Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements

by Unknown

Because I have said that I was born in a one-room log cabin, the reader will readily imagine that my parentage was humble. My mother and father both have gone to the Great Beyond. I bless and revere their memory, for two more noble souls never lived, hampered as they were by slavery and its terrible environments.

My parents continued to live in the one-room cabin until three other children, making nine in all, had come to them. Another room was added about this time. The biting poverty of it all led my father, with his family, to move to one of the famous cotton plantations of Dallas County, Ala. I seem to recall taking an interest in the world about me quite early. Especially do I recall, as one of my earliest recollections, the death of Garfield, so cruelly slain by the madman Guiteau. My father was greatly distressed, I remember, by his death.

For five successive years my life was spent working each year on the farms for and with my aged father and other members of the family, and spending the time, when not so employed, in near-by public schools, which at that time, as is true in large part now, were conducted only about three months in each year. After having acquired a slight knowledge of mathematics, it was a great pleasure to me to go up each fall to the market at Selma, Ala., with my father, to dispose of the products of the farm. On one occasion there was an apparent interest manifested in me by one of the commission merchants, a white man. He persuaded me to return to Selma, after I had accompanied my father home, and to accept a position with him as office-boy. I returned as agreed, to find either that his promise was a stroke to induce my father to trade with him, or that my stay at home had been too extended—although it was only for three or four days. The position, meanwhile, he said, had been filled by another. Thus, I found myself, a raw country lad, twenty-seven miles from home, without employment and among strangers. Next morning, without the knowledge of my parents, I applied for admittance as a student to the Knox Academy at Selma, and without recommendations, which were immediately demanded of me. I was turned away, but not discouraged, for the next morning, accompanied by a white friend of my father, I again applied and was admitted on his recommendation. An examination entitled me to begin with the fifth-grade class.

I also secured employment at this white man's home. The money thus received paid for my board. By doing odd jobs I managed to make sufficient money to pay for lodging with a good family. I was thus enabled to spend the fall of 1883 and the spring of 1884 in school, to my very great benefit. I was compelled to return home, however, before the term ended, because my father's health completely failed him, to take charge of the farm, as I was the senior male child in the family at that time. My juvenile mind had been awakened by this short school experience in Selma, and from that time forth I had a thirst for more knowledge.

I was absorbed by this longing, but I took up the various other duties which fell to my lot, with the earnest purpose of doing my very best. As a result, with the aid of other members of the family I succeeded in turning over to my invalid father, the succeeding fall, eleven bales of cotton and other farm products in like proportion. My father's health having completely failed, and because of a constantly increasing desire for more knowledge, I conceived the idea of returning to our old home near Tuskegee again.

January, 1885, found us again living in close proximity to the old log cabin in which I was born. Not four years before the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute had been established. The height of my ambition was to be enrolled as a student there, but not having sufficient money to care for the family and remain in school at the same time, and since the term for that year was half spent, I sought employment for the remaining winter months, doing such odd jobs in and around the little town as I could find to do. When spring came, having a fair knowledge of farming, I found ready employment with the planters of that community. With an ambition to enter school the coming fall, I then and there began to study every possible method of economy, and when summer had passed and school-time had come again, with the aid of a younger brother I had cared for the family, and had to my credit my first savings of $85.

Now began the most memorable and the most pleasant days in my life. On the 15th day of September, 1885, I matriculated as a student at Tuskegee, and, after what was then considered a rigid examination, succeeded in entering the Junior class, the lowest class of the normal grade. There was yet before me the task of caring for an aged father and mother. That task I considered a sacred duty, and, with my limited savings in hand, made such purchases as would best give them ordinary comforts through the winter months, and on the 22d day of the same month, after having made such expenditures as I thought necessary, I found that my little pile had been reduced from $85 to $14.50, with which sum I paid my tuition and board at the normal school.

I was permitted by the school authorities to work on the school farm the entire term. On the 26th day of May, when the school closed, there yet remained to my credit a sufficient amount to purchase a ticket to Birmingham, and thence out to Pratt City, a near-by suburb. At Pratt City I learned to dig coal, and at the end of every month they paid me in gold. These shining pieces were precious possessions. For four successive summers, in order to get sufficient money to care for my mother and father and make my way in school, I went to Pratt City and worked in the mines, at the furnaces, on the railroads, and around the coke-ovens, enduring hardships which language can hardly describe. But it all paid. The summer of 1888 was a trying one, but when the time came for me to leave for school I had saved $200.

On the 30th day of May, 1889, a new epoch in my life began. I was ushered into the busy world as a graduate of Tuskegee, being in a class of twenty-two. I had looked forward to this event with pride and was very happy.

So imbued was I with the pleasant thought that I was a graduate of Tuskegee, that I little thought of the great responsibilities that awaited me, but when my more sober thought came I realized that I was going from most pleasant surroundings not to return the next year; that I was going out not to return and meet indulgent and persuasive teachers, loving classmates, and devoted friends. I then realized the full meaning of the phrase we had selected that year as our class motto, "Finished, yet just begun." Finished I had at Tuskegee, but I had to begin work and life in the great busy world, with confidence alone as an asset. The Commencement exercises on this particular occasion were most impressive to me, made so in part, I suspect, because I was to be the happy recipient of a coveted diploma. The Commencement speaker was the late Joseph C. Price,[1] of North Carolina, and he was at his best.