Booker T. Washington: “We want people who are going to think, people who are going to prepare themselves.”

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.

This tenderness and sympathy on the part of those held in bondage was a result of their kindly and generous nature.

Even the most ignorant members of my race on the remote plantations felt in their hearts, with a certainty that admitted of no doubt, that the freedom of the slaves would be the one great result of the war, if the Northern armies conquered.

I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.