The race cannot succeed, nor build strong citizens, until we have a race of women competent to do more than bear a brood of negative men.

We must learn to lean upon ourselves; we must learn to plan and execute business enterprises of our own; we must learn to venture our pennies if we would gain dollars.

I do not inveigh against higher education, I simply maintain that the sort of education the colored people of the South stand most in need of, is elementary and industrial. They should be instructed for the work to be done.

Men may be spoiled by education, even as they are spoiled by illiteracy. Education is the preparation of the mind for future work, hence men should be educated with special reference to the work.

Mental inertia is death.

The race cannot succeed, nor build strong citizens, until we have a race of women competent to do more than bear a brood of negative men.

Our history in this country dates from the moment that restless men among us became restless under oppression and rose against it . . . Agitation, contentions, ceaseless unrest, constant aspiring -- a race so moved must prevail.