The president arrived a little late and found an official envelope on his desk.  He hurriedly broke the seal and began to read.  His color came and went.  The teachers looked at him wonderingly.  The president laid the document aside and began the devotional exercises.  He was nervous throughout, and made several blunders.  He held his hymn book upside down while they were singing, much to the amusement of the school.  It took him some time to find the passage of scripture which he desired to read, and after reading forgot for some seconds to call on some one to pray.

When the exercises were through he arose and took the document nervously in hand.  He said; “I have in my hands a paper from the students of this institution concerning a matter with which they have nothing to do.  This is my answer.  The classes will please retire.”  Here he gave three strokes to the gong, the signal for dispersion.  But not a student moved.  The president was amazed.  He could not believe his own eyes.  He rang the gong a second time and yet no one moved.  He then in nervous tones repeated his former assertions and then pulled the gong nervously many times in succession.  All remained still.  At a signal from Belton, all the students lifted their right hands, each bearing a small white board on which was printed in clear type:  “Equality or Death.”

The president fell back, aghast, and the white teachers were all struck dumb with fear.  They had not dreamed that a combination of their pupils was possible, and they knew not what it foreboded.  A number grasped the paper that was giving so much trouble and read it.  They all then held a hurried consultation and assured the students that the matter should receive due attention.

The president then rang the gong again but the students yet remained.  Belton then arose and stated that it was the determination of the students to not move an inch unless the matter was adjusted then and there.  And that faculty of white teachers beat a hasty retreat and held up the white flag!  They agreed that the colored teacher should eat with them.

The students broke forth into cheering, and flaunted a black flag on which was painted in white letters; “Victory.”  They rose and marched out of doors two by two, singing “John Brown’s Body lies mouldering in the grave, and we go marching on.”

The confused and bewildered teachers remained behind, busy with their thoughts.  They felt like hens who had lost their broods.  The cringing, fawning, sniffling, cowardly Negro which slavery left, had disappeared, and a new Negro, self-respecting, fearless, and determined in the assertion of his rights was at hand.

Ye who chronicle history and mark epochs in the career of races and nations must put here a towering, gigantic, century stone, as marking the passing of one and the ushering in of another great era in the history of the colored people of the United States.  Rebellions, for one cause or another, broke out in almost every one of these schools presided over by white faculties, and as a rule, the Negro students triumphed.