Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 30
to the station, I's gotta get the 4:32 train!" To which the white hack driver
replied: "I ain't never drove a nigger in my hack yit an' I ain't goin' ter begin
now. You can git a nigger driver ter take ye down!"
To this the old colored man replied with perfect good nature: "All right, my
frien', we won't have no misunderstanding or trouble; I'll tell you how we'll
settle it: you jest hop in on der back seat an' do der ridin' and I'll set in front an'
do der drivin'." In this way they reached the station amicably and the old man
caught his train. Like this old Negro, Mr. Washington always devoted his
energies to catching the train, and it made little difference to him whether he sat
on the front or the back seat.
A few months later, to the five thousand people of his own race in the Harlem
Casino in New York City, he described their daily lives, their problems,
perplexities, and temptations in terms as homely, as picturesque, and as vivid as
he used in talking to the Georgia farmers. He urged them, just as he did the
farmers, to stop moving about and to settle down--"to stop staying here and
there and everywhere and begin to live somewhere." He urged them to leave the
little mechanical job of window washing, or what not, and go into business for
themselves, even if they could only afford a few newspapers or peanuts to start
with. He told of a certain New York street where he had
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found all the people on one side of a row of push carts were selling something,
while all the people on the other side were buying something. Those that were
selling were white people, while those that were buying were colored people.
That, he said, was a color line they had drawn themselves. He reminded them of
the high cost of living, and by way of example he commented upon the expense
of having to buy so many shoes. He said: "Up here you not only have to have
good, expensive shoes, but you have to wear them all the time." And then he
reminded them how back in the country down South, before they came to the
city, they would buy a pair of shoes at Christmas and after Christmas put them
away in the "chist" and not take them out again until "big meeting day," and
then wear them only in the meeting and not walking to and from the church.
And as he concluded with the words, "Under those conditions shoes last a long
time," people all over the audience were chuckling and nudging and winking at
one another as people will when characteristic incidents in their past lives are
graphically recalled to them.
24.03.2006