Washington will
suit us. Send him at once."
There was a great deal of joy expressed among the students and
teachers, and I received very hearty congratulations. I began to
get ready at once to go to Tuskegee. I went by way of my old home
in West Virginia, where I remained for several days, after which
I proceeded to Tuskegee. I found Tuskegee to be a town of about
two thousand inhabitants, nearly one-half of whom were coloured.
It was in what was known as the Black Belt of the South. In the
county in which Tuskegee is situated the coloured people
outnumbered the whites by about three to one. In some of the
adjoining and near-by counties the proportion was not far from
six coloured persons to one white.
I have often been asked to define the term "Black Belt." So far
as I can learn, the term was first used to designated a part of
the country which was distinguished by the colour of the soil.
The part of the country possessing this thick, dark, and
naturally rich soil was, of course, the part of the South where
the slaves were most profitable, and consequently they were taken
there in the largest numbers. Later, and especially since the
war, the term seems to be used wholly in a political sense--that
is, to designate the counties where the black people outnumber
the white.
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