Up From Slavery: Chapters 4–7

I economized in every way that I could think of—did my own washing, and went without necessary garments—but still I found my summer vacation ending and I did not have the sixteen dollars.

Before the days of strikes in that section of the country, I knew miners who had considerable money in the bank, but as soon as the professional labour agitators got control, the savings of even the more thrifty ones began disappearing.

He soon gave me charge of the table at which there sat four or five wealthy and rather aristocratic people.

If he were inclined to resist the summons, he would fall or be made to fall a second or third time.

Still, as I look back now over the entire period of our freedom, I cannot help feeling that it would have been wiser if some plan could have been put in operation which would have made the possession of a certain amount of education or property, or both, a test for the exercise of the franchise, and a way provided by which this test should be made to apply honestly and squarely to both the white and black races.

The temptations to enter political life were so alluring that I came very near yielding to them at one time, but I was kept from doing so by the feeling that I would be helping in a more substantial way by assisting in the laying of the foundation of the race through a generous education of the hand, head, and heart.

I do not think this would be true, because the Negro is a much stronger and wiser man than he was thirty-five years ago, and he is fast learning the lesson that he cannot afford to act in a manner that will alienate his Southern white neighbours from him.

On the other hand, their six or eight years of book education had weaned them away from the occupation of their mothers.

I often thought how much wiser it would have been to give these girls the same amount of maternal training—and I favour any kind of training, whether in the languages or mathematics, that gives strength and culture to the mind—but at the same time to give them the most thorough training in the latest and best methods of laundrying and other kindred occupations.

I think I may say, without seeming egotism, that it is seldom that five years have wrought such a change in the life and aspirations of an individual.

While I was in charge of the Indian boys at Hampton, I had one or two experiences which illustrate the curious workings of caste in America.

I happened to find myself in a town in which so much excitement and indignation were being expressed that it seemed likely for a time that there would be a lynching.

The man who was the innocent cause of the excitement, though, found it prudent after that not to speak English.

I found that about a year previous to my going to Tuskegee some of the coloured people who had heard something of the work of education being done at Hampton had applied to the state Legislature, through their representatives, for a small appropriation to be used in starting a normal school in Tuskegee.

After looking the town over with some care, the most suitable place that could be secured seemed to be a rather dilapidated shanty near the coloured Methodist church, together with the church itself as a sort of assembly-room.