Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington

Author:Booker T. Washington
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Booker T., Educators -- United States -- Biography, 1856-1915, Washington, African Americans -- Biography, Tuskegee Institute
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2019-09-26T17:49:03+00:00

XI Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie on Them

A little later in the his­tory of the school we had a visit from Gen­eral J. F. B. Mar­shall, the Treas­urer of the Hamp­ton In­sti­tute, who had had faith enough to lend us the first two hun­dred and fifty dol­lars with which to make a pay­ment down on the farm. He re­mained with us a week, and made a care­ful in­spec­tion of everything. He seemed well pleased with our pro­gress, and wrote back in­ter­est­ing and en­cour­aging re­ports to Hamp­ton. A little later Miss Mary F. Mackie, the teacher who had given me the “sweep­ing” ex­am­in­a­tion when I entered Hamp­ton, came to see us, and still later Gen­eral Arm­strong him­self came.

At the time of the vis­its of these Hamp­ton friends the num­ber of teach­ers at Tuskegee had in­creased con­sid­er­ably, and the most of the new teach­ers were gradu­ates of the Hamp­ton In­sti­tute. We gave our Hamp­ton friends, es­pe­cially Gen­eral Arm­strong, a cor­dial wel­come. They were all sur­prised and pleased at the rapid pro­gress that the school had made within so short a time. The col­oured people from miles around came to the school to get a look at Gen­eral Arm­strong, about whom they had heard so much. The Gen­eral was not only wel­comed by the mem­bers of my own race, but by the South­ern white people as well.

This first visit which Gen­eral Arm­strong made to Tuskegee gave me an op­por­tun­ity to get an in­sight into his char­ac­ter such as I had not be­fore had. I refer to his in­terest in the South­ern white people. Be­fore this I had had the thought that Gen­eral Arm­strong, hav­ing fought the South­ern white man, rather cher­ished a feel­ing of bit­ter­ness to­ward the white South, and was in­ter­ested in help­ing only the col­oured man there. But this visit con­vinced me that I did not know the great­ness and the gen­er­os­ity of the man. I soon learned, by his vis­its to the South­ern white people, and from his con­ver­sa­tions with them, that he was as anxious about the prosper­ity and the hap­pi­ness of the white race as the black. He cher­ished no bit­ter­ness against the South, and was happy when an op­por­tun­ity offered for mani­fest­ing his sym­pathy. In all my ac­quaint­ance with Gen­eral Arm­strong I never heard him speak, in pub­lic or in private, a single bit­ter word against the white man in the South. From his ex­ample in this re­spect I learned the les­son that great men cul­tiv­ate love, and that only little men cher­ish a spirit of hatred. I learned that as­sist­ance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that op­pres­sion of the un­for­tu­nate makes one weak.

It is now long ago that I learned this les­son from Gen­eral Arm­strong, and re­solved that I would per­mit no man, no mat­ter what his col­our might be, to nar­row and de­grade my soul by mak­ing me hate him. With God’s help, I be­lieve that I have com­pletely rid my­self of any ill feel­ing to­ward the South­ern white man for any wrong that he may have in­flic­ted upon my race.

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