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Picture courtesy of Cayuga Museum
(Click picture to enlarge)


Harriet Tubman
"The Conductor"
By Carl A. Pierce
(click picture to enlarge)

 
 

THE ADVERTISER—JOURNAL, FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 1914

 

MEMORIAL TO HARRIET TUBMAN TO BE UNVEILED;

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON TO DELIVER ADDRESS

 

Exercises in Honor of Heroine of Civil War Times to Be Held in Auditorium Tonight—Mayor Brister to Accept Tablet on Behalf of City—Doctor Washington to Arrive This Afternoon.

 _________________________

     Booker T. Washington, who will deliver an address at the unveiling of the Harriet Tubman Davis memorial in this Auditorium this evening, will arrive in this city at 5:25 o’clock this afternoon. He so wired C.G. Adams, secretary of the Business Men’s Association last evening, from Chicago. Doctor Washington will come here directly from the latter place and as he will have to make close connections to catch the afternoon train at Rochester, Mr. Adams asked the Central officials to hold the train on the Auburn branch for him in case he met with delay. This will be done, Mr. Adams was promised.

     Doctor Washington will be met by a committee and taken at once to The Birches, where he will be the guest of Mr. and Mrs. E. Clarence Aiken, during his stay in the city. They will give a luncheon in his honor Saturday at 1 o’clock.

     Saturday afternoon at 3 o’clock the distinguished visitor will attend a reception given by the colored people of the city at the First M.E. Church in his honor. At this reception Mary B. Talbert, the president of the Colored Women’s Federation of the Empire State, also will be a guest of honor.  Saturday night Doctor Washington will speak in Skaneateles.  Sunday morning at the prison he will probably speak from the steps at the west end of the main hall. The scarlet fever quarantine making it impossible to speak in the prison. It will be an open air meeting. T.M. Osborne will take care of Doctor Washington while he is at the prison, it is announced. The visitor will speak later at Zion Church. Sunday night he will address a meeting at Geneva.

Program of Exercises. 

     The memorial exercises tonight will be notable in character. The address of Doctor Washington will be but one of the features. There are many distinguished visitors in the city for the occasion and the colored people of the country and their friends are cognizant of the event which is to honor the name and perpetuate the memory of the noble woman who did so much for the men and women of her race when they needed a helping hand. Harriet Tubman’s activities to better the conditions of the freed slaves following the war and her tireless efforts during the war to guide refugees from the South to safety are well known. A notable audience is expected to witness the memorial exercises this evening.  E. Clarence Aiken will preside and Mayor Brister will accept the tablet on behalf of the city.

     The Festival Chorus will sing and a number of other attractive features are on the program. A beautiful twelve page souvenir booklet will be presented to each person who contributes the price of admission, 25 cents.  The receipts will go toward the balance required to pay the expenses connected with the unveiling of the memorial.

     “Many have contributed to the fund and a good many more have not,” said the secretary of the Business Men’s Association. “All should go tonight and encourage the committee that has worked so hard to bring the project to so satisfactory a termination.  Auburn is getting the public spirit, but we need more of it. Other memorials of a similar character should follow this one and they will if the citizens of Auburn will give these efforts the encouragement they are worthy of.”

     The chorus held its rehearsal last evening with the orchestra and some fine music can be expected tonight. This will be the last appearance this season of the Festival Chorus.

     The theater boxes are all taken for this evening except the top tiers which will probably be disposed of before evening. The Boy Scouts will have seats reserved for them in the gallery, and the colored organizations, St. Peters’s Lodge, No. 3,970, G. U. O. of O. F. and the Rizpah Household of Ruth, will attend in a body and a section of the Auditorium has been reserved for their use.  Except for these reservations the seats are unreserved. 

Doctor Washington to Be Principal Speaker. 

     Dr. Booker T. Washington who delivered the oration at the Tubman Memorial exercises this evening at the Auditorium is equally as noted as a writer as a gifted orator. Some of the books from his pen are “Up from Slavery,” “Sowing and Reaping.”  “Future of American Negro,”  “Character Building” and other books.  In his autobiography he says:

     “The first knowledge that I got of the fact that we were slaves and that freedom of slaves was being discussed, was early one morning before daylight, when I was awakened by my mother kneeling over her children and fervently praying that Lincoln and his armies might be successful and that one day she and her children might go free. I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early boyhood when our family sat down to the table together, and God’s blessing was asked and the family ate a meal in a civilized manner. The first pair of shoes I recall wearing were wooden ones.

     “In the part of Virginia where I lived it was common to use flax as a part of the clothing for slaves. A flax shirt is almost equal to the feeling that one would experience if he had a dozen or more chestnut burs in contact with his flesh. Even to this day I recall the torture I underwent when putting on one of these garments, and until I had grown to be quite a youth, this single garment was all that I wore. My brother John would sometimes generously put it on when I had a new one and wear it for a few days until it was ‘broken in.’ I had a feeling when a boy that to get into a schoolhouse and study would be about the same as getting into paradise.  

Ambition of Doctor Washington 

     “Years ago I resolved that because I had no ancestry myself I would leave a record of which my children would be proud and which might encourage them to still higher effort.  I have learned that success is not to be measured so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.  How often I have wanted to say to white students that they lift themselves up in proportion as they help to lift others. I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others.  No man whose vision is bounded by color can come into contact with what is highest and best in the world.”   more »

 

 
 
 
 
 
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