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. 156<br />
24.03.2006<br />
any friction or trouble, I can grab my grip-sack, jump into a powerful machine,<br />
and come up here around Philadelphia, 'The City of Brotherly Love' or over<br />
here in Canada, and I can sit down at my leisure and read in the papers what<br />
they are doing down there. (Prolonged laughter.)<br />
"Dr. <strong>Washington</strong> has been in my home in Jacksonville; I have now had the<br />
honor of not only shaking hands with him, but of having him as my special<br />
guest. I know I am going to make one break here now, I'm going to say<br />
something that my little modest wife may not like me to say, but I hope she will<br />
excuse just this one time (laughter)--for everybody knows that' I ain't very bright<br />
anyhow--not really responsible. (Prolonged laughter.) I want to say this, not in a<br />
boasting way--I live in the best home of any Negro in this country I have so far<br />
seen. (Hearty applause.) I live in a home--we call it 'Blodgett Villa'; we have<br />
flowers and lawns and vines and shrubbery, a nice greenhouse and all those<br />
things that go to make up for higher civilization. I surrounded myself with all<br />
these things to show that the Negro has the same taste,<br />
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the same yearning for higher civilization that the white man has whenever he<br />
has the money to afford it. (Applause.) You know they have been saying all<br />
these years that the Negro is coarse and vicious, that he is kin to the monkey--<br />
(laughter)--and that we do not appreciate those things that make for higher<br />
civilization such as flowers, hothouses, neatly kept houses and lawns,<br />
automobiles, and such things, so I went and got them. (Applause.) When you<br />
step inside of Mrs. Blodgett's home there you will find art and music and<br />
literature, and if you can find anything in there that does not tend toward the<br />
higher civilization, you have my promise and consent to throw it outdoors.<br />
(Laughter and applause.) . . .<br />
"I remember when I was a drayman on the streets of Jacksonville; I was a great<br />
big man, even heavier than I am now: I wore a pair of magnificent feet<br />
appropriate to my size, and when I drove along everybody whistled and called<br />
me 'Old Big One.' Since that time I have graduated from a drayman to what the<br />
program calls me: a '<strong>Builder</strong> and Contractor,' and when they see me now riding<br />
through the streets of Jacksonville in my $5,500 Packard automobile, if one of<br />
those Negroes should call me 'Old Big One,' I would put him in jail. (Laughter<br />
and applause.) I am interested in business with white men, and I tell you when a<br />
Negro gets to the point where he makes cash deposits in a white man's bank--<br />
say $5,000 this week, $2,000 next week, and so on, they will begin to discover