Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History
Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History
Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History
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<strong>Booker</strong> T. <strong>Washington</strong>, <strong>Builder</strong> of a Civilization. 111<br />
when Mr. <strong>Washington</strong> was at the school without his having some kind of<br />
powwow with Old Man Diggs regarding some matter affecting the interests of<br />
the school.<br />
To the despair of his family <strong>Booker</strong> <strong>Washington</strong> seemed to go out of his way to<br />
find forlorn old people whom he could befriend. He sent provisions weekly to<br />
an humble old black couple from whom he had bought a tract of land for the<br />
school. He did the same for old Aunt Harriet and her deaf, dumb, and lame son,<br />
except that to them he provided fuel as well. On any particularly cold day he<br />
would send one or more students over to Aunt Harriet's to find out if she and her<br />
poor helpless son were comfortable. Also every Sunday afternoon, to the joy of<br />
this pathetic couple, a particularly appetizing Sunday dinner unfailingly made<br />
its appearance. And these were only a few of the pensioners and semipensioners<br />
whom <strong>Booker</strong> <strong>Washington</strong> accumulated as he went about his kindly<br />
way.<br />
One means of keeping in touch with the masses of his people which he never<br />
neglected was through attending the annual National Negro Baptist<br />
Conventions. At these great gatherings he came in touch with the religious<br />
leaders of two million Negroes. Notwithstanding the fact that he practically<br />
collapsed at the annual meeting of the National Negro Business League held in<br />
Boston in August, 1915, and had to be nursed for some weeks<br />
Page 148<br />
following before he was even strong enough to return to Tuskegee, he insisted<br />
in spite of the admonitions of physicians and the pleadings of friends, family,<br />
and colleagues, in keeping his engagement to speak before this great convention<br />
in Chicago in September. To all protests he replied, "It would do me more harm<br />
to stay away than to go." With these words, and rallying the rapidly waning<br />
dregs of his once great strength he went and made an address which ranks with<br />
the most powerful he ever delivered to his people. A threatened split in the<br />
Baptist denomination in part accounted for his insistence upon attending this<br />
convention. In this address, delivered only two months before he died of sheer<br />
exhaustion, and the last he made before any great body of his own people, he<br />
said in part:<br />
"My only excuse for accepting your invitation to appear before you in these<br />
annual gatherings is that I am deeply interested in all that this National Baptist<br />
Convention stands for. It is in my opinion the largest and most representative<br />
24.03.2006