POLITENESS in Classic Quotes

1  I am often asked to express myself more freely than I do upon the political condition and the political future of my race.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter XIV.

2  I think that the according of the full exercise of political rights is going to be a matter of natural, slow growth, not an over-night, gourd-vine affair.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter XIV.

3  Many of the Southern whites have a feeling that, if the Negro is permitted to exercise his political rights now to any degree, the mistakes of the Reconstruction period will repeat themselves.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter V.

4  Besides, the general political agitation drew the attention of our people away from the more fundamental matters of perfecting themselves in the industries at their doors and in securing property.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter V.

5  Even then I had a strong feeling that what our people most needed was to get a foundation in education, industry, and property, and for this I felt that they could better afford to strive than for political preferment.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter VI.

6  It will see that it pays better, from every standpoint, to have healthy, vigorous life than to have that political stagnation which always results when one-half of the population has no share and no interest in the Government.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter XIV.

7  I recall that one man, who seemed to have been designated by the others to look after my political destiny, came to me on several occasions and said, with a good deal of earnestness: "We wants you to be sure to vote jes' like we votes."

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter VII.

8  My own belief is, although I have never before said so in so many words, that the time will come when the Negro in the South will be accorded all the political rights which his ability, character, and material possessions entitle him to.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter XIV.

9  The "Ku Klux" were bands of men who had joined themselves together for the purpose of regulating the conduct of the coloured people, especially with the object of preventing the members of the race from exercising any influence in politics.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter IV.

10  Their objects, in the main, were to crush out the political aspirations of the Negroes, but they did not confine themselves to this, because schoolhouses as well as churches were burned by them, and many innocent persons were made to suffer.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter IV.

11  The reputation that I made as a speaker during this campaign induced a number of persons to make an earnest effort to get me to enter political life, but I refused, still believing that I could find other service which would prove of more permanent value to my race.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter VI.

12  I think, though, that the opportunity to freely exercise such political rights will not come in any large degree through outside or artificial forcing, but will be accorded to the Negro by the Southern white people themselves, and that they will protect him in the exercise of those rights.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter XIV.

13  More and more I am convinced that the final solution of the political end of our race problem will be for each state that finds it necessary to change the law bearing upon the franchise to make the law apply with absolute honesty, and without opportunity for double dealing or evasion, to both races alike.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter V.

14  The temptations to enter political life were so alluring that I came very near yielding to them at one time, but I was kept from doing so by the feeling that I would be helping in a more substantial way by assisting in the laying of the foundation of the race through a generous education of the hand, head, and heart.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter V.

15  I tried to emphasize the fact that while the Negro should not be deprived by unfair means of the franchise, political agitation alone would not save him, and that back of the ballot he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character, and that no race without these elements could permanently succeed.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter XIII.

16  We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter XIV.

17  Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.

Up From Slavery: An Autobiography By Booker T. Washington
ContextHighlight   In Chapter XIV.