3. How does the Washington communicate the importance of this event to readers?
Read the passage by Booker T. Washington below. Then, answer the questions that follow. One day, while at work in the coal mine, I overhear two miners talking about a great school for colored people somewhere in Virginia. This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college. . . . I resolved at once to go to that school . . . the Hampton Institute. In the fall of 1872 I determined to make an effort to get there. . . . I had been traveling over the mountains most of the afternoon in an old-fashioned stage-coach, when, late in the evening the coach stopped for the night at a common, unpainted house called a hotel. . . . After all the other passengers had been shown rooms . . . I shyly presented myself before the man at the desk . . . the man at the desk firmly refused to even consider the matter of providing me with food or lodging. This was my first experience in finding out what the color of my skin meant.