The occasion of the trouble was that a dark-skinned man had
stopped at the local hotel. Investigation, however, developed the
fact that this individual was a citizen of Morocco, and that
while travelling in this country he spoke the English language.
As soon as it was learned that he was not an American Negro, all
the signs of indignation disappeared. The man who was the
innocent cause of the excitement, though, found it prudent after
that not to speak English.
At the end of my first year with the Indians there came another
opening for me at Hampton, which, as I look back over my life
now, seems to have come providentially, to help to prepare me for
my work at Tuskegee later. General Armstrong had found out that
there was quite a number of young coloured men and women who were
intensely in earnest in wishing to get an education, but who were
prevented from entering Hampton Institute because they were too
poor to be able to pay any portion of the cost of their board, or
even to supply themselves with books. He conceived the idea of
starting a night-school in connection with the Institute, into
which a limited number of the most promising of these young men
and women would be received, on condition that they were to work
for ten hours during the day, and attend school for two hours at
night.
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