The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-11-25
NEEDS OF THE NEGRO RACE.
Booker r. Washington Says His Poo
pie Must he Prod
Philadelphia Inquirer.

Booker r. Washington. the famous prin-
cipal of the Tuskegee School. last evening
told to the vast audience of white and col
ored people at the Association hall a story
of the negro problem. He said:
The morning Of freedom came, and
though a child. ! recall vividly my appear
for the veranda of the big house to hear
read the documents that made US men i'm
stead Of property.
1--WE moved. and soon after reaching
West Virginia ! heard Of General Arm
strongis school at Hampton. Va.
i at Length found myself In the city Of
a place to stay all night. The next morn
ing applied, TO the captain OF a freight
snip tho TOR s MGrk ana ne aye IT. 1 worked
sidewalk by night till / had earned money
enough to continue my way TO Hampton.
where soon arrived with a curplus Of
fifty cents in my pocket. r
I'm 1881 | left Hampton and started the
Tuskegce Normal and Industrial Institute
teacher and thirty students. Since then
the institution at Tuskegee has gradually
grown till we have connected with the
institution s~ixty-nine instructors and 500
young men and women representing nine
teen States.
Largely by the labor of the students we
have built up. within thirteen YEARS, a
property that is now valued al $225.0o0; also
thirty-seyen buildings. counting large add
small, located on our 1900 acres of land.
1T is not" continued the speaker. "a
practical thing for the North to educate d.
rectly all the negroes in the South, but II is
a perfectly practical ana possible thing for
the North to help the South educate the
leaders, who. in turn, will go and reach the
masses and show them how 20 lift them
selves up.
THE greatest injury that slavery did my
people was to deprive them of that execu-
tive power. that sense of self-dependence
which are the glory and the distinction OF
the Anglo-Saxcn race For 80 years We
were taught TO depend on some one else for
food. clothing, shelter. and for every move
In life. and you cannot expect what was
80 years IN getting into a race can be got
ten out IN twenty-five or thirty years. unless
we at best put into their midst Christlan
leaders.
Neither here nor in any part OF the world
do people come into close relations with a
race that Is, to a large extent. empty
handed and empty-headed. One race gets
near another In proportion as they are
| drawn by commerce, in proportion as the
one gets hold of something that the other
wants or respects. Commerce. We must
acknowledge. in the light Of history. - the
/, great forerunner OF civilization and peace.
Whatever friction exists between the black
and white man in the South VIII disappear
in proportion as the black. man. by reason
of his intelligence ana skill, can create
something that the whites want or respect.
can make the white man dependent on the
negro for something instead or all the de-
| pendence being on the other side
1T is important and right that all the
privileges OF law be ours. II is vastly more
important that w be prepared for the ex-
ercises OF these privileges
None of US viii deny that Immediately
after freedom we made serious mistakes.
| We began al the top. We made these mis-
takes not because we were black people,
but because we we're an Ignorant and In
| experienced people. We have spent time
and money attempting TO go. to Congress
and State legislatures that could better have
been spent I'm becoming the leading real es-
tate dealer or carpenter In our own country.
We have spent time and money in making
political stump speeches and In attending
political conventions that could better have
been spent In starting a dairy farm or
| truck garden and thus have laid a material
Foundation on which we could have stood
| and demanded oar rights When a man