Booker T. Washington: “Some of the persons whom I have met and from whom I have learned much, are persons who cannot write a word.”

When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the wilderness through which and out of which…

From the time that I can remember anything, almost every day of my life had been occupied in some kind of labour; though I think I would now be a more useful man if I had had time for sports.

But taking place at the time it did, and for the reason that it did, no one could ever make me believe that my mother was guilty of thieving.

The hurtful influences of the institution were not by any means confined to the Negro.