Brickmaking has now become such an important industry at the
school that last season our students manufactured twelve hundred
thousand of first-class bricks, of a quality stable to be sold in any
market. Aside from this, scores of young men have mastered the
brickmaking trade -- both the making of bricks by hand and by
machinery -- and are now engaged in this industry in many parts of the
South.
The making of these bricks taught me an important lesson in regard
to the relations of the two races in the South. Many white people who
had had no contact with the school, and perhaps no sympathy with it,
came to us to buy bricks because they found out that ours were good
bricks. They discovered that we were supplying a real want in the
community. The making of these bricks caused many of the white
residents of the neighbourhood to begin to feel that the education of
the Negro was not making him worthless, but that in educating our
students we were adding something to the wealth and comfort of the
community. As the people of the neighbourhood came to us to buy
bricks, we got acquainted with them; they traded with us and we with
them. Our business interests became intermingled. We had something
which they wanted; they had something which we wanted. This, in a
large measure, helped to lay the foundation for the pleasant relations
that have continued to exist between us and the white people in that
section, and which now extend throughout the South.
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