The training received at Tuskegee has been of so much help to me since leaving there. I made up my mind after graduation that I would urge my parents and relatives to cease paying five and six bales of cotton each year for rent, and instead take the same amount of cotton and buy a place of their own. I am glad to say, through my efforts in this regard, they have been placed on a tract of 160 acres of good land, and it is practically paid for, they paying four bales of cotton a year. They are doing well and are making something for themselves. This project seemed a little strange to them for the first two years, but they are now used to it.
"He that hath a trade," saith Franklin, "hath an estate, and he that hath a calling, hath a place and honor." Since being out in the world I have learned not to wait for a higher position or a better salary, and have steadily sought to enlarge the ones I have had. I have tried to fill such positions as I have had as they were never filled before, by doing better work, by being more prompt, by being more thorough, more polite, and, in fact, I have filled them so completely that no one else could slip in by me. I have always laid great stress on work as a means of developing power; I am called by some of my friends a fanatic on this subject. My experience at Tuskegee taught me that our racial salvation is to come through hard, earnest, intelligent, sincere work. I owe a world of gratitude to the Tuskegee Institute for the training I received there and for the great work it is doing for the Negro people.
I repeat, if I accomplish anything in life that is worth while, it will be due wholly to the Tuskegee Institute, to its officers and teachers. No true graduate of Tuskegee ever forgets the lessons learned there. I am sure I shall not.
V
THE STORY OF A FARMER
By Frank Reid
I am glad to be able to give some facts regarding what my brother Dow and I have been able to do since leaving the Tuskegee Institute.
We did not graduate, I am sorry to say, but the lessons given us have not been forgotten. These lessons started us on the way to our present success. I do not use the word "success" boastfully, but because it really states a fact: we have done much more than we ever hoped to do, and have been the means of contributing in some slight measure toward the uplifting of the immediate community about us.
We are located at a place called Dawkins, not more than twelve miles from the Tuskegee Institute, and immediately within its sphere of influence.