Booker T. Washington: “The gospel of the tooth-brush,” as General Armstrong used to call it, is part of our creed at Tuskegee.”

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

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.

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

As a rule, not only did the members of my race entertain no feelings of bitterness against the whites before and during the war, but there are many instances of Negroes tenderly caring for their former masters and mistresses who for some…