Historical voices

The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little known to those not situated as he is.

The world should not pass judgment upon the Negro, and especially the Negro youth, too quickly or too harshly.

Years ago I resolved that because I had no ancestry myself I would leave a record of which my children would be proud, and which might encourage them to still higher effort.

Since that time I have owned many kinds of caps and hats, but never one of which I have felt so proud as of the cap made of the two pieces of cloth sewed together by my mother.

I have always felt proud that she refused to go into debt for that which she did not have the money to pay for.

I have always felt proud, whenever I think of the incident, that my mother had strength of character enough not to be led into the temptation of seeming to be that which she was not—of trying to impress my schoolmates and others with the…

It is seldom that anything is permanently gained by holding back a fact.

I have great faith in the power and influence of facts.

These night lessons were so welcome that I think I learned more at night than the other children did during the day.

Despite this disappointment, however, I determined that I would learn something, anyway.

Few people who were not right in the midst of the scenes can form any exact idea of the intense desire which the people of my race showed for an education.

This experience of a whole race beginning to go to school for the first time, presents one of the most interesting studies that has ever occurred in connection with the development of any race.

If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.

Though she was totally ignorant, she had high ambitions for her children, and a large fund of good, hard, common sense, which seemed to enable her to meet and master every situation.

I determined, when quite a small child, that, if I accomplished nothing else in life, I would in some way get enough education to enable me to read common books and newspapers.

Besides, deep down in their hearts there was a strange and peculiar attachment to “old Marster” and “old Missus,” and to their children, which they found it hard to think of breaking off.

To some it seemed that, now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more serious thing than they had expected to find it.

In a few hours the great questions with which the Anglo-Saxon race had been grappling for centuries had been thrown upon these people to be solved.

It was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years out into the world to provide for himself.

The great responsibility of being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of them.

Now they gradually threw off the mask, and were not afraid to let it be known that the “freedom” in their songs meant freedom of the body in this world.

True, they had sung those same verses before, but they had been careful to explain that the “freedom” in these songs referred to the next world, and had no connection with life in this world.

On the other hand, the slaves, in many cases, had mastered some handicraft, and none were ashamed, and few unwilling, to labour.

They unconsciously had imbibed the feeling that manual labour was not the proper thing for them.