Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 122
developed during a period of thirty years for keeping in touch with his people
and for keeping his people in touch with one another and with all the things
which go to make up wholesome and useful living.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
BOOKER WASHINGTON AND THE NEGRO FARMER
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON was a great believer in the experience meeting,
and the Tuskegee Negro Conference, which he started in 1891, is nothing more
nor less than an agricultural experience meeting. He placed his faith in the
persuasive power of example--in the contagion of successful achievement. He
once said: "One farm bought, one house built, one home sweetly and
intelligently kept, one man who is the largest taxpayer or has the largest bank
account, one school or church maintained, one factory running successfully, one
truck garden profitably cultivated, one patient cured by a Negro doctor, one
sermon well preached, one office well filled, one life cleanly lived--these will
tell more in our favor than all the abstract eloquence that can be summoned to
plead our cause. Our pathway must be up through the soil, up through swamps,
up through forests, up through the streams, the rocks, up through commerce,
education, and religion."
Nothing delighted Mr. Washington more than the successful Negro farmers who
had started in life without money, friends, influence, or education--with literally
nothing but their hands. At one of the Tuskegee conferences
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not many years ago his keen eyes spotted such a man in the audience and he
called to him in his straight from the shoulder manner: "Get up and tell us what
you have been doing as a farmer."
A tall, finely built, elderly man, looking almost like a Nubian giant, arose in his
place, his face wreathed in smiles, and showing his white teeth as he spoke:
"Doctor, I done 'tended one o' yore conferences here 'bout ten year ago. I heard
you say dat a man ain't wurth nuthin' as a man or a citizen 'less he owns his
home, 'least one mule, and has a bank account, an' so I made up my mind dat