The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.6, page 79, Mar. 1901, U. of Illinois Press

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MARCH · 1901 was coming to see was a colored woman. For this to be understood I must first relate an incident which occurred to one of our Tuskegee Institute students, because it was to this incident that Mrs. Casneau referred. Among the other industries taught at Tuskegee Institute is that of dairying. We have a herd of over one hundred good dairy cows, and classes of young men and women are constantly receiving practical instruction in this industry, doing all of the work of the dairy at the same time. There came to our knowledge the fact that the owners of a certain creamery were looking for a competent superintendent. We had just graduated a man whom we knew to be thoroughly competent in every way, but he was just about as black as any one could possibly be. Nevertheless we sent him on to apply for the position. When the owners of the creamery saw him they said: ''But you are a colored man. That would never do. We cannot hire a colored man.'' Our candidate politely intimated that he had not come there to talk about any color except butter color, and kept on talking about that, while the owners kept talking about his color. Finally something which he said so caught their attention that they told him he might stay and run the creamery for a fortnight, although they still insisted that it was out of the question for them to hire a colored man as superintendent. When the returns for the first week's shipment of butter made by our man came back, it was found that the butter had sold for two cents a pound more than any product of the creamery had ever before sold for. The owners of the establishment said: ''Why, now, this is very singular''; and waited for the next week's report. The second week's returns showed that the butter had sold for a cent a pound more than that of the week before, three cents more than before the colored man had taken charge of the work. That time the owners did not stop to say anything. They simply hired the man as quickly as they could. The extra three cents on a pound which he could get for his butter had knocked every particle of color out of his skin so far as they were concerned. Mrs. Casneau, in her address before the league, said that when she received a letter from her customer saying that the woman was coming to Boston to call upon her at a certain time, her courage failed her because she knew that this customer had no idea that 79