What is equally important, they are exhibiting a degree of common
sense and self-control which is causing better relations to exist
between the races, and is causing the Southern white man to learn to
believe in the value of educating the men and women of my race. Aside
from this, there is the influence that is constantly being exerted
through the mothers' meeting and the plantation work conducted by Mrs.
Washington.
Wherever our graduates go, the changes which soon begin to appear
in the buying of land, improving homes, saving money, in education,
and in high moral characters are remarkable. Whole communities are
fast being revolutionized through the instrumentality of these men and
women.
Ten years ago I organized at Tuskegee the first Negro Conference.
This is an annual gathering which now brings to the school eight or
nine hundred representative men and women of the race, who come to
spend a day in finding out what the actual industrial, mental, and
moral conditions of the people are, and in forming plans for
improvement. Out from this central Negro Conference at Tuskegee have
grown numerous state an local conferences which are doing the same
kind of work. As a result of the influence of these gatherings, one
delegate reported at the last annual meeting that ten families in his
community had bought and paid for homes.
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