The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-05-05
LIFTING UP OF A RACE.
Most Noted COI0red Man in the
United States.
Booker T. Washington AID
dresses a Large Audience
at Hamilton Hall-TelIs the Needs
of the Negro Race.

The eloquent and witty Booker T.
Washington, president of the Tuskegee
Industrial and Collegiate institute, lee
tured last evening at Hamilton hall
upon his favorite theme-'The Negro
Race"-before an audience which filled
two-thirds of the large audience room.
It was a representative audience, young
people being more numerous. A num-
Der of co1ored people were present to
hear the foremost member of their race.
Booker T. Washington is an intense
~ interesting man. He has g. magnetic
presence and an easy flow of language
which has a power over his audience.
Possessing education, a wide and var
led experience and a large amount of
real talent he at once attracts and
holds his audience.
President G. NJ. Herrick, of Wash
burn college, introduced the speaker to
the audience. The latter advanced and
began his lecture in a slow, guarded
manner. His hands seemed to be in
his way and he was ever changing the
position of them. Gradually he became
more steady and enthuSed with his sub
ject As he advanced he compelled the
closest attention from the audience and
was frequently interrupted by APP
plauSe. He said:
1t is my wish to assure you that
do not come here merely in the interest
of educating a few hundred young men
and women at Tuskegee, neither in the
than the entire southern population re-
gardless of color or race. Those of you
who understand slavery, will, / think,
agree with me in the thought that the
influence of slavery did almost as much
permanent harm to the southern white
man as to the negro. And so those who
understand conditions in the south to-
day viii agree with me when say that
so long as the rank and file of my peo-
pie in the south are in ignorance and
poverty, SO long will this ignorance
6n TJ1a f1e 45.,1,
and pretext for the southern white
mans dragging himself down. If the
white man steals an ignorant negrO's
ballot the negro suffers temporary in
justice, but the moral degradation that
comes to the white man. guilty of that
theft, is permanent, is eternal; and so,
my friends, / repeat that I speak not in
the interest OF IuSkegee or the negro
alone, but in that broader, higher and
deeper interest, that of all our brothers
in the south.
When the white man Iynches the
negro in the south he brings eternal
damnatiOn to his own soul. There is
death in body for the negro, but there
is death to the soul for the white man
Should you build a wall around Africa
to keep in the black man, you would
have to build higher wall outside of
that to keep the white man out 1t
would take ten walls to keep the white
man out Of there as long as he knows
there is gold there and diamonds"
The speaker then told of his early
y
about 1857 or 1858 and when set free
now ne went to West Virginia and
worked in the mines to support his
mother Then he told of having a
yearning to learn, and of his going to
a training school where he partially
earned his way
In speaking of the negro's skill Mr.
Washington said: For nearly twenty
years after the war we overlooked. ex-
cept in the case of General Armstrong
at Hampton, the fact that every large
n n a on 11c
measure an industrial school that dur
ing slavery we had in constant process
OF training large number of youths
IN carpentry, Whee1-Wrig hting and the
usual mechanical pursuits. As an ex-
ample of this training, the first cotton
Sln that was ever built in Mississippi
was the result of the negro's skill For
years the most successful bridge build
er in the south, was a colored man.
But since the war we have not held our
own in the mechanical world becausa
during the first twenty years of our
free life, except at Hampton no atten-
ton was given to the hand training
and we did not realize the position we
We're IN till, as a result of the death of
those men and women who received
hand training during slavery we found
that we had no young men to take the
places OF the old mechanics and the
trades that We once had rnOnODoIv of
in the south We're fast going into the
hands of the white mechanics from the
north and from foreign countries Al
most all at once we found ourselves be-
ing pushed to the ragged edge Of these
important industries instead of being
the mead ana center, as in the days of
yOre. During slavery the negro was
not so situated that he could feel the
forces of competition. but today he is
called upon to compete with the white
man IN agriculture, in mechanics in
domestic science, and the professions
and while he has the muscle he lacks
skill and brains to such an extent that
ne IS not holding his own in the indus
trial world.
What | am trying to do at Tuslxe-
gee with our elght hundred students is
to give them so much brain and skill
thaJ they can so control the forces of
nature, water, horsepower, stean-pOw-
eT and electricity, that they can make
nature do the work, just as the white
man does. Take this view of Industrial
education, you see at once, that, so far
from being something to teach the ne
gro to work, it teaches him rather how
not to work as in ante bellum DAYS. II
teaches him how to lift labor up out of
toll and drudgery into that which is
glor1hed, dignified and beautiful More
ana more we must give attention to this
industrial training or go to the wall as
race. Even now in many parts of tbe
south there are industries that mean.
as 1t were, our Hfe-blood that is gradu-
ally slipping from us; especially is this
true IN the laundering. nursing, con
tracing, woodwork and iron work
Shall We shut our eyes to these i'm
portant facts or shall We face the issue
and prepare ourselves to compete with
the rest of the world on scientific lues2
The trouble with q large proportion of
the negro race is that it is hungry. and
it is impossible for any race 10 make
satisfactory progress along industrial
moral and religious lines when in this
condition; in other words, it is a hard
matter to make a good christian out of
a hungry man
4 have heard it remarked over and
over again, that the negro knows how
to work and does not need any training
in industrial educa ton. There was
never a greater mistake. Let me illus
tEate; sometime ago While travelling
! through the state of Indiana I saw a
man engaged in planting corn Instead
of walking, he was seated upon a large
machine which he termed a cl1ftivat6T
/ 80 +l,f