Booker T. Washington: “Few things would add more to the fundamental usefulness of the race than such a school.”

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.

From the time that I can remember anything, almost every day of my life had been occupied in some kind of labour; though I think I would now be a more useful man if I had had time for sports.

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

In order to defend and protect the women and children who were left on the plantations when the white males went to war, the slaves would have laid down their lives.