The Future of the American Negro

_In giving this volume to the public, I deem it fair to say that I have yielded to the oft-repeated requests that I put in some more definite and permanent form the ideas regarding the Negro and his future which I have expressed many times on the public platform and through the public press and magazines._

_I make grateful acknowledgment to the "Atlantic Monthly" and "Appleton's Popular Science Monthly" for their kindness in granting permission for the use of some part of articles which I have at various times contributed to their columns._

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE, TUSKEGEE, ALA., October 1, 1899.

CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Page 3

First appearance of Negroes in America--Rapid increase--Conditions during Civil War--During the reconstruction.

Chapter II. Page 16

Responsibility of the whole country for the Negro--Progress in the past--Same methods of education do not fit all cases--Proved in the case of the Southern Negro--Illustrations--Lack of money--Comparison between outlay for schools North and South--Duty of North to South.

Chapter III. Page 42

Decadence of Southern plantation--Demoralization of Negroes natural--No home life before the war--Too much classical education at the start--Lack of practical training-- Illustrations--The well-trained slaves now dead--Former plantations as industrial schools--The decayed plantation built up by a former slave--Misunderstanding of industrial education.

Chapter IV. Page 67

The Negroes' proper use of education--Hayti, Santo Domingo, and Liberia as illustrations of the lack of practical training-- Present necessity for union of all forces to further the cause of industrial education--Industrial education not opposed to the higher education--Results of practical training so far--Little or no prejudice against capable Negroes in business in the South--The Negro at first shunned labor as degrading-- Hampton and Tuskegee aim to remove this feeling--The South does not oppose industrial education for the Negroes-- Address to Tuskegee students setting forth the necessity of steadfastness of purpose.

Chapter V. Page 106

The author's early life--At Hampton--The inception of the Tuskegee School in 1881--Its growth--Scope--Size at present--Expenses--Purposes--Methods--Building of the chapel--Work of the graduates--Similar schools beginning throughout the South--Tuskegee Negro Conference--The Workers' Conference--Tuskegee as a trainer of teachers.

Chapter VI. Page 127

The Negro race in politics--Its patriotic zeal in 1776--In 1814--In the Civil War--In the Spanish War--Politics attempted too soon after freedom--Poor leaders--Two parties in the South, the blacks' and the whites'--Not necessarily opposed in interests--The Negro should give up no rights--The same tests for the restriction of the franchise should be applied alike to both blacks and whites--This is not the case--Education and the franchise--The whites must help the blacks to pure votes--Rioting and lynching only to be stopped by mutual confidence.

Chapter VII. Page 157

Difficulty of fusion--Africa impossible as a refuge because already completely claimed by other nations--Comparison of Negro race with white--Physical condition of the Negro--Present lack of ability to organize--Weaknesses--Ability to work--Trustworthiness Desire to rise--Obstructions put in the way of Negroes' advancement--Results of oppression--Necessity for encouragement and self-respect--Comparison of Negroes' position and that of the Jews--Lynching--Non-interference of the North-- Increase of lynching--Statistics of numbers, races, places, causes of violence--Uselessness of lynching in preventing crime--Fairness in carrying out the laws--Increase of crime among the Negroes--Reason for it--Responsibility of both races.