Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 84
particular Southern prejudice and the laws predicated upon it he was hence
forced to violate, but he did so as a physical necessity to the accomplishment of
his work and not in any sense as a defiance of custom or law. While in the
South he observed Southern customs and bowed to Southern prejudices, but he
declined to be bound by such customs, laws, and prejudices when in other parts
of this country or the world. Except in the South he allowed himself whatever
degree of social intercourse with the whites seemed best calculated to
accomplish his immediate object and his ultimate aims. He never accepted
purely social invitations from white persons. He always claimed that he could
best
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satisfy his social desires among his own people. He believed that the question of
so-called "social equality" between the races was too academic and meaningless
to be worthy of serious discussion.
Probably he never made a more well-considered or illuminating statement of his
personal attitude toward social intercourse with the dominant race than in a
letter to the late Edgar Gardiner Murphy, a Southerner "of light and leading,"
author of "The Present South," "The Basis of Ascendancy," and other notable
books on the relations between the races. Mr. Murphy, as a Southerner, became
alarmed at the attacks upon Booker Washington by certain Southern newspapers
and public men because of his appearance at so-called social functions in the
North. Mr. Murphy, rightly regarding the retention of the favorable opinion of
representative Southern whites as essential to the success of Washington's work,
very naturally feared any course of action which seemed to threaten the
continuance of that favorable opinion. In response to a letter in which Mr.
Murphy expressed these fears and asked for an opportunity to discuss the
situation with him Mr. Washington replied as follows:
Personal]
MY DEAR SIR: I have received your kind letter, for which I thank you very
much. I was very much disappointed that I did not have an opportunity of
meeting you, as I had planned the other day, so as not to be so hurried in talking
with you as I usually am. I shall be very glad, however, the very first time I can
find another spare hour
24.03.2006