My larger education

by Booker T. Washington

Then, in dealing with Northern people, I have always let them know that I did not want to get away from my own race; that I was just as proud of being a Negro as they were of being white people. No one can see through a sham more quickly, whether it be in speech or in dress, than the hard-headed Northern business man.

I once knew a fine young coloured man who nearly ruined himself by pretending to be something that he was not. This young man was sent to England for several months of study. When he returned he seemed to have forgotten how to talk. He tried to ape the English accent, the English dress, the English walk. I was amused to notice sometimes, when he was off his guard, how he got his English pronunciation mixed with the ordinary American accent which he had used all of his life. So one day I quietly called him aside and said to him: “My friend, you are ruining yourself. Just drop all those frills and be yourself.” I am glad to say that he had sense enough to take the advice in the right spirit, and from that time on he was a different man.

The most difficult and trying of the classes of persons with which I am brought in contact is the coloured man or woman who is ashamed of his or her colour, ashamed of his or her race and, because of this fact, is always in a bad temper. I have had opportunities, such as few coloured men have had, of meeting and getting acquainted with many of the best white people, North and South. This has never led me to desire to get away from my own people. On the contrary, I have always returned to my own people and my own work with renewed interest.

I have never at any time asked or expected that any one, in dealing with me, should overlook or forget that I am a Negro. On the contrary, I have always recognized that, when any special honour was conferred upon me, it was conferred not in spite of my being a Negro, but because I am a Negro, and because I have persistently identified myself with every interest and with every phase of the life of my own people.

Looking back over the twenty-five and more years that have passed since that time, I realize, as I did not at that time, how the better part of my education—the education that I got after leaving school—has been in the effort to work out those problems in a way that would gain the interest and the sympathy of all three of the classes directly concerned—the Southern white man, the Northern white man, and the Negro.

In order to gain consideration from these three classes for what I was trying to do I have had to enter sympathetically into the three different points of view entertained by those three classes; I have had to consider in detail how the work that I was trying to do was going to affect the interests of all three. To do this, and at the same time continue to deal frankly and honestly with each class, has been indeed a difficult and at times a puzzling task. It has not always been easy to stick to my work and keep myself free from the distracting influences of narrow and factional points of view; but, looking back on it all after a quarter of a century, I can see that it has been worth what it cost.

CHAPTER III
SOME EXCEPTIONAL MEN AND WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM THEM

There are some opportunities that come to the boy or girl who is born poor that the boy or girl who is born rich does not have. In the same way there are some advantages in belonging to a disadvantaged race. The individual or the race which has to face peculiar hardships and to overcome unusual difficulties gains an experience of men and things and gets into close and intimate touch with life in a way that is not possible to the man or woman in ordinary circumstances.

In the old slavery days, when any of the white folks were a little uncertain about the quality of a new family that had moved into the neighbourhood, they always had one last resource for determining the character and the status of the new family. When in doubt, they could always rely on old “Aunt Jenny.” After “Aunt Jenny” had visited the new family and returned with her report, the question was settled. Her decision was final, because “Aunt Jenny” knew. The old-fashioned house servants gained, through their peculiar experiences, a keen sense for what was called the “quality.”

In freedom also the Negro has had special opportunities for finding out the character and the quality of the white people among whom he lives. If there is a man in the community who is habitually kind and considerate to the humblest people about him, the coloured people know about that man. On the contrary, if there is a man in that community who is unfair and unjust in his dealings with them, the coloured people know that man also.