The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-06-20
Letters to the Editor.
Tuskegee Not Gan Ideal Negro
 Community"

.~s>~6OS 4NOb ah AaC&A @NSoAS V
 Community"
 Editor The Advertiser:
 In The Atlanta Constitution of May. 4 there appears an article written by the stan correspondent of that paper, entitled Southern White Mans impression of Tuskegee. in which the writer goes on at some length to record his astonish- ment and pleasure at the wonderful work accomplished at the Tuskegee Nor mal and Industrial School To all of witch we make no demurrer. Many of us are willing for Booker Washington to give him full credit for all the wisdom ana 1sagactty with which he has managed the immense concern entrusted to him.
 But there occurs one sentence in the article aforesaid which Is capable of wrong construction. and construction calculated to wound the white citizens of Tuskegee and to damage other interests there. MT. Ormond the writer) says: The result Is an ideal negro communf- ty." True. elsewhere in the article he says that separated from the town of Tuskegee proper, the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial School Is. to all appear ances. a town by itself-a town of some 1.500 negroes," and yet he speaks of the school as "Tuskegee' throughout and the natural inference of the average reader when he reads that ''the result is an ideal negro community" would be that Tuskegee Is negro town. While do not believe that Mir Ormond intended to convey that impre ssion, I feel sure that people who do not know any better would draw that inference from his arti- cle.
 Now I am ready to acknowledge that there are. perhaps. more people at the Normal Institute than in the town prop Normal Institute is the biggest thing in Tuskegee." and. for that matter, "the biggest thing in the State" or. in the South of its kind. am not willing that first saw the light, should be considered as overshadowed and completely swal- lowed up in the glory. that excelleth' out at the Normal School.
 Before Before the civil war r,,d, TIskegee kS, was, munity' as could be found in the world. She had. perhaps. the finest bar In the State, two fiourishing female colleges, Il male institute. and citizenship famed for that culture and hospitality charac- teristic of the highest and purest type of Southern civilization. The war took away many of her most gallant sons and swept away her fortunes. but while new generation has come to take the place of the old-yet there is much of the spirit of the grand "Old South still left there-enough to have 1t truthfully said that Tuskegee is about as far from being "an ideal negro community" as any town of its size in the country.
 While I understand that the corporate limits of Tuskegee have been extended so as to include the Industrial School yet the school is really separated from the town proper to such an extent that. ordinarily. a person might go there and not know that the Normal School was there unless he went out to that edge of town.
 2. The students of the Institute are kept very closely in their own bounds, and it Is seldom that any number of them are seen upon the streets of Tus- kegee.
 3. Negroes own very little property in the town proper'-less than in many other towns in the State.
 1 call attention to these things not from any prejudice against anybody. but to correct possibly erroneous impression that such expressions as l have alluded to may create
 The beautiful old town of Tuskegee still lives and her institutions and tradi- tions will be preserved sacred and immac- ulate.
 The black cloud that lowers on her horizon does not darken the hopes of its citizeas. nor dampen the Anglo-Saxon in- dependence of its sons.
 While not citizen of Tuskegee prop er." having been born there. having served three years as pastor there, and having for a number of years been con- nected as trustee, with the Alabama Conference Female College there-one of the finest and most prosperous institu South--I feel that I am justified in dis sipating q possible conclusion from such statements as have been alluded to. that Tuskegee is "an ideal colored commun- ity." c. l.. Chiffon.
 C.reenshoro Ala