Part 9 (1/2)

During the last school year, 1903-'04, we received from all sources $18,310.43. This will give some idea as to the scope and importance of our work, and of my work in disbursing this large sum as the treasurer of the school.

Our present property valuation is $25,000, and consists of 300 acres of land, 3 large buildings, a large barn, a schoolhouse for primary children, 4 cottages, an industrial building, 10 mules, 6 horses, 30 cows, 3 wagons, 3 buggies, etc., all free from indebtedness of any character. We stay out of debt; that for which we can not pay we do without.

We afford instruction in the following industries: Farming in its various branches, shoemaking, carpentry, cooking, sewing, housekeeping, laundering, millinery in a small way, printing, and blacksmithing.

The training received at Tuskegee has been of so much help to me since leaving there. I made up my mind after graduation that I would urge my parents and relatives to cease paying five and six bales of cotton each year for rent, and instead take the same amount of cotton and buy a place of their own. I am glad to say, through my efforts in this regard, they have been placed on a tract of 160 acres of good land, and it is practically paid for, they paying four bales of cotton a year. They are doing well and are making something for themselves. This project seemed a little strange to them for the first two years, but they are now used to it.

”He that hath a trade,” saith Franklin, ”hath an estate, and he that hath a calling, hath a place and honor.” Since being out in the world I have learned not to wait for a higher position or a better salary, and have steadily sought to enlarge the ones I have had. I have tried to fill such positions as I have had as they were never filled before, by doing better work, by being more prompt, by being more thorough, more polite, and, in fact, I have filled them so completely that no one else could slip in by me. I have always laid great stress on work as a means of developing power; I am called by some of my friends a fanatic on this subject. My experience at Tuskegee taught me that our racial salvation is to come through hard, earnest, intelligent, sincere work. I owe a world of grat.i.tude to the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute for the training I received there and for the great work it is doing for the Negro people.

I repeat, if I accomplish anything in life that is worth while, it will be due wholly to the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, to its officers and teachers.

No true graduate of Tuskegee ever forgets the lessons learned there. I am sure I shall not.

V

THE STORY OF A FARMER

BY FRANK REID

I am glad to be able to give some facts regarding what my brother Dow and I have been able to do since leaving the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute.

We did not graduate, I am sorry to say, but the lessons given us have not been forgotten. These lessons started us on the way to our present success. I do not use the word ”success” boastfully, but because it really states a fact: we have done much more than we ever hoped to do, and have been the means of contributing in some slight measure toward the uplifting of the immediate community about us.

We are located at a place called Dawkins, not more than twelve miles from the Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, and immediately within its sphere of influence.

Our mother and father were born within a few miles of where we now live.

Both of our parents, at the time I write, are living, and are each about sixty-five years of age; they were, for twenty-five years each, slaves. Neither can read or write. My brother and I each spent about three years at Tuskegee, and, in addition, he attended school for two years at Talladega College.

I had a very thorough course in carpentry, and my brother worked on the Inst.i.tute farm. We married two sisters, Susie and Lillie Hendon. Shortly after my marriage my beloved wife Susie died, leaving me with one child.

My brother's wife still lives; they have three children.

Until ten years ago we, with our father, were renters, all of us working together. But the Sunday evening talks at Tuskegee by Princ.i.p.al Was.h.i.+ngton, and his urgent insistence, at all times, that Tuskegee graduates and students should try to own land, led us to desire to improve our condition. We were large renters, however; for twenty-three years our father and his relatives had leased and ”worked” a tract of 1,100 acres of land, having leased it for ten years at a time. We still lease this tract, and, in addition, rent an additional 480 acres in the same way, ten years at a time. We subrent tracts of this total of 1,580 acres to thirty tenants, charging one and one-half bales of cotton for each one-horse farm. We pay twenty-three bales for the rent of the 1,580 acres. My brother and I run a sixteen-horse farm, doing much of the work ourselves and paying wages to those who work for us. A number of others also work for us on ”halves”--that is, we provide the land, furnish the seeds, tools, mules, feed the mules, and equally divide whatever is raised. This is largely done in all the country districts of the South.

About ten years ago we bought in our own right our first land, 320 acres. Since that time we have acquired by purchase another tract containing 285 acres. The first tract we paid for in two years; the other is also paid for. The total of 605 acres, I am glad to say, is without inc.u.mbrance of any kind.

The following statements may give some idea as to what we have been able to do since leaving Tuskegee:

During the year 1904 alone, we paid out $5,000, covering debts on land, fertilizers, and money borrowed with which to carry our thirty tenants.

We own sixteen mules and horses, fourteen head of cattle, thirty hogs, and have absolutely no indebtedness of any character.

My brother Dow lives in a good three-room house. My father and I live in a good six-room house, with a large, airy hall, and kitchen; it cost us to build, $1,500.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SILO ON THE FARM.

Students filling it with fodder corn, steam-power being used.]

We conduct a large general store, with everything carried in a country store of this kind. The colored Odd Fellows use the hall above our store for their meetings.