“Olivia Davidson was born in Virginia, June 11, 1854. When only a little child she went with her parents to Ohio, where she grew up and received the education afforded by the common schools of that state. At an early age she went to Mississippi and there spent five years as a teacher on the large plantations. In 1878 she came north to her native state, and, that she might more thoroughly fit herself for the work of a teacher, she entered the Hampton Institute, from which, in one year, she graduated with great honor. Her friend, Mrs. Hemenway, of Boston, greatly desiring that she should prosecute her studies still further, at her request, she entered the Framingham, (Mass.) Normal School, from which she graduated in two years. In August following her graduation she came to Tuskegee, Ala., to act as assistant to Prof. Washington, in the State Normal School of which he had been made principal in the July previous. From the very first it became evident that she had found her field of labor for life. Everything tended to inspire her to this end. The people were poor; they were numerous; they were anxious, and aside from an act of the Legislature establishing a school, it had, literally, to be created. The story of her success has often been told and in this brief tribute cannot be repeated.
“August 11, 1885, Miss Davidson was married to Prof. B. T. Washington, and although she at once took upon herself the cares of a very busy home life, she still retained a most important relation to the school, which no amount of warning from her friends could persuade her to drop. Her marriage with Mr. Washington proved a most happy one, and rarely has it been the lot of two individuals to be so thoroughly united in their life work. The coming of little Baker into the home was an occasion of great rejoicing, and the birth of another son just a few months before his mother’s death only served to double the joy.
“It was my privilege to meet Mrs. Washington at Tuskegee when the school had been in operation but little more than a year and, as one of the trustees of the school, I have had an intimate knowledge of her work ever since. It would require more than human pen to tell how deep was her love for the school and how thoroughly her life was consecrated to it. Every grain of sand on all those beautiful grounds and every beam and brick in the walls must have felt the inspiration of her love. No more touching story could be told than that of her earnest efforts to raise money from the people about Tuskegee and of her toilsome walks in Boston, as from house to house, and with an eloquence that was rarely refused, she sought funds to provide shelter for the hundreds of students that were flocking to the school. Her character made her especially adapted to all parts of the work in which she was engaged, and the stamp of her influence on the higher life of the school no time can ever efface. Among a people who make much show of religion, but often with too little of its spirit, hers was religion indeed, but with so little of show as sometimes to make her life a mystery to those who did not really know her. The blind and the poor, and above all the aged, can tell of her religion as they recall the happy Thanksgiving and Christmas times when they have sat at her table and her own hands have ministered to their wants, and when in sickness she has visited them and relieved their sufferings. No woman ever had a truer husband or more devoted friends; and the memory of their kindness will rest, as a precious legacy, upon the school and upon all who loved her as long as time shall last.”
While speaking of the financial growth of the school I must not neglect to indicate the growth at the same time in students. As I have stated, the school opened with one teacher and 30 students. By the end of the first year we had three teachers, including Miss Davidson, Mr. John Caldwell and myself. For the third session there were 169 students and 10 teachers. For the fifth year there were 279 students and 18 teachers. For the eighth year there were 399 students and 25 teachers. For the tenth year there were 730 students and 30 teachers. For the fourteenth year, ending in June, 1895, there were 1,013 students and 63 teachers.
In the spring of 1892, at our annual commencement, we had the pleasure and the honor of a visit from Hon. Frederick Douglass, who delivered the annual address to the graduating class of that year. This was Mr. Douglass’ first visit to the far South, and there was a large crowd of people from far and near to listen to the words of that grand old man. The speech was fully up to the high standard of excellence, eloquence and wisdom for which that venerable gentleman was noted.
Mr. Douglass had the same idea concerning the importance and value of industrial education that I have tried to emphasize. He also held the same views as I do in regard to the emigration of the Negro to Africa, and was opposed to the scheme of diffusion and dissemination of the Negro throughout the North and Northwest, believing as I do that the Southern section of the country where the Negro now resides is the best place for him. In fact, the more I have studied the life of Mr. Douglass the more I have been surprised to find his far-reaching and generous grasp of the whole condition and needs of the Negro race. Years before Hampton or Tuskegee undertook industrial education, in reply to a request for advice by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe as to how she could best use a certain sum of money which had been or was about to be placed in her hands, Mr. Douglass wrote her in part as follows:
Rochester, March 8, 1853.
My Dear Mrs. Stowe:
You kindly informed me when at your house a fortnight ago, that you designed to do something which should permanently contribute to the improvement and elevation of the free colored people in the United States. You especially expressed an interest in such of this class as had become free by their own exertions, and desired most of all to be of service to them. In what manner and by what means you can assist this class most successfully, is the subject upon which you have done me the honor to ask my opinion.
...I assert, then, that poverty, ignorance, and degradation are the combined evils; or in other words, these constitute the social disease of the free colored people in the United States.