Booker T. Washington: “He was too big to be little, too good to be mean.”

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…

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

I was supremely happy in the opportunity of being able to assist somebody else.

Ever since I have been old enough to think for myself, I have entertained the idea that, notwithstanding the cruel wrongs inflicted upon us, the black man got nearly as much out of slavery as the white man did.