Up from Slavery: An Autobiography

I confess that what I saw during my month of travel and investigation left me with a very heavy heart.  The work to be done in order to lift these people up seemed almost beyond accomplishing.  I was only one person, and it seemed to me that the little effort which I could put forth could go such a short distance toward bringing about results.  I wondered if I could accomplish anything, and if it were worth while for me to try.

Of one thing I felt more strongly convinced than ever, after spending this month in seeing the actual life of the coloured people, and that was that, in order to lift them up, something must be done more than merely to imitate New England education as it then existed.  I saw more clearly than ever the wisdom of the system which General Armstrong had inaugurated at Hampton.  To take the children of such people as I had been among for a month, and each day give them a few hours of mere book education, I felt would be almost a waste of time.

After consultation with the citizens of Tuskegee, I set July 4, 1881, as the day for the opening of the school in the little shanty and church which had been secured for its accommodation.  The white people, as well as the coloured, were greatly interested in the starting of the new school, and the opening day was looked forward to with much earnest discussion.  There were not a few white people in the vicinity of Tuskegee who looked with some disfavour upon the project.  They questioned its value to the coloured people, and had a fear that it might result in bringing about trouble between the races.  Some had the feeling that in proportion as the Negro received education, in the same proportion would his value decrease as an economic factor in the state.  These people feared the result of education would be that the Negroes would leave the farms, and that it would be difficult to secure them for domestic service.

The white people who questioned the wisdom of starting this new school had in their minds pictures of what was called an educated Negro, with a high hat, imitation gold eye-glasses, a showy walking-stick, kid gloves, fancy boots, and what not—­in a word, a man who was determined to live by his wits.  It was difficult for these people to see how education would produce any other kind of a coloured man.

In the midst of all the difficulties which I encountered in getting the little school started, and since then through a period of nineteen years, there are two men among all the many friends of the school in Tuskegee upon whom I have depended constantly for advice and guidance; and the success of the undertaking is largely due to these men, from whom I have never sought anything in vain.  I mention them simply as types.  One is a white man and an ex-slaveholder, Mr. George W. Campbell; the other is a black man and an ex-slave, Mr. Lewis Adams.  These were the men who wrote to General Armstrong for a teacher.

Mr. Campbell is a merchant and banker, and had had little experience in dealing with matters pertaining to education.  Mr. Adams was a mechanic, and had learned the trades of shoemaking, harness-making, and tinsmithing during the days of slavery.  He had never been to school a day in his life, but in some way he had learned to read and write while a slave.  From the first, these two men saw clearly what my plan of education was, sympathized with me, and supported me in every effort.  In the days which were darkest financially for the school, Mr. Campbell was never appealed to when he was not willing to extend all the aid in his power.  I do not know two men, one an ex-slaveholder, one an ex-slave, whose advice and judgment I would feel more like following in everything which concerns the life and development of the school at Tuskegee than those of these two men.

I have always felt that Mr. Adams, in a large degree, derived his unusual power of mind from the training given his hands in the process of mastering well three trades during the days of slavery.  If one goes to-day into any Southern town, and asks for the leading and most reliable coloured man in the community, I believe that in five cases out of ten he will be directed to a Negro who learned a trade during the days of slavery.

On the morning that the school opened, thirty students reported for admission.  I was the only teacher.  The students were about equally divided between the sexes.  Most of them lived in Macon County, the county in which Tuskegee is situated, and of which it is the county-seat.  A great many more students wanted to enter the school, but it had been decided to receive only those who were above fifteen years of age, and who had previously received some education.  The greater part of the thirty were public-school teachers, and some of them were nearly forty years of age.  With the teachers came some of their former pupils, and when they were examined it was amusing to note that in several cases the pupil entered a higher class than did his former teacher.  It was also interesting to note how many big books some of them had studied, and how many high-sounding subjects some of them claimed to have mastered.  The bigger the book and the longer the name of the subject, the prouder they felt of their accomplishment.  Some had studied Latin, and one or two Greek.  This they thought entitled them to special distinction.

In fact, one of the saddest things I saw during the month of travel which I have described was a young man, who had attended some high school, sitting down in a one-room cabin, with grease on his clothing, filth all around him, and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in studying a French grammar.

The students who came first seemed to be fond of memorizing long and complicated “rules” in grammar and mathematics, but had little thought or knowledge of applying these rules to their everyday affairs of their life.  One subject which they liked to talk about, and tell me that they had mastered, in arithmetic, was “banking and discount,” but I soon found out that neither they nor almost any one in the neighbourhood in which they had lived had ever had a bank account.  In registering the names of the students, I found that almost every one of them had one or more middle initials.  When I asked what the “J” stood for, in the name of John J. Jones, it was explained to me that this was a part of his “entitles.”  Most of the students wanted to get an education because they thought it would enable them to earn more money as school-teachers.

Notwithstanding what I have said about them in these respects, I have never seen a more earnest and willing company of young men and women than these students were.  They were all willing to learn the right thing as soon as it was shown them what was right.  I was determined to start them off on a solid and thorough foundation, so far as their books were concerned.  I soon learned that most of them had the merest smattering of the high-sounding things that they had studied.  While they could locate the Desert of Sahara or the capital of China on an artificial globe, I found out that the girls could not locate the proper places for the knives and forks on an actual dinner-table, or the places on which the bread and meat should be set.

I had to summon a good deal of courage to take a student who had been studying cube root and “banking and discount,” and explain to him that the wisest thing for him to do first was thoroughly master the multiplication table.

The number of pupils increased each week, until by the end of the first month there were nearly fifty.  Many of them, however, said that, as they could remain only for two or three months, they wanted to enter a high class and get a diploma the first year if possible.

At the end of the first six weeks a new and rare face entered the school as a co-teacher.  This was Miss Olivia A. Davidson, who later became my wife.  Miss Davidson was born in Ohio, and received her preparatory education in the public schools of that state.  When little more than a girl, she heard of the need of teachers in the South.  She went to the state of Mississippi and began teaching there.  Later she taught in the city of Memphis.  While teaching in Mississippi, one of her pupils became ill with smallpox.  Every one in the community was so frightened that no one would nurse the boy.  Miss Davidson closed her school and remained by the bedside of the boy night and day until he recovered.  While she was at her Ohio home on her vacation, the worst epidemic of yellow fever broke out in Memphis, Tenn., that perhaps has ever occurred in the South.  When she heard of this, she at once telegraphed the Mayor of Memphis, offering her services as a yellow-fever nurse, although she had never had the disease.

Miss Davidon’s experience in the South showed her that the people needed something more than mere book-learning.  She heard of the Hampton system of education, and decided that this was what she wanted in order to prepare herself for better work in the South.  The attention of Mrs. Mary Hemenway, of Boston, was attracted to her rare ability.  Through Mrs. Hemenway’s kindness and generosity, Miss Davidson, after graduating at Hampton, received an opportunity to complete a two years’ course of training at the Massachusetts State Normal School at Framingham.

Before she went to Framingham, some one suggested to Miss Davidson that, since she was so very light in colour, she might find it more comfortable not to be known as a coloured women in this school in Massachusetts.  She at once replied that under no circumstances and for no considerations would she consent to deceive any one in regard to her racial identity.

Soon after her graduation from the Framingham institution, Miss Davidson came to Tuskegee, bringing into the school many valuable and fresh ideas as to the best methods of teaching, as well as a rare moral character and a life of unselfishness that I think has seldom been equalled.  No single individual did more toward laying the foundations of the Tuskegee Institute so as to insure the successful work that has been done there than Olivia A. Davidson.

Miss Davidson and I began consulting as to the future of the school from the first.  The students were making progress in learning books and in development their minds; but it became apparent at once that, if we were to make any permanent impression upon those who had come to us for training we must do something besides teach them mere books.  The students had come from homes where they had had no opportunities for lessons which would teach them how to care for their bodies.  With few exceptions, the homes in Tuskegee in which the students boarded were but little improvement upon those from which they had come.  We wanted to teach the students how to bathe; how to care for their teeth and clothing.  We wanted to teach them what to eat, and how to eat it properly, and how to care for their rooms.  Aside from this, we wanted to give them such a practical knowledge of some one industry, together with the spirit of industry, thrift, and economy, that they would be sure of knowing how to make a living after they had left us.  We wanted to teach them to study actual things instead of mere books alone.

We found that the most of our students came from the country districts, where agriculture in some form or other was the main dependence of the people.  We learned that about eighty-five per cent of the coloured people in the Gulf states depended upon agriculture for their living.  Since this was true, we wanted to be careful not to education our students out of sympathy with agricultural life, so that they would be attracted from the country to the cities, and yield to the temptation of trying to live by their wits.  We wanted to give them such an education as would fit a large proportion of them to be teachers, and at the same time cause them to return to the plantation districts and show the people there how to put new energy and new ideas into farming, as well as into the intellectual and moral and religious life of the people.

All these ideas and needs crowded themselves upon us with a seriousness that seemed well-night overwhelming.  What were we to do?  We had only the little old shanty and the abandoned church which the good coloured people of the town of Tuskegee had kindly loaned us for the accommodation of the classes.  The number of students was increasing daily.  The more we saw of them, and the more we travelled through the country districts, the more we saw that our efforts were reaching, to only a partial degree, the actual needs of the people whom we wanted to lift up through the medium of the students whom we should education and send out as leaders.

The more we talked with the students, who were then coming to us from several parts of the state, the more we found that the chief ambition among a large proportion of them was to get an education so that they would not have to work any longer with their hands.

This is illustrated by a story told of a coloured man in Alabama, who, one hot day in July, while he was at work in a cotton-field, suddenly stopped, and, looking toward the skies, said:  “O Lawd, de cottom am so grassy, de work am so hard, and the sun am so hot dat I b’lieve dis darky am called to preach!”

About three months after the opening of the school, and at the time when we were in the greatest anxiety about our work, there came into market for sale an old and abandoned plantation which was situated about a mile from the town of Tuskegee.  The mansion house—­or “big house,” as it would have been called—­which had been occupied by the owners during slavery, had been burned.  After making a careful examination of the place, it seemed to be just the location that we wanted in order to make our work effective and permanent.

But how were we to get it?  The price asked for it was very little —­only five hundred dollars—­but we had no money, and we were strangers in the town and had no credit.  The owner of the land agreed to let us occupy the place if we could make a payment of two hundred and fifty dollars down, with the understanding that the remaining two hundred and fifty dollars must be paid within a year.  Although five hundred dollars was cheap for the land, it was a large sum when one did not have any part of it.

In the midst of the difficulty I summoned a great deal of courage and wrote to my friend General J.F.B.  Marshall, the Treasurer of the Hampton Institute, putting the situation before him and beseeching him to lend me the two hundred and fifty dollars on my own personal responsibility.  Within a few days a reply came to the effect that he had no authority to lend me the money belonging to the Hampton Institute, but that he would gladly lend me the amount needed from his own personal funds.

I confess that the securing of this money in this way was a great surprise to me, as well as a source of gratification.  Up to that time I never had had in my possession so much money as one hundred dollars at a time, and the loan which I had asked General Marshall for seemed a tremendously large sum to me.  The fact of my being responsible for the repaying of such a large amount of money weighed very heavily upon me.

I lost no time in getting ready to move the school on to the new farm.  At the time we occupied the place there were standing upon it a cabin, formerly used as a dining room, an old kitchen, a stable, and an old hen-house.  Within a few weeks we had all of these structures in use.  The stable was repaired and used as a recitation-room, and very presently the hen-house was utilized for the same purpose.

I recall that one morning, when I told an old coloured man who lived near, and who sometimes helped me, that our school had grown so large that it would be necessary for us to use the hen-house for school purposes, and that I wanted him to help me give it a thorough cleaning out the next day, he replied, in the most earnest manner:  “What you mean, boss?  You sholy ain’t gwine clean out de hen-house in de day-time?”

Nearly all the work of getting the new location ready for school purposes was done by the students after school was over in the afternoon.  As soon as we got the cabins in condition to be used, I determined to clear up some land so that we could plant a crop.  When I explained my plan to the young men, I noticed that they did not seem to take to it very kindly.  It was hard for them to see the connection between clearing land and an education.  Besides, many of them had been school-teachers, and they questioned whether or not clearing land would be in keeping with their dignity.  In order to relieve them from any embarrassment, each afternoon after school I took my axe and led the way to the woods.  When they saw that I was not afraid or ashamed to work, they began to assist with more enthusiasm.  We kept at the work each afternoon, until we had cleared about twenty acres and had planted a crop.

In the meantime Miss Davidson was devising plans to repay the loan.  Her first effort was made by holding festivals, or “suppers.”  She made a personal canvass among the white and coloured families in the town of Tuskegee, and got them to agree to give something, like a cake, a chicken, bread, or pies, that could be sold at the festival.  Of course the coloured people were glad to give anything that they could spare, but I want to add that Miss Davidson did not apply to a single white family, so far as I now remember, that failed to donate something; and in many ways the white families showed their interested in the school.

Several of these festivals were held, and quite a little sum of money was raised.  A canvass was also made among the people of both races for direct gifts of money, and most of those applied to gave small sums.  It was often pathetic to note the gifts of the older coloured people, most of whom had spent their best days in slavery.  Sometimes they would give five cents, sometimes twenty-five cents.  Sometimes the contribution was a quilt, or a quantity of sugarcane.  I recall one old coloured women who was about seventy years of age, who came to see me when we were raising money to pay for the farm.  She hobbled into the room where I was, leaning on a cane.  She was clad in rags; but they were clean.  She said:  “Mr. Washin’ton, God knows I spent de bes’ days of my life in slavery.  God knows I’s ignorant an’ poor; but,” she added, “I knows what you an’ Miss Davidson is tryin’ to do.  I knows you is tryin’ to make better men an’ better women for de coloured race.  I ain’t got no money, but I wants you to take dese six eggs, what I’s been savin’ up, an’ I wants you to put dese six eggs into the eddication of dese boys an’ gals.”

Since the work at Tuskegee started, it has been my privilege to receive many gifts for the benefit of the institution, but never any, I think, that touched me so deeply as this one.