Up From Slavery: An Autobiography | Page 5

and Western States; I was thinking of this dark shadow that had oppressed
every large-minded statesman from Jefferson to Lincoln. These thousand young men and
women about me were victims of it. I, too, was an innocent victim of it. The whole
Republic was a victim of that fundamental error of importing Africa into America. I held
firmly to the first article of my faith that the Republic must stand fast by the principle of a
fair ballot; but I recalled the wretched mess that Reconstruction had made of it; I recalled
the low level of public life in all the "black" States. Every effort of philanthropy seemed
to have miscarried, every effort at correcting abuses seemed of doubtful value, and the
race friction seemed to become severer. Here was the century-old problem in all its
pathos seated singing before me. Who were the more to be pitied--these innocent victims
of an ancient wrong, or I and men like me, who had inherited the problem? I had long ago
thrown aside illusions and theories, and was willing to meet the facts face to face, and to
do whatever in God's name a man might do towards saving the next generation from such
a burden. But I felt the weight of twenty well-nigh hopeless years of thought and reading
and observation; for the old difficulties remained and new ones had sprung up. Then I
saw clearly that the way out of a century of blunders had been made by this man who
stood beside me and was introducing me to this audience. Before me was the material he
had used. All about me was the indisputable evidence that he had found the natural line
of development. He had shown the way. Time and patience and encouragement and work
would do the rest.
It was then more clearly than ever before that I understood the patriotic significance of
Mr. Washington's work. It is this conception of it and of him that I have ever since

carried with me. It is on this that his claim to our gratitude rests.
To teach the Negro to read, whether English, or Greek, or Hebrew, butters no parsnips.
To make the Negro work, that is what his master did in one way and hunger has done in
another; yet both these left Southern life where they found it. But to teach the Negro to do
skilful work, as men of all the races that have risen have worked,--responsible work,
which IS education and character; and most of all when Negroes so teach Negroes to do
this that they will teach others with a missionary zeal that puts all ordinary philanthropic
efforts to shame,--this is to change the whole economic basis of life and the whole
character of a people.
The plan itself is not a new one. It was worked out at Hampton Institute, but it was done
at Hampton by white men. The plan had, in fact, been many times theoretically laid down
by thoughtful students of Southern life. Handicrafts were taught in the days of slavery on
most well-managed plantations. But Tuskegee is, nevertheless, a brand-new chapter in
the history of the Negro, and in the history of the knottiest problem we have ever faced. It
not only makes "a carpenter of a man; it makes a man of a carpenter." In one sense,
therefore, it is of greater value than any other institution for the training of men and
women that we have, from Cambridge to Palo Alto. It is almost the only one of which it
may be said that it points the way to a new epoch in a large area of our national life.
To work out the plan on paper, or at a distance--that is one thing. For a white man to
work it out--that too, is an easy thing. For a coloured man to work it out in the South,
where, in its constructive period, he was necessarily misunderstood by his own people as
well as by the whites, and where he had to adjust it at every step to the strained race
relations--that is so very different and more difficult a thing that the man who did it put
the country under lasting obligations to him.
It was not and is not a mere educational task. Anybody could teach boys trades and give
them an elementary education. Such tasks have been done since the beginning of
civilization. But this task had to be done with the rawest of raw material, done within the
civilization of the dominant race, and so done as not to run across race lines and social
lines that are the strongest forces in the community. It had to be done for the benefit of
the whole community. It had to be done, moreover, without