Booker T. Washington: “Such shoes are made to attract attention, and not for comfort or durability.”

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.

Until that question was asked it had never occurred to me that there was no period of my life that was devoted to play.

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

He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time.