Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 146
successful by the tribute of public recognition and spurring on the less
successful and the unsuccessful to go and do likewise. Also by means of men
and women telling their fellows in open meeting how they achieved their
success the race is, as it were, revealed to itself. It was, for instance, through a
meeting of the National Negro Business League that it came to light that the
man who raises the most potatoes in the United States, and who is commonly
known as the Potato King of the West, is a Negro--J. G. Groves of
Edwardsville, Kan. Groves' story at one of the annual meetings attracted so
much attention that an account of his life later appeared in an illustrated special
article in the American Magazine. It was also discovered through a league
meeting that Scott Bond, another colored man, was probably the most
successful farmer in the State of Arkansas. After he had told his story at the
meeting
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of the National League held in New York in 1910 he was pursued by
cameramen and interviewers for days and weeks and his story was spread all
over the United States. At the Chicago meeting of 1912 Watt Terry, a modest
and even shrinking colored man of Brockton, Mass., unfolded a remarkable
story of success in spite of the hardest and must untoward circumstances. So
unbelievable seemed this man's story that the Executive Committee took up
with him personally the facts of his recital, and later the Secretary of the
League, in response to a demand, had to vouch for his statements in open
meeting. To clinch the matter still further Mr. Washington wrote to the
Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association in Brockton, who replied
that Terry's story had, if anything, been understated rather than overstated.
Booker Washington himself told Watt Terry's story in the pages of the
Independent for March 27, 1913. Here it is: ". . . Mr. Terry is a modestappearing
young man about thirty years of age. When he landed at Brockton
some twelve years ago he had, according to his own story, a capital of just
twelve cents. He found work at first as a coachman. After a time he obtained
what he thought was a better position as janitor in the Young Men's Christian
Association Building. Some of the members of the association succeeded in
getting him a position as a railway porter.
"'Somehow or other,' said Terry, 'I did not care for that sort of work, and after a
few months gave it up. I made up my mind that I would rather work at a trade,
and
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