Booker T. Washington: “My visit to England gave me a higher regard for the nobility than I had had.”

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.

In this connection I have never been able to understand how the slaves throughout the South, completely ignorant as were the masses so far as books or newspapers were concerned, were able to keep themselves so accurately and completely…

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.

I cannot remember having slept in a bed until after our family was declared free by the Emancipation Proclamation.