General Armstrong referred to the fact
that he had received a letter from some gentlemen in Alabama asking him
to recommend some one to take charge of what was to be a normal school
for the coloured people in the little town of Tuskegee in that state.
These gentlemen seemed to take it for granted that no coloured man
suitable for the position could be secured, and they were expecting the
General to recommend a white man for the place. The next day General
Armstrong sent for me to come to his office, and, much to my surprise,
asked me if I thought I could fill the position in Alabama. I told him
that I would be willing to try. Accordingly, he wrote to the people
who had applied to him for the information, that he did not know of any
white man to suggest, but if they would be willing to take a coloured
man, he had one whom he could recommend. In this letter he gave them my
name.

Several days passed before anything more was heard about the matter.
Some time afterward, one Sunday evening during the chapel exercises, a
messenger came in and handed the general a telegram. At the end of the
exercises he read the telegram to the school. In substance, these were
its words: "Booker T. Washington will suit us. Send him at once."

There was a great deal of joy expressed among the students and teachers,
and I received very hearty congratulations. I began to get ready at once
to go to Tuskegee. I went by way of my old home in West Virginia, where
I remained for several days, after which I proceeded to Tuskegee. I
found Tuskegee to be a town of about two thousand inhabitants, nearly
one-half of whom were coloured. It was in what was known as the Black
Belt of the South. In the county in which Tuskegee is situated the
coloured people outnumbered the whites by about three to one. In some of
the adjoining and near-by counties the proportion was not far from six
coloured persons to one white.

I have often been asked to define the term "Black Belt." So far as I can
learn, the term was first used to designate a part of the country which
was distinguished by the colour of the soil. The part of the country
possessing this thick, dark, and naturally rich soil was, of course,
the part of the South where the slaves were most profitable, and
consequently they were taken there in the largest numbers. Later,
and especially since the war, the term seems to be used wholly in a
political sense--that is, to designate the counties where the black
p