Booker T. Washington: “You may think it best for a little while, but permanently it does not pay any man or woman to be anything but really…”

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.

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

Until that question was asked it had never occurred to me that there was no period of my life that was devoted to play.

I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery.