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The negro has within him immense power for self-uplifting, but for years it will be necessary to guide and stimulate him.

Booker T. Washington

We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Clanking Country Hands Want
In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Essential Progress Purity Separate
I believe that any man’s life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high-water mark of pure and useful living.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Hope Life Success
In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Country Disadvantage Law Men People
From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Freedom Ideas Return Slavery
From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Freedom Ideas Myself Return Slave
It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of those privileges.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Exercise Important Preparation Privilege Right
No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Contribution Degree Market Race
Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Growth Law Man Stop
The actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could build.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Class House Sight
An inch of progress is worth more than a yard of complaint.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Inches Progress Yards
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Himself Hold Man Stay
The circumstances that surround a man’s life are not important. How that man responds to those circumstances IS IMPORTANT. His response is the ultimate determining factor between success and failure.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Circumstance Determination Factor Failure Important Life Man Success Surround
I believe that one always does himself and his audience an injustice when he speaks merely for the sake of speaking.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Believe Health Heart
The thing to do when one feels sure that he has said or done the right thing and is condemned, is to stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Feeling Oneself Right Time
Political activity alone cannot make a man free. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Alone Character Economy Freedom Intelligence Man Politics Skills

The negro has within him immense power for self-uplifting, but for years it will be necessary to guide and stimulate him.

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The negro has within him immense power for self-uplifting, but for years it will be necessary to guide and stimulate him.

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Popular Authors

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