Description
Plucky Young Negro - Professor A. E. Robinson, Who Has Surmounted Many Difficulties, a Successful Teacher - - Professor A. E. Robinson, who has charge of the Banneker colored school at Parkville that closed a very successful term on last Friday, was born and raised in Kansas City.
He was a newsboy, selling papers for his living, when he first became ambitious and desired an education. He went to the public schools, but about the time when the world seemed to be growing brighter a Ninth street cable car ran over him on the incline near the Union Depot and cut off one of his legs.
This did not stop him, however, and after finishing the public school he entered the Northwestern University, at Evanston, Illinois, and was graduated from that institution. He has been teaching at Parkville for several years past. - Kansas City Journal.
As many on the strength of the article above have repeatedly claimed that I represented myself to be a graduate from Northwestern University, please allow me space to make a statement of the facts.
While the article displays very remarkable generosity on the part of the donor, the recipient regrets that particular statement referring to him being a graduate.
While it was my good fortune to attend Northwestern for 3 years, pursuing a classical course of studies, I was not so fortunate as to graduate nor have I ever claimed such honors.
I know too little, feel too little, am too well known, have too much power of discernment and finally am too much of a gentleman to claim that which I have not honorably attained.
Omitting the graduation reference the article is a simple recognition of my honest, earnest struggle against a beggarly, physical condition by obtaining mental strength. When a bouquet is thrown, all the flowers it contains may not be acceptable to the recipient, but nevertheless, one bouquet given during life is better than a million on the donee's grave. Truth crushed, rises; impostors fall before it; yet truth stands forever, though the heavens cave in. A. E. Robinson.Date(s) of Creation
7/13/1899
