Wherever one of our brickmakers has gone in the South, we find
that he has something to contribute to the well-being of the
community into which he has gone; something that has made the
community feel that, in a degree, it is indebted to him, and
perhaps, to a certain extent, dependent upon him. In this way
pleasant relations between the races have been simulated.
My experience is that there is something in human nature which
always makes an individual recognize and reward merit, no matter
under what colour of skin merit is found. I have found, too, that
it is the visible, the tangible, that goes a long ways in
softening prejudices. The actual sight of a first-class house
that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of
discussion about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could
build.
The same principle of industrial education has been carried out
in the building of our own wagons, carts, and buggies, from the
first. We now own and use on our farm and about the school dozens
of these vehicles, and every one of them has been built by the
hands of the students. Aside from this, we help supply the local
market with these vehicles. The supplying of them to the people
in the community has had the same effect as the supplying of
bricks, and the man who learns at Tuskegee to build and repair
wagons and carts is regarded as a benefactor by both races in the
community where he goes.
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