Booker T. Washington: “They brought to my mind the plantation, the cabin, the slave, not the freedman in quest of education.”

Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution.

I think I never saw a community of people so happy over anything as were the coloured people over the prospect of this new building.

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

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.