Sandra McLeod Humphrey's Blog, page 9

DARE TO DREAM BIG: From Illiterate Slave to Renowned Educator

Imagine This: You're born a black slave in Virginia and more than anything, you want to go to school. But since it's against the law to educate slaves, you aren't even taught to read or write. So do you give up your dream for an education?

Growing up a slave in Virginia, you live in a one-room dirt-floored cabin with no windows and you and your family sleep on rags heaped on the floor.

When the Civil War ends in 1865, you and your family move to West Virginia where your stepfather has found work in the salt mines. More than anything, you want to go to school, but your family needs the money, so you and your brother work with your stepfather in the salt mines.

Your stepfather finally agrees to let you go to school a few months of the year if you continue to work in the salt mines from four o'clock until nine o'clock in the morning and then return to work in the mines for a few more hours after school. Unable to keep up that grueling schedule, you soon have to drop out of school and work all day at the salt mines.

When you're about twelve, you go to work in a coal mine where you hear two men talking about a new school for African Americans. It's called the Hampton Institute, and it's a school set up by whites to educate African Americans after the Civil War.

Black students can pay their way by working at the school, and you know that you have to go there! It takes you weeks to make your way over 500 miles to the Hampton Institute, walking most of the way.

While at the Hampton Institute, you work as a janitor to pay your way. Then after your graduation, you return to your hometown where you teach day school, night classes, and two Sunday schools.

In 1881, you're selected to be the principal of a new school for African Americans in Alabama called Tuskegee. When the school opens on July 4, 1881, it's little more than a broken-down shanty and an old hen house with one teacher and thirty students.

Under your leadership, the Tuskegee Institute becomes one of the most famous schools in America. You tell your students to build their own houses so they will never be homeless and to grow their own food and raise their own animals so they will never be hungry.

Your enormous capacity for hard work and your success in winning financial and moral support for the cause of African American education earns you a national reputation as the outstanding black leader of the day.

When you die in 1915 at the age of fifty-nine, you're one of the most powerful black leaders of your time. You've come a long way since your childhood as an impoverished slave who dreamed of one day learning to read!

"I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Booker T. Washington

Giving Back:  Booker T. Washington was committed to African American education, and he was a major influence in raising funds to start schools and colleges for African Americans.

Did You Know  that he was the first African American to be invited to a formal dinner at the White House?

Something to Think about:  Washington believed that the way to gain equality was through education. Do you agree or disagree?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!