The Public Record
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite.
When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the wilderness through which and out of which…
Ever since I have been old enough to think for myself, I have entertained the idea that, notwithstanding the cruel wrongs inflicted upon us, the black man got nearly as much out of slavery as the white man did.
When freedom came, the slaves were almost as well fitted to begin life anew as the master, except in the matter of book-learning and ownership of property.
They unconsciously had imbibed the feeling that manual labour was not the proper thing for them.
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.
These discussions showed that they understood the situation, and that they kept themselves informed of events by what was termed the “grape-vine” telegraph.
Despite this disappointment, however, I determined that I would learn something, anyway.
He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time.
But taking place at the time it did, and for the reason that it did, no one could ever make me believe that my mother was guilty of thieving.
I cannot remember having slept in a bed until after our family was declared free by the Emancipation Proclamation.
Say what we will, there is something in human nature which we cannot blot out, which makes one man, in the end, recognize and reward merit in another, regardless of colour or race.