Wherever one of our brickmakers has gone in the South, we find
that he has something to contribute to the well-being of the community
into which he has gone; something that has made the community feel
that, in a degree, it is indebted to him, and perhaps, to a certain
extent, dependent upon him. In this way pleasant relations between
the races have been simulated.
My experience is that there is something in human nature which
always makes an individual recognize and reward merit, no matter under
what colour of skin merit is found. I have found, too, that it is the
visible, the tangible, that goes a long ways in softening prejudices.
The actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten
times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought
to build, or perhaps could build.
The same principle of industrial education has been carried out in
the building of our own wagons, carts, and buggies, from the first.
We now own and use on our farm and about the school dozens of these
vehicles, and every one of them has been built by the hands of the
students. Aside from this, we help supply the local market with these
vehicles. The supplying of them to the people in the community has
had the same effect as the supplying of bricks, and the man who learns
at Tuskegee to build and repair wagons and carts is regarded as a
benefactor by both races in the community where he goes.
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