any
race claiming rights or privileges, or certain badges of distinction,
on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race,
regardless of their own individual worth or attainments. I have been
made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact
that mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not
permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth,
and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not
finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual
merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation
out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit,
no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and
rewarded. This I have said here, not to call attention to myself as an
individual, but to the race to which I am proud to belong.

Chapter III. The Struggle For An Education

One day, while at work in the coal-mine, I happened to overhear two
miners talking about a great school for coloured people somewhere in
Virginia. This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about
any kind of school or college that was more pretentious than the little
coloured school in our town.

In the darkness of the mine I noiselessly crept as close as I could to
the two men who were talking. I heard one tell the other that not
only was the school established for the members of any race, but the
opportunities that it provided by which poor but worthy students could
work out all or a part of the cost of a board, and at the same time be
taught some trade or industry.

As they went on describing the school, it seemed to me that it must
be the greatest place on earth, and not even Heaven presented more
attractions for me at that time than did the Hampton Normal and
Agricultural Institute in Virginia, about which these men were talking.
I resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where
it was, or how many miles away, or how I was going to reach it; I
remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and
that was to go to Hampton. This thought was with me day and night.

After hearing of the Hampton Institute, I continued to work for a few
months longer in the coal-mine. While at work there, I heard of a vacant
position in the household of General Lewis Ruffner, the owner of the
salt-furnace and coal-mine. Mrs. Viola Ruffner, the wife of G