Booker T. Washington: “I mean by that, that a person who does not get into the habit of keeping the body clean, cannot do the highest work and…”

Even to this day I can recall accurately the tortures that I underwent when putting on one of these garments.

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

The whole machinery of slavery was so constructed as to cause labour, as a rule, to be looked upon as a badge of degradation, of inferiority.

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