Booker T. Washington: “We want each and every one of you here in the institution to make up your mind that you can do something to help these…”

In order to defend and protect the women and children who were left on the plantations when the white males went to war, the slaves would have laid down their lives.

The picture of several dozen boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.

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.

As soon as it was learned that he was not an American Negro, all the signs of indignation disappeared.