My larger education : $b Being chapters from my experienceWashington, Booker T.
General
My larger education : $b Being chapters from my experience
Washington, Booker T.
African Americans -- Biography; Educators -- United States -- Biography; Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915
I do not think that any of us realized the full value of this
immigration into Macon County until the census of 1910 revealed the
extent to which the dislocation of the farming population has been going
on in other parts of the state. The census shows, for example, that a
majority of the Black Belt counties in Alabama instead of increasing
have lost population during the last ten years. It is in the Black Belt
counties which have no large cities that this decrease has taken place.
Macon County, although it has no large cities, is an exception, for
instead of losing population it shows an increase of more than ten per
cent.
I think that there are two reasons for this: In the first place there is
very little Negro crime and no mob violence in Macon County. The liquor
law is enforced and there are few Negroes in Macon County who do not
coöperate with the officers of the law in the effort to get rid of the
criminal element.
In the second place, Macon County is provided not only with the schools
that I have described, but with teachers who instruct their pupils in
regard to things that will help them and their parents to improve their
homes, their stock, and their land, and in other ways to earn a better
living.
When the facts brought out by the census were published in Alabama they
were the subject of considerable discussion among the large planters and
in the public press generally. In the course of this discussion I called
attention, in a letter to the Montgomery _Advertiser_, to the facts to
which I have referred.
In commenting upon this letter the editor of The _Advertiser_ said:
The State of Alabama makes liberal appropriations for education and it
is part of the system for the benefit to reach both white and black
children. It must be admitted that there are many difficulties in
properly spending the money and properly utilizing it which will take
time and the legislature to correct. The matter complained of in the
Washington letter could be easily remedied by the various county
superintendents and it is their duty to see that the causes for such
complaint are speedily removed. Negro fathers and mothers have shown
intense interest in the education of their children and if they cannot
secure what they want at present residences they will as soon as
possible seek it elsewhere. We commend Booker Washington’s letter on
this subject to the careful consideration of all the school officials
and to all citizens of Alabama.
The value of the experiment made in Macon County is, in my opinion, less
in the actual good that has been done to the twenty-six thousand people,
white and black, who live there, than it is in the showing by actual
experiment what a proper system of Negro education can do in a country
district toward solving the racial problem.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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