Booker T. Washington: “No man loses anything by being gentlemanly, by learning to be polite, by treating the most unfortunate individual with…”

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.

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

The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little known to those not situated as he is.

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.