Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0010/00102.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00102}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Up From Slavery An Autobiography
Chapter V. The Reconstruction Period}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Washington, Booker T.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{coloured
education
time
large
reconstruction
period
government
hampton
little
south}
$Date{1902}
$Log{}
Title:       Up From Slavery An Autobiography
Author:      Washington, Booker T.
Date:        1902

Chapter V. The Reconstruction Period

     The years from 1867 to 1878 I think may be called the period of
Reconstruction.  This included the time that I spent as a student at Hampton
and as a teacher in West Virginia.  During the whole of the Reconstruction
period two ideas were constantly agitating the minds of the coloured people,
or, at least, the minds of a large part of the race.  One of these was the
craze for Greek and Latin learning, and the other was a desire to hold office.

     It could not have been expected that a people who had spent generations
in slavery, and before that generations in the darkest heathenism, could at
first form any proper conception of what an education meant.  In every part of
the South, during the Reconstruction period, schools, both day and night, were
filled to overflowing with people of all ages and conditions, some being as
far along in age as sixty and seventy years.  The ambition to secure an
education was most praiseworthy and encouraging.  The idea, however, was too
prevalent that, as soon as one secured a little education, in some
unexplainable way he would be free from most of the hardships of the world,
and, at any rate, could live without manual labour.  There was a further
feeling that a knowledge, however little, of the Greek and Latin languages
would make one a very superior human being, something bordering almost on the
supernatural.  I remember that the first coloured man whom I saw who knew
something about foreign languages impressed me at that time as being a man of
all others to be envied.

     Naturally, most of our people who received some little education became
teachers or preachers.  While among these two classes there were many capable,
earnest, godly men and women, still a large proportion took up teaching or
preaching as an easy way to make a living.  Many became teachers who could do
little more than write their names.  I remember there came into our
neighbourhood one of this class, who was in search of a school to teach, and
the question arose while he was there as to the shape of the earth and how he
would teach the children concerning this subject.  He explained his position
in the matter by saying that he was prepared to teach that the earth was
either flat or round, according to the preference of a majority of his
patrons.

     The ministry was the profession that suffered most - and still suffers,
though there has been great improvement - on account of not only ignorant but
in many cases immoral men who claimed that they were "called to preach." In
the earlier days of freedom almost every coloured man who learned to read
would receive "a call to preach" within a few days after he began reading.  At
my home in West Virginia the process of being called to the ministry was a
very interesting one.  Usually the "call" came when the individual was sitting
in church.  Without warning the one called would fall upon the floor as if
struck by a bullet, and would lie there for hours, speechless and motionless.
Then the news would spread all through the neighbourhood that this individual
had received a "call." If he were inclined to resist the summons, he would
fall or be made to fall a second or third time.  In the end he always yielded
to the call.  While I wanted an education badly, I confess that in my youth I
had a fear that when I had learned to read and write well I would receive one
of these "calls"; but, for some reason, my call never came.

     When we add the number of wholly ignorant men who preached or "exhorted"
to that of those who possessed something of an education, it can be seen at a
glance that the supply of ministers was large.  In fact, some time ago I knew
a certain church that had a total membership of about two hundred, and
eighteen of that number were ministers.  But, I repeat, in many communities
Zin the South the character of the ministry is being improved, and I believe
that within the next two or three decades a very large proportion of the
unworthy ones will have disappeared.  The "calls" to preach, I am glad to say,
are not nearly so numerous now as they were formerly, and the calls to some
industrial occupation are growing more numerous.  The improvement that has
taken place in the character of the teachers is even more marked than in the
case of the ministers.

     During the whole of the Reconstruction period our people throughout the
South looked to the Federal Government for everything, very much as a child
looks to its mother.  This was not unnatural.  The central government gave
them freedom, and the whole Nation had been enriched for more than two
centuries by the labour of the Negro.  Even as a youth, and later in manhood,
I had the feeling that it was cruelly wrong in the central government, at the
beginning of our freedom, to fail to make some provision for the general
education of our people in addition to what the states might do, so that the
people would be the better prepared for the duties of citizenship.

     It is easy to find fault, to remark what might have been done, and
perhaps, after all, and under all the circumstances, those in charge of the
conduct of affairs did the only thing that could be done at the time.  Still,
as I look back now over the entire period of our freedom, I cannot help
feeling that it would have been wiser if some plan could have been put in
operation which would have made the possession of a certain amount of
education or property, or both, a test for the exercise of the franchise, and
a way provided by which this test should be made to apply honestly and
squarely to both the white and black races.

     Though I was but little more than a youth during the period of
Reconstruction, I had the feeling that mistakes were being made, and that
things could not remain in the condition that they were in then very long.  I
felt that the Reconstruction policy, so far as it related to my race, was in a
large measure on a false foundation, was artificial and forced.  In many cases
it seemed to me that the ignorance of my race was being used as a tool with
which to help white men into office, and that there was an element in the
North which wanted to punish the Southern white men by forcing the Negro into
positions over the heads of the Southern whites.  I felt that the Negro would
be the one to suffer for this in the end.  Besides, the general political
agitation drew the attention of our people away from the more fundamental
matters of perfecting themselves in the industries at their doors and in
securing property.

     The temptations to enter political life were so alluring that I came very
near yielding to them at one time, but I was kept from doing so by the feeling
that I would be helping in a more substantial way by assisting in the laying
of the foundation of the race through a generous education of the hand, head,
and heart.  I saw coloured men who were members of the state legislatures, and
county officers, who, in some cases, could not read or write, and whose morals
were as weak as their education.  Not long ago, when passing through the
streets of a certain city in the South, I heard some brick-masons calling out,
from the top of a two-story brick building on which they were working, for the
"Governor" to "hurry up and bring up some more bricks." Several times I heard
the command, "Hurry up, Governor!" "Hurry up, Governor!" My curiosity was
aroused to such an extent that I made inquiry as to who the "Governor" was,
and soon found that he was a coloured man who at one time had held the
position of Lieutenant-Governor of his state.

     But not all the coloured people who were in office during Reconstruction
were unworthy of their positions, by any means.  Some of them, like the late
Senator B. K. Bruce, Governor Pinchback, and many others, were strong,
upright, useful men.  Neither were all the class designated as carpetbaggers
dishonourable men.  Some of them, like ex-Governor Bullock, of Georgia, were
men of high character and usefulness.

     Of course the coloured people, so largely without education, and wholly
without experience in government, made tremendous mistakes, just as any people
similarly situated would have done.  Many of the Southern whites have a
feeling that, if the Negro is permitted to exercise his political rights now
to any degree, the mistakes of the Reconstruction period will repeat
themselves.  I do not think this would be true, because the Negro is a much
stronger and wiser man than he was thirty-five years ago, and he is fast
learning the lesson that he cannot afford to act in a manner that will
alienate his Southern white neighbours from him.  More and more I am convinced
that the final solution of the political end of our race problem will be for
each state that finds it necessary to change the law bearing upon the
franchise to make the law apply with absolute honesty, and without opportunity
for double dealing or evasion, to both races alike.  Any other course my daily
observation in the South convinces me, will be unjust to the Negro, unjust to
the white man, and unfair to the rest of the states in the Union, and will be,
like slavery, a sin that at some time we shall have to pay for.

     In the fall of 1878, after having taught school in Malden for two years,
and after I had succeeded in preparing several of the young men and women,
besides my two brothers, to enter the Hampton Institute, I decided to spend
some months in study at Washington, D.C.  I remained there for eight months. I
derived a great deal of benefit from the studies which I pursued, and I came
into contact with some strong men and women.  At the institution I attended
there was no industrial training given to the students, and I had an
opportunity of comparing the influence of an institution with no industrial
training with that of one like the Hampton Institute, that emphasized the
industries.  At this school I found the students, in most cases, had more
money, were better dressed, wore the latest style of all manner of clothing,
and in some cases were more brilliant mentally.  At Hampton it was a standing
rule that, while the institution would be responsible for securing some one to
pay the tuition for the students, the men and women themselves must provide
for their own board, books, clothing, and room wholly by work, or partly by
work and partly in cash.  At the institution at which I now was, I found that
a large proportion of the students by some means had their personal expenses
paid for them.  At Hampton the student was constantly making the effort
through the industries to help himself, and that very effort was of immense
value in character-building.  The students at the other school seemed to be
less self-dependent.  They seemed to give more attention to mere outward
appearances.  In a word, they did not appear to me to be beginning at the
bottom, on a real, solid foundation, to the extent that they were at Hampton.
They knew more about Latin and Greek when they left school, but they seemed to
know less about life and its conditions as they would meet it at their homes.
Having lived for a number of years in the midst of comfortable surroundings,
they were not as much inclined as the Hampton students to go into the country
districts of the South, where there was little of comfort, to take up work for
our people, and they were more inclined to yield to the temptation to become
hotel waiters and Pullman-car porters as their life-work.

     During the time I was a student in Washington the city was crowded with
coloured people, many of whom had recently come from the South.  A large
proportion of these people had been drawn to Washington because they felt that
they could lead a life of ease there.  Others had secured minor government
positions, and still another large class was there in the hope of securing
Federal positions.  A number of coloured men - some of them very strong and
brilliant - were in the House of Representatives at that time, and one, the
Hon. B. K. Bruce, was in the Senate.  All this tended to make Washington an
attractive place for members of the coloured race.  Then, too, they knew that
at all times they could have the protection of the law in the District of
Columbia.  The public schools in Washington for coloured people were better
then than they were elsewhere.  I took great interest in studying the life of
our people there closely at that time.  I found that while among them there
was a large element of substantial, worthy citizens, there was also a
superficiality about the life of a large class that greatly alarmed me.  I saw
young coloured men who were not earning more than four dollars a week spend
two dollars or more for a buggy on Sunday to ride up and down Pennsylvania
Avenue in, in order that they might try to convince the world that they were
worth thousands.  I saw other young men who received seventy-five or one
hundred dollars per month from the Government, who were in debt at the end of
every month.  I saw men who but a few months previous were members of
Congress, then without employment and in poverty.  Among a large class there
seemed to be a dependence upon the Government for every conceivable thing. The
members of this class had little ambition to create a position for themselves,
but wanted the Federal officials to create one for them.  How many times I
wished then, and have often wished since, that by some power of magic I might
remove the great bulk of these people into the country districts and plant
them upon the soil, upon the solid and never deceptive foundation of Mother
Nature, where all nations and races that have ever succeeded have gotten their
start, - a start that at first may be slow and toilsome, but one that
nevertheless is real.

     In Washington I saw girls whose mothers were earning their living by
laundrying.  These girls were taught by their mothers, in rather a crude way
it is true, the industry of laundrying.  Later, these girls entered the public
schools and remained there perhaps six or eight years.  When the public school
course was finally finished, they wanted more costly dresses, more costly hats
and shoes.  In a word, while their wants had been increased, their ability to
supply their wants had not been increased in the same degree.  On the other
hand, their six or eight years of book education had weaned them away from the
occupation of their mothers.  The result of this was in too many cases that
the girls went to the bad.  I often thought how much wiser it would have been
to give these girls the same amount of mental training - and I favour any kind
of training, whether in the languages or mathematics, that gives strength and
culture to the mind - but at the same time to give them the most thorough
training in the latest and best methods of laundrying and other kindred
occupations.