to spend the night in a one-room cabin. It was
my privilege to spend the night with Uncle Jake, a
jovial old man, a local celebrity. After telling him of
our weary journey, he immediately made preparation
for me to retire. This was done by cutting off my
bed from the remainder of the cabin by hanging up a
sheet on a screen. While somewhat inconvenient, my
rest that night was pleasant, and the next morning
found me very much refreshed and ready for another
day's journey. Our company assembled at
Uncle Jake's for breakfast, after which we started
for Pineapple.
We found the condition of the Negroes between
Fatama and Pineapple much the same as that of those
we had seen the previous day. No school-house was
to be seen, but occasionally we would see a church at
the cross-roads. We reached Pineapple late in the
afternoon.
From Pineapple we went to Greenville, and from
Greenville to Fort Deposit, and from Fort Deposit
we returned to Snow Hill, after having traveled a
distance of 157 miles and visiting four counties.
In three of these counties there was a colored population
of 42,810 between the ages of five and twenty
years, and a white population of 7,608 of the same
ages. The Negro school population of Wilcox and
the seven adjoining counties was 11,623. Speaking
of public schools in the sense that educators use the
term, the colored people in this section had none. Of
course, there were so-called public schools here and
there, running from three to five months in the year
and paying the teachers from $7.50 to $18 per month.
Our trip through this section revealed the following
facts: (1) That while many opportunities were
denied our people, they abused many privileges: (2)
that there was a colored population, in this section
visited, of more than 200,000 and a school population
of 85,499; (3) that the people were ignorant and superstitious;
(4) that the teachers and preachers for
the most part, were of the same condition; (5) that
there were no public or private libraries and reading-rooms
to which they had access; (6) that, strictly
speaking, there were no public schools and only one
private one. Now, what can be expected of any people
in such a condition? Can the blind lead the blind?
They could not in the days of old, and it is not likely
they can now.
After this trip through
the "Black Belt" I was
more convinced than ever before of the great need
of an Industrial School in the very midst of these people;
a school that would correct the erroneous ideas
the people held of education; a school that would put
most stress upon the things which the people were
most likely to have to do with through life; a school
that would endeavor to make education practical
rather than theoretical; a school that would train men
and women to be good workers, good leaders, good
husbands, good wives, and finally train them to be fit
citizens of the State and proper subjects for the Kingdom
of God.
With this idea the Snow Hill Normal and Industrial
Institute was started twenty-five years ago in an old
dilapidated one-room log cabin with one teacher and
three students, with no State appropriation, and without
any church or society responsible for one dollar
of its expenses. Aside from this unfortunate state of
affairs, the condition of the people was miserable.
This was due partly to poor crops and partly to bad
management on their part.
In many instances the tenants were not only unable
to pay their debts, but were also unable to pay their
rents. In a few cases the landlords had to provide at
their own expense provisions for their tenants. This
was simply another way of establishing soup-houses
on the plantations. The idea of buying land was foreign
to all of them, and there were not more than
twenty acres of land owned by the colored people in
this whole neighborhood. The churches and schools
were practically closed, while crime and immorality
were rampant. The carrying of men and women to
the chain-gang was a frequent occurrence. These people
believed that the end of education was to free their
children from manual labor.
They were much opposed to industrial education.
When the school was started, many of the parents
came to school and forbade our "working" their children,
stating as their objection that their children had
been working all their lives and that they did not mean
to send them to school to learn to work. Not only did
they forbid our having their children work, but many
took their children out of school rather than allow
them to do so. A good deal of this opposition was
kept up by illiterate preachers and incompetent teachers,
who had not had any particular training for their
profession. In fact, ninety-eight per cent of them
had attended no school. We continued, however, to
keep the "Industrial Plank" in our platform, and
year after year some industry was added until
we now have fourteen industries in constant operation.
Agriculture is the foremost and basic industry of the
institution. We do this because we are in a farming
section and ninety-five per cent of the people depend
upon agriculture for a livelihood.
FIRST TRUSTEES OF SNOW HILL AND TWO OF THEIR WIVES
The early years of
the school were indeed trying
ones. There are however in all communities persons
whose hearts are in the right place. I found it so in
this case, for while there were many who opposed the
industrial idea, there were those who stood for it and
held up our arms. I refer to that noble class of old
colored men who always seek for truth. The men who
stood so loyally by me in the founding of the school
were Messrs. Frank Warren, Willis McCants, Ellis
Johnson, John Thomas, Isaac Johnson, Tom Johnson
and P. J. Gaines. These men and their wives were
ready at every call. They gave suppers, fairs and
picnics as well as other entertainments to raise money
for the school. Not only would they help in the raising
of money, but they would come to the school and
work for days without thinking of any pay for their
work. When we got ready to put up a new building,
we would have what we called a house-raising and
would invite all the men in the neighborhood to come
out and help us. On these days the wives of these
men would compete with each other to see who could
bring out the best basket.
At the end of the first school year it was clearly
seen that we needed two assistant teachers; but the
question that puzzled us was, where could they work.
We had only one room and none of us had the money
to buy the lumber needed. But there was a saw-mill
near by and finally I sought work at this mill with the
understanding that I would take my pay in lumber
if the people would agree to feed me. This they readily
consented to do. So I worked during May, June,
July and August at the saw-mill and took my wages in
lumber. This enabled us to get sufficient material to
erect two of the rooms of our present Training Building.
The following October we opened school with
three teachers and 150 students. These two teachers
had graduated at Tuskegee with me in '93. They
were Misses Ophelia Clopton and Rosa Bradford.
They spent four years in the work here and we never
had two teachers who did more for the old people in
the community and who were loved more by them.
In the fall of '95 Mr. Barnes, who was also a member
of the class of '93, joined us, and has been connected
with the school since then except for two years
which he spent in Boston.
In the fall of '96 another one of our class-mates,
Julius Webster, a carpenter, joined in our work here.
We now had five teachers, all of Tuskegee and all
class-mates. I can never forget these old people and
these early teachers, for we all shared our many sorrows
and our few joys. No work was too hard for us
and no sacrifice was too great.
Another Tuskegee student was with us almost from
the beginning. While Mr. Rivers did not graduate
from the Academic Department at Tuskegee, he finished
his trade, Agriculture, there. Mr. Rivers has
had charge of our farm off and on since '95. I should
say to his credit that he is in charge today and last
year he made the best crop the school has ever made.
Thus far, I have spoken of the assistance given me
by the colored people and teachers, but no chapter
about the founding of Snow Hill Institute would be
complete without a mention of Mr. R. O. Simpson, the
white man on whose plantation I was reared. Mr.
Simpson must have known me from my birth. I well
remember that in '78 and '79 he used to stop by to see
my old grandmother when riding over his plantation.
I think that my grandmother prepared meals for him
on some of these visits to the plantation. I also remember
that after the death of grandmother, when
I was sick and living with my aunt Rina, some days
he would see me lying on the roadside and would toss
me a coin.
On my return from Tuskegee I found Mr. Simpson
deeply interested in the welfare of my people; in fact,
it seemed as if he was looking for some one to start
an industrial school upon his place. We had many
talks together. When he found out that I had returned
to cast my lot with my people, he seemed highly
pleased and said that he would give a few acres for
he school if I thought I could use it to advantage. I
decided that this was my opportunity and told him
that I could. He first gave seven acres, and then
thirty-three, and finally sixty more, making in all one
hundred acres that he gave the school. In later years
we bought one-half of his plantation, making in all
nearly two thousand acres. While all of the white
people in Snow Hill have been friendly towards the
work, I have found Mr. Simpson and his entire family
to be our particular friends and I have yet to go to
them for a favor and be refused.
One of the cardinal points in Dr. Washington's
Sunday evening talks to the students and teachers at
Tuskegee was that they should buy homes of their
own. I felt that the best way to teach the people to
get a home was for me to own one myself. I thought
that it would be useless for me to talk to them about
buying homes as long as I did not have one for myself,
so I secured a home.
After the school was thoroughly planted and I had
bought and paid for my home, we began to encourage
the people to buy homes. This was done through
several agencies, the Negro Farmers Conference, the
Workers Conference and the Black-Belt Improvement
Society. The aim of this Society is clearly set
forth in its constitution, a part of which is as follows:
(1) This society shall be known as the Black Belt
Improvement Society. Its object shall be the general
uplift of the people of the Black Belt of Alabama; to
make them better morally, mentally, spiritually, and
financially.
(2) It shall further be the object of the Black Belt
Improvement Society as far as possible, to eliminate
the credit system from our social fabric; to stimulate
in all members the desire to raise, as far as possible,
all their food supplies at home, and pay cash for whatever
may be purchased at the stores.
(3) To bring about a system of co-operation in the
purchase of what supplies cannot be raised at home
wherever it can be done to advantage.
(4) To discuss topics of interest to the communities
in which the various societies may be organized,
and topics relating to the general welfare of the race,
and especially to farmers.
(5) To teach the people to practice the strictest
economy, and especially to obtain and diffuse such
information among farmers as shall lead to the improvement
and diversification of crops, in order to
create in farmers a desire for homes and better home
conditions, and to stimulate a love for labor in both
old and young. Each local organization may offer
small prizes for the cleanest and best-kept house, the
best pea-patch, and the best ear of corn, etc.
(6) To aid each other in sickness and in death; for
this purpose a fee of ten cents will be collected from
each member every month and held sacred to be used
for no other purpose whatever.
(7) It shall be one of the great objects of this society
to stimulate its members to acquire homes, and
urge those who already possess homes to improve and
beautify them.
(8) To urge our members to purchase only the
things that are absolutely necessary.
(9) To exert our every effort to obliterate those
evils which tend to destroy our character and our
homes, such as intemperance, gambling, and social
impurity.
(10) To refrain from spending money and time
foolishly or in unprofitable ways; to take an interest
in the care of our highways, in the paying of our taxes
and the education of our children; to plant shade trees,
repair our yard fences, and in general, as far as possible,
bring our home life up to the highest standard
of civilization.
This Society has standing committees on Government,
on Education, on Business, on Housekeeping,
on Labor, and on Farming. The chairman of each of
these committees holds monthly meetings in the various
communities, at which time various topics pertaining
to the welfare and uplift of the people are discussed.
As a result of these meetings the people return
to their homes with new inspiration. The meetings
are doing good in the communities where they are
being held, and our sincere hope is that such meetings
may be extended. It is the aim of the school and of
its several organizations, to reach the ills that most
retard the Negroes of the rural South. The articles
of our simple constitution go to the very bottom of
the conditions.
Thus it will be seen that the work of the class-room
is only a small part of what we are trying to do for
the uplift of the Negro people in the Black Belt.
The matter of raising
money for undenominational
schools in the South is no easy task, and right here
I ought to state just why I preferred to have such a
school. Our people in the rural South are mostly
Baptists and Methodists, and of course the denominations
have their schools, located in certain cities.
While no one is barred from these schools, it is a fact
that undue influence is exerted upon the pupils to
make them become members of the church that supports
the school. This is not only true of the Methodist
and Baptist schools, but is also true of all denominational
schools in the South. I did not like that
and our people do not like to have any one influence
their children to join churches other than the one of
their choice. We may shut our eyes to this truth, but
the fact remains that Methodists do not want their
children to be persuaded to join some other church,
neither do the Baptists want theirs taken away from
them.
Now, I wanted that my school should be free from
such "isms." I wanted a school for all the Negroes,
thoroughly religious in its spirit, but entirely undenominational.
For twenty-five years now we have adhered
strictly to this policy. Many times when all
was dark and there seemed to be no way, some of
these denominations would come and offer me the
money to run the work, provided I would accept their
faith. But this I have never done, I had rather that
the work should die than to sell my principle for
money. I repeat that raising money for such a school
is a hard task. I have never been particularly interested
as to the choice of the church that my students
make, but I have been profoundly interested in their
finding salvation.
A great many people to whom I appeal for aid from
time to time, tell me that they give all their alms
through their church. But in spite of all this, I feel
that the kind of schools most needed for our people,
should be broad and not narrow, deep and not shallow.
After winning the approval of the people in the
community, both black and white, and getting whatever
help I could from them, my thoughts turned
towards the North for means to run the work. My
first attempt was in March, '97. I got as far as Washington,
D. C., and saw the Inauguration of President
McKinley, and then I returned home.
The following June Dr. Washington wrote me to
come to Tuskegee so as to accompany the Tuskegee
Quartet North that summer. It must not be understood
that I was one of the singers; that was not my
good fortune. I was to tell what Tuskegee had done
for me and was to show in turn what I was trying to
do for my people. Dr. Washington reasoned in this
way I would have a chance to meet some of the
best people of the country and thereby gain support
for my work. There was to be no collection taken for
Snow Hill, but those who became interested would
often come up after the meetings and give me something
for my work.
We left Tuskegee about the first of July. We spent
most of the month of July in the southeastern part
of Massachusetts, known as the Cape and South Shore.
We had meetings at most of the churches and resorts
in that section. Dr. Washington himself met us
at the most prominent places.
In August we came to Boston and from there went
up the North Shore. This was my first visit to Boston
and it was here that I met Miss Susan D. Messinger
and her brother William S. Messinger. Their
home was at 81 Walnut Avenue, Roxbury, Mass.
Miss Messinger had been an abolitionist. Both she
and her brother were deeply interested in the welfare
of my people. They listened attentively to my story
and from that day became my best friends.
Although I have been going North now for twenty
years, I have never met such welcome as was shown
me at their home. I think I have never met such
Christ-like people anywhere. It was largely through
Miss Messinger's appeals in the "Transcript" that
the people of Boston and New England learned of our
work at the Snow Hill Institute. Through her appeals
from time to time, we raised much money for
our school. I cannot, in words, express the valuable
aid these people gave us in our work. Sometimes
when I had worked hard all day with poor results, I
would go to their home in the evening discouraged
and low-spirited, but would always find there a hearty
welcome and a word of cheer. I would always leave
with new zeal and fresh courage. Their home has
been to me a home now for twenty years and although
they are now dead, I never go to Boston but that I find
time to go out to Mt. Auburn and put a fresh flower
on their graves. The old home is lonely now, but the
Messinger spirit still abides there in the person of
Mr. Reed, their nephew. I still receive from him the
hearty welcome and support that they used to give in
days of old.
Another friend whom I met that summer was Mrs.
J. S. Howe of Brookline (now Mrs. Herman F. Vickery).
She became interested in our work through
Miss Messinger and from that time to this her interest
has steadily grown. Had it not been for the encouragement
and aid received from the Messingers
and Mrs. Howe on this trip, I am sure that I should
have given up the struggle.
After leaving Boston, the Tuskegee singers went up
the North Shore and on to the Isles of Shoals. There
we had a very good meeting, and as Mr. Washington
could not be present, I was the principal speaker.
The people were greatly interested in what I said and
although we took up a good collection for Tuskegee,
my private collection was equally large. This the
leader of the quartet did not like. It was the duty of
this man who was a teacher at Tuskegee, to speak as
well as myself, but for some reason he did not like to
do it and would always shirk it when he could. But
after this meeting he cut off my support and when we
reached Portsmouth, he told me that I was dividing
the interest and that he could not use me further on
that trip. Of course, what little money I had been
getting I had sent to the school, so I was almost penniless
when he turned me off. I ought to say, however,
that he gave me my fare back to Boston.
I reached Boston that night about eight o'clock with
no money and nowhere to go, but finally, I went to the
place where we had stopped when the quartet was in
Boston and I found R. W. Taylor, who at the time
was financial agent in the North for Tuskegee. He
saw that I was discouraged and insisted that I tell him
why I had come back to Boston. When he had learned
the facts he told his landlady to provide lodging and
board for me at his expense until I could do better.
It was some time before Dr. Washington found out
that I was not with the quartet, and as soon as he
knew it, he wrote me to meet him at Lake Mohonk,
N. Y. When the leader of the quartet found out that
I was to be at Lake Mohonk, he tried to interfere so
as to prohibit my going there, but when Dr. Washington
said a thing, it had to be done, and I went to Lake
Mohonk and I met the quartet again; also Dr. Washington.
We had a great meeting at Lake Mohonk and
after the meeting Mr. and Mrs. S. P. Avery, who were
guests there, gave me $200. From here we returned
South and reached Tuskeegee about the first of September.
From there I returned to Snow Hill.
My trip North during the summer of '98 was very
much saddened by the illness and death of my aunt
Rina Rivers, whom I had learned to love as a mother,
and to whom I always feel that I owe my life, for
had it not been for the care she gave me during
my sickness, I could not have stood the ordeal. Her
death came while I was in Boston and without sufficient
funds to take me either to her bed-side or to
her funeral. This incident in my life has always been
a cause for deep sorrow and as the years go by I feel
it more keenly. I had always hoped that she could
have lived until I could make her life happy, but this
pleasure has been forever denied me. However she
left behind four daughters and many grandchildren
and I have tried to be unusually kind to them because
of my great love for their mother and grandmother.
Again this was a hard year because of the Spanish
War and the consequent excitement.
I returned to Snow Hill early in the fall, cast down,
but not destroyed. I had to adjust myself to the loss
of my best earthly friend. In the meantime, our enrollment
was constantly increasing and new teachers
and industries were being added from year to year.
My campaign in the North during the summer of
1899 was made alone, just as the previous one had
been. I got much needed experience during this summer.
In this house-to-house campaign for money, one
must expect many rebuffs, but on the other hand one
meets some of the finest people that have ever lived.
I find, however, that as I grow older the strain is
harder. I don't think that I am a very successful
money raiser. However, on April 5th, 1906, at the
25th anniversary of Tuskegee, I delivered an address
that interested Mr. Andrew Carnegie and he gave the
Snow Hill Institute ten thousand dollars. (See Appendix.)
PARTIAL VIEW OF SNOW HILL INSTITUTE
In the preceding chapters
I have tried in a plain and
practical way to tell the story of my life and struggle
for twenty-five years. I now purpose to tell some results
of this effort.
We started our work with no land, no building, and
no assurance of any support from any source. In
fact, we rented an old log cabin in which to begin our
work. On the first day of opening, we had one
teacher, three pupils and fifty cents in money, a pretty
small capital with which to build a Normal and Industrial
Institute. As I now look back on this early adventure
of mine, I am amazed at the undertaking.
Although penniless and almost without a place to rest
my head, I had an abundance of hope and great faith
in God. These have always been my greatest assets
in this work. The people in the community were
equally poor; not more than ten acres of land were
owned by the colored people within a radius of ten
miles, and there was even a mortgage on these ten
acres. The homes of the people consisted chiefly of
one-room and two-room log cabins. There was not a
single glass window to be found. I remember that
shortly after the founding of the school a Negro built
a house and fitted it up with glass windows and people
would go ten miles to see it.
The economic condition of the people was deplorable.
They all carried heavy mortgages from year
to year. These mortgages ranged all the way from
$100 to $1500. The people were thoroughly discouraged,
and seemingly had lost all hopes. Everywhere
in their religious services, they sang this song: "You
may have all the world, but give me Jesus." The
white man was taking them at their word and giving
them all of Jesus, but none of the world. So disheartened
were the people that when Mr. Simpson
offered to give us the first seven acres of land for the
school, many tried to prevail with him not to do so,
saying that they did not want any land. But as I have
said, you can always find in any place a few of our
people whose hearts are in the right place; it was so
in this instance; a few of the old men were very stanch
friends, - they stood by me in this fight and we won.
Such was the condition of the people here twenty-five
years ago.
Now how changed are these conditions? From the
rented log cabin the school has grown until we have
at present, to be exact, 1940 acres of land and twenty-four
buildings, counting large and small. It enrolls
each year between three and four hundred students,
teaches fourteen trades, putting most stress on agriculture.
The entire property is valued upwards of
$125,000 and is deeded to a Board of Trustees.
But the worth of an institution is not judged by
houses and land, but by its ability to serve the people
among whom it is located. It has never been our end
to acquire houses, land and industries, these we have
used as means of enabling us to accomplish our end,
which was and still is to seek and to save that which
was lost. For twenty-five years then we have been
here, seeking lost boys, lost girls, lost men and lost
women. We have tolled our bells that they might
hear, and preached the gospel of work in order that
they might understand; we have used the church, the
Sunday-School, Bible classes and other religious societies
that they might feel; the class-rooms that they
might know; the shops and farms that they might
handle and do. And so all of our material acquisitions
have been used to drive home one great end;
social service, better men and better women.
Now how well we have accomplished this end may
be seen from the following: Counting those who have
finished the course of study and others who have remained
at the school long enough to catch its spirit
and be influenced by its teaching, we have sent out
into various parts of the South more than a thousand
young men and women who are today leading useful
and helpful lives. They are farmers, blacksmiths,
wheelwrights, carpenters, housekeepers, dressmakers,
printers, railway postal clerks, letter carriers, teachers,
preachers, domestic servants, insurance agents,
doctors, expressmen, contractors, timber-inspectors,
college students. In fact, they are to be found in
every vocation known to the South. Many of these
young people have bought farms and homes of their
own, have erected neat and comfortable cottages; have
influenced their neighbors to buy land, to build better
homes, better churches and better school-houses.
They have also been instrumental in securing a higher
type of teachers and preachers. They make a special
effort always to cultivate a friendly relation between
the two races. In this particular they have been remarkably
successful. I shall speak more directly
about their work under the chapter on Graduates.
Perhaps I can in no way better show the effects of
the school upon the immediate community than by
referring to an address given by me and quoted in
the appendix of this book.
It is the custom at Tuskegee to have each class reassemble
at the school twenty years after graduation.
Some one of the class is chosen by the school, to
represent the class and is placed on the Commencement
program. It fell my lot to represent my class on
this occasion.
Of course at the anniversary of each class, that
class is expected to make a donation to the school.
Although this had been the custom for several years,
the class donations very seldom amounted to more
than $100. Sometimes they were as small as $25.00
or less. Somehow I have always felt that the graduates
of Tuskegee owed that institution a debt of gratitude
which they can never pay, and thought that they
should make the class anniversaries mean something
more substantial to the school than they had meant.
So long before our time came, I wrote the members of
my class telling them that it should be our aim to give
Tuskegee $1000 at our Anniversary. They readily
agreed with me and the class set itself to the task
of raising the $1000. This was done because we felt
that the time had come for the graduates to give more
substantial aid to their Alma-Mater, and as a stimulus
to those who are to follow. I think in a small way
A NEWER TYPE OF HOME IN THE BLACK BELT
it has served that purpose, because these class anniversary
donations have never been less than $500
since that date.
I think of all the talks I have ever made, none have
given me the real joy that this one gave. I feel that
this was true for the reason that this was a giving
talk rather than a receiving one. The address is also
given in the appendix.
In the fall of
1902 I received a letter from Dr.
Washington requesting me to speak at a meeting in
Philadelphia in the interest of Tuskegee. Miss Cornelia
Bowen, also a graduate of Tuskegee, was asked
to speak at the same meeting. We both accepted.
During my stay in the city Mr. Henry C. Davis, a
trustee of Tuskegee at the time, gave me a letter of
introduction to Miss Anna T. Jeanes, a wealthy
woman who seldom gave to schools as large as Tuskegee
and Hampton, but who would, in all probability,
be interested in my school.
In going to Miss Jeanes's home on Arch Street I had
many apprehensions but I found her very cordial and
deeply interested in the welfare of my people. I told
her of my struggle to get an education and how, after
finishing at Tuskegee I had returned to my home in
Alabama. I described the condition of the public
schools in the rural districts. She gave keen interest
to this part of my story. Finally, she asked me if I
was aiming to build a large school such as Tuskegee
or Hampton. I told her that I had no such idea; that
I only wanted to build a school that could properly
care for three or four hundred students, and try as
best I could to help the little schools throughout that
section. When I returned to Snow Hill I found a
check from her for five thousand dollars for the work
at Snow Hill.
Each year after this Miss Jeanes gave me from
$300 to $2000 for the work at Snow Hill. Finally, in
the fall of 1906 when she had moved to the home in
Germantown which she had established for the aged,
I called to see her. She was then ill and although the
nurse said that I could not see her, after my card had
been taken to her, she sent for me. She was quite
feeble, but said to me: "I have been deeply interested
in what thee has been telling me all these years about
the little schools. I would give largely to them if thee
thinks that thee could get Dr. Washington or Dr. Frissell
to come to see me." I am sure she was thinking
of the large experience of those men. She said also
that she thought if she would make such a gift as she
contemplated, it might induce other great philanthropists
to do as much.
At my suggestion Dr. Washington visited Miss
Jeanes who gave $11,000 each to Dr. Washington and
Dr. Frissell to be used as they thought best for the
small schools.
I am positive that the Jeanes Fund originated in
this way, and I am proud of the part that I had in this
affair and that so many Negro children can be helped
by the fund that is destined to do so much for the elevation
of our people in this country.
In building up an
institution such as we have done
at Snow Hill, no one man is entitled to all the credit.
On the contrary, it is impossible to name all to whom
credit is due. We can only speak of those who have
been closely allied with us and whose work has been
prominent in the building of the institution. Perhaps
of these, the Trustees come first. We could never
have gone on with the work from year to year without
their aid and assistance.
Without Mr. R. O. Simpson there could not have
been any Snow Hill Institute. We might have built
a similar school elsewhere, but we could not have built
it at Snow Hill. Mr. Simpson gave the first site for
the school and from the start has been one of our best
friends. He stood for Negro Education when it was
unpopular for him to do so. He allied himself with
this cause, at the risk of being ostracised by other
white people. Because of his firm stand, most of the
white people in this section have been won over to
his way of thinking, and now there is scarcely if any
opposition hereabouts to the Snow Hill Institute.
Mr. R. O. Simpson is one of the noblest men that I
have ever met, North or South. He is absolutely free
from all racial and petty prejudice that we so often
find in the average man of today. I feel safe in saying
that he is living at least fifty years ahead of his
time. The things that he stands for and have been
fighting for, for thirty years, are coming more and
more to pass, and although it seems hard for the present
generation to accept them, they must be accepted
if we would make the world safe for Democracy. He
is a true patriot, a true democrat, and a zealous Christian
gentleman. Mr. Simpson has a family of five
children, three sons and two daughters, all of whom
possess his spirit to a large degree.
I first met Rev. R. C. Bedford at Tuskegee while I
was there in school. I loved him from the first time
I saw him and I feel that this was because of his deep
and sincere interest in our people. Until I met Mr.
Bedford, I had always distrusted the white man and
thought it was impossible for any white man to be
free from race prejudice. After my graduation at
Tuskegee, as I said before, I returned to Snow Hill
and seeing that Mr. Bedford and Mr. Simpson had
something in common, arranged to have Mr. Bedford
come to Snow Hill and meet Mr. Simpson. Their
meeting resembled that of Jonathan and David, and I
believe their friendship was equally great. It continued
until Mr. Bedford's death. Mr. Bedford was one
man who understood what it was to build up an institution
from nothing. He knew the hardships one
had to undergo to meet bills when there was no money
appropriated for these bills. He knew what it was
to make brick without straw. Ofttimes when the burden
was heavy and the yoke rough, it was the encouraging
words from Mr. Bedford that gave me strength
and courage to continue. While his particular mission
was to look after the Tuskegee schools, he loved
every good work and would always lend a hand to a
good cause. He was thoroughly imbued with the
Christ-spirit.
I cannot express in words the great debt of gratitude
that I owe the immortal Booker T. Washington,
for I owe all to him. It was he who changed my view
of life. He changed me from the visionary to the substantial,
from the shadow to the substance, from the
artificial to the real, and from words to deeds. Dr.
Washington became a trustee of Snow Hill Institute
from its beginning and remained as such until his
death. He made three visits to Snow Hill, the last
being November 18th, 1914. Dr. Washington always
did what he could to help us in our work. He seemed
to appreciate the efforts that we were putting forth to
uplift our people. He could sympathize with us; he
could understand that an institution that had no permanent
support, but had to depend upon the efforts of
one man to raise money, could not be perfect, and
many things were not as well as they should be. Dr.
Washington could sympathize with us because he
knew what it was. He had borne the burden in the
heat of the day. But I find that persons who have
done nothing themselves, but have lived as parasites
most of their days, are much more critical than Dr.
Washington ever could be. Sometimes I am asked to
what I attribute Dr. Washington's success in life. My
answer to this question has always been the same: to
his spirit and simplicity. He possessed in a very large
degree, the spirit and simplicity of the Master. He
never struck back. He always sought to do good to
those who would do evil to him. He was meek and
lowly of heart, and I know that he has found rest for
his soul.
There are other trustees who have played a prominent
part in the development of the work here, among
whom may be mentioned Mr. James H. Post, Rev.
Henry Wilder Foote, Prof. William Howell Reed and
Mr. William H. Baldwin, 3rd. The trustees are now
taking a more active part in the work than ever before.
This is their bounden duty, because the school
is theirs, not mine.
Next to the Trustees, the officers and teachers have
played a prominent part in the work here. My classmate,
Henry A. Barnes, has been treasurer of the
school for twenty-three years, which period of service
is, in itself, a tribute to his faithfulness. Mr.
Barnes not only does the work of treasurer, but is also
Acting Principal during my absence from the school,
and under him the work of the school continues with
little or no interruption while I am away. What Mr.
Barnes has been to the Financial Department, Mr.
R. A. Daly has been to our Industries. I consider Mr.
Daly the best Industrial man that we can have.
The Academic Department has been developed under
the management of Messrs. Whitehead and Handy,
and it stands well in comparison with that of other
similar schools in the State.
I cannot overestimate the value of the conscientious
work done by my secretaries during all these years.
Miss Rebecca Savage (now Mrs. R. V. Cooke) served
in this capacity for fourteen years and Miss O. H.
Williamson has served one way or another for five
years. Much of the office work and responsibility
fall upon the secretaries and this responsibility they
have borne without complaint. Sometimes we have
been compelled to work night and day, but they have
always been willing to serve. Not only have the officers
been willing to serve, but the rank and file of our
teachers have shown the same spirit of willingness
from year to year. Sometimes they would get their
pay promptly and at other times they would have to
wait for months, but always they have been willing to
do what they could to cheer and help me in the darkest
hour of the struggle. I believe that the spirit of
the officers and teachers of Snow Hill Institute is:
"Not to be ministered unto, but to minister."
Aside from Trustees, officers and teachers, there is
that great cloud of witnesses which no man can number,
who have helped by their aid, their words of
cheer and their presence from time to time. These
are in all parts of the country, but principally in the
North and East. How shall we thank them for what
they have been to us? We cannot do it by words, because
there are no words that could adequately express
our deep sense of gratitude to this host of
friends. We must, therefore, be contented to show
them by our acts and deeds that we are ever mindful
of their help and that each day we are striving more
and more to make ourselves and our work worthy of
their aid and encouragement. Among this cloud of
witnesses are some of the best people that God has
ever made. They deem it a privilege to give and to
help the lowly.
TYPICAL LOG CABIN IN THE BLACK BELT HOME OF A SNOW HILL GRADUATE
In speaking of our debt of gratitude to the forces
that have helped in building up our work here, we
must not overlook the press. There are certain great
papers in this country that have been fearless in their
advocacy of right and justice to the Negro, and have
always opened their columns to any cause that has for
its end the uplift of the lowly. Among these may be
mentioned especially The New York Evening Post,
The Boston Transcript, The Springfield Republican,
The Hartford Courant, and in the South The Montgomery
Advertiser.
One also receives much aid and encouragement from
those who are in similar work. It has been my good
fortune to meet in the North from time to time with
those who have similar work as mine. In this way I
have met most of the Principals of Southern Schools.
Perhaps Mr. W. H. Holtzclaw of Utica, Mississippi,
comes first in this class. This is true, because I have
known him the longest. I first met him in Tuskegee
in the early nineties, when we both were in school
there. His life was similar to mine, as we both had
a very hard time in trying to get an education. I became
interested in him there and when he finished I
took him to work with me at Snow Hill. It was at
Snow Hill that he met and married Miss Mary Ella
Patterson, one of our teachers. They remained with
us at Snow Hill four years. Both Mr and Mrs. Holtzclaw
have always seemed more like my relatives
than like friends. Some of Mr. Holtzclaw's best teachers
today are graduates of Snow Hill Institute. I
have always been deeply interested in the welfare of
Utica for it is in reality an outgrowth of Snow Hill.
Other Principals whom I meet occasionally, are
President Battle of Okolona, Mississippi, where a
number of our graduates have worked. I have found
Mr. Battle interested in the general cause of Negro
Education, and too, we found in our case that the
cause is the same. I have had occasion to ask Mr.
Battle just how our graduates measure up with his
other teachers, and he tells me that Snow Hill graduates
are among his best helpers. By this I know
that in deeds, not words, we are making good.
Another most interesting character whom I always
meet on my tours North is Mr. Frank P. Chisholm,
Financial Secretary of Tuskegee Institute. I have been
knowing Mr. Chisholm for a great many years. We
have attended the Summer School at Harvard several
summers together and it has been both a pleasure and
benefit to me to be associated with him in this way. Although
working directly for Tuskegee, he has always
been willing to speak a word for Snow Hill wherever
the opportunity presented itself. I have obtained
many suggestions from Mr. Chisholm which have been
very beneficial to me in my work here. I consider Mr.
Chisholm a representative type of the new Negro of
to-day. He is a brilliant scholar, a clear thinker, and is
doing a very elective work for Tuskegee.
Others with whom I come in contact on such trips
are Principal Hunt of Fort Valley, Gal; Principal Minafee
of Denmark, S. C.; Principal Long of Christianburg,
Va. These young men and many others are doing
a greater work than they know, and all possess in
a smaller or larger degree the spirit of dear old Tuskegee.
They are all preaching the gospel of Service.
Prof. Bagley in his
"Classroom Management,"
page 225, has the following to say in "Testing Results":
"The ultimate test
of efficiency of efforts is the result
of effort. Unhappily this test is seldom applied
to the work of teaching. We judge the teacher by the
process rather than by the product, and we introduce
a number of extraneous criteria to hide the absence
of a real criterion. We watch the way in which he
conducts a recitation, how many slips he makes
in his diction and syntax, inspect his personal appearance,
ask of what school he is a graduate and how
many degrees he possesses, inquire into his moral
character, determine his church membership, and
judge him to be a good or a poor teacher according
to our findings. All of these queries may have their
place in the estimation of any teacher's worth, but
they do not strike the most salient, the most vital,
point at issue. That point is simply this: Does he
make good' in results? Does he do the thing that he
sets out to do, and does he do it well?"
I agree wholly with Prof. Bagley in this particular
and on these grounds we are willing to stand or fall
by the results of our graduates.
Speaking of our graduates and ex-students, I wish
to point to the life and work of a few written by their
own hands because in these particular cases I can
testify to the truth of every word they say, having
known them from early childhood. Their record follows
and they speak for themselves:
"I was born in Snow Hill, Wilcox County, Alabama,
about 30 years ago. I was the 14th child of a family
of 17. My father was a very prosperous farmer and
believed in educating his children. Each year he
would send them by twos off to schools, such as Talladega,
Tuskegee and Normal, Alabama. Some of the
older children, however, did not take advantage of
the great opportunity they had. He spent his money
lavishly on them and about the time I was large
enough to go off to school, he was not as prosperous.
As soon as I was old enough he kept me in the public
and sometimes private schools, both summer and winter.
Yet, he had promised to send the remainder of
us off to school. Fortunately for us, however, Snow
Hill Institute had been established by Mr. W. J. Edwards,
and my father being very much impressed with
Mr. Edwards and his teachers, consulted him about
entering three children, I being the youngest. Mr.
Edwards kindly consented and we were at once put in
school there. I was also fond of music and after
learning that Snow Hill Institute had such an efficient
music teacher, I was very much pleased to attend
school there. So in the year of 1900 I entered. I was
enabled to develop my musical talent to the extent
that I was selected to play for my home church, and
that inspired other students to attend Snow Hill Institute.
"During my first year in school there I was undecided
as to just what I was going to follow as a trade.
I worked awhile in the sewing room then in the laundry -
was also interested in cooking and took special
lessons in cooking under Miss Mabry. In fact, I
studied cooking the first two years. Finally, in my
senior year, Miss C. V. Johnson, then Secretary to
Mr. Edwards, asked me to clean the offices of mornings
for her and work with her on my work days. I
began this work and would watch her using the typewriter
so much until I fully decided that I wanted to
make an efficient secretary for someone, and began
working to that end. On my work days she would
have me copying letters with ink. I would be careful
not to make a mistake. During the time I was working
in the office, Mr. Edwards would often send me on
errands and tell me to see how quickly I could go and
come. He seemed to have been very much impressed
with my work as a student in both the Academic and
Industrial departments. There were several prize
contests given my class by different teachers, and I
won each prize. This was in the Academic department.
There were twelve members in the class. Mr.
Edwards had the members of my class to write some
friends of the school for scholarships (this being the
request of the friends) and of the two persons that
received favorable answers, I was one. During the
whole time I was in school I did not receive one demerit,
or a black mark. Our teachers seemed perfect,
and it was a pleasure for me to try to please them.
"In the year 1903 I graduated from the institution
with a splendid grasp of all that the school stood for
and in favor with all of my teachers and friends. Mr.
Edwards, knowing my ability to do things as I was
instructed, employed me to work in his office as clerk.
I then put forth more strenuous efforts to do efficient
work and would try to improve myself along that particular
line of work. So in the summer of 1905 I attended
school at Cheyney, Pa., taking a special course
in English, typewriting and shorthand. I did my best
to give satisfaction in my work.
"In the year 1909 I was made Private Secretary to
Mr. Edwards and a member of the Executive Council.
I still had a desire to make further improvement, and
in the summer of 1911, I attended Comer's Commercial
College in Boston, Mass., trying to become more
efficient in the work that was assigned to my hands.
Principal Edwards would have to be away from the
school most of the time soliciting means to carry on
the work, but I tried to not leave a stone unturned in
accomplishing the work he left behind. Snow Hill Institute
succeeded in inculcating into my life a love for
work, and I am not satisfied unless I have some work
to do.
"I worked for Mr. Edwards untiringly until October,
1917. I was married, however, in July, 1917. I
have often wondered where my lot would have been
cast had there been no Snow Hill Institute."
"I was born of ex-slave parents on the Calhoun
plantation in Dallas County, Alabama. I am not
quite sure of the exact date of my birth, but at any
rate, as nearly as I have been able to learn, I was born
near the village called Richmond, in the month of
May, 1883. My life had its beginning under the most
difficult circumstances. This was so, however, not because
of any wilful neglect on the part of my parents,
but as ex-slaves they naturally knew but little as to
the providing for the maintenance of their family and
home. I was born in a one-room log cabin about
14 x 15 feet square. In this cabin I lived with my
mother, father and the other eight sisters and brothers
until providentially I found an opportunity to
enter school at Snow Hill Institute, Snow Hill, Alabama.
"I went to Snow Hill in the year of 1896, and there
remained for eight years receiving instruction at the
hand of a loyal band of self-sacrificing teachers, who
not only taught me how to read, write and to cipher,
but in addition they taught me lessons of thrift and industry
which have proven to be the main saving point
in my life.
"I completed the prescribed course of study at the
Snow Hill Institute in 1904 and returned home as I
had resolved to do, before entering school there, for
the purpose of helping the people of my home community.
"The Street Manual Training School (Incorporated)
at Richmond, Dallas County, Alabama, was
started in 1904 with one teacher, fifteen pupils and no
money. Since that time it has grown to the point
where it now has thirty acres of land, four buildings,
and an enrollment of three hundred pupils. The entire
property is valued at fifteen thousand dollars
($15,000) and deeded to a board of Trustees. Among
the members of this board are: Mr. J. D. Alison, President,
Mrs. Edwin D. Mead, the Rev. Mr. Emmanuel M.
Brown, Mr. Wm. D. Brigham, Mr. Walter Powers,
Mr. Edwin W. Lambert, Mr. W. J. Edwards, Mrs.
Francis Carr and Mr. Henry A. Barnes.
"This school is training some three hundred Negro
children between the ages of six and eighteen years
in the practical arts necessary to enable them to make
an earnest, comfortable living. There is no attempt
made to teach them foreign languages, either dead or
living; but they are well grounded in the English language.
They do not study higher mathematics, but
they learn simple arithmetic. They spend no time on
psychology, economics, sociology, or logic; their time
is taken up trying to raise crops, to manage a small
farm, to cook and to sew."
"I was born
in Snow Hill, Wilcox County, Alabama,
December 24th, 1883. My parents were Emanuel and
Emma McDuffie. I was brought up under the most
adverse conditions. My father died about six months
before my birth, thus leaving my mother with the care
of seven children. As I had never seen my father, I
was often referred to by the other children of the
community, as the son of "none." In July, 1893, my
mother died and the burden of caring for the children
then fell upon my old grandmother, who was known
throughout the community as "Aunt" Polly. In order
to help secure food and clothing for myself and the
rest of the family, I was compelled to plow an ox on
a farm and as we usually made from four to five bales
of cotton and 40 and 50 bushels of corn each year, she
was looked upon as a great farmer. When I was
fifteen years of age, my grandmother was called to
her heavenly rest, thus leaving a house full of children
to shift for themselves. After her death I became
interested in education and immediately applied
for admittance to Snow Hill Normal and Industrial
Institute, which had recently been established. I was
admitted as a work student, working all day and attending
school about two hours and a half at night.
Until I entered Snow Hill Institute, I had a very
vague idea about life as it pertained to the Negro.
In fact, up until that time, I was of the opinion that
the Negro had no business being anything; but after
entering the school and being surrounded by a different
atmosphere and seeing what had already been accomplished
by Mr. Edwards, I soon realized that the
Negro had as much right to life and liberty as any
other man.
"While it was great joy for me to be in school, I
was woefully unprepared to remain there. Really, I
am unable to tell the many obstacles that confronted
me while in school. But one of my many difficulties
was to get sufficient clothing, for when I entered, I
had on all that I possessed and day after day I wore
what I had until finally they got beyond mending.
The teachers at Snow Hill were just as they are now,
extremely hard against dirt and filth. As I only had
one suit of underwear and as we were compelled to
change at least once a week, I could plainly see that
my condition was becoming more alarming each day.
So I would go down to the spring at night, wash that
suit and dry it the best I could by the heater that was
in my room. Quite often I would go for days wearing
damp or wet underwear, which has caused both
pain and doctor bills in after years. Finally, Mr.
Edwards relieved me of this situation when he sent
me to the sales-room to get a pair of second-hand
trousers and another suit of underwear. My trousers
didn't begin to fit, for they were both too large and
too long, but I wore them with pleasure because I
went to Snow Hill in search of an education and I was
willing to make any sacrifice to obtain my desire.
Through all of my troubles I never became discouraged,
because I felt that some day I would be prepared
to be of service to my people.
"Of all things that gave me inspiration while in
school, Mr. Edwards's own Christian life which he
lived before us day after day had more to do with
keeping me there than anything else. His courage and
perseverance under difficulties, which we all could see,
were noble lessons to me. In his Sunday evening talks
in the chapel, he would plead with us to shape our
lives for work among those who were less fortunate
than we. One Sunday evening, he made a powerful
and vivid appeal, admonishing the students to go out,
when they had finished their education, and start their
life's work among the lowly in the rural districts. He
spoke these words many times during the term. In
fact, so often did he repeat them that the very
thoughts of them inspired me and I soon learned to
love the cause of humanity as well and as dearly as
did Mr. Edwards himself. Soon after completing my
course in May, 1904, a call came from the Black Belt
of North Carolina for a man to go to Laurinburg and
build up an Industrial school there. After talking
the matter over with Mr. Edwards, I decided to go.
"I reached the town of Laurinburg September 15,
1904. When I got there I found that the people had
been so often deceived and hoodwinked by political
demagogues and supposed race leaders, that they had
no confidence in any one. But I made a start and
opened school in an old public school building with
seven students and fifteen cents in cash. As the people
had no confidence in me, it was hard for me to increase
my enrollment, but I continued to labor with
them on the streets and in the churches until I gradually
won their respect. Then we started the erection
of a new school building and from that day until now,
both white and black have taken the deepest interest
in the work and we now have the absolute confidence
of all the people.
"The work has constantly grown from year to year
and results have been obtained. From one teacher,
seven students and fifteen cents in cash, thirteen years
ago, the institution now has fourteen teachers, upwards
of four hundred students from all over North
Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia, and
counting land, livestock, five large and three small
buildings, it has a property valuation of $30,000 all
free of debt. Each year our teachers are selected
from some of the best schools of the South; such as
Tuskegee Institute, Shaw University, Snow Hill Institute,
Claflin University, Benedict College, etc.
Eight industries are taught, consisting of farming,
blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, sewing, laundering,
printing, domestic science and home nursing.
"We are kept in immediate need of money for current
and building expenses, but we are going on accomplishing
results with what we have at hand. Boys
and girls are being sent out each year to work among
their fellows. These young men and women are reaching
the masses and as a result, the moral tone of the
people is being aroused to the contemplation of higher
ideals and they are at last becoming serious as to the
sober side of life. Excursions, parties and a good time
generally are slowly but surely being relegated to the
rear. Our farmers are studying how to become better
farmers and in all walks of life, we are improving in
workshop and the various industries.
"Verily, the school room is doing much in awakening
the dormant energies of the Negro for good. In
fact, the school's influence is helping the people generally.
Where there were ignorance and indifference,
now we have a fair measure of intelligence and thrift.
The people are buying homes and property, and in
many ways showing signs of aspiration.
"We have also organized a farmers' conference and
it is gratifying indeed to see how hundreds of farmers,
with their wives and children, turn out seeking information,
demonstration and co-operation. I have
been thus enabled to help my people here in North
Carolina by giving them the new truth and the new
light and pointing them on to a better way."
Waverley Turner Carmichael was born at Snow
Hill, Ala., in 1888, and was reared on the farm as all
country negro boys are. All of his education was obtained
at the Snow Hill Institute except for six weeks
he spent in the Harvard Summer School last year.
GRADUATES OF SNOW HILL INSTITUTE
I had been deeply impressed with the poems which
he had been writing for several years, but as I was no
judge of poems, I thought I would give him a chance
to bring his poems before those who could judge, so
I received for him a free scholarship at the Summer
School at Harvard. He read his poems to the class on
several occasions and I had the opportunity of hearing
him several times. They had a deep impression
upon the class, so much so that his professor wrote the
introduction to his book in the following words: -
"When Waverley Carmichael, as a student in my
summer class at Harvard, brought me one day a modest
sheaf of his poems, I felt that in him a race had become
or at least was becoming articulate. We have
had, it is true, sympathetic portrayals of Negro life
and feeling from without; we have had also the poems
of Dunbar, significant of the high capabilities of the
Negro as he advances far along the way of civilization
and culture. The note which is sounded in this little
volume is of another sort. These humble and often
imperfect utterances have sprung up spontaneously
from the soul of a primitive and untutored folk. The
rich emotion, the individual humor, the simple wisdom,
the naive faith which are its birthright, have
here for the first time found voice. It is sufficient to
say of Waverley Carmichael that he is a full blooded
southern Negro, that until last summer he has never
been away from his native Alabama, that he has had
but the most limited advantages of education, and
that he has shared the portion of his race in hardship,
poverty and toil. He does not know why he wrote
these poems. It is an amazing thing that he should
have done so - a freak, we may call it, of the wind of
genius, which bloweth where it listeth and singles out
one in ten thousand to find a fitting speech for the
dumb thought and feeling of the rest.
But we need not base the
claim of Carmichael to
the attention of the public merely on considerations of
this sort. His work speaks for itself. It is original
and sincere. It follows no traditions and suffers no
affectation. It is artless, yet it reaches the goal of
art. The rhythms, especially of some of the religious
pieces, are of a kind which is beyond the reach of effort.
He has rightly called them melodies. Occasionally
there is, it seems to me, a touch of something
higher, as in the haunting refrain of the lyric "Winter
is Coming."
De yaller leafs are falling fas'
But this is rare.
Oftenest the characteristic note is
humor, or tender melancholy relieved by a philosophy
of cheer and courage, and the poetic virtue is that of
simple truth. We are reminded of no poet so strongly
as of Burns.
What Waverley Carmichael may accomplish in the
future I do not know. But certainly in this volume
he has entitled himself to the gratitude of his own
race and to the sympathetic appreciation of all who
have its interests and those of true poetry at heart."
JAMES HOLLY HANFORD.
Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite speaking of his
poems had the following to say:
"Many have claimed the mantle of Paul Laurence
Dunbar, but only upon the shoulders of Waverley
Turner Carmichael has it fallen, and he wears it with
becoming grace and fitness. For this poet, a veritable
child of Negro folk, gives expression to its spirit in
need and language more akin to the ante-bellum 'spirituel'
than any writer I know. Like those 'black and
unknown bards' he sings because he must, with all
their fervid imaginativeness, symbolizations, poignant
strains of pathos and philosophic humor."
Mr. Braithwaite is the best known Negro critic of
poetry in the world today.
As for me who has always lived in the South and
know the Southern Negro through and through, I feel
and believe that Carmichael has interpreted Negro
life as never before.
We hope and pray that Carmichael will live through
this great ordeal and come back to us and continue his
work of interpreting Negro life.
There are hundreds of other graduates and ex-students
who have won distinction in other fields and are
doing equally as well as those who have been mentioned
here. We have their record at the school, and
any one can have them for the asking. I only wish to
mention in a brief way two other graduates because
they have established a first and second prize at Snow
Hill. They are John W. Brister and Edmond J.
O'Neal.
Several years ago the late Misses Collins (Ellen and
Marguerite) of New York, two of the most sainted
women whom I ever met, established an annual prize
at the school known as the Sumner Peace Prize, of
$15.00. But at their death this prize would have
stopped unless some one had taken it up. Both Mr.
Brister and Mr. O'Neal had won these prizes several
times while they were in school. So at the death of
the Misses Collins they came forward and said that
they would be responsible for the prize each year on
condition that the school make a first and second prize
instead of one, Mr. Brister giving $10.00 in gold for
the first prize and Mr. O'Neal giving $5.00 in gold for
the second. This they have done for several years,
and they constantly assure me that it will be kept up
during their lifetime. This shows that our graduates
are carrying with them the spirit of Christ, "Freely
receive, freely give."
All prophecies pertaining
thus far to the solution
of the Negro Problem have failed. Men in all parts
of the country are becoming alarmed over the situation
and are asking, "whither are we drifting?" And
yet although everyone admits that there is a Negro
problem, few are agreed as to the exact nature of the
problem, and still fewer are agreed as to what the
final answer should be.
Generally speaking, the Negro problem consists of
twelve millions of people of African descent living in
this country, mostly in the Southern states, and forming
one-third of the population of this section and one-eighth
of the entire population of the United States.
Notwithstanding the fact that we are far from an
agreement as to the answer to this problem, we are
all agreed that the solution must be sought in the answers
to the following questions: What is to be the
economic, the political, the civil, and the social status
of the Negro in this country?
It is true that there are criminals in the Negro race
for whom no legal form of punishment is too severe.
It is also true that the better and best classes of Negroes
are daily being insulted in the streets, on the
street-cars, on the railroads, at the ticket offices, at the
baggage rooms, the express offices, and in fact, in all
places pertaining to public travel. They are persecuted,
despised, rejected, and discriminated against
before every court in the South. Since the Negro is
now being lynched as readily for his sins of omission
as he is for his sins of commission, it is quite necessary
for him when traveling in the South, to keep constantly
in telegraphic communication with the agent
at the station ahead as to the movement of the mob.
In addition to this, the Negro is subjected to many
other forms of persecution and discrimination in almost
every walk of life. These things go to make up
what we call the Negro problem.
A large majority of the
white men in the South believe
that this problem is to be solved by the Negro
"learning his place" and keeping in it. Though they
do not say just what this place is, they purpose to
each it to the Negro by disfranchisement, by limiting
his education, by discrimination on the streets and on
the railroads, by barring him from public parks, public
libraries, and public amusements of any kind, by
insulting replies to courteous questions, by conviction
for trivial offences, and, finally, by judge lynch and
the shot gun. This class is called the rabble.
There is another class of white men in the South,
though fewer in number, who deprecate all such views
and actions (as advanced by this first class). They
believe that the Negro should have equal legal rights,
but that he should be denied equal political and educational
rights. They believe the Bible to be the panacea
for all the ills of the Negro. To bear out their contention,
they often revert to the time when, they say,
there was no race problem. This, they say, was during
slavery, when the master taught his slaves the
beneficent influence of the Holy Bible. They are now
appealing to the white men of the South to return to
this practice. In this class would fall a large number
of politicians, statesmen, educators, and ministers.
This is called the conservative class.
There is still a third class of white men in the
South, who believe that the Negro is a man, nothing
more and nothing less. They believe that under similar
circumstances the Negro will act as other races
do. They contend that the Negro should have equal
rights in every respect; they believe that worthy Negroes
like worthy white men, should vote, and that
ignorant and vicious Negroes like ignorant and vicious
white men, should not; that the school money should
be divided equally among the children of the state regardless
of race, color or previous conditions; that
the Negro should be given justice in all of the courts;
that the criminal and lawless Negro, like the criminal
and lawless white man, should be punished to the full
extent of the law. They believe that a strict adherence
to this view will result in the final solution of the
problem. There are, however, so few who feel in this
way, and they are so widely scattered, that they can
hardly be called a class. The other classes of white
people consider them insane and accuse them of advocating
social equality. They are given no voice in
the government and their wishes are disregarded as
readily as those of the Negro. They are sometimes
persecuted, ostracized, and harmed in every conceivable
way. This class is increasing and the two other
classes decreasing.
There are three classes
of Negroes in the South, but
only one desires a solution of the problem and that is
class number two, of those I shall mention. Class
number one is composed chiefly of the illiterate and
superstitious Negroes. They usually work on the
railroads, on the steamboats, in the large saw-mills,
and on the farms for wages. They have no homes and
do not want any; but float from place to place. This
class is contented to be let alone, but is quick to resent
an insult, and will shoot almost as readily as the white
man, and make no attempt to choose their victims.
Among this class are to be found the whiskey seller, the
drunkard, the gambler, and the criminal of the lowest
type. It is the low, degraded and depraved criminals
of this class who stir up and incite race hatred, which
always results in race riots. They do not attend
church or any other religious meeting. The better
class of Negroes are as anxious to get rid of these as
the white man.
The second class is composed of the renters of
farms, the owners of farms, of homes, of preachers,
teachers, students, professional and business men.
They believe that the Negro should be educated in the
trades as well as in the professions; that they should
own homes, pay their taxes and perform their civic duties
like all other citizens and that they should possess
all of the rights and privileges that are delegated to
them by the Constitution of the United States. They
believe in the purity of the state and in the sanctity of
the home. They are enduring, self-sacrificing, patient,
and long suffering, and desire the good of all.
It is this class that always assists in quelling race riots
and is constantly seeking the co-operation of the best
class of white people in order that the relation between
the races may be of the most cordial nature. It is this
class also who do not lose their heads though innocent
members of the race be murdered by the mob. Though
this class is rapidly increasing, it is still far inferior
in number to the first class.
The third class is composed chiefly of the ante-bellum
Negroes. They are well advanced in age and are
contented with their present lot. Many of them have
waited for years for the forty acres and mule and having
been disappointed in their expectation, they have
lost all hopes. They are fast losing sight on the things
of this world and gaining sight on the things of the
world to come. Ofttimes, they sing, "You may have
all this world, but give me Jesus." They are perfectly
harmless and have no earthly ambition. This is
what the white man here calls a good Negro; for him
they act as pall-bearers when he dies and for him they
weep when he is gone. In many instances they erect
monuments to his memory.
Since the recent riots
that have occurred in Georgia,
North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and other Southern
States, many white ministers and other prominent
citizens of the South have been advocating a return to
the master and Bible theory of slavery days, when,
they say, there was no race problem. But every student
of history knows that at the same time the master
was carrying the Bible to his slaves this country was
struggling with one of the greatest race problems that
the world has ever witnessed and the slavery phase of
this problem was settled by one of the bloodiest wars
in the annals of history. Furthermore, the student of
history knows that the master carried the lash more
often to the slave's back than the Bible to the slave's
heart; that the lash kept the slave in subjection.
If the relation between the races now seems most
strained and the solution of the problem seems farther
away than ever, we must be candid and seek the
cause of failure in the methods that we have been
using. In the past, the white man's idea of the solution
has been contrary to the Negro's idea. The white
man has been trying to circumscribe the Negro's
sphere, at the same time, the Negro has been trying to
know the truth which would make him free; yet, both
claim to be trying to solve the same problem. Before
a satisfactory solution of the problem can be had,
it will be necessary for the best white people and the
best class of Negroes to get together and agree as to
what the solution must be. Is it to consist of the Negro
knowing his place and staying in it, or is it to
consist of the Negro knowing the truth and being
free? Which shall it be? Unless they can agree as to
the answer there can be no satisfactory solution.
In a democratic form of government having one
language, one history, one literature, one religion, one
Bible, and one God, there can be only one man who is
the sum total of these, only one man who is the typically
good democratic citizen, and this man will be
known by his accomplishments and not by the color
of his skin. If we should have two types, two men,
then we must have two governments, two languages,
two histories, two literatures, two religions, two Bibles,
and two Gods.
If the shiftless, ignorant, superstitious, and criminal
class of Negroes is increasing, it is because the
ruling class of white men have been limiting his education,
disfranchising him, and in other ways trying
to doom him to serfdom. The great race riot in Atlanta
was simply the culmination of the ten months'
campaigning of race hatred. Hen who are now writing
resolutions and sound and sane editorials, were
then rivaling each other in their abuse of the Negro.
The nominee for governor seemingly, was to be given
to the one who could prove himself the greatest enemy
of the Negro. It is a divine and immutable law that
if we sow the wind we will reap the whirlwind.
Lynchings and mobs will
not solve the problem, for
it has been proven that such actions beget crimes. Depriving
him of educational advantages and disfranchising
him, will not suffice, for on the one hand this
method produces ignorant Negroes, and on the other
hand it increases in the white man the belief that the
Negro has no rights which a white man is bound to
respect. These two states of mind in the last analysis
will always produce crime. The master and Bible theory
will not solve it, because the criminal and lawless
Negro does not attend church. There is but one true
solution and that lies in compulsory education for all
the children of the state with religious, moral and industrial
training. If the South is sincere in its efforts
to help the Negro, or even if the ministers and
other citizens who are now filling the daily press with
suggestions as to the practical solution of this problem
are sincere, they will advocate the enacting of compulsory
educational laws and see to it that all children
between the ages of six and fourteen are kept in
school. They will also advocate a more equitable division
of the school fund between the races. The great
factor in the solution of this problem is education and
the Negro schools are the hope of the race.
Just now, the
attitude of the North towards this
problem is that of an onlooker and well wisher. For
a number of years the South has been saying to the
North, "Hands off, we understand the Negro and we
can solve our own problem." The North, seemingly,
has heeded this injunction and the press and politicians
of the North, barring a few, have been inclined
to take sides with the so-called conservative class of
white men of the South.
The philanthropist of the North, however, while being
a friend to the white South has been none the less
a friend to the black South, and has kept constantly
aiding Negro education and it is the schools thus supported
that are doing the most effective work in the
uplifting of the race. It was the wise guidance, judicious
and calm leadership of the men in these schools
that saved the day at Atlanta. All of these schools
have the record of their graduates and ex-students
opened to the public for inspection. And an impartial
inspection of these records will show that these students
and graduates have made since leaving school,
according to their circumstances, as creditable a mark
as the graduates and ex-students from any of our
Northern schools. These schools do not give college
training.
In these perilous times when the race is passing
through such trying ordeals, and when the souls of
men are being tried, I trust that our friends will not
forsake us. Our industrial schools and colleges and
the better element of the race, need their sympathy,
encouragement, and assistance now as never before.
My prayer is for a double portion of their spirit and
an increased amount of their assistance.
The recent race troubles should not discourage us
or our friends. In fact, we should be encouraged,
for during these troubles the better element of the
race has been severely tried and they have stood the
test. Everywhere their advice has been for moderation,
patience, and forbearance. It is true, we are
troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed,
but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken;
cast down, but not destroyed. Our records will
show that we have been faithful over a few things,
may we not retain the faith and trust of friends?
In every age there are
great and pressing problems
to be solved, - problems whose solution will have
seemingly, a far reaching and lasting effect upon the
economic life of the country concerned. It was the
case in this country from its very beginning and the
same condition obtains today, although each section
of the country has its own peculiar problems the true
American citizen recognizes the fact that the success
of one section in solving its problems will be beneficial
to the entire nation.
Perhaps, no section of this country has been confronted
with more difficult problems than the South.
I therefore, wish to present what I consider to be the
greatest menace of this section, not as a prophet foretelling
future events, - but humbly expressing my
views of the situation after careful study.
If you were to ask the average white man of the
South today what is the greatest menace to this section,
his answer, undoubtedly, would be, the Negro
and Negro domination. At least this would be the
answer of the politician. That he would take this
view, is shown by the great amount of legislation that
has been enacted, aiming either directly or indirectly
to retard the Negro's progress. I do not believe that
there has been one piece of legislation enacted in the
South within the last thirty years for the express purpose
of promoting the Negro's welfare. This does
not mean, however, that the entire white South is
against the Negro or that it means to oppose his advancement.
There are thousands of white men and
women throughout the length and breadth of the
South, who are today, laboring almost incessantly for
the advancement of the Negro. To these, we owe a
great debt of gratitude, and to these should be given
much credit for what has been accomplished. This
class of white southerns are not, as a rule, politicians
and it is seldom, if ever, they are elected to office.
When we speak of the average southern white man
then, we have particular reference to the great horde
of office seekers and politicians that infest the entire
south-land. It is this class that will tell you that Negro
domination is the greatest menace to the South.
Now, Negro domination may be a menace to the
South, but it is certainly not the greatest. Neither is
the extermination of our forests to be greatly feared.
There are organizations and societies on foot in all
parts of the South for the conservation of our forests.
Southern citizenship is suffering much from child
labor, but even this, although being a great danger to
our future development and prosperity, cannot rightly
be classed as our greatest menace. The one thing today,
in which we stand in greatest danger, is the loss
of the fertility of the soil. If we should lose this, as
we are gradually doing, then all is lost. If we should
save it, then all other things will be added. Our great
need is the conservation and preservation of the soil.
The increased crops which we have in the South occasionally,
are not due to improved methods of farming,
but to increased acreage. Thousands of acres of
new land are added each year and our increase in farm
production is due to the strength of these fresh lands.
There is not much more woodland to be taken in as
new farm lands, for this source has been well nigh
exhausted. We must then, within a few years, expect a
gradual reduction in the farm production of the South.
Already the old farm lands that have been in cultivation
for the past fifty or fifty-five years are practically
worn out. I have seen in my day where forty acres
of land twenty or twenty-five years ago would produce
from twenty to twenty-five bales of cotton each year,
and from 800 to 1000 bushels of corn. Now, these forty
acres will not produce more than eight or nine bales of
cotton and hardly enough corn to feed two horses. In
fact, one small family cannot obtain a decent support
from the land which twenty years ago supported three
families in abundance. This farm is not on the hillside,
neither has it been worn away by erosion. It is
situated in the lowlands, in the black prairie, and is
considered the best farm on a large plantation. This
condition obtains in all parts of the South today. This
constant deterioration of land, this gradual reduction
of crops year after year, if kept up for the next fifty
years, will surely prove disastrous to the South.
Practically, all the land in the black belt of the South
is cultivated by Negroes and the farm production has
decreased so rapidly during the last ten or fifteen years
that the average Negro farmer hardly makes sufficient
to pay his rent and buy the few necessaries of life.
Of course, here and there where a tenant has been
lucky enough to get hold of some new land, he makes a
good crop, but after three or four years of cultivation,
his crop begins to decrease and this decrease is kept
up at a certain ratio as long as he keeps the land. Instead
of improving, the tenant's condition becomes
worse each year until he finds it impossible to support
his family on the farm. Farm after farm is being
abandoned or given up to the care of the old men and
women. Already, most of these are too old and feeble
to do effective work.
Now, the chief cause of these farms becoming less
productive, is the failure on the part of the farmers to
add something to the land after they have gathered
their crops. They seem to think that the land contains
an inexhaustible supply of plant food. Another
cause of this deficiency of the soil is the failure of the
farmer to rotate his crop. There are farms being
cultivated in the South today where the same piece
of land has been planted in cotton every year for forty
or fifty years. Forty years ago, I am told by reliable
authority, that this same land would yield from one
bale to one and a half per acre. And today it will take
from four to six acres to produce one bale.
Still another cause for the deterioration of the soil
is erosion. There is practically no effort put forth on
the tenant's part to prevent his farm from washing
away. The hill-side and other rolling lands are not
terraced and after being in use four or five years,
practically all of these lands are washed away and as
farm lands they are entirely abandoned. Not only are
the hillside lands unprotected from the beating rains
and flowing streams, but the bottom or lowlands are
not properly drained, and the sand washed down from
the hill, the chaff and raft from previous rains soon
fill the ditches and creeks and almost any ordinary rain
will cause an overflow of these streams.
Under these conditions an average crop is impossible
even in the best of years. At present, the South
does not produce one-half of the foodstuff that it consumes
and if the present condition of things continue
for the next fifty years, this section of the country will
be on the verge of starvation and famines will be a
frequent occurrence. Of course, Negro starvation will
come first, but white man starvation will surely follow.
I believe, therefore, that I am justified in saying that
there is even more danger in Negro starvation than
there is in Negro domination.
I have noticed in this country that the sins of the
races are contagious. If the Negro in a community
be lazy, indifferent, and careless about his farm, the
white man in the community will soon fall into the
same habit. On the other hand, if the white man is
smart, industrious, energetic and persevering in his
general makeup, the Negro will soon fall into line; so
after all, whatever helps one race in the South will
help the other and whatever degrades one race in the
South, sooner or later will degrade the other. But
you may reply to this assertion by saying that the Negro
can go to the city and make an independent living
for himself and family, but you forget that all real
wealth must come from the soil and that the city cannot
prosper unless the country is prosperous. When
the country fails, the city feels the effect; when the
country weeps, the city moans; when agriculture dies,
all die. Such are the conditions which face us today.
Now for the remedy.
It is worth while to remember that there are ten essential
elements of plant food. If the supply of any
one of the elements fails, the crop will fail. These
ten elements are carbon and oxygen taken into the
leaves of the plant from the air as carbon dioxide, hydrogen,
a constituent of water absorbed through the
plant roots; nitrogen, taken from the soil by all plants
also secured from the air by legumes. The other elements
are phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium,
iron and sulphur, all of which are secured from
the soil. The soil nitrogen is contained in the organic
matter or humus, and to maintain the supply of nitrogen,
we should keep the soil well stored with organic
matter, making liberal use of clover or other legumes
which have power to secure nitrogen from the inexhaustible
supply in the air.
It is interesting to note that one of the ablest chemists
in this country, Prof. E. W. Clark of the U. S.
Geological Survey, has said that an acre of ground
seven inches deep contains sufficient iron to produce
one hundred bushels of corn every year for 200,000
years, sufficient calcium to produce one hundred bushels
of corn or one bale of cotton each year for 55,000
years, enough magnesium to produce such a crop 7,000
years, enough sulphur for 10,000 years and potassium
for 2,600 years, but only enough phosporus for
130
years. The nitrogen resting upon the surface of an
acre of ground is sufficient to produce one hundred
bushels of corn or a bale of cotton for 700,000 years;
but only enough in the plowed soil to produce fifty
such crops. In other words, there are enough of eight
of the elements of plant food in the ordinary soil to
produce 100 bushels of corn per acre or a bale of cotton
per acre for each year for 2,600 years; but only
enough of the other two, phosphorus and nitrogen, to
produce such crops for forty or fifty years.
Let us grant that most of our farm lands in the
South have been in cultivation for fifty or seventy-five
years, and in many instances for one hundred years, it
is readily seen that practically all of the phosphorus
and nitrogen in the plowed soil have been exhausted.
Is it any wonder then that we are having such poor
crops? The wonder is that our crops have kept up
so well. Unless a radical change is made in our mode
of farming, we must expect less and less crops each
year until we have no crops, or such little that we can
hardly pay the rent.
To improve and again make fertile our soils, we
must restore to them the phosphorus and nitrogen
which have been used up in the seventy-five or more
crops that we have gathered from them. This is a
herculean task but this is what confronts us and I for
one, believe we can accomplish it. By the proper rotation
of crops, including oats, clover, cowpeas, as well
as cotton and corn, and a liberal use of barn-yard
manure and cotton seed fertilizer, all of the necessary
elements of plant food can be restored to our worn out
soil. But the proper use of these require much painstaken
study.
The black as well as the white should give this matter
serious consideration. The landlords and the tenants
should co-operate in this great work. The merchants
and bankers must lend their aid and influence,
preachers and teachers should be pioneers in this
movement to save our common country. Our agricultural
colleges should imprint their courses of study in
something more than their annual catalogues. They
should be imprinted in the minds and hearts of their
students, and especially those who are to do farm
work. Thus far, but very little general good has been
accomplished by these schools. The reason is that the
farmers, those who till the soil, have not had access
to these schools and those who attend are not the farming
class, and do not take to farming as their life's
work. The man who works the soil must be taught
how to farm. We have in this state nine purely agricultural
schools, each of which is a white institution.
It is true that some agricultural training is given for
Negroes at Normal, Montgomery and Tuskegee, but
these are not purely agricultural schools and the great
mass of Negro farmers cannot hope to attend them.
If the Negro is to remain the farming class in the
Black Belt of the South, then he must be taught at
least the rudiments of the modern methods of improved
farming. He must have agricultural schools
and must be encouraged to attend them. The loss of
the fertility of the soil is the greatest menace of the
South. How can we regain this lost fertility, is the
greatest question of the hour.
The Negro has remained in
the South almost as a
solid mass since his emancipation. This, in itself
shows that he loves the South, and if he is now migrating
to the East, North and West by the hundreds
and thousands, there must be a cause for it.
We should do our best to find out these causes and
at least suggest the remedy, if we cannot accomplish
it. The time has come for plain speaking on the part
of us all. It will do us no good to try to hide the facts,
because "truth crushed to earth will rise again."
In the first place, the Negro in this country is oppressed.
This oppression is greatest where the Negro
population is greatest. The Negro population happens
to be greater in the South than in the North,
therefore, he is more oppressed in the South than in
the North.
Take the counties in our own state. Some are known
as white counties and others as black counties. In the
white counties the Negro is given better educational
opportunities than in the black counties. I have in
mind one Black Belt county where the white child is
given fifteen dollars a year for his education and the
Negro child thirty cents a year. See the late Dr.
Booker T. Washington's article, "Is the Negro Having
a Fair Chance?" Now these facts are generally
known throughout this State by both white and black.
And we all know that this is unjust. It is oppression.
This oppression shows itself in many other ways.
Take for example the railroads running through the
rural sections of the South. There are many flag stations
where hundreds of our people get off and on
train. The railroads have at these little stops a platform
about six feet square, only one coach stops at this
point; the Negro women, girls and boys are compelled
to get off and on the train sometimes in water and in
the ditches because there are no provisions made for
them otherwise.
Again, take the matter of the franchise. We all
agree that ignorant Negroes should not be entrusted
with this power, but we all feel that where a Negro
has been smart and industrious in getting an education
and property and pays his taxes, he should be
represented. Taxation without representation is just
as unjust today as it was in 1776. It is just as unfair
for the Negro as it is to the white man, and we all,
both white and black, know this. We may shut our
eyes to this great truth, as sometimes we do, but it is
unjust just the same.
Take the matter of the courts. There is no justice
unless the Negro has a case against another Negro.
When he has a case against a white man you can tell
what the decision will be just as soon as you know the
nature of the case, unless some strong white man will
come to the Negro's rescue. This, too, is generally
known, and the Negro does not expect justice.
None of us have forgotten the recent campaign of
Mr. Underwood and Mr. Hobson for United States
Senator from this State. Mr. Underwood's supporters
attacked Mr. Hobson because he defended the Negro
soldiers when he was Representative, and Mr.
Hobson's supporters attacked Mr. Underwood because
they said that he had a Negro secretary in Washington.
Any politician who dares defend a Negro, however
just the cause may be, is doomed to political
death. This is another fact which we all know.
As yet, there has been no concerted actions on the
part of the white people to stop mob violence. I know
a few plantations, however, where the owners will not
allow their Negroes to be arrested unless the officer
first consults them, and these Negroes idolize these
white men as gods, and so far not one of these Negroes
has gone North. I repeat that there are out-croppings
of these oppressions everywhere in this country, but
they show themselves most where the Negroes are in
largest numbers.
All of these sorrows the Negro has endured with
patience and long suffering, and they may be all
classed as the secondary cause of this great exodus.
The primary cause is economics. The storms and
floods destroy crops in the Black Belt section. These
people are hungry, they are naked, they have no corn
and had no cotton; so they are without food and
clothes. What else can they do but go away in search
of work? There are a great many wealthy white men
here and there throughout the Black Belt section.
They have large plantations which need the ditches
cleared and new ones made to properly drain their
farms. They could have given much work to these
destitute people; but what have they done? Nothing.
They say that it is a pity for the Negro to go away in
such large numbers, and so it is, but that will not stop
them. They have it in their power to stop them by
making the Negro's economic condition better here.
The South must do more than make cotton and corn;
it must begin to manufacture some of the things that
it uses. Why should we send our raw material to the
North to be manufactured? Practically all the furniture
we use comes from the North and they get the
timber from us. The South must be both a manufacturing
as well as a farming section, if it would hold
its own with the other sections of this great country.
The capitalists of the South must turn loose their
money if this section would come into its own.
Thus far, the average white man of the South has
been interested in the Negro from a selfish point of
view. He must now become interested in him from a
humanitarian point of view. He must be interested in
his educational, moral and religious welfare. We
know that we have many ignorant, vicious, and criminal
Negroes, which are a disgrace to any people, but
they are ignorant because they have not had a chance.
Why I know one county in this State today with 10,000
Negro children of school age and only 4,000 of these
are in school, according to the report of the Superintendent
of Education. We cannot expect ignorant
people to act like intelligent ones, and no amount of
abuse will make them better.
We know that our race is weak and that the white
race is strong. We know also that our race is sick
and that the white race is well or whole. Now, how
should the strong treat the weak? How should the
whole treat the sick? Would a strong man say, here
is a weak man with a heavy burden, therefore, I will
put more upon him? Would a well man say, here is a
sick man, therefore, I shall give him less medical
treatment? Then why do you say, here is the ignorant
Negro, therefore let us give him less educational opportunities
than we give the white man? If the white
man would be logical in this particular, he would say
in the courts, because he is ignorant let us make his
punishment less severe; because he is weak, let us protect
him, because he is ignorant, let us give him greater
educational opportunities. But this has not been done.
There has not been one dollar increase in the Negro
public school fund in the rural districts in twenty
years; if anything, it is less today than it was twenty
years ago.
Sometimes we hear it said that the white man of the
South knows the Negro better than anybody else, but
the average white man of the South only knows the
ignorant, vicious and criminal class of Negroes better
than anybody else. He knows little of the best
class of Negroes. I am glad to say, however, that
there are a few Southern white men who know the
better class and know them intimately and are doing
what they can to better the Negro's condition. I
would to God that the number of these few could be
increased a hundred fold.
We used to deride the North for giving the Negro a
chance to spend a dollar while withholding from him
the opportunity to make one. But in the Providence
of God all this has been changed by the great war in
Europe, which has created a labor scarcity in the
North, East and West, and the Negro is now being
given a chance to make a dollar there as well as spend
one. The white man of the North is due no special
credit for this, the credit belongs to God. He is the
Righteous Judge of all the earth and in the end He
will do right.
We will hear many tales of the sufferings of these
people who go from this section. Many will die and
some will come back, but still some will never return.
You remember the fate of the Pilgrims, and the early
colonists who first came to this country. You also
know the fate of the men in the world war; many must
die that some be saved. It behooves us of the South
who remain here, both white and black, to re-dedicate
ourselves to unselfish service and try more and more
each day of our lives to live up to the great principle
laid down in the memorable Atlanta speech by the immortal
Booker T. Washington when he said: "In all
things that are purely social we can be as separate as
the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential
to mutual progress."
Too much praise cannot be
given to the General
Education Board, Dr. Dillard and Mr. Rosenwald, and
others for what they have done and are doing to improve
Negro public schools of the South, for in the last
analysis it is there where the great masses of Negro
children must be educated.
We have in the South, as every one knows, a dual
system of public schools, one for the whites and one
for the Negroes. This accounts in part for our poor
schools for both white and colored. Such a system is
expensive and, of course, the Negro gets the worst of
the bargain. This is not surprising to him; he expects
it in all such cases. He has been taught to expect
only a half loaf where others get a whole one,
but in some cases he gets practically nothing from the
State for education. For an instance, I know four or
five Negro public schools in the Black Belt that get
$37.00 for the school term of four months. It would
be hard to figure out how a teacher can live in these
days on $9.25 per month. But, as I have said, the
agencies that I have mentioned above have done much
and are doing more to improve these conditions.
They endeavor to work with or through the State
and county officials wherever it can be done. This I
TEACHERS OF SNOW HILL INSTITUTE
think is perfectly right and proper because the State
must in the end direct the education of its subjects.
But where this cannot be done, I think provision should
be made for the thousands who are now being neglected.
Ever since I succeeded in getting the late Miss Anna
T. Jeanes of Philadelphia to give so largely towards
the Negro public schools of the South, I have been
thinking how this work could be carried on in harmony
with the State and county officials. The General
Education Board, Dr. Dillard and Mr. Rosenwald have
gone a long way towards solving this problem.
At the present time every Southern State has a
Superintendent of Education and a County Superintendent.
These officers are elected by the people
(white people, of course). Recently, however, there
have been two other offices created, State Supervisor
of Education for the Negro and County Supervisor.
These officers are selected and not elected. I think the
offices came about as a result of the efforts of the
General Education Board and Dr. Dillard, and I think
that the State Supervisors of Education are selected
largely through them.
Thus far all of the State Supervisors for Negro
schools have been white men, and they in turn have
been given the power to select the County Supervisor
for the Negro schools, all of which are colored.
These white men are not always able to get the
most efficient persons for such work because I know
of a few County Supervisors here and there who are
not competent to do the work that has been intrusted
to them.
Now as the Negro has nothing to say as to who
should be his State or County Superintendent of Education,
it seems that in the matter of his State and
County Supervisors he should have a word. (I think
it is right and proper that the great funds for Negro
education should be spent through the State and
county officials wherever it can be done.)
The State Superintendent ought to be given the
power to select the most competent Negro educator
to be State Supervisor of Negro Schools, and the
County Superintendent ought to be given the same.
Furthermore, as each State has a Negro Education
Association which meets once a year, I think this Association
should recommend to the State Superintendent
of Education a number of persons from whom
he may select the State Supervisor. In each county
we have an organization, which is known as the County
Teacher Institute. This organization could recommend
two or more persons to the County Superintendent
from whom he might select the County Supervisor.
I feel and think in this way because in order to
really help the people one must go amongst them and
know of their hardships, struggles, desires, sorrows,
and their joys, must talk with them, eat and sleep with
them and know their hearts. It would be asking too
much of the Southern white man to do this.
We know that in order to save the world God gave
His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who came to
earth in the likeness of man, to save man. Perhaps
He might have sent an Archangel or an Angel, but this
work of redemption could only be done by His sending
a person who was a man, just like the men He was to
save, and so it is with all great work of reformation
and evolution.
In order to help the people we must become like
them. In Christ becoming like man is what we call the
humiliation of the Incarnation, and in that lies the
great secret of redemption and reformation.
Again, I feel that this is a day of democracy, and
that the Negro should be given a voice in the government
of his schools. If this democracy, of which we
are hearing so much, is for the white man alone, then
I think that the Negro should know it, and if it is for
all people he should know that.
The white man owes it to the Negro to make this
matter plain.
The liberation and
enfranchisement of four million
of slaves in this country fifty years ago brought into
the body politic a situation that has ever since been a
bone of contention. Because of their ignorance, most
of these people were without the slightest idea of the
proper use, or the power, of the ballot, and but few
could properly exercise this new and high prerogative.
As long as the federal troops remained in the South
and supervised and controlled the elections, these newly-made
citizens retained their rights, but when, during
President Hayes' administration, the troops were
withdrawn, the South immediately set to work to remedy
this condition. Starting with Mississippi in 1890,
state after state disfranchised the Negro. Other discriminating
laws have been enacted setting apart "Jim
Crow" apartments for the Negro on all public carriers,
establishing "Jim Crow" schools, and, in fact,
segregating the two races in all public places wherever
it is possible.
This action on the part of the South brought forth
a storm of criticism from the North. The North accused
the South of treating the Negro unjustly and
taking from him his constitutional rights. The South
answered the North, not by claiming its policy towards
the Negro to be right, but by accusing the North of
hypocrisy; but both sections agree that the Negro
should be made as useful as his capacities will permit,
and that he should seek the place where this usefulness
can be best secured.
This long and constant agitation has led thoughtful
students of the race problem to ask the question:
Are the conditions in the South more conducive to
he social efficiency of the Negro than those offered to
him in the North, This is a vital question and a just
answer to it will have a far-reaching and lasting effect
upon the future welfare of the Negro race in this
country. By social efficiency we mean that degree of
development of the individual that will enable him to
render the most effective service to himself, his family
and to society. As has been defined, all will agree
that social efficiency is the chief end of life.
In the North the Negro lives mostly in the large
cities, while in the South he lives mostly in the rural
or country districts. Both the North and the South
will admit this fact; the opportunities offered in the
North then must be largely the opportunities such as
large cities can offer, those in the South must be
largely such as country districts can offer.
But before further considering this question let us
note for a moment the opportunities offered in the
South and those offered in the North. It is true that,
in the South, the Negro is disfranchised. It is also
true that he suffers many other injustices in that section,
but on the other hand he has a wide field of labor.
First of all he has almost an unlimited opportunity
to farm. He is better adapted to farm work in that
section than either the native white man or the
foreigner. He stands the heat better and can do more
work under a burning Southern sun.
In railroad construction the Negro is preferred.
The coal of the South is dug by Negro labor, the iron
ore is picked from the bowels of the earth by his
brawny muscles. The Negro finds work at the foundries,
the great pipe furnaces, the rolling mills, car
factories and other industries in the mineral districts.
He is eagerly sought for the sawmills, the turpentine
orchard, and in fact for almost every industry of the
South.
Though the white man in the South is beginning to
enter the field of industry, he has not entered to the
extent that the Negro's place is, in the least, in jeopardy.
Such are the opportunities offered the Negro in
he South, though he is largely deprived of political
and social rights. These facts are admitted by both
the North and the South.
Now what are the opportunities offered him in the
North, First of all, the Negro is a free man in a
political sense. He has the same right to vote that
other citizens have and, too, he can vote according to
the dictates of his own conscience.
President Roosevelt in his speech at Tuskegee in
1905, said that the colored people had opportunities
for economic development in the South that are not
offered to them elsewhere.
In the large cities of the North, where the Negro
mostly lives, the chances for good health and the purchase
of a home are not so good. The man with little
means, such as the Negro usually is, must live in either
filthy streets or back alleys, where the air is foul and
the environments are permeated with disease germs.
For the lack of fresh air, pure food and proper exercise,
his children are mere weaklings instead of strong
and robust boys and girls.
Dr. Robert B. Bean of Ann Arbor, in his essay on
"The Training of the Negro" in Century Magazine
of October, 1906, said that in the large cities the Negro
is being forced by competition into the most degraded
and least remunerative occupations; that such occupations
make them helpless to combat the blight of
squalor and disease which are inevitable in these
cities, and therefore many of them are being destroyed
by them.
Mr. Baker says:
"One of the questions I asked of Negroes whom I
met both North and South was this:
"What is your chief cause of complaint?"
"In the South the first answer nearly always referred
to the Jim Crow cars or the Jim Crow railroad
stations; after that, the complaint was of political disfranchisement,
the difficulty of getting justice in the
courts, the lack of good school facilities, and in some
localities, of the danger of actual physical violence.
"But in the North the first answer invariably referred
to working conditions.
" 'The Negro isn't given a fair opportunity to get
employment. He is discriminated against because he
is colored.' "
These conditions instead of promoting the social
efficiency of the Negro, tend to degrade and demoralize
him. The argument that the deprivation of the
Negro's political and social rights in the South tends
to crush his ambition, warp his aspirations and distort
his judgment, is unsound, because his self-reliance,
ambition and independence in the South can be traced
partly to this very deprivation. By it he has been
forced to establish his own schools, his own churches,
educate his own children and train his own ministers.
All of these make for self-reliance and independence
and are therefore conducive to his social efficiency.
"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."
The word "Offence" is a general and somewhat indefinite
term. As defined by the various dictionaries,
it means an attack, an assault, aggression, injustice,
oppression, transgression of a law, misdemeanor, trespass,
crime and persecution. In all of these definitions
there is implied an act considered as disagreeable if
not harmful to the recipient.
Of the various nations of the earth, those that are
most powerful and that have accomplished most good
are those which have endured and have survived the
most offenses. They have grown by reason of the obstacles
which they have overcome. It is singular, yet
it is true, that offenses have never destroyed a nation.
Those nations which have been destroyed have been
destroyed not by attack from without, but by their
own internal weakness.
Societies that are accomplishing the most good for
the uplift of humanity today are those against whom
the most offenses have been committed. Take the
Christian Church, the greatest of all societies. Who
can enumerate the offenses which have been committed
against the church? Herod tried to behead it, but could
not; Pilate tried to crucify it, but instead sanctified it;
Paul persecuted it and it redeemed him; poor drunken
and debauched Nero poured forth the fury of his wrath
against it in every conceivable, wicked way. He deliberately
set fire to the city of Rome and accused the
Christians of the deed. He gave feasts in his garden
and the bodies of the Christians were burned as torches
in the evenings. Their groans and agonies constituted
the music for their dance and carousel. Other
Christians were fed to half-starved lions. But through
it all the church has become more powerful and more
glorious than before; while Nero's name will forever
be a stench to the nations of the earth. In this particular
case the prophecy of Christ "That offenses must
need be but woe unto the man by whom the offense
cometh" is fulfilled. As with the church, so with all
other societies and institutions that are doing good
in the community, they endure their offenses.
The history of the growth and rise of the various
races will show that they, too, have had their bitter
as well as their sweet. In fact, they have fought for
every inch of territory which they now possess.
Let us consider some of the benefits which have been
derived from our hardships. That the enslavement of
my people was a serious offense there is no doubt. I
should be the last one to apologize for slavery; but,
after all, we brought more out of slavery than we carried
into it. We went into it heathens, with no language,
and no God; we came out American citizens,
speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue, and serving
the God of all the earth.
Under the leadership of old Richard Allen and other
noted colored divines, the Negro church was set up
under a bush harbor, but today they own church property
in this country valued at more than $26,000,000.
As a result of the educational offenses committed
against the Negro, today he has 35,000 Negro teachers
and more than seventeen million dollars' worth
of school property in this country. The Negro has
been disfranchised, but he is more capable of the ballot
today than ever before. Though the disfranchisement
of the Negro has wrought great harm to our Democratic
form of government, it has increased in the Negro
the spirit of patience, self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and,
in fact, it has enhanced in him all of those virtues
which make for true manhood and womanhood.
In the business world there has been less offense
committed against the Negro than in any other way.
What little there has been was rather slight and it has
been only in recent years that the Negro has begun to
detect it, and establish business of his own. He has
not so many stores as he has schools, nor so many
shops as he has churches, yet the reports of the Negro
National Business League, which recently met in Atlanta,
will show that he is making rapid progress in
the business world.
All great men as well as races and nations suffered
their offenses. Washington, Lincoln and Grant were
great because they had to endure hardships. Robert
Small, Frederick Douglas and Booker Washington are
great because they were slaves.
The Negro of the South was emancipated 50 years
ago without education, without money, without clothes,
without food, without even a place to rest his head,
and, in many instances, without a name. His greatest
possession was ignorance. If, during slavery, he was
taught many useful and helpful lessons, during slavery,
also, he was denied the opportunity of exercising
and developing the greatest requisite of independence,
self-reliance. He was a new-born babe, as a ship
in mid-ocean without a rudder. It was nothing more
than natural for him at times to drift, at times to wander,
and still at other times to steer in the wrong direction.
Consequently, he made many mistakes, some of them
serious. He made mistakes in religion, mistakes in
economics, and mistakes in politics, but to my mind
his greatest mistake was made in the matter of education.
Until the year '95 the masses of our people
in the Black-Belt section of the South believed that the
end of education was to free one from manual labor,
especially from the labor of the farm. They furthermore
believed that it was the end of education to take
the people from the country to the cities and otherwise
fit them for only three callings, namely, of teacher, of
preacher, and of politician. This conception of education
was entertained not only by the masses, but
many of our schools and colleges encouraged the same
view.
Just at this period, when the relation between the
races seemed most strained, there loomed on the horizon
the Booker Washington idea, "That the kind of
education most needed by our people was that which
would dignify, beautify, and make attractive and desirable
country life and at the same time fit our people
for high and useful citizenship." Mr. Washington
further contended that any education which did not
manifest itself in the practical daily life of the people
was not worthy of the name.
This idea of Mr. Washington was indeed timely,
but, like all other great movements for reform, it was
not accomplished without obstacles, but in the face
of many dangers and difficulties. But the dawn of a
new day is breaking and industrialism seems to be the
spirit of the age. The very fact that the Negro was
not allowed to attend the white man's school in the
South gave the Negro a Tuskegee. The fact that no
white educator was willing to bear the black man's
burden gave him a Booker Washington. For similar
reasons the Negro has been forced to build his own libraries,
his own theatres, his own hotels, and to establish
many other business enterprises.
Hardships, trials, persecution, and offences are a
primary necessity in life. We ought not, therefore,
complain of them; our trials have made us what we
are.
This is pre-eminently a progressive age. The world
no longer stands still. We are either going forward
or backward, rising or falling; there is no such thing
as standing still. Those phases of our human activities
that are standing still are dying. This forward
movement is not accomplished without obstacles, and
what is true of politics and business is equally true of
individuals. The greatest strength comes from overcoming -
from resistance and struggle.
No book written in
the year 1918 would be complete
without a word about this awful conflagration which is
now sweeping over the earth.
One sometimes
thinks that the end is near and that
the world is being destroyed.
We know that everything that has been invented to
advance civilization is now being used to destroy it.
Our one consolation is that however imperfect we may
have been as a nation, we know that our cause is just
and because of this we believe that in the end we will
and must win. The right has always been more powerful
than the wrong, even more powerful than might
and it will prove true in this case.
I am being constantly asked by white men in both
the North and South, "How does the Negro regard
this war and what about his willingness to share in
its responsibilities." I have only one answer for such
questions: "The Negro now knows but one word 'Loyalty.'
He is no alien, he owes no allegiance to any
other country, there is no hyphen to his name, he
is all American, he is willing to fight and die, that the
world might be made safe for democracy." He only
asks that he may share in this democracy.
Already there are practically 200,000 Negroes who
have been called to the colors and thousands of others
are expected to be called. I hear of but few if any
slackers among them, while thousands of slackers of
other races are being rounded up by the police in various
cities throughout the country.
The 200,000 Negro soldiers who are now at the front
and in the camps have gone with as brave hearts as
any American citizen. They say, "Silver and gold,
have I but little, but I give my life to Uncle Sam, it is
all that I can do."
The Negro is not only furnishing men to the National
Army, but he is doing his part to support the
boys at the front. He has bought Liberty Bonds to
the fullest extent. Many of his business organizations,
societies and lodges have bought large blocks of
these bonds.
On Sunday morning, June 14th, Dr. Cortland L.
Myers of Tremont Temple, Boston, in his sermon told
of an incident of an old colored woman who had worked
hard and saved up three hundred dollars in order that
she might not at the end be buried in the paupers'
field, but when she read that the United States wanted
money, took all she had and carried it to the bank to
the agent. When the agent gave her the Liberty Bond
and told her that she would get four per cent on her
money, she was utterly surprised and said, "Lord,
Boss, I thought I was giving this money to Uncle
Sam." This woman had only three hundred dollars,
but she gave all.
You remember what Christ said about those who
were contributing to a great cause on one occasion.
Many made large gifts, but one poor woman came up
and gave a penny which was all she had. Christ on
commenting on this to his Disciples said that she had
given more than all, because she had given all she had.
Many incidents of this kind may be cited as proof of
the Negroes' loyalty in this struggle.
Not only in the Liberty Loan drive, but in the Red
Cross and War Savings Stamp drives, the Negro is
doing his part. There are Negro agents all over the
South who are educating our people up to what the
Government at Washington wants. Such schools as
Snow Hill, Laurinburg, Denmark, Utica, Okalona and
Calhoun and many others are serving as bureaus of
information for this war work among the Negroes.
Nor is this all. The Negro is doing his part in the
various industries of the country. I have heard of
many strikes and walk-outs since we entered the war,
but not once have a group of Negroes struck. In some
places where a few are working with the unions, the
unions have forced them out at the risk of their lives,
but where he is free, nowhere in this country has the
Negro struck during the war.
He is doing his bit on the farm. Everywhere the
Negro farmers, man, woman and child, believe that
they can help win the war by making a good crop and
they are at work on the farm trying to do this, so you
see that the Negro in every way is in the war to a finish.
These are answers to questions asked me by the
white man both North and South as to the attitude of
the Negro toward this world's war.
But on the other hand the Negro soldiers and civilians
are not asleep and they too are asking such questions
as these: -
"Are we to share in the democracy for which we are
giving our lives?
When the world is made safe for democracy, will the
entire country be made safe for it?
Will my father, mother, sister and brother be allowed
to share in this democracy?
Will lynchings and burnings at the stake cease?
Will the white man who makes the laws allow these
laws to take their course?
Will they allow us or give us a fair trial before their
courts, which have only white men as jurors?
Will they cease tarring us without representation?
Will they give us an equal part of the money spent for
education? (In many places in the Black Belt the
Negro child receives thirty cents a year for education,
while the white child receives fifteen dollars.)
Will the Negro be given any work that he
is capable of doing and not be denied it on account
of his color?
Will it be possible for a Negro travelling from Alabama
to California or Massachusetts, to find a
place to sleep at night?
Will the baggage masters and the conductors of the
South ever treat the Negro passengers with courtesy
and respect and finally will the white man in
the South after making the laws for the qualifications
of voters, allow a Negro to vote if he measures
up to these qualifications?
The Negro does not care what these qualifications
may be. He only wants a fair chance in case he measures
up to them.
The Negro only seeks equal rights and justice before
all the courts of the land. He expects this because of
his teachings. He was brought to this country against
his will, even against his protest. He has been given
the white man's language, his history, his literature,
his Bible and even his God. His aspirations, inspirations
and desires have been brought about as a result
of these and if they are wrong, the white man is to
blame. The Negro has been taught to believe that God
is no respecter of persons and therefore his subjects
should not be. He thought that if he did what other
men did he would obtain the same results.
Now evidently the Negro is a man. He loves as
other men do, he lives as others do, he dies as others
die, he has joy and sorrow as others do, even hates as
others do, laughs and cries as others. He must therefore,
be a man as man is the only being which possesses
these faculties. Then he asks for a man's
chance and the world will never be right until this is
given him. The world will never be safe for democracy
until all the races of the earth are allowed to
share in it.
In answer to all
of the foreging questions asked me
by both the white and black, I have said that things
will be better for the Negro after the war. I have said
that it was impossible for the world to be made safe
for democracy unless every county in the South is
made safe for it.
I have gone as far as to cite a recent occurrence in
Camden, Wilcox County, Alabama, where more than
one hundred and forty Negroes were sent to the cantonments
and I was asked to be one of the speakers on
the occasion. The white people there gave the Negroes
a great banquet and in my remarks after thanking
them for their hospitality, I said "That it would
be foolish and cowardly on my part to stand here in
your presence and say that as a race we have no grievances,
for we have them, but this is no time to air
them. When the house is on fire it is no time for family
quarrels, but the thing to do is to put the fire out
and then we can adjust the quarrels after.
"Today our National house is on fire and it is the
duty of every man, both white and black, rich and poor,
great and small, to rise in his might and put the fire
out and when the fire is out, we will see you about these
grievances."
I went a step further and told that "already the
war had brought some good results as this was the
most democratic day that this little city had ever seen.
Before the war, two expressions were commonly used
by the white man and the Negro. The Negro's expression
was this: - "I haven't any country," and the white man's
expression was: - "This is a white man's
country." Now both of these classes are saying,
"This is our country." I further said that "we should
win this war, because democracy was right and autocracy
is wrong, and if we lose, and God forbid that we
should, the fault will not be in democracy, but it will
be due to the fact that we are not practicing what we
preach."
At the close of my remarks many of the white citizens,
including the judge, the sheriff, lawyers and
other prominent men came forward and congratulated
me on what I said and some said that the white
people of Camden needed more of such plain talk. I
took these signs to mean that better things were coming
for the Negro of the South after the war, but I
must admit that when I read in the evening papers of
June 27th that Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi
had practically defeated the bill for women
suffrage, because he said that he favored the vote for
white women only and that the bill in its present form
would not be allowed in his state - I must confess that
this action almost took away all of my hopes especially
after there was no one to rise and rebut his argument.
There was no one in the United States Senate
to speak for democracy for all the people. Now I
think that just such spirit as this exhibited by that
great Senator from Mississippi is at the foundation
of this world's war and until that spirit is crushed,
I fear that this war will continue. For of a truth,
"God is no respecter of persons."
Now I have given my answers to both the Negro and
the white man. What is the answer of the white man?
Are we fighting for democracy for all the people,
or are we fighting for democracy for the white man
only?
This question has
never been answered by the white
man, but it must be answered after this great war.
Address Delivered by Mr. Edwards on the Twentieth
Anniversary of His Graduation from Tuskegee.
"Two decades
ago, twenty members constituting the
class of '93, received their commission from the illustrious
Principal of this great institution on yonder
hill, to go ye into all parts of the South and teach
and preach Tuskegee's gospel. This gospel was then as
it is now, a gospel of service. Now after the lapse of
twenty years we have assembled here to review the
efforts of past years. Although twenty years are not
long enough in which to record the life's work of a
class, it is sufficiently long to indicate the direction in
which this work is tending.
"So we come today, not so much to tell what we have
accomplished as to tell what we are doing to renew
our allegiance to our Alma Mater, and to assure its
Principal and members of the Faculty that our motto,
"Deeds Not Words," is still our guiding star. Four
of our number have passed to the great beyond. We
must therefore wait a later and greater day to hear
their record read or told. Of the remaining sixteen,
we have lost all communication with two, and it would
be mere speculation for us to say what these two are
doing. We can only hope, and do most fervently pray,
that wherever they are they have with them the deep
and abiding spirit of Tuskegee, and this we believe
they have. This leaves then only fourteen live, vigorous
and active members with which we are concerned.
All of these, except one, have been engaged more or
less in teaching. They are located as follows:
"Two in Normal School at Snow Hill, Alabama; one
at the head of a large Industrial School at Topeka,
Kansas; three in Birmingham, Alabama; one teaching
in Miles Memorial College; one in Government Service;
one doing settlement work; two are in Asheville,
N. C., where they are engaged in teaching and doing
settlement work respectively; another teaching in
Dothan, Alabama; two in Montgomery, one of these
teaching and the other doing settlement work; one in
Selma, Alabama, farming and doing extension work;
one at the head of a prosperous Industrial School at
China, Alabama, and one teaching in Georgia. All
have been remarkably successful and they have
touched and made better the lives of more than five
thousand souls. While losing their lives for others,
they have saved their own somewhat, materially.
"Having been out on the tempestuous sea of life for
twenty years amidst both storms and calms, it may not
be out of place for us to speak a word of warning or
make a few suggestions to those who are to set sail
today, and to those who hope to go to sea at a later
date. This, then, is our message. First of all, it is necessary
for you to know where the work of the world is
to be done.
"On one occasion during Christ's sojourn on earth,
He took a few of His disciples with Him upon the
mountain and there transfigured Himself. He clothed
Himself in heavenly beauty and splendor; He arrayed
Himself in His Godlike power. These men were so
overjoyed at this manifestation of His glory and
power, that old Peter, impulsive as he was, spoke out
and said: 'Lord, it is good for us to be here, if it be
Thy will, let us build here three tabernacles, one for
Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.' The place
was so glorious that they wanted to abide there. But
at the same time the multitude was waiting at the foot
of the mountain, hungering and desiring to be fed;
naked and desiring to be clothed; sick, and desiring
to be healed. The work of Jesus Christ and His disciples
was not on the transfigured mountain, but at the
foot among the masses. So as they came down from
the mountain, there met Him a man whose son was
a lunatic, desiring that the Master might heal him.
"So on occasions like this when Dr. Washington
takes us upon the mountain and reveals to us Tuskegee
in all of her beauty and splendor, we are likely,
in such a state of ecstasy, to cry out saying, Principal
Washington, it is good for us to be here, and let us
build three tabernacles; one for thee, one for Armstrong,
and one for Douglas. But my friends, we cannot
abide here. We must go down to the foot of the
mountain among the masses. We must go out into the
rural districts for there it is that the people are a hungry
and thirsty crowd, and there it is that the harvest
is great, but the laborers are few, and there it is the
work of the world must be done.
"Another suggestion is, that as you go out to work,
you will find that for the most part Negro society is
built upon a false basis. Instead of being built upon
the sound basis of merit and character, it is built upon
display; instead of being built upon substance, it is
built upon shadow.
"We need young men and women who have confidence
in themselves; confidence in the race, and abiding
faith in God. We need young men and women who
are more interested in the opportunity to make a dollar
than in the privilege to spend one. We need young
men and women who are imbued with the spirit of sacrifice
and service, whose mission is, 'Not to be ministered
unto, but to minister.' We need young men and
women with a purpose.
"To illustrate what we mean by a purpose, we take
the action of Grant during the late Civil War. When
Winfield Scott and McClellan had practically failed
with the army of the Potomac and things were looking
very dark for the Union forces, Lieutenant U. S.
Grant was placed in command of all the Union forces.
From the date of his command, his purpose was: 'On
to Richmond.' Day after day his command was: 'On
to Richmond.' When they had rivers to ford and
mountains to climb, his command was: 'On to Richmond.'
At times thousands were laid low by the ravage
of disease, but his command was: 'On to Richmond.'
When the cannon of his enemy roared like
thunder and bullets like lightning struck his men down
by the tens of thousands, his command was: 'On to
Richmond.' He received letters and telegrams by the
thousands saying: 'My God, General, are you going to
kill all of our husbands, all of our sons, our brothers?
Are you going to make all of the North a land of widows
and orphans?' His reply was: 'On to Richmond.'
When rivers of blood were before him, flames of fire
swept over his forces, his command was: 'On to Richmond.'
And the command never ceased until Lee surrendered
his sword to Grant at Appomattox Court
House. We repeat, that for the work that lies before
us, we need young men and women with a purpose.
"A third warning is, that we must not mistake the
aim and end of education. You will find somewhere
in the Bible a sentence like this: 'And the word was
made flesh and it dwelled among us.' The word had
been spoken by Abraham; Moses thundered it from
Mt. Sinai's rugged brow; Ezekiel preached it; David
sang it; Solomon proclaimed it; Jeremiah prophesied
it; Elijah saw it in the whirlwind; Moses saw it in
the burning bush, and Isaiah saw it and in amazement
cried: 'Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed
garments from Bazroh? this that is glorious in his apparel,
traveling in the greatness of His strength?'
But my friends, none of this would do. Speaking the
word would not atone; hearing it would not redeem;
and seeing it would not save. The word had to be
made flesh and blood in the person of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, and then come down on earth and live,
move, and dwell among us.
"As with the word, so with education. You have
been here a number of years trying to obtain it. You
have heard education from your teachers; you have
heard it in the class-rooms; you have heard it from the
platform; you have heard it in the Sunday-School; you
have gleaned it from your text-books; you have sung
it; you have prayed it; you have spoken it; you have
walked it; you have assumed it. But none of these
will suffice. Education, in order to be real, must be
applied; in order to be effective, it must be digested
and assimiliated. It must become a part of your
flesh
and blood; it must transform you into a new creature
and then go out and move, live and dwell among us.
"And now a final
word for the class of '93. What
of its loyalty to Tuskegee, our Alma Mater? It is
true that at times our purposes and aims have been
misunderstood and misconstructed; at times your attitude
towards us has been misinterpreted, but not
once have we doubted your love. We hope that you
have never mistrusted ours.
"It is true that at times we are troubled on every
side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in
dispair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down,
but
not destroyed. Through all of this, our love and loyalty
to dear old Tuskegee has never wavered, and now
as a token of this love and loyalty, I hand to Dr. Washington
as a Memorial Scholarship for the class of '93,
a check for one thousand dollars."
I think that this act pleased Dr. Washington more
than anything that had ever been done by the class of
'93. We all were proud of this because we wanted Dr.
Washington to see that we had not forgotten what he
had done for us. We wanted to do this during his
lifetime, and this we succeeded in doing.
An address before
the Alabama State Teachers' Association,
held in Montgomery, Ala., the subject being:
"School
Building Under Difficulties."
"There is no work
pertaining to the welfare of our
race that is of more importance than that of the
teacher, and no class of people has a harder task to
perform than the earnest and conscientious Negro
teacher of today.
"The problems that come before the large educational
associations of this and other countries, are
problems dealing largely with the child, such as the
treatment of backward children, treating of abnormal
children, care of the blind, of the deaf, special treatment
for incorrigibles, the feeble minded, and many
other kinds of mental and physical detectives.
"Other problems that demand the attention of such
meetings, are problems dealing with the teacher, his
preparation and qualification for the various grades
of our schools, for instance, preparation of the teacher
for the elementary school, for the secondary school,
and for colleges and universities. These associations
also give much time to such subjects as The Relation of
Education to Real Life; The Defects of our Present
School System; and how these defects may be remedied.
In other words, how can the school better fit
the student to take his place in the social and economic
life of today? I repeat, these are the problems which
largely consume the time of these educational meetings.
They are vital and far-reaching, and demand
the closest attention of our wisest and best educators.
They are not racial; not sectional; not even national,
but are universal in their scope and teachers in all
parts of the world must contend with them.
"The average Negro teacher of the South today must
assume his share of the burden of these problems along
with other teachers, whether he wills it or not. In
addition to this he has to deal with the serious problem
of his bread and butter. This makes the burden
of the Negro teacher of a two-fold nature, and in this
respect he is at a disadvantage of the average American
teacher. He has not as yet been able to live up to
the Biblical injunction, 'Take no thought for your
life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet
for your body, what ye shall put on.' No teacher
can do his best so long as there is doubt and uncertainty
about his daily bread.
"The Negro student who finishes at one of our
higher institutions of learning today, and goes forth
to teach, does not find everything to his liking. He
soon learns that there has been no voice before him
crying in the wilderness saying: 'Prepare ye the way
of the teacher, make straight in the desert a highway
for our educator.' He learns here for the first time
that in addition to the ordinary educational problems,
it is for him to exalt every valley, make low every hill
and mountain, make the crooked straight, and the
rough places plain. He finds no way prepared, he
must make one; he finds no school-house ready, he must
build one; he finds no people anxiously awaiting him,
he must persuade them. In many eases the Negro
teacher who is imbued with the spirit of sacrifice and
service can truly say as did the Master, 'The foxes have
holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the
teacher who would redeem a poverty stricken and ignorant
people, has not where to lay his head.'
"The purpose of the Snow Hill Institute is to prepare
young men and young women to go into communities
where they propose to work and influence the
people to stop living in rented one-room log cabins,
buy land, and build dwelling houses having at least
four rooms, and thus improve the home life of the
people. Second, to influence the people to build better
school-houses and lengthen the school terms and thus
by arousing educational interest, assist in bringing
about the needed reform that is so essential to economic
and upright living; and finally to promote good
character building. To some extent the purpose is
being realized, for more than one thousand different
students who have been more or less benefited by having
spent a year or more under its guidance, are leading
sober and useful lives. Two hundred fifteen have
either been granted certificates or diplomas, and are
engaged as follows: Fifty are teachers, twenty-five are
housekeepers, three of the teachers have founded
schools of their own, one at Laurinburg, N. C., one at
West Butler, Alabama, and one at Richmond, Alabama.
"Though the majority of the ex-students are located
in the Black Belt of Alabama and are engaged
principally in farming, a large number of them are
found in the following states: Mississippi, Louisiana,
Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas."
ADDRESS DELIVERED BY MR. EDWARDS IN
BESSEMER, ALABAMA
It was customary
in ancient times for nations to
build walls around their cities to protect them from
the enemy. War was the rule, and peace the exception.
Nations therefore spent most of their time in
preparing for war, as they believed that their advancement
depended largely upon their conquest. Watchmen
would be placed here and there on the walls to
keep a sharp look-out for the enemy and when detected,
would warn the inhabitants of his approach. As a
result of these warlike times and military activities,
some of the world's greatest generals were produced
during that period.
Undoubtedly, conditions here mentioned, existed because
of the poor methods of transportation and communication
that were uncertain during that day, for
since the advent of the steam-engine, telegraph, telephone,
the automobile, and other means of rapid transit,
national lines of demarcation have been becoming
less distinct. As nations communed with nations and
understood each other better, they found less causes
for differences and less need of watchmen on the walls.
We cannot help but believe that with a better knowledge
of each race by the other and on the part of each
a better understanding of the great and common end
of life, which is to serve and uplift, that racial strife
and conflict will cease and ere long this old world will
become the kingdom of our God.
But these are not ancient times and things that were
are not now. The cities of the plain are no longer
separated, for the walls have been demolished and instead
of the watchmen we have the teacher, the
preacher and the politician to tell us the signs of the
times.
This is, pre-eminently, a progressive age; an age of
going forth; an age in which things move. With the
new and varied inventions of the 19th and 20th Centuries,
old customs and conditions are rapidly passing
away and those nations, races, and individuals who
cannot adjust themselves to these new conditions must
be left behind. Just now grave and serious problems
confront the American People and this, in itself, is a
proof of our going forth. We must not deprecate
them, we must not shirk them, they are ours, we must
face them manfully, must shoulder them and stand up
and walk. These problems are the mothers of progress
and instead of trying to turn from them or to
dodge them, we should rejoice because we live at a
time when we can help in the solution of such complex
problems, whose results will have such far reaching
and lasting effect upon the social and economic life of
the American People.
This country is one and inseparable and whatever is
beneficial to the white man is beneficial to the black
man also. The negro cannot hope at the present to
play a very important part in the solution of great
questions. At our best the part we must play can only
be secondary. First, because our business operations
have not brought us into intimate relation to these
questions and we do not fully comprehend their meaning.
Second, we can do but little because these questions
are political in their nature and must be settled
by the ballot. The Negro in this section has been disfranchised
and therefore he cannot play at that game.
Our being thus handicapped and prohibited from
assisting in the solution of these great problems, is
no reason why we should say there is nothing we can
do.
"If you cannot cross the ocean
There are some
problems, however, that are within
our reach, upon the solution of which depends our
future welfare in this country. They are, inefficiency,
vagrancy, and crime. For a long time we have been
hearing of the inefficiency of the Negro teacher, the
inefficiency of the Negro preacher, but all the while it
was said that he was a good worker; that he was only
fitted to do manual labor. The cry has gone out and
is rapidly spreading to the effect that the Negro is
worthless; that there is inefficiency in the pulpit, inefficiency
in the school-room, and now inefficiency on
the farm. Inefficiency everywhere. Our race has lost
many places of trust and honor because of this cry.
I know personal cases where Negro men have been replaced
by white men because, they say, the black men
were inefficient. This is as much true in New York as
it is in Alabama. As the supply of efficient men increases,
the demand for inefficient men will decrease
and sooner or later there will be no room for the inefficient
man. He will be idle, cannot get any work to
do. He will be added to the vagrant class. Already
this class is too large among us; strong able-bodied
men walking about with no home and nothing to do.
This is a dangerous class. Of course, unless the vagrant
gets some work to do he will starve or have to
leave the country; but this man does not do either.
He becomes a parasite and lives of the honest toil of
others. Sometimes he lives out of the white man's
kitchen, because his sweetheart is the cook; sometimes
because his old mother is a wash woman, and sometimes
because his sister is a nurse. This is the class,
my white friends, that gives you trouble, this is the
class that gives us trouble, this is the class that will
give trouble to any community and we are as anxious
as you are to rid ourselves of this body of death.
Now the best class of Negroes and the best class of
white people are agreed as to the fact that this dangerous
class must be gotten rid of, but they differ as
to methods. The Negro believes mostly in the preventive
method, the white man mostly in the cure
method. The Negro says a good school in every community
will prevent, the white man says a good jail in
every county will cure. The Negro says teach the
law, the white man says enforce the law. The Negro
cries for a state reformatory for the boys and girls
of his race, the white man cries for the penitentiary
for them. Now, this is not a very great difference
after all and we should get together by each asking for
the best schools to prevent these evils and then when
the evils are committed, asking for the strictest law
for their punishment. As for my part, it is not a
question in my mind as to the cause of this increasing
class among my people. It is plain to me that ignorance
is the cause of inefficiency, inefficiency the cause
of vagrancy, and vagrancy the cause of crime. We
must, therefore, seek the remedy in the removal of the
cause. If ignorance be the mother of inefficiency, inefficiency
the mother of vagrancy, and vagrancy the
mother of crime, it is plain that the removal of ignorance
will stop the others. This can only be done by
education and civic righteousness.
I wish here to emphasize the fact that education is
the source of all we have and the spring of all our
future joys. Our religion, our morality, and that
which is highest and best in our social and civic life,
all come from education. Therefore, it is the primary
factor in the elevation of all races.
Our education should be of a threefold nature, viz.:
Literary, Industrial and Religious. No limit should
be placed upon the Negro's literary qualification. A
race so largely segregated as ours, needs its own
teachers, preachers, lawyers. doctors, pharmacists, and
other professional and business men, and therefore
they should be given the highest and best education
that is obtainable. If our preachers and teachers are
inefficient, it is because they are improperly educated.
If the churches are growing cold and dying and the
schools accomplishing but very little good, it is because
religion is not being made practical and education
not being made to apply to our every day life.
Such an end can only be accomplished through well
and systematically trained teachers and preachers.
Better teachers and better preachers will go a long
way towards the alleviation of our ills. If we would
secure the kind of education here referred to, we must
be willing to pay for it; we must make a sacrifice, we
must care less about forms and fashions and more
about the higher things of life. We must see less evils
in the dollar and more good.
We must not only have a good education, but we
must have good industrial training. This is a scientific
as well as a literary age. A scientific age is always
an age of inventions and with new inventions
comes the demand for men qualified to manage large
interests and complicated machinery. This demand
can only be supplied by industrially trained men and
women. This must be done in our industrial schools.
Our hands should be as truly trained to work as our
minds to think, and any education that teaches otherwise,
is not worthy of the name.
I know that in some sections my people are prejudiced
towards industrial schools, but this is foolish
in the extreme. If we are to hold our own in this
country, it must be by our ability to do work and to do
it in the most acceptable manner. We are in a farming
section and I believe that we should therefore
strive to be the best farmers in the world. Let us
make a specialty of all the trades that are related in
anyway to agriculture; endeavor to become the best
stock raisers, the best truck gardeners, the best cooks,
the best wash women, the best housekeepers, the best
dress makers, the best blacksmiths, and in fact, the
best in all that pertains to country life.
Let us get hold of the lands we cultivate as far as
possible and build better homes and keep our homes
clean. But you say that we do not need industrial
training. Let us see. Many years ago Henry Clay,
in order to encourage home industry, introduced a bill
in the Kentucky Legislature to the effect that the
people of that state should use nothing save what
could be produced in the state. Suppose today the
white man of this country should say that the Negro
must use only the things which he could make, what
would be his condition? Could we cook with proper
utensils? Could we eat with knives and fork? Could
we dress as we do now? Practically everything we
wear or use was made by the white man and were he
to institute such actions we would be helpless to provide
for ourselves.
In our quest for knowledge, we must not overlook
the education of the heart. Our religion should be
made practical. It must be real and not visionary.
No other will suffice. Our religion must consist more
in deeds and less in words. Return to Menu Page for Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt by W. Return to First-Person Narratives of the American South, Beginnings to
1920 Home Page Return to Documenting the American South Home Page
Page 12
Richmond, Dallas County, Alabama.
Page 13CHAPTER 3.
A RAY OF LIGHT.
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Page 18CHAPTER 4.
LIFE AT TUSKEGEE.
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"DEEDS NOT WORDS."
Page 26CHAPTER 5.
RECONNOITERING.
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Page 35CHAPTER 6.
FOUNDING THE SNOW
HILL SCHOOL.
Page 36
Page 36a
Page 37CHAPTER 7.
SMALL BEGINNINGS.
Page 38
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Page 43CHAPTER 8.
CAMPAIGNING FOR FUNDS IN THE NORTH.
Page 44
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Page 48a
Page 49CHAPTER 9.
RESULTS.
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Page 54CHAPTER 10.
ORIGIN OF THE JEANES FUND.
Page 55
Page 56CHAPTER 11.
APPRECIATION.
Page 57
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Page 63CHAPTER 12.
GRADUATES AND EX-STUDENTS.
Page 64
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Page 68SKETCH OF MY LIFE.
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EMMANUEL MCDUFFIE, Principal Lauringburg Normal and Industrial Institute, Laurinburg, N. C.
REV. EMMANUEL M. BROWN of Street Manual Training School, Richmond, Alabama.
JOHN W. BRISTER, who established a prize at Snow Hill Institute.
WAVERLY TURNER CARMICHAEL, Poet of Snow Hill.
Page 73
Page 74
Fur summer days is been and pas'
The air is blowin' mighty cold,
Like it done in days of old.
Page 75
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Page 77CHAPTER 13.
THE SOLUTION OF THE NEGRO PROBLEM.
Page 78The White Man's Solution.
Page 79
Page 80The Negro's Method of Solution.
Page 81Fallacy of the Master and the Bible Remedy.
Page 82
Page 83Only One Road to the Solution.
Page 84The Attitude of the North Towards This
Problem.
Page 85
Page 86CHAPTER 14.
THE GREATEST MENACE OF THE SOUTH.
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Page 94CHAPTER 15.
THE NEGRO EXODUS.
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Page 100CHAPTER 16.
THE NEGRO AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF THE
SOUTH.
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Page 104CHAPTER 17.
WHERE LIES THE NEGRO'S OPPORTUNITY?
Page 105
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Page 109CHAPTER 18.
SCHOOL PROBLEMS OF A TUSKEGEE GRADUATE.
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Page 115CHAPTER 19.
BENEFITS WROUGHT BY HARDSHIPS.
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Page 120CHAPTER 20.
THE NEGRO AND THE WORLD WAR.
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APPENDIX
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APPENDIX
"THE SIGNS OF TIMES"
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And the heathen lands explore
You can find the heathen nearer;
You can help them at your door.
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