A boys' life of Booker T. Washington

Preface

The single aim in telling the story that follows is to interest boys in the life of Booker T. Washington.

This man's life was of such singular and vital importance in the history of his own race and in the history of our country that it ought to be familiar to all the youth of the land, and to the negro youth especially, since it is the greatest inspiration to the latter to be found in the annals of American history.

There has been no attempt to be original or exhaustive in the treatment. While a great mass of material has been consulted, it should be frankly stated that the story follows very closely the material found in Washington's 'Up from Slavery" and "My Larger Education' and Scott and Stowe's "Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization."

The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to Doubleday, Page and Company for permission to use extensive quotations from these books.

If some boy by reading this book is inspired to higher ambition and encouraged to nobler effort, the author will feel that the book is fully justified.

Foreword

This is the story of Booker T. Washington. It is the story of a boy who was born a slave and who in manhood became the leader of ten million people; who was born in poverty and ignorance and became the greatest orator and teacher of the negro race; who was born of an ignorant and backward race and became the friend of the greatest and best men of all races of all the world.

.He was a brave man. He had courage and backbone. He was not afraid. He had courage to fight for what he believed to be the right.

He was an energetic man. There was not a lazy bone in him. No man ever lived a more strenuous life than he did. He loved his work; and few other men ever did so much work in a lifetime.

He was just and fair-minded. He could see right for the white man as well as for the negro. He never intentionally did any one, white or black, an injustice.

He was an honest man; honest in his thinking as well as in his business; honest, frank, and open in his speeches and his writings. He looked facts squarely in the face.

He was a wise man. He had intelligence. He had good judgment. He knew the right thing to do and to say, and he did it and said it.

vii viii FOREWORD

He was a modest man. He did not boast or brag. He did not try to get money or office or high position. He was content to do his work as an honest man.

He was a patriotic man. He loved his country and believed this to be the greatest nation in the world ; and he was ready to give his life for it if necessary.

He had will power. He made up his mind about things, and, when he had made a decision, he could not be discouraged nor turned aside. He would see his plans through, and he would stand by his convictions to the last.

He had self-control. He did not lose his temper or his tongue. He kept himself in hand. He did not lose his head or waste his time and thought and effort on useless and needless things.

He was a great lover of animals. He loved the pigs and the chickens, the horses and the dogs, the birds and the fishes, and every living thing.

Above all he loved folks. He loved the people of all races. He was a friend not only to the black man but likewise a friend to the red man, the yellow, the brown, and the white.

He loved his race. He was not ashamed of it. He was proud of its history; of its great achievements in the past. He had an abounding confidence in its future. He believed that in the days that lie ahead the negro race is to play a wonderful part.

It is well worth while to know about this man.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Early Childhood i

II. Boyhood Days 9

Chapter I Early Childhood

No state in the Union has a more interesting history than Virginia. It is the oldest of the states. It was at Jamestown in 1607 that the first permanent English settlement was made in America. Before the Revolution, it shared with Massachusetts the honor of being the leading colony. During the time of the Revolution, it furnished some of America's greatest leaders - Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson. After the Revolution, it became known as the "Mother of Presidents." Most of the battles of the Civil War were fought on its soil, and its capital was the capital of the Confederacy. Lee and Jackson, the two greatest leaders of the Confederacy, were Virginians.

It was in this state that slavery in North America began. We must remember, however, that slavery had been in existence a long, long time. The ancient Hebrews, we are told in the Old Testament, practiced this evil custom. So did all the nations about Palestine. The Greeks and the Romans also kept slaves. We must not think of the people that were enslaved by the Hebrews and Greeks and Romans as negroes. They were of all races. Whenever one people conquered another, it mattered not of what race, the conquerors made their captives slaves. This often resulted in the most cultured and highly educated people being made slaves. This was especially the case when the Romans captured Greeks.

Later on in the history of Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the enslavement of negroes became very general, so that, by the time North America began to be settled by the people from Europe, negro slaves were bought and sold throughout the principal European countries and their colonies.

So it came about that, in Virginia, pegro slavery was introduced into the United States. It was in 1 619 that a Dutch ship, after a cruise in the West Indies, landed at Jamestown, and while there, engaging in trade with the inhabitants, sold them nineteen negroes. These were the first slaves sold in North America, and it was from this beginning that the system grew up in the country.

In Virginia too we had the first big plantations. Tobacco was the most important crop in the early history of the colony. The planters could sell tobacco at a great profit in England. Negro slaves could cultivate tobacco very successfully.

EARLY CHILDHOOD 3

The planters, therefore, bought slaves to raise tobacco, and they sold the tobacco and bought more slaves to raise more tobacco. The planters bought many hundreds of acres of land and many slaves to cultivate them. As you know, the slaves lived in cabins. These cabins were little houses, usually built of logs, and the cracks were daubed with mud. The cabin usually had one door, one window, and a dirt floor only. These cabins were all close together, not very far from the "big house,' and were known as the " quarters. '

The slaves did all the work on the plantation. Most of them worked in the fields. Some worked about the barn and in the garden. One drove the master's carriage and took care of the horses. Another was the butler in the "big house. " Some of the small boys and girls also worked in the "big house," serving their young masters and mistresses. And, of course, one of the negro women was the plantation cook.

On just such a plantation down in Franklin County, Virginia, Booker T. Washington was born. His mother was the cook on the plantation of a Mr. Burroughs who lived near a little crossroads post office, southwest of Lynchburg, called Hales' Ford. There, in a little one-room cabin, Booker was born on April 5, 1856. The cabin had no glass windows. It had only one door, and it had a dirt floor. There were large cracks that let in the cold. In the middle of the floor there was a large opening in the ground in which*' sweet potatoes were stored. Sometimes as they put. the potatoes in or took them out, Booker got one or two and roasted them. All of the cooking was done over the open fire in this cabin, for they had no stove. It was a very uncomfortable place in which to live.

The boy lived a hard life. He says: "I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together, and God's blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in a civilized manner. It was a piece of bread here, and a scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at another." 1

One day, when he was about five years old, he saw his young mistress and some visitors out in the yard eating ginger cakes. He said he never saw anything in his life that looked so good to him as those cakes did; and he thought that, if he ever got free, the height of his ambition would be to buy all the ginger cakes he wanted, just like those the young ladies were eating.

He had to sleep on a pallet. He never slept in a bed until after he was set free. The first pair of shoes he ever had was made of leather, but the soles were of wood, and they were very uncomfortable and made a great noise when he walked. He never thought of wearing anything on his head.

EARLY CHILDHOOD 5

But the worst thing about his dress in those early days was having to wear a flax shirt. These shirts were made of the roughest and coarsest part of the flax, and they were very uncomfortable. When new, they scratched severely. After they were worn awhile and 'broken in," they were fairly comfortable. His brother John often u broke in" Booker's shirts for him, a very kind and generous thing to do.

He had no time to play when he was a boy. When he was a grown man, he was asked what games he played when he was a boy, and he answered that he had never played at all. He had to work so hard that no time was left for play. Even when he was a very small boy, he had to sweep the yards, carry water to the hands in the fields, help around the "big house," and carry in wood. Going to mill was the worst job he had. A farm hand would put a sack of corn on a horse, put him on top of the sack, and send him off. Ic was a long way to the mill. Almost every time lie was sent, the sack of corn would work to one side and then fall off. It was too heavy for him to put back; so he would have to wait until some one came along to help him. He sat and cried until some one came. It was often dark when he got home. He was terribly frightened when he was alone at night, for he was told that there were deserting soldiers in the woods, and that when they found little negro boys the first thing they would do would be to cut off their ears. Of course this was not true, but he thought it was.

Do you suppose this little boy had any chance to go to school? This is what he says: "I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave, though I remember on several occasions I went as far as the schoolhouse door with one of my young mis-

Founder's Day Drill at Tuskegee

tresses to carry her books. The picture of several boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise." : This is the same boy who came to be the greatest educator of his race; the head of the greatest negro school in the world.

EARLY CHILDHOOD 7

It must be remembered that the conditions under which Booker lived in these early years of his life were not restricted entirely to the negroes. Many of the white people were poor also, and many white boys wore flax shirts and shoes with wooden soles. Just after the Civil War, especially, all the white people of the South had a very hard time. White boys as well as negro boys had no time for play. Nor did they have an opportunity to go to school. In those days many white boys who were eager for an education had such difficulties to face as those which loomed up before Booker Washington.

By and by, when Booker was about nine years of age, there came a thrilling day. For four long years the great war had been going on. Often he had heard his mother singing freedom songs. He remembered being awakened one morning and saw his mother by his bed and heard her praying that Lincoln might be successful, and that her little boy might some day be free. He had. seen some of the soldiers in their uniforms, home on furlough. He remembered when they brought home the body of "Marse Billy" and buried him amidst the bitter weeping of the slaves, who loved him as their friend, for he had often begged for them when they were about to be punished. While they vaguely knew and felt that the success of Lincoln meant freedom, and the success of the others meant slavery, they were still loyal and true to their masters. By means of the "grape vine telegraph," that is, by passing news along quickly from one plantation to another, the slaves had kept pretty well informed of the progress of the war, and when Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the slaves knew it very soon.

One night word came to the " quarters" that something very unusual would happen at the ' ' big house" the next day. There was much excitement. Nobody slept that night. Early next morning some one came to the quarters and told the negroes that they were all wanted at the house. Booker's mother called her children, and they with all the other slaves marched up to the house. All the members of the family were on the porch. They were very quiet and seemed sad and depressed. There was present a stranger, a man who wore a uniform. He stood up and read a paper - "The Emancipation Proclamation." Then the master explained that the negroes were now free. He told them that they could go wherever they desired. He also told them that they could live where they were if they wanted to, and they would be taken care of; but if they preferred, they could go to any other place. Booker's mother leaned over her children and kissed them while the tears streamed down her face. Her prayers had been answered. Her children were free.

Chapter II Boyhood Days

When the slaves were set free, one of the first things that many of them did was to change their names. Most of the slaves had only one name. As free people they felt that they should have the same sort of names as other free people; so they began to add a last name, and usually an initial. If a man had been called "Tom" all his life, he was now called "Tom L. Johnson." The "L" stood for nothing. It was simply a part of his "entitles," as Washington says. Another thing they did was to leave their old home place. They could not realize that they were really free unless they tested the matter by going away from the place of their servitude.

Booker Washington's stepfather had left Virginia during the war and had gone to West Virginia. Just as soon as the war was over, he sent for his wife and children to come to him in West Virginia.

He lived at Maiden, five miles from Charleston, the capital of the state. It was several hundred miles from the old home in Virginia, but the family determined to go. They bundled up their goods and put them in a cart, the children walking. They traveled the entire distance in this way.

io BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

They would stop by the roadside to do their cooking and to camp at night.

One night they stopped near an empty cabin. They decided to spend the night in the cabin. They went in and built a fire and spread a pallet on the floor. Suddenly a big black snake rolled down out of the chimney and on to the pallet. You can imagine that they did not care to stay longer in that house. They got outside at once and made a camp.

After several weeks, they completed their journey, and the family reached the town of Maiden. Salt was mined there, and Booker's stepfather worked in the salt furnaces. Small as he was, Booker had to begin this work too. It was very hard work, and it was terrible that this child should be compelled to do it. But it was just like Booker to turn the situation to an advantage. The first thing he ever did in the way of reading was to learn the figure " 18," which was the number put on the barrels of salt made by his father. Booker was anxious to learn to read; but he had no one to teach him. His own mother could not even teach him his letters. She bought him an old Webster's " blue-back" speller, and he began his first study in this book.

About this time a private school was established in the community. Booker was greatly excited over this, for he had an overwhelming desire to go to school. He was a good worker, however, and

BOYHOOD DAYS n

was earning money; so his father said "no," and he could not go. Booker was terribly disappointed. He went on with his work with a heavy heart, but he never missed a chance to urge his stepfather to let him go to school. Finally, his father agreed to let him go for a part of the day, provided he would get up early each morning and work until nine o'clock and then work two hours after school was out.

It was a glorious day for him when he found himself going to school. However, he soon encountered two great difficulties. One was that he did not have a hat. He had never worn a hat or cap in his life. Since all the other boys had them, he felt that he must have one. So he went home and told his mother about the situation. She explained to him that she had no money with which to buy a "store" hat, but she got two old pieces of "homespun" or jeans, and sewed them together for a cap. The next day Booker proudly walked to school with one difficulty solved.

Listen to his own story of his second difficulty: "My second difficulty was with regard to my name, or rather a name. From the time I could remember anything I had been called simply 'Booker.' Before going to school it had never occurred to me that it was needful or appropriate to have an additional name.

"When I heard the school roll called, I noticed that all the children had at least two names, and some of them indulged in what seemed to me the extravagance of having three. I was in deep perplexity^, because I knew that the teacher would demand of me at least two names, and I had only one. By the time the occasion came for the enrolling of my name, an idea occurred to me which I thought would make me equal to the situation; and so, when the teacher asked me what my full name was, I calmly told him 'Booker Washington,' as if I had been called by that name all my life; and by that name I have since been known.

" Later in my life I found that my mother had given me the name of 'Booker Taliaferro' (pronounced Tol-li-ver) soon after I was born, but in some way that part of my name seemed to disappear, and for a long while was forgotten, but as soon as I found out about it, I revived it and made my full name 'Booker Taliaferro Washington.' I think there are not many men in our country who have had the privilege of naming themselves in the way that I have." l

Booker was not permitted to go to school very long. His stepfather put him back to work but he went to school at night for a while. Here he learned how valuable the nighttime was, and he afterwards used it a great deal in teaching others.

Near Maiden was a coal mine. This business became prosperous, and Booker was sent to work in the coal mines. He hated this work worse than

BOYHOOD DAYS 13

any he ever did. The work was very dirty. It was pitch dark in the mines. It was also very dangerous, for they used dynamite to blast out the coal. His work was a mile from the entrance of the mine. Furthermore, there were many big rats in the place. Because there were many large chambers to the mine and he never could learn all of them, he often got lost. Then his light would go out, and sometimes he would have to wait for hours for some one to come to his aid. This was terrible work for a boy only ten or twelve years of age.

Chapter III

Later in life Washington said : " There was never a time in my youth, no matter how dark and discouraging the days might be, when one resolve did not continually remain with me, and that was to secure an education at any cost." 1

This was the thought that was in his mind as he toiled from day to day in the dark and dirty coal mine. He had never heard of any school except the little one he had attended for a short time in Maiden. But he was sure that somewhere and in some way he would find a place that would give him what he so much desired.

One day, while digging away in the mine, he heard a miner say something to another about a big school for negroes. He was greatly excited and on his hands and feet he crept through the dark, as close to the two men as he dared, and listened. They kept on talking and Booker heard a conversation something like this: "I wish my boy could go to that school over in Virginia," said one miner. "They say it is the best school anywhere in the country."

"What school are you talking about?" said the other.

"The one at a place called Hampton, over in Virginia," was the reply.

"Well, suppose there is a good school there; negro boys can't go to it, can they?' was asked.

"Yes, they can," said the other. " It is a school just for negro boys and girls, and they teach the boys and girls something besides books, too. They are taught some useful trades so that they can go out and make a good living and be independent and have pleasant work to do."

"Well," said the other miner, "that sounds pretty good, but nobody but rich folks can afford such a school as that; so I don't see where it is going to help us any."

"There is where you are mistaken again," was the answer, "for poor boys and girls can go to this school. That is what I have heard. They say that they give the boys and girls different kinds of work to do, so that they can pay their own way through school."

Booker heard no more. He returned to his work very greatly excited. That certainly was the place for him. He then and there made up his mind that he would go to that school no matter what happened. He did not know where the place was, but he determined that he would find it. From that day on, one thought was in his mind — to go to Hampton.

He wanted to quit work in the mines, because the work was so dangerous, and because he was not making enough money. A few days after he heard the conversation about Hampton, he heard that Mrs. Ruffner wanted a servant. She was the wife of General Lewis Ruffner, the owner of the salt furnaces and the coal mines. The lady, Mrs. Viola Ruffner, was said to be very strict with her servants, and consequently no servant would stay with her long at a time.

When Booker heard that she was looking for another servant, he decided to apply for the place. He was terribly frightened when he went into her presence; and he was surprised to find her very kind and considerate. She employed him, giving him five dollars a month. She became very fond of this boy, who worked so hard and so well and tried to do the work so as to please her. She showed her interest in his ambition to get an education, by letting him of! a part of the day to study, and by encouraging him to go to the night school.

Washington says also that he learned from Mrs. Ruffner many valuable lessons in cleanliness, promptness, and order. He says: "Even to this day, I never see bits of paper scattered around a house or in the street that I do not want to pick them up at once. I never see a filthy yard that I do not want to clean it, a paling off a fence that I do not want to put it on, an unpainted or unwhitewashed house that I do not want to paint or whitewash it; or a button off one's clothes, or a grease spot on them or on a floor, that I do not want to call attention to it." *

It was while working for Mrs. Ruffner that he started his first " library. " He got an old drygoods box, knocked out one side of it, nailed it up against the wall, arranged some shelves, and then put into it every book that he could lay his hands

on.

But Booker was restless. He wanted to get started to school. He had not saved much money, for he had not been working for himself very long, but he determined to start with what little money

he had.

What did his determination mean? Look at your map and you will see that Hampton is about five-hundred miles from Maiden. Booker was a boy of sixteen years. He did not know a soul beyond the borders of his own community. He had but a few dollars. His mother was not well, and he doubted very much whether he would ever see her alive again. But he must go and learn, and his good mother, noble and brave as she was, encouraged her boy and helped him to get away.

All the people in the community were much interested in his going. While they had never had a chance, they wanted to encourage this boy who was so determined to get an education. Some of them would give him a nickel, some a quarter, and others a handkerchief to show their desire

J "Up from Slavery," by Booker T, Washington, p. 44.

to help him. By and by the day for his departure came. He put his few dollars in his pocket, picked up the little satchel containing his few clothes, said good-by to the neighbors, kissed his weeping mother good-by, and turned his face towards

Hampton.

There was no through train in those days, and he had to travel by stagecoach as well as by train. He had no idea, when he started, how costly it was to travel, and he had not gone far before he realized that he did not have enough money to take him to Hampton. So he walked much of the way. He would ask for a ride with passers-by, and in this way made fairly good progress.

Early in his journey he had a new and trying

experience. He had been riding, together with

a number of white passengers, all day in the

stagecoach. At nightfall they stopped at a house

which was called a hotel, and all the passengers

went in and were given rooms. When Booker

went in and asked for a room, he was told that they

could not take him, that they did not take ^egroes.

He had not intended to offend. He himself says

it was simply the first time that he realized that

the color of his skin made a difference. He was

so intent upon getting to Hampton, he never

thought of getting angry. He simply walked

about all night, as it was rather cold, and went on

his journey next morning.

Let him tell his own story of another incident of this famous journey. "By walking," he says, "begging rides both in wagons and in the cars, in some way, after a number of days, I reached the city of Richmond, Va., about eighty-two miles from Hampton. When I reached there, tired, hungry, and dirty, it was late in the night. I had never been in a large city, and this was rather to add to my misery. When I reached Richmond, I was completely out of money. I had not a single acquaintance in that place, and being unused to city ways, I did not know where to go.