Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

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Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 26 24.03.2006 repudiated the whole arrangement, and started in as before to denounce Mr. Washington and those who thought and acted with him. After the Atlanta speech Mr. Washington's task was a dual one. While the active head of his great and rapidly growing institution, he was also the generally accepted leader of his race. It is with his leadership of his race that we are concerned in this chapter. His duties in this capacity were vast and ill defined, and his responsibility exceedingly heavy. He said, himself, that when he first came to be talked of as the leader of his race he was somewhat at a loss to know what was expected of him in that capacity. His tasks in this direction, however, were thrust upon him so thick and fast that he had not long to remain in this state of mind. After the Atlanta speech he was in almost daily contact with what was befalling his people in all parts of the country and to some extent all over the world. Through his press clipping service, supplemented by myriads of letters and personal reports, practically every event of any significance to his race came to his notice. When he heard of rioting, lynching, or serious trouble in any community he sent a message of advice, encouragement, or warning to the leading Negroes of the locality and sometimes to the whites whom he knew to be interested in the welfare of the Negroes. When the trouble was sufficiently serious to warrant it he went in person to the scene. When he heard of a Negro winning a prize at a county fair, or being placed in some position of unusual trust and distinction, he wrote him a letter of Page 26 congratulation and learned the circumstances so that he might cite the incident by way of encouragement to others. After the riots in Atlanta, Georgia, some years ago, when infuriated white mobs foiled in their efforts to lynch a Negro murderer, burned, killed, and laid waste right and left in the Negro section of the town, Mr. Washington, who was in the North at the time, boarded the first train for the city, arrived just after the bloody scenes, gathered together his frightened people amid the smoking ruins of their homes, soothed, calmed, and cheered them. He then went to the leading city officials, secured from them a promise of succor for the stricken people and protection against further attack. Next he went to the Governor of the State, secured his sympathy and coÖperation, and with him organized a conference of leading State and city officials and other representative men who there and then mapped out a program tending to prevent the recurrence of such race riots--a program which up to the present time has successfully fulfilled its purpose. It is
Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 27 characteristic of Mr. Washington's methods that he turned this disaster into an ultimate blessing for the very community that was afflicted. Mr. Washington was the kind of leader who kept very close to the plain people. He knew their every-day lives, their weaknesses, their temptations. To use a slang phrase, he knew exactly what they "were up against" whether they lived in country or city. Within a comparatively short period before his death he addressed two audiences as widely separated by distance and environment Page 27 as the farmers gathered together for the first Negro Fair of southwestern Georgia at Albany, Georgia, and five thousand Negro residents of New York City assembled in the Harlem Casino. He told those Georgia farmers how much land they owned and to what extent it was mortgaged, how much land they leased, how much cotton they raised, and how much of other crops they raised, or, rather, did not raise; how many mules and hogs they owned, and how they could with profit increase their ownership in mules and hogs; he told them how many drug stores, grocery stores, and banks in the State and county were owned by Negroes; and then, switching from the general to the particular, he described the daily life of the ordinary, easy-going tenant farmer of the locality. He pictured what he saw when he came out of his unpainted house in the morning: that gate off the hinges, that broken window-pane with an old coat stuck into it, that cotton planted right up to the doors with no room left for a garden, and no garden; and, worse than all, the uncomfortable knowledge of debts concealed from the hard-working wife and mother. Then he pictured what that same man's place might be and should become. It was once said of a certain eminent preacher that his logic was on fire. It might be said of Booker Washington that his statistics were on fire. He marshalled them in such a way that they were dynamic and stirring instead of static and paralyzing, as we all know them to our sorrow. It so happened that Mr. Washington had never before been in southwestern Georgia. After his speech one old farmer Page 28 was heard to say as he shook his head: "I don't understan' it! Booker T. Washington he ain't never ben here befo', yit he knows mo' 'bout dese parts an' mo' 'bout us den what eny of us knows ourselves." This old man did not know 24.03.2006
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