The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial IssueVarious
History
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue
Various
African Americans -- Social conditions -- To 1964; Civil rights movements; Martin Luther King, Jr., Day; United States -- History
An object-lesson in civilization is more potent in compelling people to
act right than a law compelling them to do so. Some years ago a colored
woman who had graduated at Tuskegee began her life-work in a Southern
community where the force of white public sentiment was opposed to the
starting of what was termed a "nigger school." At first this girl was
tempted to abuse her white sister, but she remembered that perhaps the
white woman had been taught from her earliest childhood, through reading
and conversation, that education was not good for the negro, that it
would result only in trouble to the community, and that no amount of
abuse could change this prejudice.
After a while this colored teacher was married to an educated colored
man, and they built a little cottage, which, in connection with her
husband's farm, was a model. One morning one of the white women who
had been most intense in her feelings was passing this cottage, and
her attention was attracted to the colored woman who was at work in
her beautiful flower-garden. A conversation took place concerning the
flowers. At another time this same white woman was so attracted by this
flower-garden that she came inside the yard, and from the yard she went
into the sitting-room and examined the books and papers.
This acquaintance has now ripened and broadened, so that to-day there
are few people in that community more highly respected than this colored
family. What did it all? This object-lesson. No one could explain that
away. One such object-lesson in every community in the South is more
powerful than all the laws Congress can pass in the direction of
bringing about right relations between blacks and whites.
A few months ago an agricultural county fair, the first ever held in
that county, was organized and held at Calhoun, Alabama, by the teachers
in the Calhoun School, which is an offshoot of the Hampton Institute.
Both the colored people and numbers of white visitors were astonished at
the creditable exhibits made by the colored people. Most of these white
people saw the school work at Calhoun for the first time. Perhaps
no amount of abstract talk or advice could have brought them to this
school, but the best hog, the largest pumpkin, or the most valuable bale
of cotton possessed a common interest, and it has been a comparatively
easy thing to extend their interest from the best hog to the work
being done in the school-room. Further, this fair convinced these white
people, as almost nothing else could have done, that education was
making the negroes better citizens rather than worse; that the people
were not being educated away from themselves, but with their elevation
the conditions about them were being lifted in a manner that possessed
an interest and value for both races.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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