The plan itself is not a new one. It was worked out at Hampton
Institute, but it was done at Hampton by white men. The plan had,
in fact, been many times theoretically laid down by thoughtful
students of Southern life. Handicrafts were taught in the days of
slavery on most well-managed plantations. But Tuskegee is,
nevertheless, a brand-new chapter in the history of the Negro,
and in the history of the knottiest problem we have ever faced.
It not only makes "a carpenter of a man; it makes a man of a
carpenter." In one sense, therefore, it is of greater value than
any other institution for the training of men and women that we
have, from Cambridge to Palo Alto. It is almost the only one of
which it may be said that it points the way to a new epoch in a
large area of our national life.

To work out the plan on paper, or at a distance--that is one
thing. For a white man to work it out--that too, is an easy
thing. For a coloured man to work it out in the South, where, in
its constructive period, he was necessarily misunderstood by his
own people as well as by the whites, and where he had to adjust
it at every step to the strained race relations--that is so very
different and more difficult a thing that the man who did it put
the country under lasting obligations to him.

It was not and is not a mere educational task. Anybody could
teach boys trades and give them an elementary education. Such
tasks have been done since the beginning of civilization. But
this task had to be done with the rawest of raw material, done
within the civilization of the dominant race, and so done as not
to run across race lines and social lines that are the strongest
forces in the community. It had to be done for the benefit of the