Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 79
for equal accommodations for the same money."
Booker Washington was of course obliged to travel in the South almost
constantly and to a great extent at night. He nearly always travelled on a
Pullman car, and so when not an interstate passenger usually "violated" the law
of whatever State he happened to be passing through. The conductors,
brakemen, and other trainmen, as a rule, treated him with great respect and
consideration and oftentimes offered him a compartment in place of the berth
which he had purchased.
Pullman cars in the South are not as a rule open to members of the Negro race.
It is only under more or less unusual conditions that a black man is able to
secure Pullman accommodations. Dr. Washington, however, was generally
treated with marked consideration whenever he applied for Pullman car
reservations. He was sometimes criticised, not only by members of his own
race, but by the
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unthinking of the white race who accused him of thus seeking "social equality"
with the white passengers.
The work he was compelled to do, however, in constantly travelling from place
to place, and dictating letters while travelling, made it necessary that he
conserve his strength as much as possible. He never believed that he was
defying Southern traditions in seeking the comfort essential to his work.
Upon one occasion Dr. Washington went to Houston, Texas, and was invited by
the Secretary of the Cotton Exchange, in the name of the Exchange, to speak to
the members of the leading business organizations of Houston, upon the floor of
the Cotton Exchange Bank. He was introduced by the secretary, who desired to
give Dr. Washington the opportunity to put before representative Southern
white men the thoughts and ideas of a representative colored man as to how the
two races might live together in the South on terms of mutual helpfulness. Such
was the impression he made upon the whites that when Dr. Washington's
secretary applied for Pullman accommodations for him, returning East, they
were not only ungrudgingly but even eagerly granted. In those days it was
unheard of for a colored man to travel as a passenger in a Pullman car in Texas.
The injustices mentioned and all others connected with railway passenger
service for Negroes Booker Washington sought in characteristic fashion to
24.03.2006