Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

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Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 232 Page 318 organizing leader of a race in ideas and industry. These were notable achievements; but there was another achievement which was in its way more notable. Without any advantages of birth or station or training, a member of an ostracized race, with the doors of social life closed in his face, Dr. Washington was a gentleman. I recall two illustrations of this quality of nature, often lacking in men of great ability and usefulness. The first was in Stafford House, London, the residence of the Duke of Sutherland. The older Duke was the lifelong friend of Queen Victoria; and once, when she was going to Stafford House, she wrote the Duke that she was about to leave her uninteresting house for his beautiful palace. Nothing could be more stately than the great hall of Stafford House, with its two marble stairways ascending to the galleries above; and when the Duchess of Sutherland, standing on the dais from which the stairs ascended, received her guests she reminded more than one of her guests of the splendid picture drawn by Edmund Burke of Marie Antoinette moving like a star through the palace of Versailles. On that evening Dr. Washington was present. At one time in one of the rooms he happened to be talking with the duchess and two other women of high rank, two of them women of great beauty and stateliness. There were some people present who were evidently very much impressed by their surroundings. Booker Washington seemed to be absolutely unconscious of the splendor of the house in which he was, or of the society in which for the moment he found himself. Born in a hut without a door-sill, he Page 319 was at ease in the most stately and beautiful private palace in London. "On another occasion there was to be a Tuskegee meeting at Bar Harbor. The Casino had been beautifully decorated for a dance the night before. The harbor was full of yachts, the tennis courts of fine-looking young men and women; it was a picture of luxury tempered with intelligence. Mr. Washington was looking out of the window. Presently he turned to me and said, with a smile, 'And last Wednesday morning I was eating breakfast in a shanty in Alabama; there were five of us and we had one spoon!'" At the time of his stay in London, during which this reception at Stafford House took place, he was given a luncheon by a group of distinguished men to which Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister, was invited. In reply, Mr. Asquith sent this note: 24.03.2006
Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 233 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, S. W. 26th September, 1910. DEAR SIR: I much regret that my engagements do not allow me to accept your invitation to be present at the luncheon which it is proposed to give in honor of Mr. Booker T. Washington. I feel sure, however, that he will be welcomed with a cordiality which his persistent and successful labors in the cause of the education of the American Negro deserve, especially at the hands of English men, whose difficulties in many parts of the Empire have been helped toward a solution by the results of his work. Yours faithfully, Page 320 [Signed] H. H. ASQUITH. While at home, no matter how pressed and driven with work, Booker Washington snatched an hour or so every day for hunting or riding. This daily exercise became a fetich with him which he clung to with unreasonable obstinacy. He would frequently set off upon these hunts or rides in so exhausted a condition that obviously their only effect could be worse exhaustion. His intense admiration for Theodore Roosevelt probably had its influence, conscious or unconscious, in strengthening his devotion to violent outdoor exercise. Whatever he was doing or wherever he was, his mind seemed constantly at work along constructive lines. At the most unexpected times and places he would suddenly call the inevitable stenographer and dictate some idea for an article or address or some plan for the improvement of Tuskegee or for the betterment of the whole race in this or that particular. He would sometimes reduce his immediate subordinates to the verge of despair by pouring out upon them in rapid succession constructive suggestions each one of which meant hours, days, and even weeks of time to work out, and then calling for the results of all before even one could be fairly put into effect. This tendency became particularly marked in his closing years when the consciousness of an immense amount of work to be done and a short and constantly lessening period in which to do it must have become an obsession and almost a nightmare to him. He would sometimes wound the feelings of acquaintances and friends, particularly his teachers, by passing 24.03.2006
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Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

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