During my last year at Tuskegee I was made a substitute salaried teacher in the night-school. My financial burdens were now lifted and my school life became one great pleasure. Toward the end of my Senior year I decided to try for the Trinity Prize of $25 for the best original oration. I remembered what Mr. Washington had so often said: that a man usually gets out of a thing what he puts into it. I determined to put $100 worth of effort into this contest. I was awarded the prize.
A place was offered to me at Tuskegee as academic teacher, but I declined it. I had settled in my mind that I would go to the State of Mississippi, which I had found by two years of investigation was the place where my services were most needed. I could not go to Mississippi at once. I had not money to pay my way, so I accepted a position with my friend, William J. Edwards, at his school in Snow Hill, Ala., where I worked for four years, never losing sight of my Mississippi object. While at Snow Hill I married Miss Mary Ella Patterson, a Tuskegee graduate of the Class of '95. We put our earnings together and built us a comfortable little home. One child, William Sidney, was born to us, but lived only six months.
It took me just two years to convince my wife that there was any wisdom or judgment in leaving our little home and going to Mississippi, where neither of us was known. But finally she gave herself, soul and body, to my way of thinking.
The way was now clear for me to make the start. Just before I left for Mississippi, one of my old teachers from Tuskegee visited me. He inquired about my going to Mississippi, and when I explained the scheme to him, he said jestingly, "You know there is no God in Mississippi." I simply replied that then I would take "the one that Alabama had" with me.
I could not take my wife, for she was under the care of a physician at that time. I decided to leave nearly all my ready cash with her. I did not take quite enough for my railroad fare, for I had expected to sell my wife's bicycle when I reached Selma, the nearest town, and thus secure enough money to finish my trip. But when I got to Selma the wheel would not sell, so I boarded the train without money enough to reach Utica, the place in Mississippi to which I was bound.