Perhaps I might add right here, what I hope to demonstrate later,
that, so far as I know, the Tuskegee school at the present time has no
warmer and more enthusiastic friends anywhere than it has among the
white citizens of Tuskegee and throughout the state of Alabama and the
entire South. From the first, I have advised our people in the South
to make friends in every straightforward, manly way with their next-
door neighbour, whether he be a black man or a white man. I have also
advised them, where no principle is at stake, to consult the interests
of their local communities, and to advise with their friends in regard
to their voting.
For several months the work of securing the money with which to
pay for the farm went on without ceasing. At the end of three months
enough was secured to repay the loan of two hundred and fifty dollars
to General Marshall, and within two months more we had secured the
entire five hundred dollars and had received a deed of the one hundred
acres of land. This gave us a great deal of satisfaction. It was not
only a source of satisfaction to secure a permanent location for the
school, but it was equally satisfactory to know that the greater part
of the money with which it was paid for had been gotten from the white
and coloured people in the town of Tuskegee.
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