| | 1 | Author: | Washington, Booker T. | Add | | | Title: | The Awakening of the Negro  | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | WHEN a mere boy, I saw a young colored man, who had spent
several years in school, sitting in a common cabin in the South,
studying a French grammar. I noted the poverty, the untidiness, the
want of system and thrift, that existed about the cabin,
notwithstanding his knowledge of French and other academic
subjects. Another time, when riding on the outer edges of a town in
the South, I heard the sound of a piano coming from a cabin of the
same kind. Contriving some excuse, I entered, and began a
conversation with the young colored woman who was playing, and
who had recently returned from a boarding-school, where she had
been studying instrumental music among other things. Despite the
fact that her parents were living in a rented cabin, eating poorly
cooked food, surrounded with poverty, and having almost none of the
conveniences of life, she had persuaded them to rent a piano for four
or five dollars per month. Many such instances as these, in
connection with my own struggles, impressed upon me the importance
of making a study of our needs as a race, and applying the remedy
accordingly. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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