Up from Slavery: An Autobiography

At the end of my first year at Hampton I was confronted with another difficulty.  Most of the students went home to spend their vacation.  I had no money with which to go home, but I had to go somewhere.  In those days very few students were permitted to remain at the school during vacation.  It made me feel very sad and homesick to see the other students preparing to leave and starting for home.  I not only had no money with which to go home, but I had none with which to go anywhere.

In some way, however, I had gotten hold of an extra, second-hand coat which I thought was a pretty valuable coat.  This I decided to sell, in order to get a little money for travelling expenses.  I had a good deal of boyish pride, and I tried to hide, as far as I could, from the other students the fact that I had no money and nowhere to go.  I made it known to a few people in the town of Hampton that I had this coat to sell, and, after a good deal of persuading, one coloured man promised to come to my room to look the coat over and consider the matter of buying it.  This cheered my drooping spirits considerably.  Early the next morning my prospective customer appeared.  After looking the garment over carefully, he asked me how much I wanted for it.  I told him I thought it was worth three dollars.  He seemed to agree with me as to price, but remarked in the most matter-of-fact way:  “I tell you what I will do; I will take the coat, and will pay you five cents, cash down, and pay you the rest of the money just as soon as I can get it.”  It is not hard to imagine what my feelings were at the time.

With this disappointment I gave up all hope of getting out of the town of Hampton for my vacation work.  I wanted very much to go where I might secure work that would at least pay me enough to purchase some much-needed clothing and other necessities.  In a few days practically all the students and teachers had left for their homes, and this served to depress my spirits even more.

After trying for several days in and near the town of Hampton, I finally secured work in a restaurant at Fortress Monroe.  The wages, however, were very little more than my board.  At night, and between meals, I found considerable time for study and reading; and in this direction I improved myself very much during the summer.

When I left school at the end of my first year, I owed the institution sixteen dollars that I had not been able to work out.  It was my greatest ambition during the summer to save money enough with which to pay this debt.  I felt that this was a debt of honour, and that I could hardly bring myself to the point of even trying to enter school again till it was paid.  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.

One day, during the last week of my stay in the restaurant, I found under one of the tables a crisp, new ten-dollar bill.  I could hardly contain myself, I was so happy.  As it was not my place of business I felt it to be the proper thing to show the money to the proprietor.  This I did.  He seemed as glad as I was, but he coolly explained to me that, as it was his place of business, he had a right to keep the money, and he proceeded to do so.  This, I confess, was another pretty hard blow to me.  I will not say that I became discouraged, for as I now look back over my life I do not recall that I ever became discouraged over anything that I set out to accomplish.  I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.  I determined to face the situation just as it was.  At the end of the week I went to the treasurer of the Hampton Institute, General J.F.B.  Marshall, and told him frankly my condition.  To my gratification he told me that I could reenter the institution, and that he would trust me to pay the debt when I could.  During the second year I continued to work as a janitor.

The education that I received at Hampton out of the text-books was but a small part of what I learned there.  One of the things that impressed itself upon me deeply, the second year, was the unselfishness of the teachers.  It was hard for me to understand how any individuals could bring themselves to the point where they could be so happy in working for others.  Before the end of the year, I think I began learning that those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.  This lesson I have tried to carry with me ever since.

I also learned a valuable lesson at Hampton by coming into contact with the best breeds of live stock and fowls.  No student, I think, who has had the opportunity of doing this could go out into the world and content himself with the poorest grades.

Perhaps the most valuable thing that I got out of my second year was an understanding of the use and value of the Bible.  Miss Nathalie Lord, one of the teachers, from Portland, Me., taught me how to use and love the Bible.  Before this I had never cared a great deal about it, but now I learned to love to read the Bible, not only for the spiritual help which it gives, but on account of it as literature.  The lessons taught me in this respect took such a hold upon me that at the present time, when I am at home, no matter how busy I am, I always make it a rule to read a chapter or a portion of a chapter in the morning, before beginning the work of the day.

Whatever ability I may have as a public speaker I owe in a measure to Miss Lord.  When she found out that I had some inclination in this direction, she gave me private lessons in the matter of breathing, emphasis, and articulation.  Simply to be able to talk in public for the sake of talking has never had the least attraction to me.  In fact, I consider that there is nothing so empty and unsatisfactory as mere abstract public speaking; but from my early childhood I have had a desire to do something to make the world better, and then to be able to speak to the world about that thing.

The debating societies at Hampton were a constant source of delight to me.  These were held on Saturday evening; and during my whole life at Hampton I do not recall that I missed a single meeting.  I not only attended the weekly debating society, but was instrumental in organizing an additional society.  I noticed that between the time when supper was over and the time to begin evening study there were about twenty minutes which the young men usually spent in idle gossip.  About twenty of us formed a society for the purpose of utilizing this time in debate or in practice in public speaking.  Few persons ever derived more happiness or benefit from the use of twenty minutes of time than we did in this way.

At the end of my second year at Hampton, by the help of some money sent me by my mother and brother John, supplemented by a small gift from one of the teachers at Hampton, I was enabled to return to my home in Malden, West Virginia, to spend my vacation.  When I reached home I found that the salt-furnaces were not running, and that the coal-mine was not being operated on account of the miners being out on “strike.”  This was something which, it seemed, usually occurred whenever the men got two or three months ahead in their savings.  During the strike, of course, they spent all that they had saved, and would often return to work in debt at the same wages, or would move to another mine at considerable expense.  In either case, my observations convinced me that the miners were worse off at the end of the strike.  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.

My mother and the other members of my family were, of course, much rejoiced to see me and to note the improvement that I had made during my two years’ absence.  The rejoicing on the part of all classes of the coloured people, and especially the older ones, over my return, was almost pathetic.  I had to pay a visit to each family and take a meal with each, and at each place tell the story of my experiences at Hampton.  In addition to this I had to speak before the church and Sunday-school, and at various other places.  The thing that I was most in search of, though, work, I could not find.  There was no work on account of the strike.  I spent nearly the whole of the first month of my vacation in an effort to find something to do by which I could earn money to pay my way back to Hampton and save a little money to use after reaching there.

Toward the end of the first month, I went to place a considerable distance from my home, to try to find employment.  I did not succeed, and it was night before I got started on my return.  When I had gotten within a mile or so of my home I was so completely tired out that I could not walk any farther, and I went into an old, abandoned house to spend the remainder of the night.  About three o’clock in the morning my brother John found me asleep in this house, and broke to me, as gently as he could, the sad news that our dear mother had died during the night.

This seemed to me the saddest and blankest moment in my life.  For several years my mother had not been in good health, but I had no idea, when I parted from her the previous day, that I should never see her alive again.  Besides that, I had always had an intense desire to be with her when she did pass away.  One of the chief ambitions which spurred me on at Hampton was that I might be able to get to be in a position in which I could better make my mother comfortable and happy.  She had so often expressed the wish that she might be permitted to live to see her children educated and started out in the world.

In a very short time after the death of my mother our little home was in confusion.  My sister Amanda, although she tried to do the best she could, was too young to know anything about keeping house, and my stepfather was not able to hire a housekeeper.  Sometimes we had food cooked for us, and sometimes we did not.  I remember that more than once a can of tomatoes and some crackers constituted a meal.  Our clothing went uncared for, and everything about our home was soon in a tumble-down condition.  It seems to me that this was the most dismal period of my life.

My good friend, Mrs. Ruffner, to whom I have already referred, always made me welcome at her home, and assisted me in many ways during this trying period.  Before the end of the vacation she gave me some work, and this, together with work in a coal-mine at some distance from my home, enabled me to earn a little money.

At one time it looked as if I would have to give up the idea of returning to Hampton, but my heart was so set on returning that I determined not to give up going back without a struggle.  I was very anxious to secure some clothes for the winter, but in this I was disappointed, except for a few garments which my brother John secured for me.  Notwithstanding my need of money and clothing, I was very happy in the fact that I had secured enough money to pay my travelling expenses back to Hampton.  Once there, I knew that I could make myself so useful as a janitor that I could in some way get through the school year.

Three weeks before the time for the opening of the term at Hampton, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from my good friend Miss Mary F. Mackie, the lady principal, asking me to return to Hampton two weeks before the opening of the school, in order that I might assist her in cleaning the buildings and getting things in order for the new school year.  This was just the opportunity I wanted.  It gave me a chance to secure a credit in the treasurer’s office.  I started for Hampton at once.

During these two weeks I was taught a lesson which I shall never forget.  Miss Mackie was a member of one of the oldest and most cultured families of the North, and yet for two weeks she worked by my side cleaning windows, dusting rooms, putting beds in order, and what not.  She felt that things would not be in condition for the opening of school unless every window-pane was perfectly clean, and she took the greatest satisfaction in helping to clean them herself.  The work which I have described she did every year that I was at Hampton.

It was hard for me at this time to understand how a woman of her education and social standing could take such delight in performing such service, in order to assist in the elevation of an unfortunate race.  Ever since then I have had no patience with any school for my race in the South which did not teach its students the dignity of labour.

During my last year at Hampton every minute of my time that was not occupied with my duties as janitor was devoted to hard study.  I was determined, if possible, to make such a record in my class as would cause me to be placed on the “honour roll” of Commencement speakers.  This I was successful in doing.  It was June of 1875 when I finished the regular course of study at Hampton.  The greatest benefits that I got out of my at the Hampton Institute, perhaps, may be classified under two heads:—­

First was contact with a great man, General S.C.  Armstrong, who, I repeat, was, in my opinion, the rarest, strongest, and most beautiful character that it has ever been my privilege to meet.

Second, at Hampton, for the first time, I learned what education was expected to do for an individual.  Before going there I had a good deal of the then rather prevalent idea among our people that to secure an education meant to have a good, easy time, free from all necessity for manual labour.  At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labour, but learned to love labour, not alone for its financial value, but for labour’s own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants done brings.  At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.

I was completely out of money when I graduated.  In company with our other Hampton students, I secured a place as a table waiter in a summer hotel in Connecticut, and managed to borrow enough money with which to get there.  I had not been in this hotel long before I found out that I knew practically nothing about waiting on a hotel table.  The head waiter, however, supposed that I was an accomplished waiter.  He soon gave me charge of the table at which their sat four or five wealthy and rather aristocratic people.  My ignorance of how to wait upon them was so apparent that they scolded me in such a severe manner that I became frightened and left their table, leaving them sitting there without food.  As a result of this I was reduced from the position of waiter to that of a dish-carrier.

But I determined to learn the business of waiting, and did so within a few weeks and was restored to my former position.  I have had the satisfaction of being a guest in this hotel several times since I was a waiter there.

At the close of the hotel season I returned to my former home in Malden, and was elected to teach the coloured school at that place.  This was the beginning of one of the happiest periods of my life.  I now felt that I had the opportunity to help the people of my home town to a higher life.  I felt from the first that mere book education was not all that the young people of that town needed.  I began my work at eight o’clock in the morning, and, as a rule, it did not end until ten o’clock at night.  In addition to the usual routine of teaching, I taught the pupils to comb their hair, and to keep their hands and faces clean, as well as their clothing.  I gave special attention to teaching them the proper use of the tooth-brush and the bath.  In all my teaching I have watched carefully the influence of the tooth-brush, and I am convinced that there are few single agencies of civilization that are more far-reaching.

There were so many of the older boys and girls in the town, as well as men and women, who had to work in the daytime and still were craving an opportunity for an education, that I soon opened a night-school.  From the first, this was crowded every night, being about as large as the school that I taught in the day.  The efforts of some of the men and women, who in many cases were over fifty years of age, to learn, were in some cases very pathetic.

My day and night school work was not all that I undertook.  I established a small reading-room and a debating society.  On Sundays I taught two Sunday-schools, one in the town of Malden in the afternoon, and the other in the morning at a place three miles distant from Malden.  In addition to this, I gave private lessons to several young men whom I was fitting to send to the Hampton Institute.  Without regard to pay and with little thought of it, I taught any one who wanted to learn anything that I could teach him.  I was supremely happy in the opportunity of being able to assist somebody else.  I did receive, however, a small salary from the public fund, for my work as a public-school teacher.

During the time that I was a student at Hampton my older brother, John, not only assisted me all that he could, but worked all of the time in the coal-mines in order to support the family.  He willingly neglected his own education that he might help me.  It was my earnest wish to help him to prepare to enter Hampton, and to save money to assist him in his expenses there.  Both of these objects I was successful in accomplishing.  In three years my brother finished the course at Hampton, and he is now holding the important position of Superintendent of Industries at Tuskegee.  When he returned from Hampton, we both combined our efforts and savings to send our adopted brother, James, through the Hampton Institute.  This we succeeded in doing, and he is now the postmaster at the Tuskegee Institute.  The year 1877, which was my second year of teaching in Malden, I spent very much as I did the first.

It was while my home was at Malden that what was known as the “Ku Klux Klan” was in the height of its activity.  The “Ku Klux” were bands of men who had joined themselves together for the purpose of regulating the conduct of the coloured people, especially with the object of preventing the members of the race from exercising any influence in politics.  They corresponded somewhat to the “patrollers” of whom I used to hear a great deal during the days of slavery, when I was a small boy.  The “patrollers” were bands of white men—­usually young men—­who were organized largely for the purpose of regulating the conduct of the slaves at night in such matters as preventing the slaves from going from one plantation to another without passes, and for preventing them from holding any kind of meetings without permission and without the presence at these meetings of at least one white man.

Like the “patrollers” the “Ku Klux” operated almost wholly at night.  They were, however, more cruel than the “patrollers.”  Their objects, in the main, were to crush out the political aspirations of the Negroes, but they did not confine themselves to this, because schoolhouses as well as churches were burned by them, and many innocent persons were made to suffer.  During this period not a few coloured people lost their lives.

As a young man, the acts of these lawless bands made a great impression upon me.  I saw one open battle take place at Malden between some of the coloured and white people.  There must have been not far from a hundred persons engaged on each side; many on both sides were seriously injured, among them General Lewis Ruffner, the husband of my friend Mrs. Viola Ruffner.  General Ruffner tried to defend the coloured people, and for this he was knocked down and so seriously wounded that he never completely recovered.  It seemed to me as I watched this struggle between members of the two races, that there was no hope for our people in this country.  The “Ku Klux” period was, I think, the darkest part of the Reconstruction days.

I have referred to this unpleasant part of the history of the South simply for the purpose of calling attention to the great change that has taken place since the days of the “Ku Klux.”  To-day there are no such organizations in the South, and the fact that such ever existed is almost forgotten by both races.  There are few places in the South now where public sentiment would permit such organizations to exist.