Robert W. Woodruff
Library
Gift of
Randall K. Burkett
EMORY UNIVERSITY
Special Collections & Archives
Literary jSlotc
Under the title of "Black-Belt Diamonds"
there has been published a dainty volume
comprising pertinent extracts from the speeches,
addresses and talks to students of Booker
T. Washington, Principal of the Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute. This institut¬
ion is situated in what is called the Black Belt of
Alabama, which explains the significance of the
title. The selections have been made and ar¬
ranged by Mrs. Victoria Earle Matthews,
author of " Aunt Lindy'' etc. She has brought
to her task not only the requisite literary skill,
but a painstaking care and fidelity in setting
forth those expressions most characteristic of the
man and his work There is an introduction
by T. Thomas Fortune, editor of the New
York Age. In it he says that the Southern
States have only produced two men since the
Rebellion who have achieved a national rep¬
utation—Henry W. Grady and Booker T.
Washington. He contrasts the divergent
ideas represented by these two men, both of
whom were in the fullest sense educators, and
pays a tribute to the Southern people for their
recognition of the ability and service of Mr.
Washington. [ Published by Fortune &
Scott, 4 Cedar Street, New York. Price one
dollar.]
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.
Black-Belt Diamonds
(Sems front tfjc Speeches,
auto Calks to Students
of
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
Principal of Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala.
S>electei> anti ^rrangefc fog
VICTORIA EARLE MATTHEWS
author of "aunt lindy," etc.
INTRODUCTION
By T. THOMAS FORTUNE
NEW YORK
FORTUNE AND SCOTT, Publishers
4 Cedar Street
1898
Copyright, /8q8
By Victoria Earle Matthews
tEni&etsftg press
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
Introduction
v
A French philosopher has said that "the ro¬
mances of fact are stranger than the romances
of fiction." A close study of the lives of suc¬
cessful men in all periods of the world's history
will show this to be true. And history is simply
the record of human effort, of the success of indi¬
viduals who have done the thinking and the act¬
ing, who have made a pathway for mankind from
barbarism to civilization. No imagination can
conceive a character in which the romantic ele¬
ment can be compared with that to be found in
the life of every man who has been conspicuous
in the world's thought and effort. The most
successful poets and novelists have drawn upon
the great storehouse of history for materials for
their most successful and lasting work. All else
has perished, or is perishing. And this will con¬
tinue to be so while success and failure shall re¬
main the basis of the heroic and the pathetic in
human life.
Strangely enough, the Southern States have
produced only two men, since the War of the
vi Black-Belt Diamonds
Rebellion, who have achieved a national reputa¬
tion. These two men are Henry W. Grady, of
Georgia, and Booker T. Washington, of Ala¬
bama. The one represented the white South,
with which he was identified by blood and sympa¬
thy, and spoke for it alone, and secured for him¬
self an audience as wide as the continent, which
has become — in what it stands for rather than in
what it is — the hope and the inspiration of the
oppressed and downtrodden of all lands; and
he was dangerous because he spoke for a part
and not for the whole of the Southern people,
because he contended for a part and not for the
whole truth, as it is related to manhood and
citizenship, and to that Christian charity which
embraces all the children of men. The other rep¬
resents the. whole South, because he is identified
with the whole South by blood and sympathy, and
he speaks for the whole South, and has secured
for himself an audience as wide as the continent;
and he is a safe and a helpful man because he
speaks for the whole Southern people, because
he contends for the whole and not for a part of
the truth, as it is related to manhood and citizen¬
ship, and to that Christian charity which em¬
braces all the children of men.
Mr. Grady laid it down as the corner-stone of
his faith, and was content to rest his fame with
posterity upon it, that " the supremacy of the
white race of the South must be maintained for-
Introduction
vii
ever, and the domination of the Negro race re¬
sisted at all points and at all hazards, because
the white race is the superior race. This is the
declaration of no new truth; it has abided for¬
ever in the marrow of our bones, and shall run
forever with the blood that feeds Anglo-Saxon
hearts."
This sentiment is opposed to Christian phi¬
losophy, and is specifically disavowed by the
Federal Constitution, which does not recognize
the divine right of the Anglo-Saxon race or the
Afro-American race, or any other race compre¬
hended in our American citizenship; and the life
was shot out of it on a hundred battlefields in
the War of the Rebellion!
Mr. Washington said (in his address at the
Alumni Dinner of Harvard University, June 24,
1896, after having received the honorary degree
of Master of Arts), and he is content to rest his
fame with posterity upon it, that " while we
are thus being tested, I beg of you to remember
that wherever our life touches yours we help or
we hinder. Wherever your life touches ours
you make us stronger or weaker. No member
of your race in any part of the country can harm
the meanest member of mine without the proud¬
est and bluest blood in Massachusetts being de¬
graded. When Mississippi commits crime, New
England commits crime, and in so much lowers
the standard of your civilization. There is no
viii Black-Belt Diamonds
escape, — man drags man down, or man lifts
man up.
"In working out our destiny, while the main
burden and centre of activity must be with us,
we shall need in a large measure, in the years
that are to come, as we have had in the past, the
help, the encouragement, the guidance that the
strong can give the weak. Thus helped, we of
both races in the South soon shall throw off the
shackles of racial and sectional prejudices, and
rise, as Harvard University has risen, and as we
all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance,
narrowness, and selfishness, into that atmosphere,
that pure sunshine, where it will be our highest
ambition to serve man, our brother, regardless of
race or past condition."
Upon another occasion Mr. Washington said:
" I thank God I have grown to the point where I
can sympathize with a white man as much as I
can with a black man, where I can sympathize
with a Southern white man as much as with a
Northern white man." Again: " The black man
who cannot let love and sympathy go out to a
white man is but half free."
The difference between Mr. Grady and Mr.
Washington is to be found in the fact that the one
was an Anglo-Saxon American, and the other an
Afro-American; that the one was born a free
man, and the other a slave; that the one was
educated to believe that God made freedom and
Introduction
IX
opportunity for His white children alone, the
other that He made them for all His children,—
of Ham and Shem and Japheth, the black and
white and yellow. And so each, according to
his lights, builded, —the one upon sand, the other
upon rock, the one for the present, the other for
posterity I
These two men were born orators of great
power. The one spent his genius and energy
in seeking to clinch the rivets in the chain that
bound the intellect and the soul of two races—
" one as to the hand, separate as to the fingers "
— to the blighting prejudices and dogmas of the
dead past, to the decaying carcass of slavery;
while the other spends his genius and energy in
seeking to loosen the rivets in the chain of the
dead past, to unite the whole people for mutual
help and sympathy, to make the freedom of both
races a positive force for power and for good in
our national life,—to heal up the wounds of the
past, that we may be strong as a united people
to enjoy to the fullest extent the destiny which
God, in His mercy, has set as a prize for our high
calling among the nations of the earth, — and
the people of the North and the South and the
West, lend willing ears to the "tidings of great
joy " which it is his privilege to deliver.
And these two men were born educators. The
one planted a newspaper, which grew and waxed
strong, so that it became as an oracle, speaking
x Black-Belt Diamonds
as with authority, and it will bear upon its front
the impress of his genius and of his limitations,
— of his provincialism in the matters of race and
of country, — and remain a disturbing element,
because out of joint with the irresistible philoso¬
phy of human and national progress, for many
years to come; while the other planted an insti¬
tution of learning in a rich soil,1 which has been
and is and will remain a nursery of Christian
love and charity for all the children of men, and
of a patriotism as broad and deep as our Declara¬
tion of Independence, the strongest pronounce¬
ment of human freedom ever made, and as
1 The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute was
founded at Tuskegee, Alabama, in a church made of logs,
by Mr. Washington, seventeen years ago. It has steadily
grown in extent and importance, so that to-day it contains
nearly one thousand pupils and about one hundred instructors
and helpers, and is conducted at an annual outlay of some¬
thing like a hundred thousand dollars, all of which is raised
by voluntary subscriptions, except about five thousand dol¬
lars per annum contributed by the State of Alabama. It
also receives assistance from the Slater and Peabody Funds,
whose active agent, the Hon. J. L. M. Curry, is a strong
friend of the Tuskegee Institute work. But too much of
Mr. Washington's time and energy is devoted to the work
of securing the funds necessary to keep the Institute going.
An ample endowment is imperatively needed. Mr. Wash¬
ington's idea of education was imbibed from General S. C.
Armstrong, who founded the Hampton Institute, in 1868.
It is thoroughly normal and industrial in character. The
dignity of labor is the corner-stone of the whole structure.
Introduction
xi
abiding as the Federal Constitution, upon which
our institutions rest " in the love of man and the
fear of God."
The voice of Henry W. Grady is silent in
death. While he lived, "the proud scion of a
proud race" divided the honors, as the South's
representative orator and educator, with Booker
T. Washington, the humble offspring of a slave
woman who could not call her soul her own.
Fate could go no further in giving vitality and
force to the poet's declaration, that " one touch
of Nature makes the whole world kin," and in
teaching the sublime lesson that —
" Honor and worth from no condition rise;
Act well your part — there all the honor lies."
Mr. Washington still lives; and to-day the
South possesses no voice stronger than his, —
that has the nation for an audience when he uses
it, that is teaching Christian love and sympathy
and national unity with like power and success.
The God that lifted him out of bondage has
made of him a great power for good in the
land. And it is due to the Southern people — to
all the Southern people — to say that they recog¬
nize the native ability and the consecration to ser¬
vice— the sustaining the weak, and the lifting up
of the fallen — of the man, the tower of strength,
who has taken the place so long and worthily
filled by Frederick Douglass, as " the guide, phi-
xii Black-Belt Diamonds
losopher, and friend" of the ten million Afro-
American citizens of the Republic, with whom
his lot is more particularly cast, and to empha¬
size the fact that one of the strongest elements
of his strength and influence is the respect and
confidence of the whole Southern people which
he enjoys in such unstinted measure; a respect
and confidence which, added to that of the people
of the North and West, have enabled him to erect
and sustain a lighthouse of knowledge in the
Black Belt of Alabama, whose reflection, whose
pervasive influence, is blinding the eyes of igno¬
rance and prejudice, so that men may see the
beauty and the wealth that abound in Nature, and
thus intelligently lay hold upon them for, their
use and comfort, and that they may see and im¬
bibe that reverence for the Creator and love of
mankind in which the happiness of the people
and the strength of the nation abide.
It is appropriate to say this much, in submit¬
ting to the reader the collection of some of the
wise thoughts which Mr. Washington has uttered
at various times and places, and which have
been culled, with so much of industry and dis¬
crimination and devotion to the life-work of the
man, by Mrs. Matthews.
T. Thomas Foetune.
Black-Belt Diamonds
*
©art 1
fieart of the Race
General Armstrong — he was the heart
of the race; his great heart held us all so
constantly, so strongly, so tenderly, that it gave
way at a time when most men begin to live.
Memorial to Gen. Armstrong.
Re must be Counted
One third of the population of the South is
of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the
material, civil, or moral welfare of this section
can disregard this element of our population
and reach the highest success. Atlanta Speech.
Che JNegro's fission
I think a part of his [the Negro's] mission
is going to be to teach white men a lesson of
patience, forbearance, and forgiveness. I think
he is going to show the people of this country
what it is possible for a race to achieve when
starting under adverse conditions. Again, I
2 Black-Belt Diamonds
believe he is destined to preach a lesson of
supreme trust in God and loyalty to his country,
even when his country has not been at all times
loyal to him. I think my people will excel in
the missionary spirit. It will take the form of
reaching down after the less fortunate both at
home and abroad. Our Day.
"Che JNegro's Rome
The Negro has a genuine interest in this
country, — in the South. It is his home, and
he is going to remain in the South. He is not
here to grab a few dollars and then return to
some foreign shore.
Southern States Farm Magazine.
"Cde Claim Rim"
It takes one hundred per cent of Caucasian
blood to make a white American. The minute
it is proven that a man possesses one one-
hundredth part of Negro blood in his veins, it
makes him a black man. He falls to our side;
we claim him. The ninety-nine per cent of
white blood counts for nothing when weighed
against one per cent of Negro blood.
Development of the Negro.
Obeying the Scriptures
If ever there was a people that have obeyed
the Scriptural injunction, " If they smite thee
Black-Belt Diamonds 3
on one cheek, turn the other also," that people
has been the American Negro.
Man our Brother.
Self-Respect
Self-respect will bring the Negro many
rights now denied him. Negro Conference.
Loyalty
Whether in slavery or in freedom, we have
always been loyal to the stars and stripes.
Democracy and Education.
Che J^egro originally Ronest
The Negro in his original native state was
an honest race ; it was slavery that unmanned
him in this respect.
Twentieth Century Club {New York).
Basis of prejudice
The prejudice against the Negro is not on
account of color, but because of the badge of
slavery,—the slavery we used to be in and the
industrial slavery we are now in.
Industrial Freedom.
Calk versus Hction
It is all very well to bewail our wrongs. I
feel them as keenly as any one else. But,
I think, we have had quite enough talk about
4 Black-Belt Diamonds
them, and that the thing to do now is to try to
get our rights. Duty of the Hour.
power of faith
You have all, doubtless, read that portion
of the Bible which tells of the woman who
touched the hem of Christ's garment, and
thereby showed her faith. That in itself was
a little thing; and yet this power of human
confidence is something that we do not always
realize. We do not always appreciate its sig¬
nificance. How often do we come in contact
with men and women in whose presence we
may dwell only for a short time, but we can
never look on their countenances or be in any
way associated with them without being made
better, or lifted up, as it were.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Mutual Dependence
Wherever our life touches yours we help
or we hinder. Negro's Future in America.
education the Only fjope
Education is the sole and only hope of the
Negro race in America. Transportation, colo¬
nization, and other schemes of misguided en¬
thusiasts, are impracticable and futile.
The Negro's Hope.
Black-Belt Diamonds
Bis Recompense
If the Negro who has been oppressed and
denied rights in a Christian land can help you,
North and South, to rise, can be a medium of
your rising into the atmosphere of generous
brotherhood and self-forgetfulness, he will see
in it a recompense for all that he has suffered
in the past.
Home Missionary Meeting (New York).
Xgnorance against Xntelligence
Can you make your intelligence affect us
in the same ratio that our ignorance affects
you ? Democracy and Education.
eagerness for Knowledge
No schoolhouse has been opened for us
that has not been filled.
Negro's Future in America.
H JNew Race
We are a new race, as it were, and the time,
attention, and activity of any race are taken
up during the first fifty or one hundred years
in getting a start.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
" One Couch of JSature "
We are led into saying that there is no dif¬
ference between us and other people. We
6 Black-Belt Diamonds
must admit that there is a difference produced
by the unequal opportunities. To argue other¬
wise is to discredit the effects of slavery.
Stumbling Blocks.
Ballot-Box and Scboolbouse
I beg of you, further, that, in the degree
that you close the ballot-box against the igno¬
rant you open the schoolhouse.
Constitutional Convention (Louisiana).
CClbat the JNegro JNeeds
What are the cardinal needs among the
seven millions of colored people in the South,
most of whom are to be found on the planta¬
tions? Roughly, these needs may be stated
as food, clothing, shelter, education, proper
habits, and a settlement of race relations.
Awakening of the Negro.
Responsibility for Slavery
The time has come, it seems to me, for
Northern men, Southern men, black men and
white men, to blot out their prejudices and
look matters squarely in the face as they are.
The whole country was responsible for slavery.
The South and Lynch-Law.
Hn equal Chance
I only ask an equal chance in the world
for the Negro. The Negro's Way to Liberty.
Black-Belt Diamonds 7
pbtUtps Brooks
There are persons whose lives are so much
like that of Christ's, who have so much genuine
Christianity in them, that we cannot come in
contact with them, we cannot even steal a
glance at their faces, without being made
stronger and better. It is said that on one
cold, wintry day, when snow and rain were
falling, and the day was one to make a per¬
son despondent, Phillips Brooks was walking
through the streets of Boston. At once those
who saw him and looked upon his countenance
saw a ray of sunshine. Why ? Because that
man was so full of the " milk of human kind¬
ness," so overflowing with love for humanity,
that no man, however degraded and besotted
a specimen of humanity he was, could look
upon that face without being helped, without
feeling that he, with every other human being,
had a place in the heart of great Phillips
Brooks. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Dishonest Toting
Study the history of the South, and you
will find that where there has been most dis¬
honesty in voting there you will find the lowest
moral condition of both races.
Constitutional Convention {Louisiana).
8 Black-Belt Diamonds
Che 0ood Samaritans
Religion should be a thing of every-day
living, — less Levi, more Good Samaritan.
Negro Conference.
Only Cwo Hlternatives
To the rank and file of our aspiring youth,
seeking an opening in life, to me but two alter¬
natives present themselves, as matters now
stand, — to live a menial in the North, or a
semi-freeman in the South. This brings us
face to face with Northern competition and
Southern prejudice, and between them I have
no hesitancy in saying that the Negro can find
his way to the front sooner through Southern
prejudice than through Northern competition.
The one decreases; the other increases.
Lincoln University.
pagans no Longer
We went into slavery in this country pagans;
we came out Christians. Our New Citizen.
"Cast down your Bucket"
To those of my race who depend upon bet¬
tering their condition in a foreign land, or who
underestimate the importance of cultivating
friendly relations with the Southern white man
who is their next-door neighbor, I would say :
Black-Belt Diamonds 9
" Cast down your bucket where you are. Cast
it down in making friends, in every honorable
way, of the people of all races by whom you
are surrounded. Cast it down in agriculture,
mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service,
and in the professions." Atlanta Speech.
HU ■fools HUfec
A fool in Africa is not better than a fool in
America. Negro Conference.
Business Opportunity
The Negro's present great opportunity in
the South is in the matter of business; and
success in the South is going to constitute the
foundation for success and relief along other
lines. The Negro's Opportunity.
Our J^otber Conguc
We went into slavery without a language;
we came out speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon
tongue. Our New Citizen.
equality of Opportunity
Let the young colored man feel that he can
be not only waiter in hotels but part proprietor,
that on Pullman cars he can be not only porter
but conductor, and he will go forward.
The Negro's Way to Liberty.
io Black-Belt Diamonds
Che South as the ■field
It is in the South that the Negro is given a
man's chance in the commercial world.
Hamilton Club {Chicago).
HcUnce to CKfnte JVIcn
To those of the white race who look to the
incoming of those of foreign birth and strange
tongue and habits for the prosperity of the
South, I would repeat what I say to my own
race, " Cast down your bucket where you are.
Cast it down among the eight million Negroes,
whose habits you know, whose fidelity you have
tested in days when to have proved treacher¬
ous meant the ruin of your firesides."
Atlanta Speech.
fie Learned to Labor
If in the providence of God the Negro got
any good out of slavery, he got the habit of
work. Carnegie Hall (New York).
]N"ew Industrial €ra
The South is about to enter an era of indus¬
trial development that will be almost without a
parallel. Our New Citizen.
3Qhat Education Does
We teach the Negro that labor is not de¬
grading. This education multiplies his wants,
Black-Belt Diamonds 11
and we try to keep pace with his widening
desires by giving him the skill to satisfy them.
The Rise of the Negro.
f*ate of Haggards
We must catch the spirit of modern progress
and achievement, or be shut out by those who
have. Educational Meeting (Milwaukee).
Serious JVUstakes
Immediately after freedom we made serious
mistakes. We began at the top. We made
these mistakes, not because we were black
people, but because we were ignorant and
inexperienced. Association Hall (Philadelphia).
Che One Drawback
The one great drawback to the development
of the South is the lack of skilled and educated
labor. Industrial Development.
HdaptabUity JNeeded
We must adjust ourselves to the changed
conditions, or be left behind in the march of
progress. Spirit of the Coming One.
Rentage of Slavery
Look at the vast wealth of undeveloped re¬
sources that encompasses almost every South¬
ern community, — look at the fertile fields or
12 Black-Belt Diamonds
the worn lands still in bondage to ignorant
labor and the ante-bellum agricultural system.
Industrial Growth.
QClbat Haw cannot Do
The mere fiat of the law could not make a
dependent man independent; it could not make
an ignorant voter an intelligent voter, could
not make one man respect another man.
These results come by beginning at the bot¬
tom, and working upwards, by recognizing our
weaknesses as well as our strength, by tangible
evidences of our worthiness to occupy the
highest position. The Emancipator.
Correct Gducation
We are training colored men to be self-sup¬
porting, saving, and business-like.
The Rise of the Negro.
"Che Shirker
Never get into a rut. You cannot afford to
do a thing poorly. You are more injured in
shirking your work or half-doing a job than the
person for whom you are working.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Row Hife is pleasured
Do not think life consists of dress and show.
Remember that every one's life is measured by
Black-Belt Diamonds
13
the power that that individual has to make the
world better, — this is all life is.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
"Cttbat we CClant"
What we want, and it is what America
honors, is the man who can teach his followers
how to overcome obstacles, how to find a way
or make one.
Taking Advantage of our Disadvantages.
drained Read and Rand
The hand, as well as the head, of every
black boy and girl of the South should be
trained to some useful occupation.
Age-Herald.
"Che Hcceptabte "Cbutg
The acceptable thing is to do the most good
in the shortest time at the least expense. It
cannot be done by a single law, in a single
day, with a single gift. Our school is a lever
which has made of several hundred young men
and women levers in their turn to lift up their
race. The masses of colored people have got
the habit of work, and only need a teacher, an
object lesson. In the Black Belt.
Che Old ^Washerwoman
Without industrial education, when the
black woman washes a shirt, she washes with
both hands, both feet, and her whole body. An
14 Black-Belt Diamonds
individual with industrial education will use a
machine that washes ten times as many shirts in
a given time with almost no expenditure of
physical force; steam, electricity, or water doing
the work. Dedicatory Services (Avondale, O.).
"Che fate of the pauper
No one cares for a man with empty head
and pocket, no matter what his color is.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Adhere profits Hppear
We must not only teach the Negro to im¬
prove the methods of what are now classed as
the lower forms of labor, but the Negro must
be put in a position, by the use of intelligence
and skill, to take his part in the higher forms
of labor, up in the region where the profits
appear. Industrial Training.
CQhat the S&orld Desires
The world desires to know what a man can
do, not what he knows. Dignity of Labor.
Cbe Hyncber and the lynched
Lynchings and burnings, which are often
witnessed by numbers of young and tender
children, do the race that inflicts these pun¬
ishments, many times more harm, by blunt¬
ing its moral sense, than the race or individual
against whom they are directed.
The South and Lynch-Law.
Black-Belt Diamonds
15
part 1TIL
" Fjonesty the Best policy "
That the Negro may be fitted for the fullest
enjoyment of the privileges and responsibilities
of our country, it is important that we be
honest and candid with the Negro himself,
whether our honesty and candor for the time
being pleases him or displeases him.
Democracy and Education.
false education
The young are not only educated without
reference to the conditions of the age, but their
minds are carefully and systematically trained
in other directions. They see no triumph of
intellect except in politics or the " learned"
professions. Progress.
Hack of Manufactories
There is hardly a county in the South that
does not contain enough hard wood to manu¬
facture all the wagons used in that county,
and yet by far the larger proportion of wagons
used in the South come from a distance. Even
such simple things as ax-handles are often im¬
ported. Industrial Education in the South.
16 Black-Belt Diamonds
SQhat a thousand Dollars will Do
Any colored man with a reasonable educa¬
tion, common sense, and business ability, can
take a thousand dollars in cash and go into
any Southern community and in five years be
worth five thousand. He does not meet with
the stern, relentless competition that he en¬
counters when he butts up against a Northern
Yankee.
The South as an Opening for a Business Career.
Generosity
Lay hold of something that will help you,
and then use it to help somebody else.
Negro Conference.
Che Slave of Duty
Show me a person who merely does as a
duty what he is asked to do and I will show
you a person who is never in constant demand,
— a person who is not going to be very valu¬
able to humanity.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Gxi\ of Card-playing
Do not play cards. Playing cards, you will
insist, is no more harmful than playing domi¬
noes or croquet; but it is a fact undeniable that
playing cards leads to something more harmful
Black-Belt Diamonds 17
than either of the games I have just mentioned.
Card-playing has a history, and it is the expe¬
rience of men who understand crime, who
understand civilization in all its grades, that
card-playing has been the source of any num¬
ber of crimes. It leads to late hours, bad
company, a betting proclivity, and, finally, it
leads to the using of other people's money.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
floral Slavery
The slavery of ante-bellum times has passed
away, but there is a moral slavery existing in
the South which will take a long time to pass
away. Negroes and Mortgages.
Dependence upon the JNortb
In the great industrial awakening that is
upon us, the skill to manage and operate our
mills and factories, and convert our crude
material into finished products, must come
from the North, unless something is done to
educate our people in the industrial arts.
Southern Tradesmen.
Che {Health of the South
The opening of the eyes of the world to the
vast material wealth of the South will simply
mean that strangers will come in and dispossess
our own people of their vintage and turn to
2
18 Black-Belt Diamonds
their own account the opportunities we have
never learned to apply.
Board of Trade Meeting (Thomasville, Ga.).
Correct Vision
We should learn to see things in a higher
light. Pittsburg, Pa.
CUbat ts Caught at Cuskegee
The course of study at Tuskegee corresponds
with a high-school course in the North, with
foreign languages left out. Special attention is
given to the sciences, particularly the science
of teaching. It is religious, but not denomi¬
national. In the Black Belt.
Conqueror's Limitations
Neither the conqueror's bullet nor fiat of
law could make an ignorant voter an intelli¬
gent voter; could make a dependent man an
independent man; could give one citizen re¬
spect for another, nor a bank account, nor a
foot of land, nor an enlightened fireside.
Development of the South.
Cbe Bigber Law
Men may make laws to hinder and fetter
the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will
bind or stop the growth of manhood.
Century Club {Indianapolis).
Black-Belt Diamonds 19
{ftbat Xgnorancc Costs
The Georgia Legislature has before it a
bill, recently introduced, proposing to greatly
reduce the amount of money annually appro¬
priated for the education of the black youth of
that State, on the ground that it cannot afford
to spend so much money for Negro education.
I would reverse the proposition. I would say,
with all the earnestness of my soul, that the
State of Georgia is not able to let the 800,000
Negroes within her borders grow up in igno¬
rance. It will cost Georgia more not to edu¬
cate them than to educate them.
Address at Thomasville, Ga.
Xntrinsic SQortb
Alongside of the work of wise legislation
must go a force that will create a foundation
on which we can stand and demand our rights,
because of our intrinsic worth to the body
politic. Open Letter to T. Thos. Fortune.
Che Bread and JNIeat Side
In spite of all talk of exodus, the Negro's
home is permanently in the South; for, com¬
ing to the bread and meat side of the question,
the white man needs the Negro, and the
Negro needs the white.
Madison National Association.
20 Black-Belt Diamonds
Decrease of Crime
Crime among us decreases as ownership in
property increases. Negro Conference.
Che pilgrim fathers
We forgot the industrial education that was
given the Pilgrim Fathers of New England in
clearing and planting the cold, bleak, and
snowy hills and valleys, in the providing of
shelter, founding the small mills and factories,
in supplying themselves with home-made prod¬
ucts, thus laying the foundation of an indus¬
trial life that now keeps going a large part of the
colleges and missionary effort in the world.
Democracy and Education.
Begun by Lincoln
The North should help the South educate
the Negro, if it would finish the work begun
by Abraham Lincoln. The Rise of the Negro.
CClorh in the Black Belt
I believe that the majority of students who
graduate from Tuskegee should work in what
is known as the " Black Belt" of the South,
and I am glad that the majority of our gradu¬
ates have done so thus far, and are working in
one way and another for the elevation of those
about them. You will hear many students,
Black"Belt Diamonds
21
especially those in the higher classes, say that
they intend to practise medicine, study law,
or something else, when they graduate; but
the majority, after all, will be found in these
fields of work that lie about in the black belt
of the South, where our best talent and in¬
fluence are needed.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Leadership of the JVIasscs
Can you afford to put alongside the advan¬
tages and stimulus that the race will derive from
your example of leaders in the field of letters,
professional life, and as financiers, such con¬
siderations as personal inconveniences and the
curtailment of political privileges; considera¬
tions which exist but for a day, while the good
influence that a single one may exert in some
department of life at this auspicious time may
incite the youth of far-off ages to new life and
hope, by rekindling their faith and aspirations?
Negro's Future.
H Refined -family
A quiet development of ourselves and the
influence of an educated, refined colored
family would gradually and insensibly wear
off a prejudice that could never be argued
away. Negro Conference.
22 Black-Belt Diamonds
foresight
A race of people is a success just in pro¬
portion as that race is able to plan to-day for
a hundred years to come.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Swine-Ravsing
Swine-raising has almost become a science
or profession. Ignorant labor can no more
produce the finest Berkshire and Jersey red
hogs than ignorant labor can operate the finest
machinery. Industrial Education in the South.
Cbc ]Ncw plough
One man in the West, riding behind two
fine horses, sitting upon a machine that laps off
two furrows at a time, and drops and covers the
corn at the same time, does as much work as
four Southern corn-planters of the present
method of planting corn. So long as this is
true, so long will the South buy corn from the
West. Annual Tradesmen.
Sound Mind and Body
A person cannot succeed in anything with¬
out a good, sound body — a body that is able
to stand up against hardships, that is able to
endure. A great many of our young men and
women, especially in the larger cities, under-
Black-Belt Diamonds 23
mine their constitutions, and to a large extent
throw away their usefulness, because they do
not understand how to take care of their
bodies. Do not keep late hours. Have a
time to go to bed, and have enough self-con¬
trol to say to those who would persuade you
to dissipate, " My time for rest has come, and
you must excuse me."
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
S&bere Resistance Begins
As long as the Negro will be about the
streets drunk, lazy, and shiftless, there is no
resistance to him. The resistance comes when
he begins to move forward.
The Negroes Way to Liberty.
Che Great problem
The great problem is, how to get the masses
to the point where they can be sure of a com¬
fortable living, and be prepared to save a little
something each year. This can be accom¬
plished only by putting among the masses, as
fast as possible, strong, well-trained leaders in
the industrial walks of life. Public Opinion.
JMost Competent CQorkman
The man most competent to render effi¬
cient service is that man who comprehends
most completely the mental as well as the
24 Black-Belt Diamonds
physical phase of labor, and he is most com¬
petent as a workman whose mental develop¬
ment has had the most attention.
Greater Opportunities.
Che FHgber education
The colored boy has been taken from the
farm and taught astronomy — how to locate
Jupiter and Mars — learned to measure Venus,
taught about everything except that which he
depends upon for daily bread.
Why Push Industrial Education in the South !
J^Kodlrccted €ffort
It seems to me that the temptation in edu¬
cation and missionary effort is to do for people
that which was done a thousand years ago, or
is being done for people a thousand miles
away, without always making a careful study of
the needs and conditions of the people whom
we are trying to help. The temptation is to
run all the people through a certain educa¬
tional mould, regardless of the condition of
the subject or the end to be accomplished.
Democracy and Education.
Fjis Inheritance
The prime condition of slavery was to keep
closed every avenue to knowledge. The
Black-Belt Diamonds 25
Negro had no estate, no family life. His
sole inheritance was his body.
The Negro's Way to Liberty.
Hrt and JYIusic 111 Hog-Cabins
Art and music to people who live in rented
houses and with no bank account are not the
most important subjects to which attention can
be given. Such education creates wants with¬
out a corresponding ability to supply these
increased wants. christian Work.
~Che Saddest Sight
One of the saddest sights I ever saw in the
South was a colored girl, recently returned
from college, sitting in a rented one-room log-
cabin attempting day by day to extract some
music from a second-hand piano, when all
about her indicated want of thrift and
cleanliness. Increased Wants.
Bow to dirite F>igb and How
It seems to me that one of the most vital
questions that touches our American life is
how to bring the strong, the wealthy, and
learned into helpful touch with the poorest,
most ignorant, and humble, and at the same
time make the one appreciate the vitalizing, the
strengthening influences of the other.
Alumni Dinner (.Harvard University).
26 Black-Belt Diamonds
poverty and Ignorance
Among the masses there is a great amount
of poverty and ignorance, and much need of
moral and religious training.
Touching the Masses.
Che CBhite Neighbor
If the colored woman would make a more
attractive home than her white neighbor, that
white woman would in time at least be hang¬
ing on her gate to make inquiries; and if the
colored man knew how to raise forty bushels
of corn where the white man could only raise
twenty, he would soon be inside the gate to
find out the method. Negro Conference.
H Contrast
Is there not as much mental discipline in
having a student think out and put on paper a
plan for a modern dairy building as having him
merely commit to memory poetry that somebody
else thought out years ago ? Christian Work.
Disposing of the JNegro
It has been said that the whites will absorb
the blacks, and thus settle the " Negro
Problem." Still another proposition is to put
the colored people in a part of the country
entirely by themselves. This would require
Black-Belt Diamonds 27
the building of a wall to keep the blacks in,
and another wall to keep the whites out. The
only way to settle the question is to treat the
Negro as you would treat any other man; treat
him as a brother and a citizen, and there will
be no further talk about the much vexed
" Negro Problem." The Rise of the Negro.
Sound Hdvice
We must keep out of debt, avoid lawsuits,
and treat our women better.
Negro Conference.
Row to fight prejudice
The most effective ammunition with which
to fight prejudice is men who, in every act and
thought, give the lie to the assertion of his
enemies, North and South, that the Negro is
inferior to the white man.
The South as an Opening for a Career.
Che Great 3mmcan Reart
My part is to help speed the day, now fast
approaching, when there shall not be a
Northern heart and a Southern heart, a black
heart and a white heart, but all shall be melted
by deeds of sympathy, patience, and forbear¬
ance into one heart — the great American heart
— whose highest aspirations shall be to give to
28 Black-Belt Diamonds
all men everywhere unrestricted opportunity
for the fullest growth and prosperity.
Hamilton Club (Chicago).
**J1 Condition, not a Cbeory"
The black man who spends ten thousand a
year in freight charges can select his own seat
in a railroad train, else a Pullman palace car
will be put on for him. Race Progress.
Cb« Conscientious CClorher
You will gain a great deal if you will resolve
that in all work you perform, whether sweep¬
ing a floor, laying off a furrow, building a
house, drawing a plan, or studying a lesson,
you are going to be perfectly conscientious.
If you choose those three lines on which to rest
your lives, — truthfulness, honesty, and con¬
scientious performance of duty, — your future
success is assured.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Oains against Losses
Though the line of progress may seem at
times to waver, now advancing, now retreating,
now on the mountains, now in the valley, now
in the sunshine, now in the shadow, the aim
has ever been forward, and we have gained
more than we have lost. If to-day we have
fewer political conventions, we have more
Black-Belt Diamonds 29
economic gatherings. If we have fewer politi¬
cal clubs, we have more building and loan as¬
sociations. If we cherish fewer air-castles, we
own more acres of land and more homes than
has ever been true in the history of the Negro
race. If we have fewer men in Congress, we
have more merchants and more leaders in
commerce. Hampton Institute Anniversary, '98.
Christian Fjeatben
Many of our people without knowing it are
Christian heathen, and demand as much mis¬
sionary effort as the heathen of foreign fields.
New England Woman's Club.
Basts of Success
There are a few things that we must recog¬
nize in the beginning if we would succeed, and
if we do not recognize that we must have cer¬
tain qualities and elements in us, we cannot suc¬
ceed. We cannot succeed unless we recognize
that we must have a certain amount of ground¬
work and foundation, and without good founda¬
tion we shall find all our efforts largely in vain.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
H Century's hearsing
One hundred years in the life of a state
means much. One hundred years in the life
of any church means more. One hundred
30 Black-Belt Diamonds
years in the life of a religious body born in
poverty, in the midnight of bondage, amidst
the throes and groans of slavery, surrounded
and penetrated by oppression and lack of op¬
portunity, furnishes an occasion for supreme
thanksgiving and congratulations. Then thirty
dollars in property, now three million five
hundred thousand dollars; then twenty in
church-membership, now five hundred thou¬
sand; then one minister of the Gospel, now
four thousand, besides nine bishops; but the
record is not complete. Blot out this prop¬
erty and these numbers, and the church with
such a birth, that could within a century pro¬
duce a Price, a Dancy, a Hood, or a Walters,
and set the world an example in its ability for
self-dependence and self-government, would
have, with these achievements alone, more
than justified its existence.
Centennial A. M. E. Zion Church.
Specialization
Learn all you can, but learn to do some¬
thing, or your learning will be useless.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
GKbat JVIahes Social JVludstUs
The Negro, no less than his Caucasian
brother, must predicate his future wealth, prog¬
ress, and power upon the industrial system
Black-Belt Diamonds 31
which will secure to him a respectable place in
the skilled trades and avocations, or he will in
the future have to live upon wages which will
be exceedingly meagre, and at last find him¬
self face to face with conditions which will
push him to the wall. Industrial Basis.
Self-Confidence
The fact that a man goes into the world
conscious that he has within himself the power
to create a wagon or a house gives him a cer¬
tain moral backbone and independence in the
world that he could not possess without it.
Century Club (Indianapolis).
fielp Ignorant Ministers
Because a minister is ignorant or immoral,
I don't believe you gain anything by attempt¬
ing to get rid of him. I don't believe you
gain anything by that kind of procedure. You
gain more by helping him get rid of his faults,
trying to help him become more intelligent;
and in that way, instead of having to spend
your force in fighting somebody, you spend it
in making a friend that is going to be of some
value to you and the people in the community.
This is the method which many foreign mis¬
sionaries are adopting. Instead of their going
to Africa, China, and other heathen countries
fighting the religious customs of the natives,
32 Black-Belt Diamonds
they are going to take hold of their religion
and get out of it whatever is good upon which
they can build a stronger and better religion.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
JNew CCUne in Old Bottles
Not much religion can exist in a one-room
log-cabin or on an empty stomach.
Progress of the Negro.
part 1M1f.
Che -palse and the Cruc
The progress along material lines is marked,
yet the greatest lesson that we have learned
during the last two decades is that the race
must begin at the bottom, not at the top, that
its foundation must be in truth and not in pre¬
tence. We have learned that our salvation
does not lie in the direction of mere political
agitation or in hating the Southern white man,
but that we are to find a safe and permanent
place in American life by first emphasizing the
cardinal virtues of home, industry, education,
and peace with our next-door neighbor, whether
he is white or black.
Hampton Institute Anniversary, '98.
■faithful tn Small CMngs
If you are at the head of a stable or barn,
plan day by day how best to provide for your
Black-Belt Diamonds 33
horses and cows. When you make yourself
master of these humble positions, you will find
that the higher calls will soon come to you.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
CQorks for Dishonesty
I claim that any training that increases the
wants of the individual, especially as that
training is applied to a people whose con¬
dition is that of the masses of the South, any
education that increases wants without increas¬
ing abilities to supply these increased wants, is
a mistake; and whenever it is done, whether
among black people or among white people,
you will find unhappiness, unrest, or, too often,
dishonesty. Our New Citizen•
JNever G3ore JNeckties
There are a million and a half black men
in the South who have never worn a necktie,
but send them to school and educate them and
they will want neckties, cuffs, and, instead of
the bare floors in their little log-cabins, they
will want carpet in neat frame houses.
Negroes and Mortgages.
Relations with General Hrmstrong
I account it one of the privileges of my life
that for ten or twelve years I have had the op¬
portunity of being closely and intimately con-
3
34 Black-Belt Diamonds
nected with such a character [as General
Armstrong] ; and in being connected with that
man, one was always sure that he was being
touched by the best and highest type of
Christian manhood in any country.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Bad Hssodations
Some of the ways in which young men and
women are likely to go astray, especially when
they go off to school, is in yielding to the
temptation to spend their time with persons
who have mean and low dispositions, persons
with whom you would be ashamed to have
your parents know that you kept company.
Avoid that. Be sure that the young man or
woman with whom you associate is a person
who is able to raise you up, make you stronger
in every way. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Zbe Curse of the Race
Sentimental Christianity, which banks
everything in the future and nothing in the
present, is the curse of the race. Education.
"Tbigbcr Criticism"
Colored people are not much on your
" higher criticism " down South, but they be¬
lieve in hell, — real hell-fire; and if you once
make a colored man believe that he will be
Black-Belt Diamonds 35
punished hereafter for drinking whiskey, he
will never touch another drop. Moreover, the
Negro believes what he reads, and takes the
most that he can see in print for gospel truth.
Put temperance tracts and primers into the
hands of colored people and you will soon see
temperance spread all over the South.
The Negro's Beliefs.
Greeting too J^ucb
You cannot expect a race to renounce at
once the teaching of centuries, without guid¬
ance and leadership. Progress of the Negro.
Dealing power
Now, if all our graduates, wherever they
go, carry with them this healing power, this
power that will cure merely by letting people
come in contact with them, even in the slight¬
est manner, if they catch something of the
Christ-like spirit, we can have a heaven, as it
were, on earth. I do not believe in waiting
for heaven to take place in the hereafter. If
we imitate the life of Christ as nearly as pos¬
sible, heaven will come about more and more
here on earth. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Gasy to be a Rero
On the battle field, when surrounded and
cheered by pomp, excitement, and admiration
36 Black-Belt Diamonds
of devoted comrades, and inspired by strains of
martial music and the hope of future reward,
it is comparatively easy to be a hero, to do
heroic deeds. Heroes in Common Life.
Slavery Degraded Labor
There are several reasons why the South
should give special attention to the matter of
industrial education. Slavery taught both the
white man and the Negro to dread labor, — to
look upon it as something to be escaped, some¬
thing fit only for poor people and slaves.
Industrial Education in the South.
JVon-Gsaentials
To hold our own, we have no time to spend
fretting over non-essentials.
Industrial Education.
€be Read Cook
Not long since, when in Chicago, I noticed
in one of the fashionable restaurants a well-
dressed, fine-looking man, who seemed to be
the proprietor. I asked who he was, and was
told that he was the " chef," as he is called, —
the head cook. Of course, I was astonished
to see a man dressed in such a stylish manner,
and presenting such an air of culture, filling the
position of chief cook in a restaurant, but I
remembered then, more forcibly than ever, that
Black-Belt Diamonds 37
cooking had been transformed into a profes¬
sion, into dignified labor.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
CClbat the JNegro may Own
There is a custom that prevents a black
man in some parts of our country from sleeping
in a hotel, or eating in a restaurant, or riding
in a first-class car. The average black man has
the opportunity only to be denied this privilege
about twice a year; but, thank God! there is
no law or custom that prevents him from oc¬
cupying the most convenient, comfortable, and
attractive residence, and sleeping in the most
luxurious bed, and dining at the best table in
the country for three hundred and sixty-five
days in the year. Prejudice and the Negro,
Reciprocity
Two nations or races are good friends in
proportion as the one has something by way of
trade that the other wants.
Taking Advantage of our Disadvantages.
Tame the Sovereign Dealer
That which was three hundred years being
woven into the warp and woof of our demo¬
cratic institutions could not be effaced by a
single battle, magnificent as was that battle;
38 Black-Belt Diamonds
that which for centuries had bound master and
slave, yea, North and South, to a body of
death, could not be blotted out by four years
of war, could not be atoned for by shot and
sword, nor blood and tears.
Shaw Monument Unveiling (Boston).
J^Iuat be Retrained
The black man must be given the training
necessary to offset the influence of slavery.
Our New Citizen.
Stlbat will the Student Do?
The question that should come to each one
of you with a force that no other question does,
is: " Are you going to act in a way to deserve
the interest your parents have for you ? How
are you going to deport yourself ? Are you
going to disappoint your parents, or are you
going to fulfil their highest expectations? Are
you going to fill their hearts with sorrow and
disappointment or with joy and gladness, make
them feel that their lives are worth living, be¬
cause of the life you are trying to live ?
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Cburcb-JVIembersMp
Belonging to the church does not, in many
cases, mean all that is implied, and is no reason
why the bulk of our people are not just as
Black-Belt Diamonds 39
much in need of Christian teaching as any
people to be found in Africa or Japan.
Congregational Club,
peculiar Religious JNotiom
My people have peculiar notions about re¬
ligion. An old brother came into meeting one
night and said: " I have had a bad time since
I was here a week ago. I have been some¬
times up and sometimes down, I have gnawed
hard bones and swallowed bitter pills, and I
believe I have broken all the Commandments;
but, thank the Lord, I haven't yet lost my
religion." The Rise of the Negro.
Improved lateral Condition
The material condition of the colored man
must be improved before he can be elevated to
a sense of his responsibilities as an individual.
Development of the Negro.
Religion and Worldly Substance
We might as well settle down to the uncom¬
promising fact that our people will grow in
proportion as we teach them that the way to
have the most of Jesus and in a permanent
form is to mix with their religion some land,
cotton, and corn, a house with two or three
rooms, and a little bank account. With these
40 Black-Belt Diamonds
interwoven with our religion, there will be a
foundation for growth upon which we can build
for all time. Foundation and Grcnvth.
H Useful Citizen
A person must be able to earn his living
before he can be of much benefit to himself
and the community in which he lives.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Lessons from a Centennial
The lessons to be gleaned from an occasion
like this are so many and varied that one hardly
knows where to begin or where to end, — lessons
of congratulation for what has been, lessons of
sober, earnest thought for what is, lessons of
hope and courage for what is to be.
Centennial of the A. M. E. Zion Church in New York.
Common-6enee Xdeas
If you wish to help the South, help educate
strong, unselfish leaders, well grounded in in¬
dustry and religion, and in common-sense
ideas of life.
Educational Meeting (Manchester, N. If.).
Self-Respect in Ownership
A man never begins to have self-respect until
he owns a home. If he owns his house he
Black-Belt Diamonds 41
will see that it does not fall to pieces, and that
the fences are kept up.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
preparing to Die
The trouble with us is that we are always
preparing to die. You meet a white man early
Monday morning and ask him what he is pre¬
paring to do, and he will tell you that he is
preparing to start business. You ask a colored
man at the same time, and he will tell you that
he is preparing to die.
Talks to Tuskegee Townspeople.
Strength and Weakness
Individually the Negro is strong, organically
he is weak. Industrial Education.
Qlbat Cuskegee Students Learn
Have you grown to the point where you can
unflinchingly stand up for the right, for that
which is honorable, honest, truthful, whether
it makes you popular or unpopular? Have you
grown to the point where absolutely and un¬
reservedly you make truth and honor your
standard of thinking and speaking ? If you have
reached this point in your moral development,
you have reached the highest point for which
Tuskegee was founded, for which you come
here. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
42 Black-Belt Diamonds
Lack of preparation
Unused to self-government, unused to the
responsibility of controlling our own earnings,
our expenditures, or even our own children, it
could not be expected that we should be able
to take care of ourselves in all respects for several
generations. Century Club (Indianapolis).
(Hhat we never Reach
None of us ever get to the point where we
do not have some one to serve, where there is
not somebody above us.
Address to Graduating Class.
Che fioneat foundation
If you get into the habit of putting in hard
and conscientious work, doing a little duty well,
no matter how insignificant; if you get into
the habit of doing well whatever falls to your
hands, whether in the light or in the dark, — you
will find that you are going to lay a foundation
for success. Elements of Success in Life.
"Che faithful Servant*'
How vexing and discouraging it is to a man
to be compelled every morning to say to A or
B, " Do this at nine o'clock, that at twelve, and
the other at five o'clock ;" but how helpful it
is to have a person with whom you come in
Black-Belt Diamonds 43
contact anticipate the needs of a certain posi¬
tion of his employer.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
from Slavery to freedom
When we consider what it meant to have four
millions of people slaves to-day and freemen
to-morrow, the wonder is that the race has not
suffered more physically than it has.
Physical Condition of the Negro.
Rome Influence
I think there is no more serious or impor¬
tant time in a young person's life than when he
leaves home for the first time to enter school,
or any line of business, and I think I can judge
pretty accurately what a person is going to
amount to by the way he acts during the first
one or two years that he is absent from home.
You will find, usually, that if a young man or
woman is able to stand up against temptations,
is able to practise the lessons that his father
and mother have taught him, during the first
one or two years that he is away from their
guidance and instruction, as a rule, that person
will hold up well, will not only keep what his
father and mother have taught him, but will
add to it the strength and instruction he has
gotten from them, and will gain help and in¬
spiration as he goes on, and instead of falling
44 Black-Belt Diamonds
by the wayside, will prove himself a valuable
and useful citizen, not only able to help his
parents, but the community in which he lives.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
QJbat the JNegro can F>ave
There is a custom that sometimes prevents a
black man from having the privilege of being
invited once or twice a year to sit on a jury in
a hot, ill-ventilated court-room; but there is
no custom, thank God ! that prevents him from
having the best strawberry farm, the best Jersey
cow dairy, or producing the best milk or butter
to be had in his county. Prejudice and the Negro.
JNegro Laborer trustworthy
As compared with Italian and Irish labor,
the Negro is far more teachable and trust¬
worthy. Industrial Education in the South.
Cbe Cbmt-Ufee Cdorkcrs
Let no generation of Negroes ever prove
ungrateful to those Christ-like workers, the
band of noble and heroic Northern men and
women who have devoted the best years of
their lives to the building up of our schools
and colleges in the South, and at a time when
to have engaged in such work meant for them
complete social ostracism and risk of life, but
rather let us build with our earnest and unself-
Black-Belt Diamonds 45
ish deeds monuments to their memories that
shall tell succeeding generations from whence
we Started. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
General Hrmstrong's personality
To a race just emerging from slavery, with
all of its demoralizing entanglements, the pure,
unselfish life, the emphatic personality of
General Armstrong, was an object lesson in
the highest form of human living.
Memorial to General Armstrong.
"Zbe Adages of Sin"
If we would live happily, live honored and
useful lives, modelled after our perfect leader,
Christ, we must conform to law, learn that
there is no possible escape from punishment
that follows the breaking of law.
Sowing and Reaping.
Cbeir looses
Seven millions of my people saw that
they had in General Armstrong a savior, a
Moses, under whose leadership there could be
no back steps. Memorial to General Armstrong.
Che JNIoat patient Race
To right his wrongs, the Russian appeals to
dynamite, Americans to rebellion, the Irish to
agitation, the Indian to his tomahawk; but the
46 Black-Belt Diamonds
Negro, the most patient, the most unresentful
and law-abiding, depends for the righting of
his wrongs upon his songs, his midnight
prayers, and his inherent faith in the justice of
his cause. Century Club {Indianapolis).
" Lincoln, the Emancipator "
I would call Lincoln the emancipator of
America, — the liberator of the white man
North, the white man South, the one who in
unshackling the chain from the Negro has
turned loose the enslaved forces of Nature,
and has knit all sections of our country
together by the indissoluble bonds of com¬
merce. The Emancipator.
3 Message to fiarvard
If through me, an humble representative,
eight millions of my people might be per¬
mitted to send a message to Harvard, —
Harvard, that offered up on death's altar
Shaw and a score of others, that we might
have a free and united country, — that message
would be: "Tell them that the sacrifice was
not in vain."
Alumni Dinner (.Harvard University).
"Bursting up"
We are crawling up, working up, yea,
bursting up, often through oppression, unjust
Black-Belt Diamonds 47
discrimination, and prejudice; but through
them all we are coming up, and with the
proper habits, intelligence, and property.
Alumni Dinner (Harvard University).
Upright Character
You may fill your heads with knowledge or
skilfully train your hands, but unless it is based
upon high, upright character, upon a true
heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be
no better than the most ignorant.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Che J^egro and the Flule
I don't know how it is, but wherever there
are black men there are mules. Indeed, in
Alabama, the population consists mostly of
black men and mules, in some counties.
Educational Meeting {Detroit).
Civil Rights
Property, brains, and character will settle
the question of civil rights.
Development of the Negro.
Hack of purpose
Another element which shows itself in the
present stage of the civilization of the Negro is
his lack of ability to form a purpose and stick
to it through a course of years, if need be,
48 Black-Belt Diamonds
years that involve discouragement as well as
encouragement, till the end is accomplished.
The same, I think, would be true of any race
with the Negro's history. Industrial Education.
H Rard-^Horfeing Race
As is true of any race, we have a class
about bar-rooms and street corners, but the
rank and file of the Negro race works from
year to year. Whether the call for labor
comes from the cotton-fields of Mississippi, the
rice-swamps of the Carolinas, or the sugar-bot¬
toms of Louisiana, the Negro answers that
call. Home Missionary Meeting.
In the Black Belt
It is my firm belief that the great masses in
the black belts of the South stand most in
need, at this time, of that character of educa¬
tion which will lead them along material lines.
When they have acquired this, there will come
the urgent necessity for the higher training
which will fit them for the duties of the
highest citizenship.
Educational Meeting {St. Paul).
VCUy to Cest a plait's Sincerity
It is not very hard to find a person who will
speak good and kind words and be unselfish when
preaching a sermon before a great audience;
Black-Belt Diamonds 49
but the way to test the person's real character
is to notice his treatment of those who come
into daily contact with him, how he speaks to
his companions, when his voice is not heard
by the public. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Che Reroic and Grand
Those who think there is no opportunity for
them to live grandly, yea, heroically, no matter
how lowly their calling, no matter how humble
their surroundings, make a common but very
serious error. Heroes in Common Life.
Bold -past to Opportunities
We should not permit our grievances to
overshadow our opportunities.
Atlanta Speech.
Hn Bonest Ballot
The Negro does not object to an educational
or property test, but let the law be so clear
that no one clothed with state authority will be
tempted to perjure and degrade himself by
putting one interpretation on it for the white
man and another for the black man.
Constitutional Convention (Louisiana).
Sich and Diseased
We are constantly surrounded by persons
who are sick and diseased because of their
wickedness, people who are given to yielding
4
50 Black-Belt Diamonds
to temptation, who are cast down and dis¬
couraged in the race of life, unworthy of living
because of some unfortunate condition, because
of the many mistakes they are making. There
are those who want to be made whole again and
rid of their ignorance. There are others who
want to be helped because of their poverty, be¬
cause of want and misery. We can very often
do much toward healing these persons merely
by visiting them and speaking kindly and
cheerfully to them. We can cure them very
largely of their infirmities by merely giving up
something they crave, by merely presenting a
bunch of flowers at their sick-room. We can
help heal them by sending them an encour¬
aging note or letter, or making inquiry as to
their condition. There are thousands of ways
in which we can heal persons.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
H Self-Supporting Race
It is very seldom you see a black hand in
any part of this country reached forth for alms.
Our Needs.
Hn Ideal Condition
With the masses of the white people and
the colored people in the country and towns
well educated, the black man owning stores,
operating factories, owning bank stocks, loan¬
ing white people money, manufacturing goods
Black-Belt Diamonds
5i
that the white man needs, interlacing his busi¬
ness interests with those of the white man,
there will be no more lynchings in the South
than in the North. The South and Lynch-Law.
part m
Dying for Others
three-fourths of the young men and wo¬
men who are being educated in these Southern
schools are being educated at a terrible price;
their education being paid for by the lives of
such men as General Armstrong, Mr. Hamil¬
ton, and other men of that kind, who have
been willing to lay down their lives in order
that somebody might have a chance.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
educated Headers
If the educated men of the race do not
come to the rescue of the masses along indus¬
trial lines, the Negro, instead of being the soul
and centre of important industries, will be
relegated to the ragged edge. Education.
Co Conquer prejudice
Just so sure as the rays of the sun dispel the
frosts of winter, so sure will brains, property,
and character conquer prejudice.
Armstrong Association.
52 Black-Belt Diamonds
SSIiU not QOant for friends
The black man that has fifty thousand dol¬
lars to lend will never want for friends and
customers among his white neighbors.
Commercial Freedom.
pippins and Crab-Hpples
I would not leave the impression that
matters are just right in the South ; yet, on the
other hand, there is much that is cruelly unjust,
unreasonable, much that is hard to bear, and
at times, seemingly, dark and discouraging;
but I do mean to say that there are more
pippins growing in the South than crab-apples,
and more roses than thorns.
Unitarian Club (Boston).
Ullrich?
The longer I live and the more I study the
question, the more I am convinced that it is
not so much the problem of what you will do
with the Negro, as what the Negro will do
with you and your civilization.
Democracy and Education.
fiigber education
When I speak of industrial development I
do not mean that no attention should be given
to what is called higher education. I favor
every kind of education. Lincoln University.
Black-Belt Diamonds 53
fie Sticks to bis Cext
My highest aim is to create the highest pos¬
sible industrial condition among the colored
people of the South. I stick to this because I
believe my people will be better able to cope
with the white man and command his respect
when they reach a high state of industrial
development.
Educational Meeting {Jacksonville, Ela.).
pure and Useful Hives
Make up your mind that in everything, in
your thoughts, conversation, and association, it
will be your constant endeavor to live in the
highest possible atmosphere that can permeate
your life, and that your lives will be pure and
useful and devoted to the service of your
fellow-man. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Seen and Unseen
You perhaps noticed, in the chapter which
I read, the verse which contains an expression
like this : " That the things which are seen are
temporal, but the things which are unseen are
eternal." Whatever the correct interpretation
may be, it seems to me that the hidden things
stand for character, and the temporal things
are those which stand for reputation. I think
the more we think of the matter, of the highest
54 Black-Belt Diamonds
and best things in life, the more readily we will
conclude that, after all, it is the hidden things
which are most important. It is the hidden
things that stand for the highest, things in the
world. The more important things are those
which are hidden; the least important are those
which can be seen.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Dignity of Labor
No race can prosper until it learns that
there is as much dignity in tilling a field as
in writing a poem. Atlanta Speech.
JNo kaw Reeded
It will be needless to pass a law to compel
men to come in contact with a Negro who is edu¬
cated and has fifty thousand dollars to lend.
Century Club (.Indianapolis).
Che Mortgage System
The Southern mortgage system is the curse
of the Negro. It is the mortgage system
which blinds him, robs him of independence,
allures him, and winds him deeper and deeper
in its meshes each year till he is lost and
bewildered. Unitarian Club (Boston).
Self-examination
It is a good practice for a person to get in
the habit of making an examination of himself
Black-Belt Diamonds 55
day by day, to see to what extent his thoughts
have dwelt on those things which are high, and
to what extent he has permitted himself to
yield to the temptation of being low, in his
thoughts and imaginings.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Superficial and Ornamental
We shall prosper in proportion as we draw
the line between the superficial and the sub¬
stantial, the ornamental in life and the useful.
Armstrong Association (.New York).
lll-Cdill and fiatred
No race can cherish ill-will and hatred
toward another race without its losing in all
those elements that tend to create and per¬
petuate a strong and healthy manhood.
Our New Citizen.
Fk>w to Use education
The great problem confronting us, as a
race, is, what to do with the education we
have in our heads.
Charles Street A. M. E. Church {Boston).
Obedience
There is no better test by which you can
judge of a person's culture, civilization, or
whatever else you may call it, so quickly and
56 Black-Belt Diamonds
so accurately as the way in which that person
respects authority and obeys orders.
Sunday Evenmg Tuskegee Talks.
Domestic economy
It is little trouble to find girls who can
locate Pekin or the Desert of Sahara on an
artificial globe, but seldom can you find one
who can locate on an actual dinner-table the
proper place for a carving knife and fork or
the meat and vegetables.
White Rose Mission (New York),
ffeglecting Opportunity
The average man usually has the idea that if
he were just somewhere else, in another State or
city, or in contact with another race, he would
succeed, forgetting too often to utilize the
forces that are about him and in hand.
Metropolitan Church ( Washington, D. C.).
pother Garth
I would put as a condition for success in
life, whether it relate to the individual or the
race, ownership in the soil, cleaving to Mother
Earth. The South as an Opening for a Career.
Don't be too l^Iodest
Never get to the point where you will be
ashamed to ask anybody for information. The
ignorant man will always be ignorant if he fears
Black-Belt Diamonds 5 7
that by asking another for information he will
display ignorance. Better once display your
ignorance of a certain subject than always
know nothing of it.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Hfraid of Riches
I find that our people are too afraid that
they are going to get rich. We read in the
Bible that it is as impossible for a rich man to
enter Heaven as it is for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle; but don't get
afraid, accumulate all you can, save all you
can. Talks to Tuskegee Townspeople.
Ctwl Rights Bills
The best thing to do in regard to civil rights
bills is to let them alone, and throw our force
to making a business man of the Negro.
Development of the Negro.
Magnifying GvU Doing
The Negro that steals a pig or is sent to
the chain gang for fighting is usually heard of
next day in the daily press; but not always so
with the Negro who buys a farm or builds a
new house. Negro's Advancement
Starting from the Bottom
Starting thirty years ago without a foot of
land, without a hoe, without a horse, and
58 Black-Belt Diamonds
unused to self-guidance and habits of economy,
his mind befogged with ignorance and super¬
stition, could you expect him to have travelled
very far in the direction of intelligence, wealth,
and independence ?
New England Woman's Club.
"H Man for a' Chat"
The Negro needs help in making the white
people in the South know and respect him
as a man. Negro as a Man.
Demagogues and Despots
The rights of the Negroes in the South are
too closely bound up with those of their white
fellow-citizens to be sacrificed at the dictation
of demagogues and political despots.
South Carolina and the Negro.
Material and Industrial Condition
Coupled with literary and religious training
must go a force that will result in the improve¬
ment of the material and industrial condition.
Ocean Grove, N. J.
" Che Bfro-Hmerican "
Some say, " Send the Negro to Africa, the
land of his fathers." But the white man is fast
getting about as much control of Africa as he
has of the South. And such advisers forget, too,
in speaking of our " fathers' land," that, while
Black-Belt Diamonds 59
Africa is the land of our mothers, the fathers of
about a million and a half of us are to be found
in the South among the blue-blooded Anglo-
Saxons. Africa and the Negro.
practical Religion
The Negro needs not only that religion that
is going to fill his heart, but that kind which
is going to fill his stomach, clothe and shelter
his body, and employ his hands.
Negro's Religion.
6ducate the pothers
How often has my heart been made to sink as
I have gone through the South and into the
homes of my people and found women who
could converse intelligibly in Grecian history,
who had studied geometry, could analyze the
most complex sentences, and yet could not
analyze the poorly cooked and still more poorly
served corn-bread and fat meat that they and
their families were eating three times a day.
Development of the Negro.
Influence of Hssoctatton
You have got to get into the habit of loving
to associate with those persons whose influence
is for good and who will make you better and
nobler men and women.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
6o Black-Belt Diamonds
CQbat would "Jefferson Davis Chink?
Close to the spot where Jefferson Davis took
the oath of office, swearing to sustain African
slavery, a Negro has erected a three-story drug¬
store. When people go and see the thousands
of dollars invested there, it is not in reason that
they should try to drive that man away.
The Negro's Way to Liberty.
Instrument and 6nd
The individual is the instrument, national
virtue the end.
Shaw Monument Unveiling (Boston).
Dave a purpose tn Lift
The student who goes to school with no
special plan, who has no time to study this or
that, who has no regular hour for eating or
sleeping, — you will find that very soon that
student will be left behind. No matter how
brilliant or active a mind he has, success can
only come by planning work.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Che Mortgage €vil
The first year our people received their
freedom they had nothing on which to live
while they grew their cotton crops. Funds for
the first crops were supplied by the storekeeper
Black-Belt Diamonds 61
or by former masters. A debt was created,
and to secure this indebtedness a lien was given
on the cotton crops. In this way there was
started in the South the mortgage or crop-lien
system, — a system that has proved a curse to
the black and to the white man ever since it
was instituted. Development of the Negro.
Common-Sense View
Short talks on the principles of agriculture
are much more helpful to the pupils than time
spent in committing to memory the mountain
peaks of Central Africa.
How to Build a Good School in the South.
Condition of J*Ksery
Far too often education has raised the stand¬
ard of life for the Negro, and has naturally
increased his wants without showing him any
way to satisfy these new wants. Our Needs.
'Cbe producer and Consumer
The Negro in this country must become, in
a more potent sense, a producer of wealth as
well as a consumer. He must become more
of a business man, must enter all avenues of
industry. Even now, in almost every part of
our country, there are industries that mean our
life-blood, as it were, that are fast slipping from
under us. From being the head and centre of
62 Black-Belt Diamonds
these industries, as of yore, we are too fast being
relegated to the ragged edge of some of the
most important. I repeat that we must, as a
race, enter business, for we are constantly being
required to measure ourselves by the side of
the business world, and by this test we rise or
fall. Centennial A. M. £. Zion Church.
Cbe Hncborage
There is no defence or security for any of
us, except in the highest intelligence and
development of all. Atlanta Speech.
Best Results
A life is not worth much of which it cannot
be said, when it comes to its close, that it was
helpful to humanity. There is a large satisfac¬
tion to a person who has a work and is doing
that work, no matter whether it is independent
work, or in connection with some one else.
Whether the world calls that work great or
small, be sure that you have a work, and that
in some degree you accomplish that work so
well, that you will in a measure get out of it
some of the happiness, some of the satisfaction,
some of the joy that comes to a person who
has a work and who has succeeded, at most,
in a moderate degree in accomplishing the
best results from that work.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Black-Belt Diamonds 63
Science of Scrubbing
I have often thought, especially while travel¬
ling from city to city through the North, what
a good thing it would be to establish a chair in
some strong university for the science of
scrubbing, — yes, the common, homely art of
scrubbing. Seldom do we see clean floors;
the art seems to have passed away.
White Rose Mission and Industrial Association
(New York).
equality of Opportunity
Let it be said of all parts of our country that
there is no distinction of race or color in op¬
portunity to earn an honest living.
Schoolmasters' Club (Massachusetts).
Iron Haw of progress
There is no power on earth that can per¬
manently stay our progress.
Alumni Dinner (Harvard University).
But ZMzy were so Gngaged
I cannot believe that on the eve of the
twentieth century, when there is more enlight¬
enment, more generosity, more progress, more
self-sacrifice, more love for humanity, than ever
existed in any stage of the world's history, that
you and your fellow members are engaged in
constructing laws that will keep 650,000 of my
64 Black-Belt Diamonds
weak, dependent, and unfortunate race in igno¬
rance, poverty, and crime.
Open Letter to B. R. Tillman of South Carolina.
Greater " parliament of J^lan "
In helping the Negro along the line indi¬
cated by Hampton, and sending men and
women out every year into the school-room,
into the shops, on the farm, into the field of
domestic science, Hampton is making men and
women who are shaping the laws of the country
just as truly as he who sits in Congressional
Halls. In this greater " parliament of man,"
the Negro has his opportunity, and through it
he will blaze a way to the exercise of every
privilege that belongs to him as an American
Citizen. Hampton Institute Anniversary, '98.
Che JNegro can Hfford Xt
The Negro can afford to be wronged in this
country; the white man cannot afford to wrong
him. Schoolmasters' Club (Massachusetts).
Question for Students
You go out among a class of people who are
cast down, discouraged by the many infirmities
of life, — people who are craving for the help
you can give them, — and the question will
present itself to you: " Are you going to so
live that when these people come into contact
Black-Belt Diamonds 65
with you, and look into your faces, they will be
made stronger and better by that contact ? "
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
H Corrupt Ballot
No man can have respect for government
and officers of the law when he knows, deep
down in his heart, that the exercise of the
franchise is tainted with fraud.
Constitutional Convention (Louisiana).
Crue freedom
There is a higher and deeper sense in which
both races must be free than that represented
by a bill of sale.
Shaw Monument Unveiling (Boston).
from fourteen to €Xgbt JVltlUon
I know that, whether we are decreasing or
increasing, whether we are growing better or
worse, whether we are valuable or valueless,
a few years ago fourteen of us were brought
into this country and now there are eight mil¬
lion of US. Democracy and Education.
Sdbat Ignorance Craves
It is with an ignorant race as it is with a
child; it craves at first the superficial, the orna¬
mental, the signs of progress rather than the
reality. The ignorant race is tempted to jump
5
66 Blach-Belt Diamonds
at one bound to the position that it has re¬
quired years of hard struggle for others to
reach. Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.
Special Xrmtation
The Negro is the only citizen of America
that came by special invitation and special
provision. The Caucasian came here against
the protest of the leading citizens of the coun¬
try, in 1492.
Armstrong Association Meeting (New York).
Cbe Quality of Sacrifice
A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by
lifting others up.
Constitutional Convention (.Louisiana).
Spread Sunshine
Get hold of the spirit of helping somebody
else. Seek every opportunity to make some¬
body happier and more comfortable.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
CHbat the JNortb can Do
It is not a practical nor a desirable thing for
the North to educate all the Negroes in the
South, but it is a perfectly possible and practi¬
cal thing for the North to help the South edu¬
cate the leaders who will go out and reach the
masses and show them how to lift themselves
up. Twentieth Century Club (New York),
Black-Belt Diamonds 67
"By this Sign we Conquer**
Let us imbibe this truth into every fibre
of our nature: industry, application to duty,
brings happiness and prosperity.
Sowing and Reaping.
Che Band and its fingers
In all things that are purely social we can be
as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand
in all things essential to mutual progress.
Atlanta Speech.
It Can't be Done
It is hard to teach a man to sleep between
two sheets when he has but one.
Channing Memorial {Newport).
part D.
CClbat the JNTegro is Doing
It matters not what is said the black man is
doing, regardless of entanglements and dis¬
couragements, the rank and file of my race is
now giving itself to the acquirement of educa¬
tion in a way that it has never done since the
dawn of freedom.
Schoolmasters' Club (Massachusetts).
patience
Our parents, ignorant as they were, taught
US patience. Negro's Advance.
68 Black-Belt Diamonds
H Crutb
In business the Negro has a better field in
the South than in the North. Negro Labor.
Remedy for Hyncbtng
What is the remedy for lynching? Chris¬
tian education of the white man' and the black
man. Conditions in the South.
Commercial Slavery
While bodily slavery is dead, commercial
slavery is far from dead.
Progress and the Negro.
"Che poor Sdlntes"
So long as the poor whites are ignorant, so
long will there be crime against the Negro and
civilization.
Home Missionary Meeting (New York).
■from foundation to Curat
Within a quarter of a century the young
colored man has been called to learn, and
to teach, and to found colleges; not only
to learn to read, but to write books, edit news¬
papers ; he has been called to enter commer¬
cial life, and to compete with those who have
back of them generations of training; he has
been called to make laws, and to exercise
every virtue and walk in every avenue of life
Black-Belt Diamonds 69
and in the highest civilization the world has
ever seen. Were ever young men called to
such work before ?
The Negro's Way to Liberty.
One Standard
In the economy of God there is but one
standard by which an individual can succeed,
— there is but one for a race.
Alumni Dinner (Harvard University).
Cbese should be Reached
The seriousness of our condition lies in the
fact that in the States where the colored people
are most numerous, eighty-five per cent of
them are in the country, and but little is being
done for them.
Presbyterian Home Missionary Meeting (New York).
Cuskegee as a JVIissionary
Tuskegee is sending into numerous com¬
munities model teachers, model farmers, model
masons, model carpenters, model housekeepers.
They are able to transform the locality be¬
cause they become object lessons to their own
people. Northfield Conference.
dses of Education
Education itself is worthless. It is only as
it is used that it is of value.
Tennessee Centennial.
70 Black-Belt Diamonds
practice and teaching
No doubt we might spend hours and days
in the recital of the hardships and wrongs of
our race, but the question is: How shall we
accomplish most good? It seems to me we
can do best by seeing how we can deal with
the evils we can remedy ourselves. Let us talk
simply and to the point, and above all, when
we go home, practise what we learn and say.
Negro Conference.
Crue CCKsdom
It is a mark of intelligence to be willing to
learn even from the most humble person.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Cancer at the F>eart
The masses of the colored people in the
South work, and work hard, but too often their
earnings go to pay exorbitant rates of interest
on mortgages.
Broadway Tabernacle (New York).
Country Schools
The schools in the country districts in the
South rarely last over three months and a half
in a year, and are usually held in a church, a
wreck of a log-cabin, or under a bush arbor.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Black-Belt Diamonds 71
Cfoe Great JNeed
The great need of the Negro to-day is edu¬
cation. New York Outlook.
Scientific education
The education that the American Negroes
most need for the next fifty or one hundred
years should be mostly, but not exclusively,
along scientific and industrial lines. When I
say scientific, I mean science so applied that
it will enable the black boy who comes from a
plantation where ten bushels of corn were
being raised, to return to the farm and raise
fifty bushels on the same acre.
Presbyterian Home Missionary Meeting (New York).
Standing Ground
Standing ground for a race, as for an indi¬
vidual, must be laid in intelligence, industry,
thrift, and property.
Shaw Monument Unveiling {Boston).
Knows be is Down
One of the most encouraging things in con¬
nection with the lifting up of the Negro race
in this country is the fact that he knows that
he is down, and wants to get up, — he knows
that he is ignorant, and wants to get light.
New York Independent.
72 Black-Belt Diamonds
JNo progress without ■friction
You have had an unusual number of accounts
of lynching; it seems to indicate a going back¬
ward rather than a going forward. It really
indicates progress. There can be no progress
without friction. The Negro's Way to Liberty.
Che FKgbcr Virtues
Says the Great Teacher, "I will draw all
men unto me." How? Not by force, not by
law, not by superficial glitter. Following in
the tracks of the lowly Nazarene, we shall con¬
tinue to work and wait, till, by the exercise of
the higher virtues, by the product of our brains
and hands, we make ourselves so important to
the American people that we shall compel them
to recognize us because of our intrinsic worth.
Century Club (Indianapolis).
Loyalty to Labor
A person cannot render the best service
unless he enjoys the work in which he is
engaged. You should make an effort to find
work in which you will be happy and con¬
tented, then be perfectly loyal to that work.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
tested by pattetice
We are to be tested in our patience, in our
forbearance, in our perseverance, in our power
Black-Belt Diamonds 73
to endure wrong, to withstand temptation, to
economize, to acquire and use skill; in our
ability to succeed in commerce, to disregard
the superficial for the real, the appearance for
the substance. To be great, and yet the ser¬
vant of all, — this, this is the passport to all
that is best in the life of our republic, and the
Negro must possess it or be debarred.
Alumni Dinner (Harvard University).
JNeeds Outdance
The Negro has within himself immense
power for self-uplifting, but for years it will be
necessary to guide and stimulate him.
Awakening of the Negro.
Right will Conquer
Just as sure as right in all ages and among
all races has conquered wrong, so sure will the
time come, and at no distant day, when the
Negro in the South shall be triumphant over
the last lingering vestige of prejudice.
Centennial of A. M. E. Zion Church.
CHork for the Ministry
What are some of the problems that the
ministry is to help us work out ? Our religion
must not alone be the concern of the emotions,
but must be woven into the warp and woof of
our every-day life. Besides, the ministry, the
74 Black-Belt Diamonds
church, must help the educators bring about
such a change in the education of the black
man that there will be a more vital and prac¬
tical connection between the Negro's educated
brain and his means of earning a living.
Centennial of A. M. E. Zion Church.
Can the Slbvte JVIati Hccept ?
I propose in everything that the black man
take his place upon the high and undisputed
ground of usefulness, honesty, and generosity
in all things, and that he invite the white man
everywhere to step up and occupy this place
with him; and if the white man in all parts of
the country cannot accept this invitation, he
will thus prove that this is a white man's
problem rather than a Negro problem.
Industrial Education.
dnreasonable CUbuns
There should be no unmanly cowering or
stooping to satisfy unreasonable whims of
Southern white men. Southern Prejudices.
"73 JUgbt Set upon a IKU"
Go out and be a centre, a life-giving power,
as it were, to a whole community, when an
opportunity comes, when you may give life
where there is no life, hope where there is no
hope, power where there is no power. Begin
Black-Belt Diamonds 75
in an humble, simple way, and work to build
up institutions that will put people on their
feet. It is that kind of life that tells.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
"Injury to One, Injury to HU"
No State in the South can make a law that
will provide an opportunity for an ignorant
white man to vote and withhold the same
opportunity from an ignorant colored man with¬
out injuring both.
Constitutional Convention {Louisiana).
Successful ar>d dnsuccessful
Two boys start out in the world at the same
time; both have the same amount of educa¬
tion. After twenty years have passed by, we
find one wealthy, independent. We find him
at the head of a large commercial establish¬
ment, employing from one to a hundred men.
We find the second boy working for, perhaps,
a dollar or a dollar and a half a day, living in a
rented house. When we remember that both
started out in life equal-handed, we remark
that the first boy was fortunate, that fortune
smiled on him; that the second was " unfor¬
tunate" and "unlucky." There is no such
nonsense as that. The first saw how he could
put himself in demand, and he kept rising
76 Black-Belt Diamonds
from one position to another until he became
independent. The second was an eye-servant
who was afraid he would do more than he was
paid to do, — he was afraid that he would give
forty cents' labor for twenty-five cents. He was
afraid he would work, perchance, one minute
past six o'clock. The first boy did a dollar's
worth of work for fifty cents. He was always
ready to be at the store before time; and then,
when the bell rang to quit work, he would go
to his employer and ask was there not some¬
thing he could do that should be done. Thus
the first boy became valuable, and thus
he rose higher. We call him " lucky,"
" fortunate." Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
fiia Salvation
The salvation of the black man in the
South is in his owning the soil he cultivates.
Negro Conference.
engine and Grammar
It requires as much brain power to build a
Corliss engine as to write a Greek grammar.
I would say to the Negro boy, Get all the
mental development possible. But I would
also say to a large proportion of black boys
and girls, and would emphasize it for the next
fifty years or longer, that either at the same
time that the literary training is being gotten
Black-Belt Diamonds 77
or after it is gotten, they should devote them¬
selves to the mastery of some industry.
Why Push Industrial Education in the South.
Light penetrating
The Southern white people are beginning
to see, and the business success of individual
colored men is teaching them, that if we turn
the colored people loose in the race of life
with an equal start with other members of the
human family, and the devil is told to catch
the hindermost one, he will not catch a Negro
every time.
Unitarian Association (Saratoga, N. Y.).
Kllricb ts the more Costly?
Does ignorance produce more taxable prop¬
erty than intelligence? Are jails and courts
and chain-gangs less costly than schoolhouses ?
Is an ignorant citizen more valuable than an
intelligent citizen? Will ignorance attract more
capital to the State than intelligence ?
Address (Thomasville, Ga.).
JVIake no Excuses
If you want to put yourself in demand,
make up your mind that you are going to give
as few excuses as possible, and always feel
ashamed to give excuses.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
78 Black-Belt Diamonds
Creating Rim as a JVIan
He who would succeed with Negro labor
must let the Negro see that he is treated as a
man, not as a brute.
Southern States Farm Magazine.
"Che Gducated QClbite JVIan
As the white man in all parts of America
becomes more educated, cultured, and more
truly a Christian, in that same proportion will
the white man be less willing to withhold
justice from the Negro.
Future of the Negro Race.
Hiving on Skimmed FKlh
Show me a race that is living on the outer
edges of the industrial world, or on the
skimmed milk of business, and is the football
of political parties, and I will show you a race
that cannot be what it should be in morals
and religion. Centennial of A. M. E. Zion Church.
CQbat the Qlorld Expects
The world is looking for that man or woman
who can tell you why " I can do this or that,"
— why this was done, how this difficulty was
surmounted, and how that obstacle was re¬
moved; but the world has little patience
with him or her who runs against a snag and
Black-Belt Diamo7ids 79
gets discouraged, and simply tells why he can¬
not, and gives excuses instead of results.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Universal Brotherhood
I do not attempt to deny the fact that I
take a liberal position towards the South, be¬
cause I believe in the principles of the uni¬
versal brotherhood of man. If the Southern
whites deny this principle, then there is a
magnificent opportunity for the Negro to show
himself greater than the white man.
Open Letter to T. Thomas Fortune.
Chickens from Miscellaneous Sources
Starting thirty years ago with ownership
here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins
and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous
sources), remember the path that has led from
these to the invention and production of agri¬
cultural instruments, buggies, steam-engines,
newspapers, books, statuary, carving, painting,
the management of drug-stores and banks,
has not been without thorns and thistles.
Atlanta Speech.
Chis JVIati F)alf free
The white man who would close the shop
or factory against the black man seeking an
opportunity to earn an honest living is but
half free. Shaw Monument Unveiling {Boston).
8o Black-Belt Diamonds
passing of the CBbitewasber
A few years ago one of the best paying
positions that a large number of colored men
were doing was that of whitewashing. A few
years ago it would not have been hard to see
colored men around Philadelphia, Washing¬
ton, and Boston, carrying whitewash tubs and
a long pole into somebody's house to white¬
wash the walls. They very often not only
whitewashed the walls, but the carpets and
pictures as well. You go into the North
to-day and you will find a very few colored
men whitewashing. White men learned that
they could dignify that work, and so began to
study the work in schools. They became ac¬
quainted with the chemistry composing the
various ingredients, learned decorating and
frescoing. Now they call themselves House
Decorators. Now that's gone to come no
more, perhaps. Now that these men have
elevated this work and added more intelligent
skill to it, do you suppose that any one is
going to allow some old man with a pole and
bucket to come into his house ?
Future of the Negro.
Bootblacking as an Hrt
Still another opportunity is going, and we
laugh when we mention it. When we think
Black-Belt Diamonds 81
of what we could have done to elevate it in
the same way that white persons have elevated
it, we realize that after all it was an opportu¬
nity ; and that was boot-blacking. Of course,
here in the South we have that to a large extent,
because the competition is not quite so sharp
as in the North. You go into Montgomery,
and want to get your shoes blacked. Very
soon you will meet a boy with a box thrown
over his shoulders. When he begins to polish
your shoes, you will very likely see that he
uses a very worn shoe-brush, and unless you
watch him very closely, the chances are
he will polish your shoes with stove-polish.
But you go into any Northern city, and you will
find that such a boot-black as you meet in
Montgomery does not stand any chance of
making a living.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Lincoln's pen
With one stroke of the pen the industrial
system by which a race of people had been
supported for two hundred and fifty years was
torn to pieces. The Emancipator.
Wrongs of a Race
Never for a single moment have I been
blind to the wrongs perpetrated upon our
people, nor have I failed to show my interest
6
82 Black-Belt Diamonds
in those who call attention to the wrongs; but,
while being conscious of the existence of these
wrongs, and earnest in my desire to have them
righted, I" cannot overlook the fact that we
have shortcomings of our own which are often
made the basis of the wrongs, and which it is
not only our duty but to our best interest, from
every point of view, to recognize and labor
prayerfully to overcome.
Open Letter to T. Thomas Fortune.
DCs Sainted pother
My first acquaintance with our hero was this :
Night after night, before the dawn of day, on
an old slave plantation in Virginia, I recall the
form of my sainted mother, bending over a
bundle of rags that enveloped my body, on a
dirt floor, breathing a fervent prayer to Heaven
that " Massa Lincoln " might succeed, and that
one day she and I might be free.
Twentieth Century Club.
Zhc Crucial Cest
The crucial test for a race, as for an indi¬
vidual, is its ability to stand upon its own feet
and make progress. In demonstrating to the
world that the Negro has legislative and execu¬
tive ability of a high order, this great Christian
body has helped the entire race.
Centennial of A. M. E. Zion Church.
Black-Belt Diamonds 83
bleakness Changed to power
Lincoln gave freedom to change sympathies
that were local and narrow into love and good¬
will to all mankind; freedom to change stagna¬
tion into growth, weakness into power.
The Emancipator.
E>art w.
Che pure and the Chaste
Don't get into the habit of using ugly or
low language with each other. Young ladies
and young men, get into the habit of being
satisfied with nothing short of that which is
pure and chaste in your conversation ; and let
others feel when they come into your presence
that they must show you respect by being pure
in their conversation, and that you love only
those things that are high.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Che Little 6reen Ballot
There are reports to the effect that in some
sections the black man has difficulty in voting
and having counted the little white ballot which
he has the privilege of depositing about once
in two years • but there is a little green ballot
that he can vote through the teller's window
84 Black-Belt Diamonds
313 days in every year, and no one will throw
it out or refuse to count it.
Century Club (Indianapolis).
Dungcr and politics
Many of the Negroes in the South are hun¬
gry ; and when a man is hungry, he cannot get
his political rights.
One Solution of the Negro Problem.
from Sentiment to Business
The Negro problem in the South is fast
passing from a question of sentiment into one
of business, into one of commercial and indus¬
trial values. Address (Thomasville, Ga).
Che fault-finder
Instead of picking flaws, and making unjust
and uncalled-for criticisms on persons and their
work, we should contrive to encourage them,
that they may improve in it. If there is any
good in a thing or a person, let us seek to find
the good, and the evil will take care of itself.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Xndecision
If you have failed thus far to plan out how
you are going to spend your time, you are
making a mistake and you will find that kind
of a mistake largely contributing to your failure
Black-Belt Diamonds 85
in life. Do not go out into the world to hit or
miss on some chance, but plan now.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Great JNeed it is
The great need of the Negro to-day is in¬
telligent, unselfish leadership in his industrial
life. Schoolmasters' Club (Massachusetts).
Cwo Cyrants
I know not who is the worse, — the ex-slave¬
holder, who compelled his slaves to work with¬
out compensation, or the man who by violence
and strikes compels the Negro to refrain from
working for compensation.
Democracy and Education.
In freedom's fioly Cause
I cannot forget, as an humble representative
of my race, the vacant seat, the empty sleeve,
the lives offered up on Southern battlefields
that we might have a united country, and that
our flag should shelter none but freemen.
Our New Citizen.
pre-eminence of the South
Despite her faults, when it comes to business
pure and simple, the South presents an oppor¬
tunity for business that no other section of the
country does. Negro Conference.
86 Black-Belt Diamonds
evidence of Growth
You are growing when you get to the point
where you can do your best, seen or unseen.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Gasier of Cwo Difficulties
The Negro can sooner conquer Southern
prejudices in the civil world than learn to com¬
pete with the North in the business world.
Dedication Address (Cincinnati, 0.).
Dam always on fjand
Wherever there is any business being done,
any money to be earned or spent, the son of
Ham is found somewhere near by, and he is
going to get some of that money, and is going
to spend some.
Mass Meeting ( Washington, D. C.).
Idealizing Life
There is a beauty, a transformation, as it
were, a regeneration, that takes place in the
physical make-up of a young man or young
woman who gets into the habit of living on the
high side of life rather than on the lower side.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Che ]Ne\*> Emancipation
This is the new emancipation we seek at
Tuskegee, to emancipate the white man to love
Black-Belt Diamonds 87
the Negro, to emancipate the Negro into hab¬
its of thrift, skill, economy, and substantial
character. Hamilton Club {Brooklyn).
H Self-Gvident Crutb
I propose that no man shall drag me down
by making me hate him. No race can hate
another without itself being narrowed and
hated. Carnegie Hall (,New York).
Bis Christian Love
I thank God I have grown to the point
where I can sympathize with a white man as
much as I can with a black man; where I can
sympathize with a Southern white man as
much as with a Northern white man.
Hawaiian Gazette.
CClisdom of Stupidity
If you are milking cows and feel that you
know all that, there is to be known about it, you
have simply reached the point where you are
useless and unfitted for the work.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
H Cwo-6dged Sword
With the exception of preaching the Gospel
of Christ, there is no work that will contribute
more largely to the elevation of the race in the
South than a first-class business enterprise.
88 Black-Belt Diamonds
Aside from the direct good to the individual
or individuals, a business success cuts as a
two-edged sword, — bringing from the white
man confidence and respect, giving the Negro
faith in the fidelity and ability of his own
people, and creating at the same time an inspi¬
ration that will lead to a higher mental, moral,
and material development of the whole race.
Meeting of Directors of Capital Savings Bank
(Washington, D. C.).
Stand up for the Right
General Armstrong's life purpose was a
great lesson, — that of showing the world what
it means to stand out for a purpose. If you
believe a thing is right, the world will honor
you all the more for your standing squarely for
it. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
[Narrows and Degrades
I claim it narrows and degrades the Negro
for him to cherish ill-will for the Southern
whites. Open Letter to T. Thomas Fortune.
Hngels and Devils in parties
The sooner the colored man South learns
that one political party is not composed alto¬
gether of angels, and the other altogether of
devils, and that all his enemies do not live in
his own town or neighborhood, and all his
Black-Belt Diamonds 89
friends in some other distant section of the
country, the sooner will educational advantages
be enhanced manifold.
Madison National Association.
Che JNortb's Debt
What of your brother in the South! Those
who suffered and are still suffering the conse¬
quences of American slavery, for which you
and they were responsible, —what was the task
you asked them to perform? You of the
great and prosperous North still owe to your
less fortunate Caucasian brethren of the South,
not less than to yourselves, a serious and un¬
completed duty. Returning to their destitute
homes after years of war, to face blasted hopes,
devastation, and a shattered industrial system,
you asked them to add to their own burden
that of preparing in education, politics, and
economics, in a few short years, for citizenship,
four or five millions of former slaves. That
the South, staggering under the burden, made
blunders, that in some measure there has been
disappointment, no one need be surprised.
Home Missionary Meeting (New York).
"Hn Bye for an Gye"
No person can give out life without receiving
in return life for himself. When we give out
the Christ-like spirit, something of the healing
90 Black-Belt Diamonds
power, we receive in return strength; and you
will find that we shall not only be helping some
one else whole, but shall be growing and re¬
ceiving strength at all times ourselves.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Row Success is Achieved
We very often hear it said that the one who
has succeeded has been fortunate. It is not
so. The fortunate persons, in nine cases out
of ten, are those who have had sense enough to
lay their plans and bend all their energies
toward accomplishing what they have laid out.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Xt Cakes Ome
You cannot graft a fifteenth-century civiliza¬
tion on to a twentieth-century civilization by
the mere performance of mental gymnastics.
Democracy and Education.
Doing Right Unseen
It is not very hard to find people who will
thoroughly clean a room that is going to be
occupied, or to wash a dish that is to be
handled by strangers ; but it is a hard thing to
find a person who will do a thing right when
the eye of the world is not likely to rest upon
whatever is done. The cleaning of rooms has
a great deal to do with forming one's character.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Black-Belt Diamonds 91
Mental Strength the Basis
I would not have the standard of mental
development lowered one whit, for with the
Negro, as with all races, mental strength is the
basis of all progress; but I would have a
larger proportion of this mental strength reach
the Negro's actual needs through the medium
of the hand. Industrial Trainingfor the Negro.
" Barbers " and "Consorial Hrtists"
During the past twenty-five or thirty years
we have let some golden opportunities slip
from us, and I fear we have not had enough
plain talk right on these lines. If you ever
have the opportunity to go into the large cities
of the North, you will see some striking
examples of this kind of thing. I remember
the first time I went North — and it hasn't
been so many years ago — it was not an un¬
common thing to see the barber shops in the
hands of colored men. I know colored men
who could have gotten comfortably rich. You
cannot find to-day a first-class barber-shop in
New York or Boston in the hands of a colored
man. Something is wrong. That opportunity
is gone. Coming home, in Montgomery,
Memphis, or New Orleans, you will find that
the barber-shops are gradually slipping from
the hands of the colored men, and they are
92 Black-Belt Diamonds
going back on dark streets and opening little
holes. These opportunities have slipped from
us largely because we have not learned to
dignify labor. The colored man puts a little
dirty chair and a pair of razors into a dirtier-
looking hole, while the white man opens up
his shop in connection with some fashionable
hotel, fits it up in fine style with carpets, fine
mirrors, etc., and calls that a Tonsorial Parlor.
The proprietor sits up at his desk, keeps his
books, and takes the cash. Thus he trans¬
forms what we call a drudgery into a paying
business. Sunday Everting Tuskegee Talks.
JVot easily forgotten
It is charity and wisdom to keep in mind,
in dealing with the two races, the two hundred
years of schooling and prejudice against the
Negro which the whites are called upon to
conquer. Southern Prejudices.
"Know Zbyae\f"
It is an encouraging sign when an individual
grows to the point where he can hold himself
up for personal analysis and study. It is
equally encouraging for a race to be able to
study itself, — to know its weaknesses as well
as its strength. It is not in the highest degree
helpful to a race to be continually praised, and
thus have its weaknesses overlooked; neither
Black-Belt Diamonds 93
is it the most helpful thing to have its faults
alone continually dwelt upon. What is needed
is downright, straightforward honesty in both
directions. Development of the Negro.
Right to Gam and Spend
The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory
just now is worth more than an opportunity to
spend a dollar in an opera house.
Atlanta Speech.
Ownership of the Soil
The salvation of the black man in the South
is in his owning the soil that he cultivates.
Negro Conference.
Difficult Casks
It is a pretty hard thing to give a man much
culture when he has no house to live in; and
it is equally hard to make a good Christian of
a hungry man. Public Opinion.
Virtue in the Log-Cabin
In that church organization of a hundred
members, in the cotton-fields of Alabama,
where nine-tenths are in debt for food and
clothing, and live from hand to mouth in one-
room cabins, there may be much morality and
religion, but I had rather take my chances in
the community where the minister has taught
them to buy land, build comfortable homes
94 Black-Belt Diamonds
arid schools, keep out of debt, and to mix with
religious zeal plenty of well-cooked, nourish¬
ing food, habits of thrift and economy, so that
they are able to stand on their feet and look
the world in the face, as independent men, in
their business and political life.
Centennial A. M. E. Zion Church.
Religion
Religion is supposed to be the first busi¬
ness of a church. In proportion to our
numbers, intelligence, and wealth, I do not
speak irreverently when I say that we have
more religion than anything else; and in many
sections this seems to be the only article of
possession. Negro and Religion.
Crue Religion
Our people need to be taught that it is bet¬
ter to be a Christian than to be a Methodist or
a Baptist; that it is better to save a soul than
to subscribe to a creed. Negro and Religion.
Growth of an Idea
Throughout this country we find a system
of industrial education entering into all kinds
of educational work. If you trace the growth of
industrial work, you will find that in nearly
every case it owes its existence to the prin¬
ciples so ably defended and started by that
Black-Belt Diamonds 95
grand, unselfish man, General Armstrong, at
Hampton Institute, years ago.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
JNot at all possible
Until there is industrial independence it is
hardly possible to have a pure ballot.
Democracy and Education.
"Love thy INexgbbor"
The greatest thing you can learn is the les¬
son of brotherly love, of usefulness, and of
charity. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
freed the JNorth and South
To the white man who landed at Jamestown,
years ago, with hopes as bright and prospects
as cheering as had those who stepped ashore
on Plymouth Rock, Lincoln, for the first time,
gave an opportunity to breathe the air of unfet¬
tered freedom.
The South as an Openingfor a Career.
Che Common FKgbway
There is a highway that shall lead both
races out into the pure, beautiful sunshine,
where there will be nothing to hide and noth¬
ing to explain, where both races can grow
strong and true and useful in every fibre of
their being.
Constitutional Convention (Louisiana).
g6 Black-Belt Diamonds
Dignifying Labor
The South is beginning to see labor raised
up, dignified, and beautified, and in this sees its
salvation. In proportion as the love of labor
grows the large idle class, which has long been
one of the curses of the South, disappears.
Awakening of the Negro.
CClbere the JNegro Disappears
When it comes to the production of cotton,
the Negro is the main factor; when it comes
to the working of the cotton into finer fabrics,
where the profit appears, the Negro disap¬
pears as a factor. Public Opinion.
Scientific education
As a race, we should devote ourselves
largely to the sciences, because of the practical
use we can get out of them, because of the
connection we can make with our knowledge
of science and our ability to earn a living.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Cbe Great Benefactor
Yes, to us all, your race and mine, Lincoln
has been a great emanpipator.
The Emancipator.
poor QClbites ©f tbe South
The educators, the statesmen, the philan¬
thropists, have never comprehended their duty
Black-Belt Diamonds 97
towaxd the millions of poor whites in the
South, who were buffeted for two hundred
years between slavery and freedom, between
civilization and degradation, who were disre¬
garded by both master and slave.
Democracy and Education.
F>alf •free
The black man who cannot let love and
sympathy go out to the white man is but
half free. Shaw Monument Unveiling (Boston).
Che JNegro's Salvation
General Armstrong felt that the educa¬
tion of the hand was the surest salvation for
the Negro race, and his faith in the practi¬
cability of his plan was implicit. And that
principle, started by General Armstrong years
ago, when it was small, and he was misunder¬
stood and harshly criticised, has gradually
worked its way into the whole educational
system of not only the South, but of the North
and West, for white and black boys and girls
alike. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
CHbat we shall Do
It is said we shall be hewers of wood
and drawers of water, but we shall be more ;
we shall turn the wood into houses, into ma¬
chinery, into implements of commerce and
civilization; we shall turn the water into elec-
7
93 Black-Belt Diamonds
tricity, into dairy and agricultural products,
into food and raiment.
Our New Citizen (Hamilton Club, Chicago).
part DH1I.
physical and floral Courage
That education, whether of black man or
white man, that gives one physical courage
to stand in front of a cannon and fails to give
him moral courage to stand up in defence of
right and justice, is a failure.
Democracy and Education.
(Clinch ?
Physical death comes to the one Negro
lynched in a county, but death of the morals,
death of the soul, comes to the thousands re¬
sponsible for the lynching.
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.
Hurts CCMrites more than Blacks
Any law controlling the ballot that is not
absolutely fair and just to both races will work
more permanent injury to the whites than to
the blacks. Constitutional Convention (Louisiana).
Lowering the Standard
No member of your race in any part of our
country can harm the meanest member of
Black-Belt Diamonds 99
mine without the proudest and bluest blood
of Massachusetts being degraded. When Mis¬
sissippi commits crime, New England com¬
mits crime, and in so much lowers the standard
of our civilization. There is no escape. Man
drags man down or lifts man up.
Alumni Dinner (Harvard University).
easy to Cear down
It requires little wisdom or statesmanship
to repress, to crush out, to retard the hopes
and aspirations of a people; but the highest
and most profound statesmanship is shown in
guiding and stimulating a people so that every
fibre in body, mind, and soul shall be made to
contribute in the highest degree to the useful¬
ness of the State.
Constitutional Convention (Louisiana).
Che 0ood part
If others choose to be mean, we can be
good; if others push us down, we can help
push them up. No harm can come to the
black man that does not harm the white man.
Home Missionary Meeting (New York).
" Cime and Cide CHait for 110 jviati"
Opportunities never come a second time,
nor do they bide our leisure. The years come
to us but once, and swiftly pass away, bearing
ioo Black-Belt Diamonds
the ineffaceable record we have put upon them.
If we make them beautiful years, we must do
it moment by moment as they glide before us.
Heroes in Common Life.
must do Something"
As each of you launches out into the world,
you must do something; you must labor, you
must toil, you must expect to do real hard
work, if you expect to reap any reward. In
order to get something you must do something.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
"Hives of Great JVIen all Remind ua"
If the Vanderbilts, Girards, Peabodys, and
Peter Coopers started out poverty-stricken,
with untrained minds, in competition with the
shrewd and energetic Yankee, and amassed
fortunes, what superior opportunities open up
before our young men who begin life with a
college-trained mind, and in a locality where
competition is at its minimum.
The South as an Opening for a Career.
■prom Dairy to Congress
Suppose you are engaged in milking cows,
— I think it better to talk of practical things,
with which you are acquainted; but I know
that many of you boys would much rather
have me tell you how you could reach Con-
Black-Belt Diamonds 101
gress than to prove a successful milker; but I
suspect more of us, for a good many years to
come, will have to milk cows instead of having
a chance to go to Congress, so it won't hurt,
I think, to talk just now about milking cows,
and if the boy who milks the cow is a success
at that, he may lay that as a foundation stone
for his future congressional career.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Good School-Ceacbers and Money
Good school-teachers and money to pay
them will be more potent in settling the race
question than many civil rights bills and in¬
vestigating committees.
Madison National Association.
from One Slavery to Htiother
The mortgage system, or crop lien law,
has almost taken the place of slavery, with all
the disadvantages of slavery and few of its
advantages. Our Needs,
"me. Know our Rights"
In pointing you to the field, I do not do so
as one who believes that the Negro must rise
at the expense of the Southern white man, for
whatever his wrongs to us he is our neighbor,
and the Divine command, " Love thy neigh¬
bor as thyself," is broad enough to include him
102 Black-Belt Diamonds
with all his shortcomings; and whenever, by
word or act, we can benefit him, let us not
withhold our help, but at the same time and
under all circumstances show him that "we
know our rights, and dare maintain them."
The South as an Openingfor a Career.
treasures of JNature
Even the treasures of nature in our South¬
land, that seem to hide themselves from the
hand of man, have felt the inspiring thrill of
freedom, and coal and iron and marble have
leaped forth, and where once was the overseer's
lash, steam and electricity make go the shop,
the factory, and the furnace. The Emancipator.
** excuses instead of Service "
There is nothing so trying and so discourag¬
ing to any man who has the control of any
business, or who is responsible for anything,
as to be surrounded by a number of persons
who are continually giving excuses instead of
service. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Genius of Success
A teacher who goes into the class-room
without having planned her work ahead cannot
be a success. The same thing is true in all
spheres of life, that a person cannot succeed
unless he plans ahead; and the further an indi-
Black-Belt Diamonds 103
vidual is able to do this, the more success is
going to come to him.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Self-JVJeasurement
Now, I want to ask each of you, on this
Sabbath evening, to measure yourself in this
respect: Take a little more time before you
say your prayers to-night and find out if you
are growing in your ability to make a living,
to love your studies, to control your mind so
far as concentration upon your studies is con¬
cerned, and in that higher matter of making
yourself more useful to the world, and more
helpful and cheerful to every one who touches
your life, whether in class or bedroom, whether
in the night or day. Are you growing in the
matter of making men love you more and of
making yourself more useful to every individual ?
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Singleness of purpose
The only way we can make ourselves useful
to humanity and serviceable to God is : (1) by
resolving to do something; (2) to do that
something, stick to it, improve it, make a
specialty of it; and in that way we shall make
ourselves useful and reliable.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
104 Black-Belt Diamonds
Implements of the Crade
Be sure that you have gotten hold of every
book, newspaper, or other publication in which
there is something regarding your work; and
then don't be content with what you get out
of books and newspapers, for that is only the
result of somebody's else experience. By con¬
versing with intelligent and experienced per¬
sons you can get much valuable information
concerning your work.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Reaching the Lowest
The science, the art, the literature that fails
to reach down and bring the humblest up to
the fullest enjoyment of the blessings of our
government is weak, no matter how costly the
buildings or apparatus used, or how modern
the method of instruction employed.
Democracy and Education.
CRorld Respects Self-Confidence
Very few people have confidence in a per¬
son who is uncertain, constantly vacillating, who
does not say directly what he believes; but the
world has the greatest amount of respect for a
person who believes in a thing and works
toward accomplishing that thing in a confident
manner. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Black-Belt Diamonds 105
faulty Gducatrxon
The study of arithmetic that does not result
in making some one more honest and self-reliant
is defective. The study of history that does
not result in making men conscientious in re¬
ceiving and counting the ballots of their fellow-
men is most faulty. The study of art that does
not result in making the strong less willing to
oppress the weak, means little.
Trinity Church (Boston).
Child father to tbc J^Ian
If the mind is employed during youth as it
should be in getting knowledge, in strengthen¬
ing the faculties, there will follow in manhood
and old age a harvest of mental happiness.
Sowing and Reaping.
Supreme Unselfishness
Of the many noble traits exhibited by Gen¬
eral Armstrong, none made a deeper impres¬
sion upon me than his supreme unselfishness.
I do not believe I ever saw, in all my connec¬
tion and touch with General Armstrong, any¬
thing in his life or actions which indicated that
he was in any degree selfish. He was inter¬
ested in a most unselfish way in the entire
work of the South, and anything he could do
or say that would benefit another institution
io6 Black-Belt Diamonds
seemed to give him as much pleasure as if he
had spoken or acted directly for the benefit of
Hampton Institute. But for his supreme un¬
selfishness in this respect, Tuskegee could not
be anything like what it is to-day.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Influence of JNegro JVIimater
The minister in the Negro church has an
influence for good or evil, is looked to for
advice on all subjects, to an extent that is not
true of any other class of ministers in this
country. Centennial of A. M. E. Zion Church.
farms Deserted
We have trained scores of young men in
Greek, but few in carpentry or mechanical or
architectural drawing. We have trained many
in Latin, but almost none as engineers, bridge-
builders, and machinists. Numbers were taken
from the farm and educated, but were educated
in everything except agriculture. Hence they
had no sympathy with farm-life, and did not
return to it. New York Independent.
Dead and Rand education
The mere pushing of knowledge into the
heads of a people without providing a medium
through the hands for its use is not always wise.
The Emancipator.
Black-Belt Diamonds 107
Ctlbat Institutions should Ceach
Educational institutions all over the South
are of little value unless they can pave the way
to make results of their work felt among the
masses of the people who are especially remote
from these institutions.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Clements of power
The man that has the property, the intelli¬
gence, the character, is the one that is going
to have the largest share in controlling the
government, whether he is white or black,
whether in the North or in the South.
Century Club (.Indianapolis).
How (Rages
How many of our race declare that they
won't work for nothing, — that wages are low !
Is n't it worse to loaf on the street-corners than
to work for nothing ? You get no pay for loaf¬
ing, do you ? Talk to Tuskegee Townspeople.
JSb Difference
An educated man on the streets with his
hands in his pockets is not one whit more
benefit to society than an ignorant man on the
streets with his hands in his pockets.
Hampton Meeting.
io8 Black-Belt Diamonds
Safety in employment
Something to occupy constantly, during all
seasons of the year, the masses of the people
in the South, will do as much as any other
force to solve the Southern problem.
Christian Work.
Sowing and Reaping
If you could look about the South and see
the shiftless way in which the people are living,
you would think the case almost hopeless. I
have felt so. If you could see some of those
men, you would realize as never before the
awful curse of slavery. You would realize that
" Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also
reap." The Negro's Way to Liberty.
JVIore Costly
Ignorance is more costly to any State than
education. Constitutional Convention (Louisiana).
Ris place
It is only as the black man produces some¬
thing that makes the markets of the world de¬
pendent upon him for something will he find
his rightful place. The Emancipator.
Object Lesson
In addition to making it [Tuskegee] a place
where one can behold an object lesson in the
best development of the Negro race, in addi-
Black-Belt Diamonds 109
tion to making it an industrial institution, I
want to make it a model colony or community
for colored people. Romances in Real Life.
present Conditions
At Tuskegee this is kept uppermost, — to
train men and women in head and heart and
hand to meet conditions that exist right
about them, rather than conditions that existed
centuries ago, or that exist in communities a
thousand miles away.
Presbyterian Home Missionary Meeting.
Bard Cash
Matters of sentiment disappear when placed
side by side of the desire for cold, hard cash.
Nashville Centennial.
€rroneous
Too often, when the subject of industrial
education is mentioned, some get the idea
that industrial education is a synonyme for
limited mental development.
White Rose Mission (New York).
Leap from Slavery to freedom
Our greatest danger is that in the great leap
from slavery to freedom we may overlook the
fact that the masses of us are to live by the pro¬
duction of our hands, and fail to keep in mind
110 Black-Belt Diamonds
that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn
to dignify and glorify common labor, and put
brains and skill into the common occupations
of life. Atlanta Speech.
Bow?
It is natural and praiseworthy for a person
to be looking for a higher and better position :
no one is to be condemned for that. Now
arises the question : How are you going to put
yourself in demand for these higher and more
important positions?
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
fHtneaa as the Cest
No one should expect, demand, or be given
a position by virtue of his color, but because
of his fitness to fill it.
The South as an Opening for a Career.
Che Fngfiest Civilization
To accord the highest justice to the most
humble is a sign of the highest civilization.
To withhold it is a sign of a want of Christian
culture. Future of the Negro Race.
"UJhut fiappened?"
A black mother in a Northern State had her
boy taught the machinist trade. A job was
secured. What happened? Every one of
Black-Belt Diamonds
iii
twenty white men threw down their tools and
deliberately walked out, swearing they would
not give a black man an opportunity to earn
an honest living. Democracy and Education.
H JNational 6vvl
The epidemic of lynching that has prevailed
in the South for some time, and seems to be
extending into the West, should convince all
that the Southern problem cannot be solved
by a mere wave of the hand.
The South and Lynch-Law.
faxtb ui God
Never since the days that we left Africa's
shores have we lost faith in you or in God. We
are a patient people. There is plenty in this
country for us to do. We can afford to work
and wait.
Presbyterian Home Missionary Meeting.
"dortb J^lafees the Nan**
We mean to prove our worth not by mere
talk, or complaints, or fault-finding, and the
rest we leave to you. The Emancipator.
fruits of bis Labors
It is a great thing for a person to accom¬
plish something in this world. I think General
ii2 Black-Belt Diamonds
Armstrong's greatest satisfaction before he died
was that he had a mission which he had seen
bear fair fruit. He had a great work and he
had the supreme satisfaction of seeing the fruits
of that work in the lives of the men and women
he trained and scattered all over the country.
Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Cbe JNegro's Rights
I claim for the Negro all the rights and
privileges enjoyed by any other race, but I
also maintain that we must have a foundation
on which to rest our claims. Public Opinion.
CClhy the South is Bound to a Body of Death
Why is it that the South to-day is bound to
a body of death ? Five cent cotton is like the
man hugging the bear, and can't turn him
loose, simply because the farmers of the South
are not intelligent enough to raise a diversified
crop. Educational Meeting (Topeka, Kansas).
Social equality
The wisest among my race understand that
the agitation of the question of social equality
is the extremest folly, and that progress in the
enjoyment of all the privileges that will come
to us, must be the result of severe and constant
struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No
Black-Belt Diamonds 113
race that has anything to contribute to the
markets of the world is long in any degree
ostracized. Atlanta Speech.
King Cotton
The Negro and the mule are the only forces
so far discovered that can produce cotton.
Board of Directors, Capital Savings Bank
(Washington, D. C.).
Sclf-Ktiowledgc
We should know our weaknesses as well as
our strength if we would attain to the best in
'our civilization. Trinity Church {Boston).
Right Cbvng to be Done
I have always gone on the plan of finding
the right of a thing to be done, then working
in that direction until I have accomplished it.
Best Way of Building up a Model School.
CHbat would Mother Say?
There is no better way to test an act than
to ask yourself the questions, "What would
my mother or father think of this? Would
he or she approve of this, or should I be
ashamed to let them know that I have been
guilty of such a performance?" Ask your¬
selves such questions day by day. I think you
8
H4 Black-Belt Diamonds
can get a great deal of wisdom out of such
questions. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Lifting up our fallows
The only thing worth living for is the lifting
up of our fellow-men.
Address to Graduating Class of '92.
Che C&bite Soutb's JVccde
The white people of the South know the
colored people as servants, cooks, waiters, or
as chicken thieves. The trouble is they do
not come in contact with the black man in the
way to know him in the highest sense.
Unitarian Association (Saratoga).
Industrial education
Industrial education is meant to take the
boy who has been following a mule behind a
plough, making corn at the rate of ten bushels
per "acre, and set him upon a machine under
an umbrella behind two fine horses, so that he
can make four times as much corn as by the
old process, with less labor.
Twentieth Century Club (New York).
Rarmony
Harmony between the two races will come
in proportion as the black man gets something
the white man wants. Quinn Chapel (Chicago).
Black-Belt Diamonds 115
Competing with the CClorld
At the end of two hundred and fifty years of
enforced labor, the Negro finds himself without
warning, and with no preparation, competing
with the world for a market for his labor.
Mass Meeting (St. Paul).
Unostentatious Charity
It is the quiet, unseen giving, which never
reaches the ear of the world, that makes pos¬
sible the existence of the best things of the
world. Sunday Evening Tuskegee Talks.
Che Best Labor
Sooner or later this country is going to
realize that it has at its very doors the best
labor that the world has seen.
Southern States Farm Magazine.
Che JNegro's Guiding Star
Progress, progress is the law of God, and
under Him it is going to be the Negro's guid¬
ing star in this country. Chautauqua Assembly.