Booker T. Washington

The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute is ideal in its conception, and has already a large and growing reputation in the country, and is not unknown abroad.

In fact, the thing that touched me almost as deeply as the visit of the President itself was the deep pride which all classes of citizens in Alabama seemed to take in our work.

My case will illustrate that of hundreds of thousands of black people in every part of our country.

Well may Harvard honour the ex-slave, the value of whose services, alike to his race and country, only the future can estimate.

Washington is a coloured man, or because he was born in slavery, but because he has shown, by his work for the elevation of the people of the Black Belt of the South, a genius and a broad humanity which count for greatness in any man…

The lesson that my mother taught me in this has always remained with me, and I have tried as best as I could to teach it to others.

Each student ought to feel that he or she has a personal responsibility to do each task in the very best manner possible.

To see over a thousand strong men, representing all that is best in State, Church, business, and education, with the glow and enthusiasm of college loyalty and college pride,—which has, I think, a peculiar Harvard flavour,—is a sight that…

The close, careful, and minute investigation that he always makes in order to be sure that every dollar that he gives will do the most good—an investigation that is just as searching as if he were investing money in a business…

These were the questions of a home, a living, the rearing of children, education, citizenship, and the establishment and support of churches.

At the end of his visit I resolved anew to devote myself more earnestly than ever to the cause which was so near his heart.

My visit to England gave me a higher regard for the nobility than I had had.