Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

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Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 88 The banquet was held on the third of the month, and when I reached Cambridge I found that in addition to the members of the colored club, the Mayor of the city and a number of Harvard professors, including President Eliot, had been invited; and I could go on and state case after case. Of course, if I wanted to make a martyr of myself and draw especial attention to me and to the institution, I could easily do so by simply writing whenever I receive an invitation to a dinner or banquet that I could not accept on account of the color of my skin. Six years ago at the Peace Jubilee in Chicago, where I spoke at a meeting at which President McKinley was present, I took both luncheon and dinner in the same dining-room with President McKinley and was the guest of the same club that he was a guest of. There were Southern men present, and the fact that I was present and spoke was widely heralded throughout the South, and so far as I know not a word of adverse comment was made. For nearly fifteen years the addresses which I have been constantly making at dinners and banquets in the North have been published throughout the South, and no adverse comment has been made regarding my presence on these occasions. Practically all of the invitations to functions that are of even a semi-social character are urged upon me by Northern people, and very often after I have refused to accept invitations pressure is brought to bear on special Page 115 friends of mine in order to get me to accept. Notwithstanding all this, where I accept one invitation I refuse ten; in fact, you have no idea how many invitations to dinner I refuse while I am in the North. I not only do so for the reason that I do not care to excite undue criticism, but for the further reason that if I were to accept any large proportion of such invitations I would have little time left for my legitimate work. In many cases the invitations come from people who do not give money but simply want to secure a notoriety or satisfy curiosity. I have stated the case as I see it, and with a view of having you think over these matters by the time that we meet. [Signed] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON. There were two particularly notable occasions upon which Mr. Washington unwittingly stirred the prejudices of the South. The first was when in 1901 he dined with President Roosevelt and his family at the White House; the second, 24.03.2006
Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 89 24.03.2006 when four years later he dined with Mr. John Wanamaker and his daughter at a hotel in Saratoga, New York. The truth of his dining at the White House, of which so many imaginary versions have been given, was this: having received so many expressions of approval from all sections of the country on his appointment of ex-Governor Jones to a Federal judgeship in Alabama, which appointment was made, as described in a previous chapter, on the recommendation of Booker Washington and Grover Cleveland, President Roosevelt asked him to come to the Page 116 White House and discuss with him some further appointments and other matters of mutual interest. On arriving in Washington he went to the home of his friend, Whitefield McKinlay, a colored man with whom he usually stopped when in the Capital. The next morning he went to the White House by appointment for an interview with the President. Since they did not have time to finish their discussion, the President, in accordance with the course he had often followed with others under similar circumstances, invited Washington to come to dinner so that they might finish their discussion in the evening without loss of time. In response to this oral invitation he went to the White House at the appointed time, dined with the President and his family and two other guests, and after dinner discussed with the President chiefly the character of individual colored office holders or applicants for office and, as says Colonel Roosevelt, "the desirability in specific cases, notably in all offices having to do with the administration of justice, of getting high-minded and fearless white men into office--men whom we could be sure would affirmatively protect the law-abiding Negro's right to life, liberty, and property just exactly as they protected the rights of law-abiding white men." Also they discussed the public service of the South so far as the representatives of the Federal Administration were concerned--the subject upon which President Roosevelt had wished to consult him. The next day the bare fact that he had dined with the President was obscurely announced by the Page 117 Washington papers as a routine item of White House news. Some days later, however, an enterprising correspondent for a Southern paper lifted this
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Booker T. Washington, Builder o - African American History

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