Brickmaking has now become such an important industry at the
school that last season our students manufactured twelve hundred
thousand of first-class bricks, of a quality stable to be sold in
any market. Aside from this, scores of young men have mastered
the brickmaking trade--both the making of bricks by hand and by
machinery--and are now engaged in this industry in many parts of
the South.
The making of these bricks taught me an important lesson in
regard to the relations of the two races in the South. Many white
people who had had no contact with the school, and perhaps no
sympathy with it, came to us to buy bricks because they found out
that ours were good bricks. They discovered that we were
supplying a real want in the community. The making of these
bricks caused many of the white residents of the neighbourhood to
begin to feel that the education of the Negro was not making him
worthless, but that in educating our students we were adding
something to the wealth and comfort of the community. As the
people of the neighbourhood came to us to buy bricks, we got
acquainted with them; they traded with us and we with them. Our
business interests became intermingled. We had something which
they wanted; they had something which we wanted. This, in a large
measure, helped to lay the foundation for the pleasant relations
that have continued to exist between us and the white people in
that section, and which now extend throughout the South.
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