The Story of My Life and Work

by Booker T. Washington

In November, 1897, the Tuskegee Institute received its first recognition from a member of the President’s cabinet, in the way of a visit from Hon. James A. Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. A year previous to the visit of Secretary Wilson, I began making efforts, in connection with friends of the institution, to raise money enough to erect a building to be devoted wholly to the teaching of agriculture, horticulture, dairying, fruit-gardening, market gardening, etc. About $10,000 was secured for the erection of this building. Secretary Wilson, whom I had met in the West some months before, promised me that he would try to be present at the formal opening of this building, and he kept his promise. Secretary Wilson was accompanied from Washington by Dr. J. L. M. Curry, the agent of the John F. Slater Fund, and was met at Tuskegee by Gov. Joseph F. Johnston and a large crowd of colored and white citizens. In addition to the persons named there were present, Ex-Gov. Northern, of Georgia, and the State Superintendent of Education of Georgia, Major Glenn. The occasion was widely published throughout the country and did much to place the work of the school prominently before the people. The opening of this building marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the Tuskegee Institute as since that time we have emphasized the teaching of agriculture to our students. During the earlier years of the school we found it difficult to get students to take much interest in our farm work. They wanted to go into the mechanical trades instead.

After the opening of this agricultural building and the securing of Mr. Geo. W. Carver, a thoroughly educated man in all matters pertaining to agriculture, the Agricultural Department has been put upon such a high plane that the students no longer look upon agriculture as a drudgery, and many of our best students are anxious to enter the Agricultural Department. We have demands from all parts of the South for men who have finished our courses in agriculture, dairying, etc., in fact, the demands are far greater than we can supply. I often wonder why it is, there being such excellent openings in these directions, that so few of our young men are willing to prepare themselves for these valuable and responsible positions.

I shall not occupy much more of the reader’s time in detailing accounts of my various speechmaking tours; were I to do so, a good part of this volume would be occupied in a description of them. Nearly one-half of my time is spent away from Tuskegee addressing audiences of various kinds in different parts of the country; sometimes in the South, other times in the Middle or Eastern States, and going as far West in many cases as Denver and Omaha. There is never a day that I do not receive a number of invitations urging me to go to some section of the country to make an address. When I am away from Tuskegee the portion of the time that is not spent in making addresses in behalf of Tuskegee is spent in seeing individuals. The latter work I consider very important and far-reaching.

During the winter of 1898 a State Constitutional Convention assembled in New Orleans, La., for the purpose of passing a law which would result in disfranchising a large proportion of the Negro voters. Some portion of the Convention were very anxious to pass a law that would result in the disfranchising of the Negro voters without disfranchising any portion of the white voters. The passing of any such law seemed to me so manifestly unjust that I addressed an open letter to the Convention, which read as follows:

“To the Louisiana State Constitutional Convention:

“In addressing you this letter I know that I am running the risk of appearing to meddle with something that does not concern me. But since I know that nothing but love for our beautiful southland, which I hold as near my heart as any of you can, and a sincere love for every black man and white man within her borders, is the only thing actuating me to write, I am willing to be misjudged, if need be, if I can accomplish a little good.

“But I do not believe that you, gentlemen of the Convention, will misinterpret my motives. What I say will, I believe, be considered in the same earnest spirit in which I write.

“I am no politician; on the other hand, I have always advised my race to give attention to acquiring property, intelligence and character, as the necessary bases of good citizenship, rather than to mere political agitation. But the question upon which I write is out of the region of ordinary politics; it affects the civilization of two races, not for to-day alone, but for a very long time to come; it is up in the region of duty of man to man, of Christian to Christian.

“Since the war, no State has had such an opportunity to settle for all time the race question, so far as it concerns politics, as is now given in Louisiana. Will your Convention set an example to the world in this respect? Will Louisiana take such high and just ground in respect to the Negro that no one can doubt that the South is as good a friend to the Negro as he possesses elsewhere? In all this, gentlemen of the Convention, I am not pleading for the Negro alone, but for the morals, the higher life of the white man as well. For the more I study this question, the more I am convinced that it is not so much a question as to what the white man will do with the Negro, as to what the Negro will do with the white man’s civilization.

“The Negro agrees with you that it is necessary to the salvation of the South that restriction be put upon the ballot. I know that you have two serious problems before you; ignorant and corrupt government on the one hand, and on the other a way to restrict the ballot so that control will be in the hands of the intelligent, without regard to race. With the sincerest sympathy with you in your efforts to find a way out of the difficulty, I want to suggest that no State in the South can make a law that will provide an opportunity or temptation for an ignorant white man to vote, and withhold the same opportunity from an ignorant colored man, without injuring both men. No State can make a law that can thus be executed, without dwarfing for all time the morals of the white man in the South. Any law controlling the ballot, that is not absolutely just and fair to both races, will work more permanent injury to the whites than to the blacks.