Mr. Whitlow rents a gin, but will own one of his own this year. He also carries on a store. He has 20 tenants, who will raise over 100 bales of cotton this year together. He has raised over 30 himself. He has 20 mules, 3 horses, 30 head of cattle, and about 75 hogs. He does not owe a nickel. His taxes are $60 per year. He has a very good four-room house, besides a kitchen.
Mr. Whitlow has fourteen children, ten boys and four girls, who go to school on our place. He himself can not read or write, but he helps the school and church.
J. C. Calloway was born near us. He graduated from Tuskegee, and has continued to work near his old home. He married James Whitlow's daughter. He has a very good two-room frame house. Mr. Whitlow gave them 40 acres of land, and he is trying to buy an additional 100 acres. He raised 17 bales of cotton this year and 150 bushels of corn. He has 4 horses and mules and 7 head of cattle, besides hogs, chickens, etc. He is very highly thought of in his school work, and is successful as a farmer.
I believe we are doing well. Our community is rated high, and I shall never fail to praise Tuskegee for starting us in the way we are going.
The plantation on which I was born in 1875 is located near Pleasant Hill, Ga. At that time Pleasant Hill was twenty miles from any railroad, and I did not see a railroad train till I was twelve years of age.
I lived on a plantation on which more than two hundred men and women worked for the owner. The children had no especial educational opportunities. Few of them were even permitted to attend the makeshift public school located near. For six months only, of the twelve years my father lived on that plantation, did I attend any school, and that a small one taught by a Southern white woman who had owned my father. When I was twelve years of age my father moved from the plantation on which he had been working "on shares" and rented land which he and his family cultivated. Soon there were thirteen children in his family, of which number I was the second.
In December, 1892, I drove a wagon with two bales of cotton to a little Georgia town. While waiting for the wagon preceding me to move off the scales on which the cotton was weighed, I heard a colored man, who had heard of Tuskegee Institute, telling of its advantages, and he quite glowingly recounted the glories of the place as they had been related to him. As he proceeded he informed those gathered about him that at this school a boy could work his way if perchance he could reach the institution. I got nearer to him and heard and treasured every word he said. Especially did I remember his statement that he had been informed that some of the boys graduating from there had not paid a single cent in cash for their education, having worked it all out.