Booker T. Washington: “Opportunities never come a second time, nor do they wait for our leisure.”

She was simply a victim of the system of slavery.

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 cannot remember having slept in a bed until after our family was declared free by the Emancipation Proclamation.

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.