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An Open Letter / Booker T. Washington’s Autobiography Up from Slavery / Southern Weapon of Choice
May 7, 2020
Booker T. Washington’s Autobiography Up from Slavery / Southern Weapon of Choice
Dear Ms. Lunelle,
In my continuing efforts to highlight why the Southern African should be the weapon of choice for the Southern white populous, and not the scalawags of the North, or the domestic terrorists who always point to the economic institution of slavery as a means to beat up on the Southern white man as though they have some kind of virtuosity in those regards, I have chosen to use some of the excerpts from the Honorable Booker T. Washington’s autobiography …Up From Slavery.
When the two young masters were brought home wounded during the war, the sympathy of the slaves were shown in many ways. They were just as anxious to assist in the nursing of the family relatives of the wounded. Some of the slaves would even beg for the privilege of sitting up at night to nurse their wounded masters.
This tenderness and sympathy on the part of those held in bondage was a result of their kindly and generous nature. In order to defend and protect the women and children who were left on the plantations when the white males went to war, the slaves would have laid down their lives. The slave who was selected to sleep in the “big house” during the absence of the males was considered to have a place of honor.
Anyone attempting to harm “young mistress. Or old “mistress” during the night would have to cross the dead body of the slave to do so. I do not know how many have noticed it, but I think that there are few instances, either in slavery or freedom, in which a member of my race has been known to betray a specific trust.
As a rule, not only did the members of my race entertain no feelings of bitterness against the whites before and during the war, but there are many instances of Negroes tenderly caring for their former masters and mistresses who for some reason have become poor and dependent since the war. I know of instances where the former master of slaves has for years been supplied with money by their former slaves to keep them from suffering.
I have known of still other cases in which the former slaves have assisted in the education of the descendants of their former owners. I know of a case on a large plantation in the South of the former owner of the estate, has become so reduced in purse and self-control by reason of drink that he is a pitiable creature; and yet, notwithstanding the poverty of the coloured people themselves on this plantation, they have for years supplied this young white man with the necessities of life. One sends him a little coffee, or sugar, another a little meat, and so on.
Nothing that the coloured people possess is too good for the son of old “Mars Tom,” who will perhaps never be permitted to suffer while any remain on the place who knew directly or indirectly of “Old Mars Tom.”
For 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 want to return to slavery. God bless you!
Your brother,
HK
Chairman, Board of Advisors Emeritus, Southern Legal Resource Center
Member, Save Southern Heritage Florida
Confederate Legion, Judah P. Benjamin Camp #2210, Sons of Confederate Veterans
Honorary Associate Member, Abner Baker Chapter 14, United Daughters of the Confederacy
Honorary Life Member, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia Orders of the Confederate Rose
President, Southern Heritage 411
