The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.4, page 195, July 1896, U. of Illinois Press

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J U L Y · I 8 9 6 and sleeping with my people and coming into contact with them under all conditions and circumstances night and day for fourteen years on these plantations of the South, I think I have learned this, that the way to teach them to have the most of Jesus in a permanent form is to teach them to mix in with their religion some practical ideas which will bring about an improved material condition. Give them the benefit of well-directed industry, a house with two or three little rooms and a little bank account. The negro can appreciate that as well as a white man does, and in proportion as they mix these things with their religion you will find they have a practical Christianity that is worthy of the name. These are some of the lessons which we are trying to' push forward at every opportunity, although we meet with some prejudice. At one time the late Hon. Frederick Douglass was making a great speech in the South and he began to warm up to his subject as only Frederick Douglass could do. There happened to be in an out-of-theway corner two persons who seemed unusually interested ~ what Douglass was saying. One was an American, and the other an Inshman. The Irishman said, ''Be jabers, who is that making such an eloquent speech?'' The American said, ''That is Frederick Douglass, the great negro orator.'' ''You do not mean to say a negro can speak like that, do you?'' ''Oh well, he is not a negro, he is a mulatto!, a kind of half negro.'' ''Be jabers, if a half negro can speak like that what in the world can a whole negro do?'' Now, my friends, I claim that during the last thirty years in which we have been in partial possession of our freedom we have not had an opportunity to become even half men and women. But if we meet with the same helps the same encouragement in the future that we have in the past, we are not only going to become whole negroes, but, what is better, we are going to become whole, helpful American . . citizens. But what of your white brethren in the South, those who are still suffering the consequences of American slavery for which you and they are responsible? What was the task you asked them to perform to return to' their desolate homes after years of a relentless war, to face blasted hopes, a shattered industrial system and devastation everywhere. You asked them to add to their burdens that of preparing, i95