Any one can seek a job, but it requires a person of rare ability to create a job.
Booker T. Washington
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.
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What we should do in all our schools is to turn out fewer job-seekers and more job-makers.
Let us remember that no other race of people ever had just such a problem to work out as we have.
Besides, if one race of people, or one individual, is simply to follow in the steps of another, no progress would ever be possible in the world.
Because of his independence he leads his people instead of having to cater to their whims.
The question that confronts us is whether we will take advantage of this opportunity?
With cheap lands, a beautiful climate and a rich soil, we can lay the foundation of a great and powerful race.
This, I believe, should be so because the race is an agricultural one, and because my hope is that it will remain such.
And remember that when we get down to the fundamental principles of truth, nature draws no colour line.
If we would be great, and good, and useful, we must pay the price.
You had better begin life in a hollow tree and be a man, than begin it in a rented house and be a mere tool, the imitation of a man.
But that tree, and the land on which it stood, were his own.