Booker T. Washington: “To-day, unless we prepare ourselves to compete with the world, we must go to the wall as a race.”

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.

Before the end of the year, I think I began learning that those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.

He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time.

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