Up from Slavery: An AutobiographyWashington, Booker T.
History
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
Washington, Booker T.
African Americans -- Biography; Educators -- United States -- Biography; Tuskegee Institute; Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915
Six months before he died, and nearly a year after he had been stricken
with paralysis, General Armstrong expressed a wish to visit Tuskegee
again before he passed away. Notwithstanding the fact that he had lost
the use of his limbs to such an extent that he was practically
helpless, his wish was gratified, and he was brought to Tuskegee. The
owners of the Tuskegee Railroad, white men living in the town, offered
to run a special train, without cost, out of the main station—Chehaw,
five miles away—to meet him. He arrived on the school grounds about
nine o’clock in the evening. Some one had suggested that we give the
General a “pine-knot torchlight reception.” This plan was carried out,
and the moment that his carriage entered the school grounds he began
passing between two lines of lighted and waving “fat pine” wood knots
held by over a thousand students and teachers. The whole thing was so
novel and surprising that the General was completely overcome with
happiness. He remained a guest in my home for nearly two months, and,
although almost wholly without the use of voice or limb, he spent
nearly every hour in devising ways and means to help the South. Time
and time again he said to me, during this visit, that it was not only
the duty of the country to assist in elevating the Negro of the South,
but the poor white man as well. At the end of his visit I resolved anew
to devote myself more earnestly than ever to the cause which was so
near his heart. I said that if a man in his condition was willing to
think, work, and act, I should not be wanting in furthering in every
possible way the wish of his heart.
The death of General Armstrong, a few weeks later, gave me the
privilege of getting acquainted with one of the finest, most unselfish,
and most attractive men that I have ever come in contact with. I refer
to the Rev. Dr. Hollis B. Frissell, now the Principal of the Hampton
Institute, and General Armstrong’s successor. Under the clear, strong,
and almost perfect leadership of Dr. Frissell, Hampton has had a career
of prosperity and usefulness that is all that the General could have
wished for. It seems to be the constant effort of Dr. Frissell to hide
his own great personality behind that of General Armstrong—to make
himself of “no reputation” for the sake of the cause.
More than once I have been asked what was the greatest surprise that
ever came to me. I have little hesitation in answering that question.
It was the following letter, which came to me one Sunday morning when I
was sitting on the veranda of my home at Tuskegee, surrounded by my
wife and three children:—
Harvard University, Cambridge, May 28, 1896.
President Booker T. Washington,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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