CHAPTER VII
EARLY DAYS AT TUSKEGEE
During the time that I had charge of the Indians and the night-school at
Hampton, I pursued some studies myself, under the direction of the
instructors there. One of these instructors was the Rev. Dr. H. B. Frissell,
the present Principal of the Hampton Institute, General Armstrong’s
successor.
In May, 1881, near the close of my first year in teaching the night-school,
in a way that I had not dared expect, the opportunity opened for me to begin
my lifework. One night in the chapel, after the usual chapel exercises were
over, General Armstrong referred to the fact that he had received a letter
from some gentlemen in Alabama asking him to recommend some one to take
charge of what was to be a normal school for the colored people in the
little town of Tuskegee in that state. These gentlemen seemed to take it for
granted that no colored man suitable for the position could be secured, and
they were expecting the General to recommend a white man for the place. The
next day General Armstrong sent for me to come to his office, and, much to
my surprise, asked me if I thought I could fill the position in Alabama. I
told him that I would be willing to try. Accordingly, he wrote to the people
who had applied to him for the information, that he did not know of any
white man to suggest, but if they would be willing to take a colored man, he
had one whom he could recommend. In this letter he gave them my name.
Several days passed before anything more was heard about the matter. Some
time afterward, one Sunday evening during the chapel exercises, a messenger
came in and handed the General a telegram. At the end of the exercises he
read the telegram to the school. In substance, these were its words: “Booker
T. Washington will suit us. Send him at once.” There was a great deal of
joy expressed among the students and teachers, and I received very hearty
congratulations. I began to get ready at once to go to Tuskegee. I went by
way of my old home in West Virginia, where I remained for several days,
after which I proceeded to Tuskegee. I found Tuskegee to be a town of about
two thousand inhabitants, nearly one-half of whom were colored. It was in
what was known as the Black Belt of the South. In the county in which
Tuskegee is situated the colored people outnumbered the whites by about
three to one. In some of the adjoining and near-by counties the proportion
was not far from six colored persons to one white.
I have often been asked to define the term “Black Belt.” So far as I can
learn, the term was first used to designate a part of the country which was
distinguished by the color of the soil. The part of the country possessing
this thick, dark, and naturally rich soil was, of course, the part of the
South where the slaves were most profitable, and consequently they were
taken there in the largest numbers.
Later and especially since the war, the term seems to be used wholly in a
political sense- that is, to designate the counties where the black people
outnumber the white.
Before going to Tuskegee I had expected to find there a building and all the
necessary apparatus ready for me to begin teaching. To my disappointment, I
found nothing of the kind. I did find, though, that which no costly building
and apparatus can supply- hundreds of hungry, earnest souls who wanted to
secure knowledge.
Tuskegee seemed an ideal place for the school. It was in the midst of the
great bulk of the Negro population, and was rather secluded, being five
miles from the main line of railroad, with which it was connected by a short
line. During the days of slavery, and since, the town had been a center for
the education of the white people. This was an added advantage, for the
reason that I found the white people possessing a degree of culture and
education that is not surpassed by many localities. While the colored people
were ignorant, they had not, as a rule degraded and weakened their bodies by
vices such as are common to the lower class of people in the large cities.
In general, I found the relations between the two races pleasant. For
example, the largest, and I think at that time the only hardware store in
the town was owned and operated jointly by a colored man and a white man.
This copartner ship continued until the death of the white partner.
I found that about a year previous to my going to Tuskegee some of the
colored people who had heard something of the work of education being done
at Hampton had applied to the state Legislature, through their
representatives, for a small appropriation to be used in starting a normal
school in Tuskegee. This request the Legislature had complied with to the
extent of granting an annual appropriation of two thousand dollars. I soon
learned however, that this money could be used only for the payment of the
salaries of the instructors, and that there was no provision for securing
land, buildings, or apparatus. The task before me did not seem a very
encouraging one. It seemed much like making bricks without straw. The
colored people were overjoyed, and were constantly offering their services
in any way in which they could be of assistance in getting the school
started.
My first task was to find a place in which to open the school. After looking
the town over with some care, the most suitable place that could be secured
seemed to be a rather dilapidated shanty near the colored Methodist church,
together with the church itself as a sort of assembly-room. Both the church
and the shanty were in about as bad condition as was possible. I recall that
during the first months of school that I taught in this building it was in
such poor repair that, whenever it rained, one of the older students would
very kindly leave his lessons and hold an umbrella over me while I heard the
recitations of the others. I remember, also, that on more than one occasion
my landlady held an umbrella over me while I ate breakfast.
At the time I went to Alabama the colored people were taking considerable
interest in politics, and they were very anxious that I should become one of
them politically, in every respect. They seemed to have a little distrust of
strangers in this regard. I recall that one man, who seemed to have been
designated by the others to look after my political destiny, came to me on
several occasions and said, with a good deal of earnestness: “We wants you
to be sure to vote jes’ like we votes. We can’t read de newspapers very
much, but we knows how to vote, an’ we wants you to vote jes’ like we
votes.” He added: “We watches de white man, and we keeps watching de
white man till we finds out which way de white man’s gwine to vote; an’
when we finds out which way de white man’s gwine to vote, den we votes ‘xactly
de other way. Den we knows we’s right.” I am glad to add, however, that
at the present time the disposition to vote against the white man merely
because he is white is largely disappearing, and the race is learning to
vote from principle, for what the voter considers to be for the best
interests of both races.
I reached Tuskegee, as I have said, early in June, 1881. The first month I
spent in finding accommodations for the school, and in traveling through
Alabama, examining into the actual life of the people, especially in the
country districts, and in getting the school advertised among the class of
people that I wanted to have attend it. The most of my traveling was done
over the country roads, with a mule and a cart or a mule and a buggy wagon
for conveyance. I ate and slept with the people, in their little cabins. I
saw their farms, their schools, their churches. Since, in the case of the
most of these visits, there had been no notice given in advance that a
stranger was expected, I had the advantage of seeing the real, everyday life
of the people.
In the plantation districts I found that, as a rule, the whole family slept
in one room, and that in addition to the immediate family there sometimes
were relatives, or others not related to the family, who slept in the same
room. On more than one occasion I went outside the house to get ready for
bed, or to wait until the family had gone to bed. They usually contrived
some kind of a place for me to sleep, either on the floor or in a special
part of another’s bed. Rarely was there any place provided in the cabin
where one could bathe even the face and hands, but usually some provision
was made for this outside the house, in the yard.
The common diet of the people was fat pork and corn bread. At times I have
eaten in cabins where they had only corn bread and “blackeye peas”
cooked in plain water. The people seemed to have no other idea than to live
on this fat meat and corn bread- the meat, and the meal of which the bread
was made, having been bought at a high price at a store in town,
notwithstanding the fact that the land all about the cabin homes could
easily have been made to produce nearly every kind of garden vegetable that
is raised anywhere in the country. Their one object seemed to be plant
nothing but cotton; and in many cases cotton was planted up to the very door
of the cabin.
In these cabin homes I often found sewing-machines which had been bought, or
were being bought, on installments, frequently at a cost of as much as sixty
dollars, or showy clocks for which the occupants of the cabins had paid
twelve or fourteen dollars. I remember that on one occasion when I went into
one of these cabins for dinner, when I sat down to the table for a meal with
the four members of the family, I noticed that, while there were five of us
at the table, there was but one fork for the five of us to use. Naturally
there was an awkward pause on my part. In the opposite corner of that same
cabin was an organ for which the people told me they were paying sixty
dollars in monthly installments. One fork, and a sixty-dollar organ!
In most cases the sewing-machine was not used, the clocks were so worthless
that they did not keep correct time- and if they had, in nine cases out of
ten there would have been no one in the family who could have told the time
of day- while the organ, of course, was rarely used for want of a person who
could play upon it.
In the case to which I have referred, where the family sat down to the table
for the meal at which I was their guest, I could see plainly that this was
an awkward and unusual proceeding, and was done in my honor. In most cases,
when the family got up in the morning, for example, the wife would put a
piece of meat in a frying-pan and put a lump of dough in a “skillet,” as
they called it. These utensils would be placed on the fire, and in ten or
fifteen minutes breakfast would be ready. Frequently the husband would take
his bread and meat in his hand and start for the field, eating as he walked.
The mother would sit down in a corner and eat her breakfast, perhaps from a
plate and perhaps directly from the “’skillet” or frying-pan, while
the children would eat their portion of the bread and meat while running
about the yard. At certain seasons of the year, when meat was scarce, it was
rarely that the children who were not old enough or strong enough to work in
the fields would have the luxury of meat.
The breakfast over, and with practically no attention given to the house,
the whole family would, as a general thing, proceed to the cotton-field.
Every child that was large enough to carry a hoe was put to work, and the
baby- for usually there was at least one baby- would be laid down at the end
of the cotton row, so that its mother could give it a certain amount of
attention when she had finished chopping her row. The noon meal and the
supper were taken in much the same way as the breakfast.
All the days of the family would be spent after much this same routine,
except Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday the whole family would spend at
least half a day, and often a whole day, in town. The idea in going to town
was, I suppose, to do shopping, but all the shopping that the whole family
had money for could have been attended to in ten minutes by one person.
Still, the whole family remained in town for most of the day, spending the
greater part of the time in standing on the streets, the women, too often,
sitting about somewhere smoking or dipping snuff. Sunday was usually spent
in going to some big meeting. With few exceptions, I found that the crops
were mortgaged in the counties where I went, and that the most of the
colored farmers were in debt. The state had not been able to build
schoolhouses in the country districts, and, as a rule, the schools were
taught in churches or in log cabins. More than once, while on my journeys, I
found that there was no provision made in the house used for school purposes
for heating the building during the winter, and consequently a fire had to
be built in the yard, and teacher and pupils passed in and out of the house
as they got cold
or warm. With few exceptions, I found the teachers in these country schools
to be miserably poor in preparation for their work, and poor in moral
character. The schools were in session from three to five months. There was
practically no apparatus in the schoolhouses, except that occasionally there
was a rough blackboard.
I recall that one day I went into a schoolhouse- or rather into an abandoned
log cabin that was being used as a schoolhouse- and found five pupils who
were studying a lesson from one book. Two of these, on the front seat, were
using the book between them; behind these were two others peeping over the
shoulders of the first two, and behind the four was a fifth little fellow
who was peeping over the shoulders of all four.
What I have said concerning the character of the schoolhouses and teachers
will also apply quite accurately as a description of the church buildings
and the ministers.
I met some very interesting characters during my travels. As illustrating
the peculiar mental processes of the country people, I remember that I asked
one colored man, who was about sixty years old, to tell me something of his
history. He said that he had been born in Virginia, and sold into Alabama in
1845. I asked him how many were sold at the same time. He said, “There
were five of us; myself and brother and three mules.” In giving all these
descriptions of what I saw during my month of travel in the country around
Tuskegee, I wish my readers to keep in mind the fact that there were many
encouraging exceptions to the conditions which I have described. I have
stated in such plain words what I saw, mainly for the reason that later I
want to emphasize the encouraging changes that have taken place in the
community, not wholly by the work of the Tuskegee school but by that of
other institutions as well.