Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 82
human beings, Negroes among the rest, to receive their deserts as individuals
regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, or any other consideration which
has nothing to do with the individual's merits. One of his favorite figures was
that "one cannot hold another in a ditch without himself staying in the ditch."
There is not a single right
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for which he contended for his people which if won would not directly or
indirectly benefit all other people. Were they in all the States admitted to the
franchise on equal terms with white citizens what Mr. Washington termed the
"encouragement of vice and ignorance among white citizens" would cease.
Were the lynching of Negroes stopped the lynching of white men would also
cease. Both the innocent black man and the innocent white man would feel a
greater sense of security while the guilty black man as well as the guilty white
man would be less secure. Were the Negroes given their full share of public
education the whites would gain not only more reliable and intelligent Negro
labor, but would be largely freed so far as Negroes are concerned from the
menace of the crimes of violence which are committed almost exclusively by
ignorant persons. Finally, were Negro travellers given equal accommodations
and treatment for equal rates on all the Southern railways the volume of Negro
travel would more rapidly increase, thus increasing the prosperity of the
railways and their shareholders which would in turn promote the prosperity of
the entire South.
True to his policy of always placing the emphasis upon those things which are
encouraging instead of upon those things which are discouraging, Mr.
Washington concluded the already much-quoted article, "Is the Negro Having a
Fair Chance?with these observations: "Notwithstanding all the defects in our
system of dealing with him, the Negro in this country owns more property, lives
in better houses,
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is in a larger measure encouraged in business, wears better clothes, eats better
food, has more schoolhouses and churches, and more teachers and ministers,
than any similar group of Negroes anywhere in the world."
24.03.2006