Up from Slavery
CHAPTER VIII TEACHING SCHOOL IN A STABLE AND A HEN-HOUSE I CONFESS that what I saw during my month of travel and investigation left me with a very heavy heart. The work to be done in order to lift these people up seemed almost beyond accomplishing. I was only one person, and it seemed to [...]
CHAPTER IX ANXIOUS DAYS AND SLEEPLESS NIGHTS THE coming of Christmas, that first year of our residence in Alabama, gave us an opportunity to get a farther insight into the real life of the people. The first thing that reminded us that Christmas had arrived was the "foreday" visits of scores of children rapping at [...]
CHAPTER XI MAKING THEIR BEDS BEFORE THEY COULD LIE ON THEM A LITTLE later in the history of the school we had a visit from General J. F. B. Marshall, the Treasurer of the Hampton Institute, who had had faith enough to lend us the first two hundred and fifty dollars with which to make [...]
CHAPTER XII RAISING MONEY WHEN we opened our boarding department, we provided rooms in the attic of Porter Hall, our first building, for a number of girls. But the number of students, of both sexes, continued to increase. We could find rooms outside the school grounds for many of the young men, but the girls [...]
CHAPTER XIII TWO THOUSAND MILES FOR A FIVE-MINUTE SPEECH SOON after the opening of our boarding department, quite a number of students who evidently were worthy, but who were so poor that they did not have any money to pay even the small charges at the school, began applying for admission. This class was composed [...]
CHAPTER II BOYHOOD DAYS AFTER the coming of freedom there were two points upon which practically all the people on our place were agreed, and I find that this was generally true throughout the South: that they must change their names, and that they must leave the old plantation for at least a few days [...]
CHAPTER XIV THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION ADDRESS THE Atlanta Exposition, at which I had been asked to make an address as a representative of the Negro race, as stated in the last chapter, was opened with a short address from Governor Bullock. After other interesting exercises, including an invocation from Bishop Nelson, of Georgia, a dedicatory [...]
CHAPTER III THE STRUGGLE FOR AN EDUCATION ONE day, while at work in the coal-mine, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for coloured people somewhere in Virginia. This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college that was more pretentious than [...]
CHAPTER XV THE SECRET OF SUCCESS IN PUBLIC SPEAKING AS to how my address at Atlanta was received by the audience in the Exposition building, I think I prefer to let Mr. James Creelman, the noted war correspondent, tell. Mr. Creelman was present, and telegraphed the following account to the New York World: - ATLANTA, [...]
CHAPTER IV HELPING OTHERS AT THE end of my first year at Hampton I was confronted with another difficulty. Most of the students went home to spend their vacation. I had no money with which to go home, but I had to go somewhere. In those days very few students were permitted to remain at [...]
