Booker T. Washington: “At the end of his visit I resolved anew to devote myself more earnestly than ever to the cause which was so near his…”

I never saw a man who so completely lost sight of himself.

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

When freedom came, the slaves were almost as well fitted to begin life anew as the master, except in the matter of book-learning and ownership of property.

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…