Mr. Hosmer was impressed with my academic record and placed me in a college prep program. He was one of those white men who believed that promising Black youngsters should be prepared so that they would be able to offer leadership to the Black masses.^*

He therefore, took it on himself to guide my schooling without showing condescension or favoritism.

The expense of going to high school presented economic hardships for us. My mother's meager wages and the jobs I worked after school and on Saturdays helped them some. But my mother could not afford the books for the courses that Mr. Hosmer had recommended for me to take.

He therefore went out and arranged for them to be paid for by the wife of the owner of the town's mill. Their son was a frail and not very bright, and attended the private high school. We became friends and I helped him would with his lessons.

^*Later that seed of an idea would flower into his "Talented Tenth" concept.