Page 9 - Discover WINTER 2022
P. 9
The Third Path
to
GREATNESS
By Tim Ernandes
It is said that some are born to greatness, while After spending his childhood days working at the
others have greatness thrust upon them. One of the plantation, in the salt furnaces of West Virginia, and
greatest men ever to call himself an American fits in the coal mines, he managed to scrape together
neither description. It is ridiculous to assert that one enough money (or so he thought) to travel to
born into slavery is likewise born to greatness; and it Hampton, Virginia. There he planned to study at the
isn’t as though Booker T. Washington found himself Hampton Institute, a school whose mission it was to
in the right place at the right time. He literally created train black teachers. He was attracted there in part due
a pathway of his own to greatness. to the school’s policy of allowing students of little or
no means to work their way through school.
Booker Talafierro, who later adopted the surname
“Washington”, was born a slave on the James Unfortunately, Washington underestimated the
Burroughs plantation in what was then known as cost of the journey, and found himself in dire financial
Hales Ford, in Franklin County, on or about the 5th of straits by the time he reached Richmond. Fiercely
April in 1856. Like so many others, he had hopes and determined to complete his journey, he worked by day
dreams of a life free of the shackles of servitude, but unloading cargo at the docks, and slept by night under
like very few others, he harnessed a belief in himself a wooden sidewalk rather than spend any of his wages
and an enduring faith in God, achieving a degree of on lodging. Eventually, he succeeded in reaching the
success that was well beyond anything that he dared school, arriving once again without a penny to his
imagine. name.
Although born a slave, he was reportedly the son The school’s headmistress was a little skeptical of
of a nearby white plantation owner, whose identity this ragtag youth who presented himself at her office,
remains a mystery. Since his mother was black and a asking not only to be admitted as a student but for a
slave, that pedigree defined him also in those terms. job as well. She told him that she could take him on as
His good fortune, if he had any, was that he was still a janitor, if he could prove his worth with a simple test.
a child when the civil war ended and he was granted She asked him to sweep and dust in a nearby room. So
his freedom. What followed was one of the most determined was he to make a good impression that he
remarkable stories of courage, perseverance, and swept the floor three times, and likewise dusted until
personal strength in the history of this country. every corner of the room was dirt free, and all surfaces
were spotless. When he announced that he was
Perhaps his greatest strength was his boundless
finished, the headmistress literally applied the white
determination to succeed. From an early age, he
glove test, and was astonished that she could not find
displayed an intense desire to get an education. What
a trace of dust or dirt anywhere in the room. Needless
separated him from most of his peers was that he
to say, Washington was both hired and admitted on
recognized both the value and the dignity of hard
the spot.
work. This was applied not only to his studies, but by
necessity, to the other aspects of his life. Thus began a lifelong pursuit of education and
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