The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.9, page 323, Aug. 1907, U. of Illinois Press

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AUGUST · 1907 one can take from us the privilege of having a beautiful well kept home with high moral standards. Throughout this country we have freedom of religious worship and the progress that we have made in the number of Ministers and Church organizations clearly proves that we are taking advantage of that opportunity. · · ~ We of both races, here in the South, have the opportunity of teaching the world how two races, dissimilar in many respects, can live together, side by side in peace and harmony, each promoting the welfare and happiness of the other. · · e e I believe, too, that the South should call attention more often than it does to the general progress that our people are making. And you have a right to be proud of this progress. I shall never forget the impression that a Southern white man, in the little town of Tuskegee, where I live, made upon me some time ago when he passed a grocery store, and with one exception I think it is the largest and most successful grocery store in that town, owned by a colored man, and pointed to the Negro merchant and to his store, and said, ''I am proud of that man. I owned his father and I am proud of his success.'' We get so much in the habit of dwelling upon our difficulties that I am afraid too often we fait to emphasize the progress that both races are making in the working out of this tremendous problem. But when we consider, my friends, the complications of this problem, when we consider the seriousness of it, when we consider your part and my part, when we consider where we started forty years ago, I believe that we have every reason to congratulate ourselves that we have done as well as we have and have had as few difficulties as we have had. We have every reason to feel proud of the success that has been made in the solution of this problem. Each race is in tad degree dependent upon the other. For extam]plte] in the average white family of the South, you will find that the white child spends a large proportion of his life in the arms or in the company of a Negro woman or of a Negro girl. During the years when that child is most impressionable, when he is at a point where impressions are perhaps most lasting, that child is in the company of this black woman or this black girl. My friends it is mighty impor323