The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.3, page 318, May 1893, U. of Illinois Press

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The BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Papers father. It would be easy to speak of him as a friend to our race, but he was more, and the term ''friend'' is cold and barren when applied to him; he was the heart of the race- his great heart held us all so constantly, so strongly, so tenderly, that it gave way at a time when most men begin to live. The power clef his personality, his influence over his students, the tenderness, the love, the confidence that existed between them, are, ~ think, indescribable and unexplainable and so we shall not, I hope, be misunderstood if we seem not only to revere but to worship his memory.2 But on this occasion General Armstrong would be the last to wish us to utter mere words of praise. Every atom, every spark of energy in the economy of his great being was consecrated to and concentrated on one purpose the lifting up of the unfortunate whether black, red or white. In Virginia, North Carolina and the more Northern states you know how and where his life has penetrated and given light for darkness, hope for despair and success for failure, and showed the world that there is a way to save the most degenerate and most despised. What is the influence of this great life in the far and darker South. (And in referring to this you will excuse me if I refrain from attempting to explain how and why Tuskegee's work is his work, is his soul marching on, and how the fragrance of his life will carry it on in the future; how without his fatherly advice, his unselfishness, at times when we were surrounded by darkness and doubt, for there were acts of his that to me are too sacred and precious for utterance. ~ The rose which would place in his grave today is his work at Tuskegee. Eleven years ago Tuskegee was one of hundreds of similar villages scattered through the Gulf States. Today it is the light-house for that section. Eleven years ago there were 30 students and one teacher; now 600 students and 38 teachers. Then scarcely a dollar and not a foot of land; now ~400 acres of land, 20 buildings, and real and personal property worth $180,000; then one blind horse; now O60 head of live stock. Then the plantation where the Tuskegee Institute stood had known nought but the labor forced by the lash; today there are fig industries kept in motion by 600 as happy hearts as can be found in America; then some feared that the Negro youth would be ashamed to work for his education, but these students have made and laid into these buildings with their own hands c,ooo,ooo bricks and of 20 buildings, ~ ~ have been built and furnished by students themselves. But our great chief taught us that students, land, buildings, horses 3~8