Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 73
the Legislature and to the editors of the leading papers in opposition to this bill.
In an interview published in the Atlanta Constitution at the time he said:
"I cannot think that there is any large number of white people in the South who
are so ignorant or so poor that they cannot get education and property enough to
enable them to stand the test by the side of the Negro in these respects. I do not
believe that these white people want it continually advertised to the world that
some special law must be passed by which they will seem to be given an unfair
advantage over the Negro by reason of their ignorance or their poverty. It is
unfair to blame the Negro for not preparing himself for citizenship by acquiring
intelligence, and then when he does get education and property, to pass a law
that can be so operated as to prevent him from being a citizen, even though he
may be a large taxpayer. The Southern white people have reached the point
where they can afford to be just and generous; where there will be nothing to
hide and nothing to explain. It is an easy matter, requiring little thought,
generosity or statesmanship to push a weak man down when he is struggling to
get up. Any one can do that. Greatness, generosity, statesmanship are shown in
stimulating, encouraging every individual in the body politic to make of
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himself the most useful, intelligent, and patriotic citizen possible. Take from the
Negro all incentive to make himself and his children useful property-holding
citizens, and can any one blame him for becoming a beast capable of
committing any crime?"
This time the immediate object was attained. The Atlanta Constitution and other
leading Georgia papers indorsed Booker Washington's appeal and the
Legislature voted down its anti-Negro members. Be it said to the credit of the
Georgia Legislature that it has resisted several similar attempts to discriminate
against the Negro citizens of the State, and it was not till 1908, ten years after
the Louisiana law was passed, that Georgia finally passed a law disfranchising
Negro voters.
Booker Washington has been accused of not protesting against the lynching of
Negroes. In the article published in the Century Magazine in 1912, from which
we have previously quoted, he said on this subject: "When he was Governor of
Alabama, I heard Governor Jelks say in a public speech that he knew of five
cases during his administration of innocent colored people having been lynched.
If that many innocent people were known to the governor to have been lynched,
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