en by
the New York trustees of the Institute after his final collapse, that
he had but a few hours to live, he insisted upon starting for home at
once. His physicians expostulated and warned him that in his condition
he could not reasonably expect to survive the journey. He insisted
that he must go and be true to his oft-repeated assertion, "I was born
in the South, I have lived and labored in the South, and I expect to
die and be buried in the South." This remark, when sent out in the
Associated Press dispatches announcing his death, touched the South as
nothing else could have. No Negro was ever eulogized in the Southern
press as he was. Long accounts of his career and death with
sympathetic and appreciative editorial comments appeared in most of
the Southern papers.

One of the doctors who was called in to attend him at the time he was
taken to the hospital remarked that it was "uncanny to see a man up
and about who ought by all the laws of nature to be dead." In this
condition, then, he set out upon the long journey from New York to
Tuskegee. When the party reached the Pennsylvania Station an invalid's
chair was awaiting him, but he declined to use it, and leaning on the
arms of his companions walked or rather tottered to his seat in the
train. As soon as the train began to move Southward a slight
invigoration of triumph seemed to come over him which increased as the
journey continued, until at its close he seemed stronger than when he
started. All along the way he would inquire at frequent intervals what
point they had reached. The reaching and passing of each important
station such as Greensboro, Charlotte, and Atlanta he would seem to
score up in his mind's eye as a new triumph. And when finally he
reached Chehaw, the little station five miles from Tuskegee, he was
fairly trembling with eager expectancy. As we have said, he reached
Tuskegee apparently stronger than when he left New York and strong
enough to enjoy the final triumph of his indomitable will over his
overworked and weakened body. The next morning, November 14, 1915, he
was dead.

Of the myriads of tributes to Booker Washington by white men and black
both North and South, which were spoken from platforms and pulpits and
printed in newspapers and periodicals throughout the length and
breadth not only of America but the world, there are two which we feel
irresistibly compelled to use in concluding this chapter and book. One
is the tribute of a former