Booker T. Washington: “I now felt that I had the opportunity to help the people of my home town to a higher life.”

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

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…

No one section of our country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and, besides, it was recognized and protected for years by the General Government.

In this connection I have never been able to understand how the slaves throughout the South, completely ignorant as were the masses so far as books or newspapers were concerned, were able to keep themselves so accurately and completely…