Tuesday, February 23, 1892, was a day memorable in the lives and fortunes of the great bulk of the Negro population in the “Black Belt” of the South. It was a strange and altogether new movement in which the Negro was called upon to participate.
From the time I first began working at Tuskegee I began to study closely not only the young people but the condition, the weak points and the strong points, of the older people. I was very often surprised to see how much common sense and wisdom these older people possessed, notwithstanding they were wholly ignorant as far as the letter of the book was concerned.
About the first of January, 1892, I sent out invitations to about 75 of the common, hard-working farmers, as well as to mechanics, ministers and teachers, asking them to assemble at Tuskegee on the 23d of February and spend the day in talking over their present condition, their helps and their hindrances, and to see if it were possible to suggest any means by which the rank and file of the people might be able to benefit themselves. I quote a portion of the printed invitation which was sent out to those invited to attend the Conference:
“In the Conference, two ends will be kept in view: First, to find out the actual industrial, moral and educational condition of the masses. Second, to get as much light as possible on what is the most effective way for the young men and women whom the Tuskegee Institute, and other institutions, are educating to use their education in helping the masses of the colored people to lift themselves up.
“In this connection, it may be said in general, that a very large majority of the colored people in the Black Belt, cotton district, are in debt for supplies secured through the ‘mortgage system,’ rent the land on which they live and dwell in one-room log cabins. The schools are in session in the country districts not often longer than three months and are taught in most cases in churches or log cabins with almost no apparatus or school furniture.
“The poverty and ignorance of the Negro, which show themselves by his being compelled to ‘mortgage his crop,’ go in debt for the food and clothes on which to live from day to day, are not only a terrible drawback to the Negro himself but a severe drain on the resources of the white man. Say what we will, the fact remains, that in the presence of the poverty and ignorance of the millions of Negroes in the Black Belt the material, moral and educational interests of both races are making but slow headway.”
In answer to this invitation we were surprised to find that nearly 400 men and women of all kinds and conditions came. In my opening address I impressed upon them the fact that we wanted to spend the first part of the day in having them state plainly and simply just what their conditions were. I told them that we wanted no exaggeration and did not want any cut and dried or prepared speeches, we simply wanted each person to speak in a plain, simple manner, very much as he would if he were about his own fireside speaking to the members of his own family. I also insisted that we confine our discussion to such matters as we ourselves could remedy rather than in spending the time in complaining or fault-finding about those things which we could not directly reach. At the first meeting of this Negro Conference we also adopted the plan of having these common people speak themselves and refused to allow people who were far above them in education and surroundings to take up the time in merely giving advice to these representatives of the masses.
Very early in the history of these Conferences I found that it meant a great deal more to the people to have one individual who had succeeded in getting out of debt, ceasing to mortgage his crop and who had bought a home and who was living well, occupy the time in telling the remainder of his fellows how he had succeeded than in having some one who was entirely out of the atmosphere of the average farmer occupy the time in merely lecturing to them.
In the morning of the first day of the Conference we had as many representatives from various parts as we had time in which to tell of the industrial condition existing in their immediate community. We did not let them generalize or tell what they thought ought to be or was existing in somebody’s else community, we held each person down to a statement of the facts regarding his own individual community. For example, we had them state what proportion of the people in their community owned land, what proportion lived in one-room cabins, how many were in debt and the number that mortgaged their crops, and what rate of interest they were paying on their indebtedness. Under this head we also discussed the number of acres of land that each individual was cultivating and whether or not the crop was diversified or merely confined to the growing of cotton. We also got hold of facts from the representatives of these people concerning their educational progress; that is, we had them state whether or not a school-house existed, what kind of teacher