[n.b. - page numbers refer to printed text. Available at https://archive.org/details/blackmansburden0000will ]

CHAPTER VIII 


While I am relating the story of the struggles of what 
is now the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute, I must 
not fail to mention one of its earliest friends, the late 
President of the Board of Trustees, the Rev. R. C. Bed- 
ford, of Beloit, Wisconsin. In fact, Mr. Bedford’s in- 
terest in the work at Utica dates back to a period before 
its founding, for when I told him, a year before I went 
to Utica, that I expected to settle there, he promptly 
came down from Illinois, went to Utica, and made an ex- 
amination of the conditions there before he would permit 
me to undertake work in Mississippi. 

Soon after I had begun work at Utica he paid me a 
visit and passed several days with me, assisting, suggest- 
ing, and advising as to the best way to proceed. Ever 
after that until his death he made from one to two visits 
to Utica annually, always bringing with him many help- 
ful suggestions in regard to the work. I have met few 
men who have been as much interested in the develop- 
ment of the Negro, and of all the people in the South, as 
Mr. Bedford was. Time alone can tell the value of what 
this man did for us. In those early days, when we were 
confronted at times almost with starvation and when 
things seemed hopeless, it was the constant letter that 
came from Mr. Bedford that brightened our pathway, 


Li2 THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 


strengthened our hearts, and made it possible for us to 
stand firm. 

His faith in the possibilities of the work at Utica was 
always strong, and he was one of the few persons that 
I have met whose belief that we would succeed anything 
like approached my own. He was a true friend of the 
Negro. 

The work grew day by day. While its influence was 
spreading the task of maintaining the school was becom- 
ing even more burdensome. Outside assistance had to be 
found, and I went to Boston and New York. I had al- 
ready been in correspondence with Mrs. Mary Clement 
Leavitt, who had become somewhat interested in the 
work. JI had also interested Mr. John Wells Morss, a 
Boston attorney, who sent me his check for ten dollars,— 
the first outside assistance that I received for my work, 
and it came at a time when I was nearly ready to give up. 
It may be that this one gift saved the situation. 

When I reached Boston I had three dollars left from 
my long trip. I used one dollar and a quarter of that 
to pay for a small room for a week,—for a room that 
was not heated, in which there was scant furniture, and 
I was not accustomed to the Northern climate. With the 
rest of the money I purchased a meal ticket; by this time 
I was absolutely without a cent. The next day I called 
on Mrs. Leavitt, told her my story, and she, becoming 
greatly interested, did what she could for me. 

She had just returned from a trip around the world, 
and she had thus had the opportunity to come in contact 
with various races of men. This trip had stimulated her 
interest in humanity as a whole, so she often said, and 


THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 113 


had inspired her with a keen desire to help the colored 
people of her own country. She accordingly entered en- 
thusiastically into my plans and sought to devise ways 
to help me. 

From that day until eight years later, when she passed 
away, she was my constant friend and helper. She had 
been a school-teacher in Boston for many years, and had 
in this way become acquainted with a great many people. 
Besides that, in her public work in the Women’s Chris- 
tian Temperance Union she had come into close touch 
with many of the best women of the country. 

The largest single donation that has ever come to the 
Institution came from the estate of the late Mr. F. B. 
Ginn, of the well’known publishing company of Boston 
of that name, in 1907. Mr. Ginn, in his boyhood days, 
had been a pupil of Mrs. Leavitt, and when she called on 
him for a contribution, or rather put me in touch with 
him, he promptly subscribed $500 toward the purchase 
of a large plantation, which we now own. A few months 
later, although he was in good health, he seemed to have 
a premonition of what was to come and wrote me a letter 
asking if I would rather take $300 then or wait and take 
$500 when I had raised the $25,000 for the purchase of 
the plantation. I promptly replied that I preferred to 
wait for the $500. Meantime, before I had raised the 
$25,000, Mr. Ginn had passed away, but in his will he 
did not forget what he considered his obligation to the 
work at Utica. 

This is one instance of the many that took place during 
that first week in which Mrs. Leavitt introduced me to 
some of her friends in Boston. 


Il4 THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 


The week was passing; my meal ticket had been 
punched until there were few meals left, and I had begun 
to fear that I should have to give up the room. I called 
on business man after business man in Boston, but was 
turned away, frequently with scant consideration. 

At length my earnest prayers were answered, and by 
the merest accident I called to see Mr. Edwin D. Mead, 
who seemed to me to be one of the really great men of 
New England. He listened attentively to my story and 
read Dr. Washington’s letter, one from the governor of 
Mississippi, another from the mayor and other friends 
at Utica, and still another from Mr. W. J. Edwards, with 
whom I had previously worked in Snow Hill, Alabama. 
After he had read these letters carefully and had ques- 
tioned me closely he invited me to lunch the next day at 
the Twentieth Century Club. 

I enjoyed that luncheon for several reasons,—one was 
that my meal ticket had been punched for the last time 
the night before. There J met a number of prominent 
men, among them Dr. Charles F. Dole, who has ever 
since shown a lively interest in the Utica School. I ad- 
dressed the Twentieth Century Club for five minutes and 
received many congratulations, and the next morning I 
received from Dr. Dole a contribution of seven dollars 
and fifty cents, which was sent with his cordial good 
wishes. Since that time Dr. Dole, Mr. Mead, and others 
whom I was fortunate enough to meet at the Club have 
been constant friends and supporters of my work. 

Meanwhile, the school was not prospering at home. 
There was such dissension among the local supporters 
that it seemed as if the project would be broken up in 


THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 115 


spite of all I could do. To check this, I decided to hurry 
back before there had been time to make the trip North 
worth while. 

Just when I had nowhere to turn for help I received 
a check for one hundred dollars from the John F. Slater 
Fund of New York. It was the first hundred dollars 
I had ever received, and it seemed a tremendously big 
sum. I hardly knew what to do with it. The workers 
for whom it was intended would not accept it, and I 
thought it too much money to put into one schoolhouse at 
one time, so I began to devise a number of wonderful 
things to accomplish with so large a sum. Stern facts, 
however, showed that it would not go very far toward 
the completion of the building, but it did go far enough 
to avert an impending disaster and to save the Institution 
to do its share in bringing about the results for which 
we are all working in the South. 

In spite of all difficulties the school was growing both 
in influence and reputation among the local white people. 
This is shown by the following editorial, which appeared 
in the Utica News, a paper edited by one of the leading 
young white men in the town: 

“There is in our community, just outside of the corpo- 
rate limits of the town, a movement which I feel we do 
not fully comprehend. It is an industrial school,— 
founded by William H. Holtzclaw and his wife, two 
Negroes from Booker T. Washington’s school, who seem 
destined to do work here among us for the good of all the 
people,—a school that is of more significance than we at 
the present time realize.” 


I frequently made use of the newspapers to put the in- 


116 THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN 


terests of the school before the people of both races in 
the community, and in all these communications I sought 
to make clear that the Utica Normal and Industrial In- 
stitute was a sincere effort to improve the condition of 
the masses of my own people in the community. I knew . 
that the best white people were perfectly sincere in the 
belief that many of them held that education was not a 
thing that did the Negro any good. I knew, also, that 
the best people in the community, if they were moved by 
no higher purpose than their own interests and the in- 
terests of the white race, would support any effort that 
they were convinced was really for the good of my race. 
For that reason, I took every means I could to advertise 
among the white as well as the colored people the prac- 
tical results of our work. I did this to convince the com- 
munity that education did actually make better and more 
efficient men and women of the Negroes; that a Negro 
was, or could be, a real asset to the community, that he 
could become an efficient, law-abiding citizen, preventing 
disorder and promoting peace between the races.