CHAPTER 11: Making their beds before they could lie on them

1. CHAPTER 11: Making their beds before they could lie on them

2. Lessons learnt from General Armstrong • The first visit which General Armstrong made to Tuskegee gave Booker an opportunity to get an insight into General Armstrong’s character. • Booker learned by General Armstrong’s visits to the southern white people and from the conversations he had with him, that he was anxious about the prosperity and the happiness of the white race as the black. • Booker says, “I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred” • He also learns that “Assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong and oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak” • He pities from the bottom of his heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice. • He does not keep any hatred or prejudice towards the Southern white men for any wrong they have committed upon the blacks.

3. Degrading morals of the white man • Booker notices with pity the permanent injury being done to the morals of the white man by their act of trying to break the force of the Negroes ballot. • According to him , the wrong to the Negro is temporary, but to the morals of the white man the injury is permanent. • Booker stresses the fact that when an individual perjures himself in order to break the force of the black man’s ballot, he ( the individual ) learns to practice dishonesty in other relations of life. • Booker says that the moment a white man who begins by cheating a Negro, usually ends up cheating a white man. • According to him, “It is important that the whole Nation lend a hand in trying to lift the burden of ignorance from the South.”

4. Development of education in the South • Gradually, according to Booker, the influence of General Armstrong’s idea of education is being seen in the development of education in the south, regardless of which race it may be. • At that point of time, Booker feels there was almost no Southern state that was seen as putting efforts in securing industrial education for its white boys and girls. • It was easier to trace the history of such efforts back to General Armstrong.

5. Difficult experiences faced in Tuskegee • After the opening of the school’s boarding department , students began coming in large numbers. • For weeks , they had to face difficulties not only in providing board, with no money, but also in trying to provide sleeping accommodations for the students. • For this, they worked out a plan to rent a number of cabins near the school, but the cabins were in a dilapidated condition. • During the winter months, the students who occupied them necessarily suffered from the cold. • The cost of tuition which was fifty dollars a year for each student, had to be secured then, but this small charge in cash gave the school no capital which could be used to start a boarding department. • They were not able to provide enough bedclothes to keep the students warm. At times they were not able to secure even bedsteads and mattresses.

6. Booker recalls that on several occasions he visited the shanties( which were occupied by the young students) in the middle of the night for the purpose of confronting them. • Often he found some of them sitting huddled around a fire, with the one blanket which the school had been able to provide wrapped around them, trying to keep them warm. • One morning, when the previous night was unusually cold, Booker asked the students in the chapel who thought that they had been frostbitten during the night to raise their hands. Three hands went up. • Notwithstanding these harsh experiences, there was almost no complaining on the part of the students. They knew that the school was doing the best they could. • They were happy in the privilege of being permitted to enjoy any kind of opportunity that would enable them to improve their condition. • Instead, they were constantly asking what they could do to lighten the burden of the teachers. • During the nineteen years of experience at Tuskegee, Booker never had been treated with disrespect by any student or officer connected with the institution. He was actually embarrassed by the many acts of thoughtful kindness displayed by the students.

7. Booker’s relationship with the Southern whites • In all his contact with the whites of the South, Booker never received a single personal insult. • The white people in and near Tuskegee in Booker’s own words, ‘seemed to count it as a privilege to show me all the respect within their power, and often go out of their way to do this.’ • For instance, when Booker was making a journey between Dallas and Houston, every station at which the trains stopped, crowds of white people, including senior officials of the town, came aboard and introduced themselves and thanked Booker for the work he was doing at that time in the South. • On another occasion the white ladies had requested him to have supper with them, while he was on the train, which was against the customs of the south. He tried to excuse himself, but they compelled him . When the meal was over, it seemed as if it were the longest one Booker had ever eaten. Almost all the whites in the compartments had come to express their gratitude for the good work Booker was doing in the South.

8. Booker’s relationship with students • Booker always sought to impress that Tuskegee was not his institution, or that of his officers, but that it is their institution and that they have as much interest in it as any of the trustees or instructors. • Booker wanted to have them feel that he was at the institution as their friend and adviser and not as their supervisor. • It has been his aim to have the students speak with frankness anything that was concerning the life of the school. • He would occasionally, ask the students to write a letter in this regard, otherwise he would assemble the students in the chapel for a ‘heart to heart’ talk about the conduct of the school. • There were no meetings with the students that Booker enjoy more than those heart to heart talks and they proved to be helpful in planning for the future.

9. Booker believed that “Every individual responds to confidence, and unselfish truth positively” especially in the case of Negroes. With this belief, you can lead them to any extent. • Booker encouraged the students to participate in the erection of the school building and make their furniture, mattress and beds as well. • He marvels at the patience of the students while sleeping upon the floor while waiting for some kind of bedstead to be constructed, or without any kind of mattress it to be made. • The problem of providing mattresses was a difficult one to solve. They solved this problem by getting some cheap cloth and sewing pieces of this to make large bags. • The industry of mattress making has grown steadily since then and has been improved to such an extent that it is an important branch of work being taught to a number of girls in the school. • The mattresses that came out of the mattress shop at Tuskegee are about as good as those bought in an average store.

10. Guiding principles at Tuskegee • The students were expected to make their furniture, mattress and beds as well. • The students were reminded in those first years, that people would excuse them for their poverty, for their lack of comforts and conveniences but they would not excuse them for dirt. This is why Booker always insisted upon absolute cleanliness in every part of Tuskegee. • Use of the toothbrush was also insisted upon in the school premises. • No student was permitted then to be retained who does not keep and use a tooth brush. • Absolute cleanliness of the body had been insisted upon from the first. • The importance of the night gown also received the same attention. • The students were also taught that all the buttons were to be kept on their clothes and that there must be no torn places or grease spots.