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There
was a great deal of joy expressed among the students and teachers, and I
received very hearty congratulations. I began to get ready at once to go to
Tuskegee. I went by way of my old home in West Virginia, where I remained
for several days, after which I proceeded to Tuskegee. I found Tuskegee to
be a town of about two thousand inhabitants, nearly one-half of whom were
coloured. It was in what was known as the Black Belt of the South. In the
county in which Tuskegee is situated the coloured people outnumbered the
whites by about three to one. In some of the adjoining and near-by counties
the proportion was not far from six coloured persons to one white.
I
have often been asked to define the term "Black Belt." So far as I
can learn, the term was first used to designated a part of the country which
was distinguished by the colour of the soil. The part of the country
possessing this thick, dark, and naturally rich soil was, of course, the
part of the South where the slaves were most profitable, and consequently
they were taken there in the largest numbers. Later, and especially since
the war, the term seems to be used wholly in a political sense--that is, to
designate the counties where the black people outnumber the white.
Before
going to Tuskegee I had expected to find there a building and all the
necessary apparatus ready for me to begin teaching. To my disappointment, I
found nothing of the kind. I did find, though, that which no costly building
and apparatus can supply,--hundreds of hungry, earnest souls who wanted to
secure knowledge.
Tuskegee
seemed an ideal place for the school. It was in the midst of the great bulk
of the Negro population, and was rather secluded, being five miles from the
main line of railroad, with which it was connected by a short line. During
the days of slavery, and since, the town had been a centre for the education
of the white people. This was an added advantage, for the reason that I
found the white people possessing a degree of culture and education that is
not surpassed by many localities. While the coloured people were ignorant,
they had not, as a rule, degraded and weakened their bodies by vices such as
are common to the lower class of people in the large cities. In general, I
found the relations between the two races pleasant. For example, the
largest, and I think at that time the only hardware store in the town was
owned and operated jointly by a coloured man and a white man. This
copartnership continued until the death of the white partner.
I
found that about a year previous to my going to Tuskegee some of the
coloured people who had heard something of the work of education being done
at Hampton had applied to the state Legislature, through their
representatives, for a small appropriation to be used in starting a normal
school in Tuskegee. This request the Legislature had complied with to the
extent of granting an annual appropriation of two thousand dollars. I soon
learned, however, that this money could be used only for the payment of the
salaries of the instructors, and that there was no provision for securing
land, buildings, or apparatus. The task before me did not seem a very
encouraging one. It seemed much like making bricks without straw. The
coloured people were overjoyed, and were constantly offering their services
in any way in which they could be of assistance in getting the school
started.
My
first task was to find a place in which to open the school. After looking
the town over with some care, the most suitable place that could be secured
seemed to be a rather dilapidated shanty near the coloured Methodist church,
together with the church itself as a sort of assembly-room. Both the church
and the shanty were in about as bad condition as was possible. I recall that
during the first months of school that I taught in this building it was in
such poor repair that, whenever it rained, one of the older students would
very kindly leave his lessons and hold an umbrella over me while I heard the
recitations of the others. I remember, also, that on more than one occasion
my landlady held an umbrella over me while I ate breakfast.
At
the time I went to Alabama the coloured people were taking considerable
interest in politics, and they were very anxious that I should become one of
them politically, in every respect. They seemed to have a little distrust of
strangers in this regard. I recall that one man, who seemed to have been
designated by the others to look after my political destiny, came to me on
several occasions and said, with a good deal of earnestness: "We wants
you to be sure to vote jes' like we votes. We can't read de newspapers very
much, but we knows how to vote, an' we wants you to vote jes' like we
votes." He added: "We watches de white man, and we keeps watching
de white man till we finds out which way de white man's gwine to vote; an'
when we finds out which way de white man's gwine to vote, den we votes 'xactly
de other way. Den we knows we's right."
I
am glad to add, however, that at the present time the disposition to vote
against the white man merely because he is white is largely disappearing,
and the race is learning to vote from principle, for what the voter
considers to be for the best interests of both races.
I
reached Tuskegee, as I have said, early in June, 1881. The first month I
spent in finding accommodations for the school, and in travelling through
Alabama, examining into the actual life of the people, especially in the
court districts, and in getting the school advertised among the glass of
people that I wanted to have attend it. The most of my travelling was done
over the country roads, with a mule and a cart or a mule and a buggy wagon
for conveyance. I ate and slept with the people, in their little cabins. I
saw their farms, their schools, their churches. Since, in the case of the
most of these visits, there had been no notice given in advance that a
stranger was expected, I had the advantage of seeing the real, everyday life
of the people.
In
the plantation districts I found that, as a rule, the whole family slept in
one room, and that in addition to the immediate family there sometimes were
relatives, or others not related to the family, who slept in the same room.
On more than one occasion I went outside the house to get ready for bed, or
to wait until the family had gone to bed. They usually contrived some kind
of a place for me to sleep, either on the floor or in a special part of
another's bed. Rarely was there any place provided in the cabin where one
could bathe even the face and hands, but usually some provision was made for
this outside the house, in the yard.
The
common diet of the people was fat pork and corn bread. At times I have eaten
in cabins where they had only corn bread and "black-eye peas"
cooked in plain water. The people seemed to have no other idea than to live
on this fat meat and corn bread,--the meat, and the meal of which the bread
was made, having been bought at a high price at a store in town,
notwithstanding the face that the land all about the cabin homes could
easily have been made to produce nearly every kind of garden vegetable that
is raised anywhere in the country. Their one object seemed to be to plant
nothing but cotton; and in many cases cotton was planted up to the very door
of the cabin.
In
these cabin homes I often found sewing-machines which had been bought, or
were being bought, on instalments, frequently at a cost of as much as sixty
dollars, or showy clocks for which the occupants of the cabins had paid
twelve or fourteen dollars. I remember that on one occasion when I went into
one of these cabins for dinner, when I sat down to the table for a meal with
the four members of the family, I noticed that, while there were five of us
at the table, there was but one fork for the five of us to use. Naturally
there was an awkward pause on my part. In the opposite corner of that same
cabin was an organ for which the people told me they were paying sixty
dollars in monthly instalments. One fork, and a sixty-dollar organ!
In
most cases the sewing-machine was not used, the clocks were so worthless
that they did not keep correct time--and if they had, in nine cases out of
ten there would have been no one in the family who could have told the time
of day--while the organ, of course, was rarely used for want of a person who
could play upon it.
In
the case to which I have referred, where the family sat down to the table
for the meal at which I was their guest, I could see plainly that this was
an awkward and unusual proceeding, and was done in my honour. In most cases,
when the family got up in the morning, for example, the wife would put a
piece of meat in a frying-pan and put a lump of dough in a
"skillet," as they called it. These utensils would be placed on
the fire, and in ten or fifteen minutes breakfast would be ready. Frequently
the husband would take his bread and meat in his hand and start for the
field, eating as he walked. The mother would sit down in a corner and eat
her breakfast, perhaps from a plate and perhaps directly from the
"skillet" or frying-pan, while the children would eat their
portion of the bread and meat while running about the yard. At certain
seasons of the year, when meat was scarce, it was rarely that the children
who were not old enough or strong enough to work in the fields would have
the luxury of meat.
The
breakfast over, and with practically no attention given to the house, the
whole family would, as a general thing, proceed to the cotton-field. Every
child that was large enough to carry a hoe was put to work, and the
baby--for usually there was at least one baby--would be laid down at the end
of the cotton row, so that its mother could give it a certain amount of
attention when she had finished chopping her row. The noon meal and the
supper were taken in much the same way as the breakfast.
All
the days of the family would be spent after much this same routine, except
Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday the whole family would spent at least half
a day, and often a whole day, in town. The idea in going to town was, I
suppose, to do shopping, but all the shopping that the whole family had
money for could have been attended to in ten minutes by one person. Still,
the whole family remained in town for most of the day, spending the greater
part of the time in standing on the streets, the women, too often, sitting
about somewhere smoking or dipping snuff. Sunday was usually spent in going
to some big meeting. With few exceptions, I found that the crops were
mortgaged in the counties where I went, and that the most of the coloured
farmers were in debt. The state had not been able to build schoolhouses in
the country districts, and, as a rule, the schools were taught in churches
or in log cabins. More than once, while on my journeys, I found that there
was no provision made in the house used for school purposes for heating the
building during the winter, and consequently a fire had to be built in the
yard, and teacher and pupils passed in and out of the house as they got cold
or warm. With few exceptions, I found the teachers in these country schools
to be miserably poor in preparation for their work, and poor in moral
character. The schools were in session from three to five months. There was
practically no apparatus in the schoolhouses, except that occasionally there
was a rough blackboard. I recall that one day I went into a schoolhouse--or
rather into an abandoned log cabin that was being used as a schoolhouse--and
found five pupils who were studying a lesson from one book. Two of these, on
the front seat, were using the book between them; behind these were two
others peeping over the shoulders of the first two, and behind the four was
a fifth little fellow who was peeping over the shoulders of all four.
What
I have said concerning the character of the schoolhouses and teachers will
also apply quite accurately as a description of the church buildings and the
ministers.
I
met some very interesting characters during my travels. As illustrating the
peculiar mental processes of the country people, I remember that I asked one
coloured man, who was about sixty years old, to tell me something of his
history. He said that he had been born in Virginia, and sold into Alabama in
1845. I asked him how many were sold at the same time. He said, "There
were five of us; myself and brother and three mules."
In
giving all these descriptions of what I saw during my mouth of travel in the
country around Tuskegee, I wish my readers to keep in mind the fact that
there were many encouraging exceptions to the conditions which I have
described. I have stated in such plain words what I saw, mainly for the
reason that later I want to emphasize the encouraging changes that have
taken place in the community, not wholly by the work of the Tuskegee school,
but by that of other institutions as well.
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