A BOYS’ LIFE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON [Illustration: SYMBOLIC GROUP ERECTED AT TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE (1922). ] A BOYS’ LIFE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON BY W. C. JACKSON Vice President of the North Carolina College for Women, Greensboro, and Professor of History NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922 All rights reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1922 PREFACE The single aim in telling the story that follows is to interest boys in the life of Booker T. Washington. This man’s life was of such singular and vital importance in the history of his own race and in the history of our country that it ought to be familiar to all the youth of the land, and to the negro youth especially, since it is the greatest inspiration to the latter to be found in the annals of American history. There has been no attempt to be original or exhaustive in the treatment. While a great mass of material has been consulted, it should be frankly stated that the story follows very closely the material found in Washington’s “Up from Slavery” and “My Larger Education” and Scott and Stowe’s “Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization.” The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to Doubleday, Page and Company for permission to use extensive quotations from these books. If some boy by reading this book is inspired to higher ambition and encouraged to nobler effort, the author will feel that the book is fully justified. FOREWORD This is the story of Booker T. Washington. It is the story of a boy who was born a slave and who in manhood became the leader of ten million people; who was born in poverty and ignorance and became the greatest orator and teacher of the negro race; who was born of an ignorant and backward race and became the friend of the greatest and best men of all races of all the world. He was a brave man. He had courage and backbone. He was not afraid. He had courage to fight for what he believed to be the right. He was an energetic man. There was not a lazy bone in him. No man ever lived a more strenuous life than he did. He loved his work; and few other men ever did so much work in a lifetime. He was just and fair-minded. He could see right for the white man as well as for the negro. He never intentionally did any one, white or black, an injustice.