Black-belt diamonds; gems from the speeches, addresses, and talks to students of Booker T. Washington ... |
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| II. |
| III. |
 | IV. | Part IV. |
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| VII. |
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IV. Part IV.
Dying for Others
Three-fourths of the young men and women
who are being educated in these Southern
schools are being educated at a terrible price;
their education being paid for by the lives of
such men as General Armstrong, Mr. Hamilton,
and other men of that kind, who have
been willing to lay down their lives in order
that somebody might have a chance.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Educated Leaders
If the educated men of the race do not
come to the rescue of the masses along industrial
lines, the Negro, instead of being the soul
and centre of important industries, will be
relegated to the ragged edge. Education.
To Conquer Prejudice
Just so sure as the rays of the sun dispel the
frosts of winter, so sure will brains, property,
and character conquer prejudice.
Armstrong Association.
Will not Want for Friends
The black man that has fifty thousand dollars
to lend will never want for friends and
customers among his white neighbors.
Commercial Freedom.
Pippins and Crab-Apples
I would not leave the impression that
matters are just right in the South; yet, on the
other hand, there is much that is cruelly unjust,
unreasonable, much that is hard to bear, and
at times, seemingly, dark and discouraging;
but I do mean to say that there are more
pippins growing in the South than crab-apples,
and more roses than thorns.
Unitarian Club (Boston).
Which?
The longer I live and the more I study the
question, the more I am convinced that it is
not so much the problem of what you will do
with the Negro, as what the Negro will do
with you and your civilization.
Democracy and Education.
Higher Education
When I speak of industrial development I
do not mean that no attention should be given
to what is called higher education. I favor
every kind of education. Lincoln University.
He Sticks to his Text
My highest aim is to create the highest possible
industrial condition among the colored
people of the South. I stick to this because I
believe my people will be better able to cope
with the white man and command his respect
when they reach a high state of industrial
development.
Educational Meeting (Jacksonville, Fla.).
Pure and Useful Lives
Make up your mind that in everything, in
your thoughts, conversation, and association, it
will be your constant endeavor to live in the
highest possible atmosphere that can permeate
your life, and that your lives will be pure and
useful and devoted to the service of your
fellow-man. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Seen and Unseen
You perhaps noticed in the chapter which
I read, the verse which contains an expression
like this: "That the things which are seen are
temporal, but the things which are unseen are
eternal." Whatever the correct interpretation
may be, it seems to me that the hidden things
stand for character, and the temporal things
are those which stand for reputation. I think
the more we think of the matter, of the highest
conclude that, after all, it is the hidden things
which are most important. It is the hidden
things that stand for the highest things in the
world. The more important things are those
which are hidden; the least important are those
which can be seen.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Dignity of Labor
No race can prosper until it learns that
there is as much dignity in tilling a field as
in writing a poem. Atlanta Speech.
No Law Needed
It will be needless to pass a law to compel
men to come in contact with a Negro who is educated
and has fifty thousand dollars to lend.
Century Club (Indianapolis).
The Mortgage System
The Southern mortgage system is the curse
of the Negro. It is the mortgage system
which blinds him robs him of independence,
allures him, and winds him deeper and deeper
in its meshes each year till he is lost and
bewildered. Unitarian Club (Boston).
Self-Examination
It is a good practice for a person to get in
the habit of making an examination of himself
have dwelt on those things which are high, and
to what extent he has permitted himself to
yield to the temptation of being low, in his
thoughts and imaginings.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Superficial and Ornamental
We shall prosper in proportion as we draw
the line between the superficial and the substantial,
the ornamental in life and the useful.
Armstrong Association (New York).
Ill-Will and hatred
No race can cherish ill-will and hatred
toward another race without its losing in all
those elements that tend to create and perpetuate
a strong and healthy manhood.
Our New Citizen.
How to Use Education
The great problem confronting us, as a
race, is, what to do with the education we
have in our heads.
Charles Street A. M. E. Church (Boston).
Obedience
There is no better test by which you can
judge of a person's culture, civilization, or
whatever else you may call it, so quickly and
respects authority and obeys orders.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Domestic Economy
It is little trouble to find girls who can
locate Pekin or the Desert of Sahara on an
artificial globe, but seldom can you find one
who can locate on an actual dinner-table the
proper place for a carving knife and fork or
the meat and vegetables.
White Rose Mission (New York).
Neglecting Opportunity
The average man usually has the idea that if
he were just somewhere else, in another State or
city, or in contact with another race, he would
succeed, forgetting too often to utilize the
forces that are about him and in hand.
Metropolitan Church (Washington, D. C.).
Mother Earth
I would put as a condition for success in
life, whether it relate to the individual or the
race, ownership in the soil, cleaving to Mother
Earth. The South as an Opening for a Career.
Don't be too Modest
Never get to the point where you will be
ashamed to ask anybody for information. The
ignorant man will always be ignorant if he fears
display ignorance. Better once display your
ignorance of a certain subject than always
know nothing of it.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Afraid of Riches
I find that our people are too afraid that
they are going to get rich. We read in the
Bible that it is as impossible for a rich man to
enter Heaven as it is for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle; but don't get
afraid, accumulate all you can, save all you
can. Talks to Tuskegee Townspeople.
Civil Rights Bills
The best thing to do in regard to civil rights
bills is to let them alone, and throw our force
to making a business man of the Negro.
Development of the Negro.
Magnifying Evil Doing
The Negro that steals a pig or is sent to
the chain gang for fighting is usually heard of
next day in the daily press; but not always so
with the Negro who buys a farm or builds a
new house. Negro's Advancement
Starting from the Bottom
Starting thirty years ago without a foot of
land, without a hoe, without a horse, and
his mind befogged with ignorance and superstition,
could you expect him to have travelled
very far in the direction of intelligence, wealth,
and independence?
New England Woman's Club.
"A Man for a' That"
The Negro needs help in making the white
people in the South know and respect him
as a man. Negro as a Man.
Demagogues and Despots
The rights of the Negroes in the South are
too closely bound up with those of their white
fellow-citizens to be sacrificed at the dictation
of demagogues and political despots.
South Carolina and the Negro.
Material and Industrial Condition
Coupled with literary and religious training
must go a force that will result in the improvement
of the material and industrial condition.
Ocean Grove, N.J.
"The Afro-American"
Some say, "Send the Negro to Africa, the
land of his fathers." But the white man is fast
getting about as much control of Africa as he
has of the South. And such advisers forget, too,
in speaking of our "fathers' land," that, while
about a million and a half of us are to be found
in the South among the blue-blooded Anglo-Saxons.
Africa and the Negro.
Practical Religion
The Negro needs not only that religion that
is going to fill his heart, but that kind which
is going to fill his stomach, clothe and shelter
his body, and employ his hands.
Negro's Religion.
Educate the Mothers
How often has my heart been made to sink as
I have gone through the South and into the
homes of my people and found women who
could converse intelligibly in Grecian history,
who had studied geometry, could analyze the
most complex sentences, and yet could not
analyze the poorly cooked and still more poorly
served corn-bread and fat meat that they and
their families were eating three times a day.
Development of the Negro.
Influence of Association
You have got to get into the habit of loving
to associate with those persons whose influence
is for good and who will make you better and
nobler men and women.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
What would Jefferson Davis Think?
Close to the spot where Jefferson Davis took
the oath of office, swearing to sustain African
slavery, a Negro has erected a three-story drugstore.
When people go and see the thousands
of dollars invested there, it is not in reason that
they should try to drive that man away.
The Negro's Way to Liberty.
Instrument and End
The individual is the instrument, national
virtue the end.
Shaw Monument Unveiling (Boston).
Have a Purpose in Life
The student who goes to school with no
special plan, who has no time to study this or
that, who has no regular hour for eating or
sleeping,—you will find that very soon that
student will be left behind. No matter how
brilliant or active a mind he has, success can
only come by planning work.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
The Mortgage Evil
The first year our people received their
freedom they had nothing on which to live
while they grew their cotton crops. Funds for
the first crops were supplied by the storekeeper
and to secure this indebtedness a lien was given
on the cotton crops. In this way there was
started in the South the mortgage or crop-lien
system,—a system that has proved a curse to
the black and to the white man ever since it
was instituted. Development of the Negro.
Common-Sense View
Short talks on the principles of agriculture
are much more helpful to the pupils than time
spent in committing to memory the mountain
peaks of Central Africa.
How to Build a Good School in the South.
Condition of Misery
Far too often education has raised the standard
of life for the Negro, and has naturally
increased his wants without showing him any
way to satisfy these new wants. Our Needs.
The Producer and Consumer
The Negro in this country must become, in
a more potent sense, a producer of wealth as
well as a consumer. He must become more
of a business man, must enter all avenues of
industry. Even now, in almost every part of
our country, there are industries that mean our
life-blood, as it were, that are fast slipping from
under us. From being the head and centre of
relegated to the ragged edge of some of the
most important. I repeat that we must, as a
race, enter business, for we are constantly being
required to measure ourselves by the side of
the business world, and by this test we rise or
fall. Centennial A. M. E. Zion Church.
The Anchorage
There is no defence or security for any of
us, except in the highest intelligence and
development of all. Atlanta Speech.
Best Results
A life is not worth much of which it cannot
be said, when it comes to its close, that it was
helpful to humanity. There is a large satisfaction
to a person who has a work and is doing
that work, no matter whether it is independent
work, or in connection with some one else.
Whether the world calls that work great or
small, be sure that you have a work, and that
in some degree you accomplish that work so
well, that you will in a measure get out of it
some of the happiness, some of the satisfaction,
some of the joy that comes to a person who
has a work and who has succeeded, at most,
in a moderate degree in accomplishing the
best results from that work.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Science of Scrubbing
I have often thought, especially while travelling
from city to city through the North, what
a good thing it would be to establish a chair in
some strong university for the science of
scrubbing,—yes, the common, homely art of
scrubbing. Seldom do we see clean floors;
the art seems to have passed away.
White Rose Mission and Industrial Association
(New York).
Equality of Opportunity
Let it be said of all parts of our country that
there is no distinction of race or color in opportunity
to earn an honest living.
Schoolmasters' Club (Massachusetts).
Iron Law of progress
There is no power on earth that can permanently
stay our progress.
Alumni Dinner (Harvard University).
But They were so Engaged
I cannot believe that on the eve of the
twentieth century, when there is more enlightenment,
more generosity, more progress, more
self-sacrifice, more love for humanity, than ever
existed in any stage of the world's history, that
you and your fellow members are engaged in
constructing laws that will keep 650,000 of my
poverty, and crime.
Open Letter to B. R. Tillman of South Carolina.
Greater "Parliament of Man"
In helping the Negro along the line indicated
by Hampton, and sending men and
women out every year into the school-room,
into the shops, on the farm, into the field of
domestic science, Hampton is making men and
women who are shaping the laws of the country
just as truly as he who sits in Congressional
Halls. In this greater "parliament of man,"
the Negro has his opportunity, and through it
he will blaze a way to the exercise of every
privilege that belongs to him as an American
citizen. Hampton Institute Anniversary, '98.
The Negro can Afford It
The Negro can afford to be wronged in this
country; the white man cannot afford to wrong
him. Schoolmasters' Club (Massachusetts).
Question for Students
You go out among a class of people who are
cast down, discouraged by the many infirmities
of life,—people who are craving for the help
you can give them,—and the question will
present itself to you: "Are you going to so
live that when these people come into contact
made stronger and better by that contact?"
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
A Corrupt Ballot
No man can have respect for government
and officers of the law when he knows, deep
down in his heart, that the exercise of the
franchise is tainted with fraud.
Constitutional Convention (Louisiana).
True freedom
There is a higher and deeper sense in which
both races must be free than that represented
by a bill of sale.
Shaw Monument Unveiling (Boston).
From Fourteen to Eight Million
I know that, whether we are decreasing or
increasing, whether we are growing better or
worse, whether we are valuable or valueless,
a few years ago fourteen of us were brought
into this country and now there are eight million
of us. Democracy and Education.
What Ignorance Craves
It is with an ignorant race as it is with a
child; it craves at first the superficial, the ornamental,
the signs of progress rather than the
reality. The ignorant race is tempted to jump
years of hard struggle for others to
reach. Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.
Special Invitation
The Negro is the only citizen of America
that came by special invitation and special
provision. The Caucasian came here against
the protest of the leading citizens of the country,
in 1492.
Armstrong Association Meeting (New York).
The Quality of Sacrifice
A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by
lifting others up.
Constitutional Convention (Louisiana).
Spread Sunshine
Get hold of the spirit of helping somebody
else. Seek every opportunity to make somebody
happier and more comfortable.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
What the North can Do
It is not a practical nor a desirable thing for
the North to educate all the Negroes in the
South, but it is a perfectly possible and practical
thing for the North to help the South educate
the leaders who will go out and reach the
masses and show them how to lift themselves
up. Twentieth Century Club (New York).
"By this Sign we Conquer"
Let us imbibe this truth into every fibre
of our nature: industry, application to duty,
brings happiness and prosperity.
Sowing and Reaping.
The Hand and its Fingers
In all things that are purely social we can be
as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand
in all things essential to mutual progress.
Atlanta Speech.
It Can't be Done
It is hard to teach a man to sleep between
two sheets when he has but one.
Channing Memorial (Newport).
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