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Previous Section, A Letter to the Editor of the Southern Workman, September 28, 1895
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EARLY LIFE AND STRUGGLE FOR AN EDUCATION · ~ 899 traveling in a stage coach and cars the remainder of the journey, I at length found myself in the city of Richmond, Virginia. I also found myself without friends, money or a place to stay all night. After walking about the city till midnight, and I had grown almost discouraged and quite exhausted, I crawled under a sidewalk and slept all that night. The next morning, as good luck would have it, ~ found myself very near a ship that was unloading pig iron. I applied to the captain for work, and he gave it, and I worked on this ship by day and slept under the sidewalk by night till I had earned money enough to continue my way to Hampton, where I soon arrived with a surplus of fifty cents in my pocket. I at once found General Armstrong, and told him what my condition was and what I had come for. In his great hearty way he said that if ~ was worth anything he would give me a chance to work my way. At Hampton ~ found buildings, instructors, industries provided by the generous; in other words, the chance for me to work for my education. While at Hampton I resolved, if God permitted me to finish the course of study, I would enter the far South, the Black Belt of the Gulf states, and give my life in providing as best I could the same kind of chance for self-help for the youth of my race that I found ready for me when I went to Hampton: And so in 18 I left Hampton and started the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in a small church and shanty, with one teacher and thirty students. Since then the institution at Tuskegee has gradually grown, so that we have today over ~,ooo students, 88 officers, c6 industries, 42 buildings, 2,267 acres of land, and $300,000 worth of property. Tuskegee, Ala., October, 1899 Booker T. Washington 393