February
27, 2006
Booker
T. Washington Era
By Dr. Frank J. Collazo
Introduction:
The scope of the report
addresses Booker T. Washington's accomplishments and pioneering in the social
and cultural aspects of black people and promotes ways to develop the black
community during the entire period of his life. He was the architect of the peaceful movement of industrial
training for blacks in the South. He
opened the door for other blacks to pursue the civil rights movement. Booker T Washington had common ground on
some education issues with W.E.B Dubois but disagreed with him in the
methodology of achieving the results.
Booker T Washington was
an African American first in contrast to W.E.B. Dubois who was a registered
communist and had controversial views about achieving civil rights with
communist doctrine tendencies. At the
end of his career and life, he declared himself a communist. There are examples of some blacks reaching
prominence in the economic sphere in the United States of America.
Booker T. Washington, 1856-1915, Educator. Booker Taliaferro
Washington was the foremost black educator of the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. He also had a major
influence on southern race relations and was the dominant figure in black
public affairs from 1895 until his death in 1915. Born a slave on a small farm in the Virginia backcountry, he
moved with his family after emancipation to work in the salt furnaces and
coalmines of West Virginia. After a
secondary education at Hampton Institute, he taught an upgraded school and
experimented briefly with the study of law and the ministry, but a teaching
position at Hampton decided his future career.
In 1881 he founded Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute on the Hampton
model in the Black Belt of Alabama.
Booker taught two years at Hampton before
he was asked to fill the position at Tuskegee as headmaster. He worked hard to find financing to make the
school a success. Booker transformed
Tuskegee from a small, poor and little known school into a world famous center
for vocational training (Conley 396).
"Early in the history of the Tuskegee
Institute we began to combine industrial training with mental and moral
culture. Our first efforts were in the
direction of agriculture, and we began teaching this with no appliances except
one hoe and a blind mule." (Washington 15).
Though
Washington offered little that was innovative in industrial education, which
both northern philanthropic foundations and southern leaders were already
promoting, he became its chief black exemplar and spokesman. In his advocacy of Tuskegee Institute and
its educational method, Washington revealed the political adroitness and
accommodation philosophy that were to characterize his career in the wider
arena of race leadership. He convinced
southern white employers and governors that Tuskegee offered an education that
would keep blacks "down on the farm" and in the trades. To prospective northern donors and
particularly the new self-made millionaires such as Rockefeller and Carnegie he
promised the inculcation of the Protestant work ethic. President
Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T Washington to dinner at the White House
opposed by the Southern Democrats.
To blacks living within the limited horizons of the
post-Reconstruction South, Washington held out industrial education as the
means of escape from the web of sharecropping and debt and the achievement of
attainable, petit-bourgeois goals of
self-employment, landownership, and small business. Washington cultivated local white approval and secured a small
state appropriation, but it was northern donations that made Tuskegee Institute
by 1900 the best-supported black educational institution in the country.
The Atlanta Compromise Address, delivered before the Cotton States
Exposition in 1895, enlarged Washington's influence into the arena of race
relations and black leadership.
Washington offered black acquiescence in disfranchisement and social
segregation if whites would encourage black progress in economic and
educational opportunity. Hailed as a
sage by whites of both sections, Washington further consolidated his influence
by his widely read autobiography Up From Slavery (1901), the founding of the National
Negro Business League in 1900, his celebrated dinner at the White House in
1901, and control of patronage politics as chief black advisor to Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.
Washington kept his white following by conservative policies and
moderate utterances, but he faced growing black and white liberal opposition in
the Niagara Movement (1905-9) and the NAACP (1909-) groups demanding civil
rights and encouraging protest in response to white aggressions such as
lynching, disfranchisement, and segregation laws. Washington successfully fended off these critics, often by
underhanded means. At the same time,
however, he tried to translate his own personal success into black advancement
through secret sponsorship of civil rights suits, serving on the boards of Fisk
and Howard universities and directing philanthropic aid to these and other
black colleges. His speaking tours and
private persuasion tried to equalize public educational opportunities and to
reduce racial violence. These efforts
were generally unsuccessful, and the year of Washington's death marked the
beginning of the Great Migration from the rural South to the urban North. Washington's racial philosophy,
pragmatically adjusted to the limiting conditions of his own era, did not
survive the change.
A
Brief Glimpse of the Breadth, Life and Legacy of Booker T. Washington:
From his difficult and humble beginnings
as a slave on a tobacco plantation in the Virginia Hills, Booker T. Washington
was raised "Up From Slavery" during one of the lowest periods of race
relations in American history, to become one of the greatest leaders of the
African American race and a voice for the conscience of the American south.
He built a successful school, Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute (Tuskegee Institute), now an endowed
university, in the midst of former slaveholders. There he taught and demonstrated to the poorest and the most
disenfranchised of his race the uplifting paths of faith in God, family,
education, character development, the dignity of excellence in one’s work, self
respect, and the power of economic development. He was the founder and first president of the National Negro
Business League, the first organization of its kind established solely for the
purpose of the promotion and the advancement of Black Business Enterprise. He was the first person in the United States
to convene an international conference addressing the concerns of Black people
throughout the world.
His was a relatively brief life, only
fifty-nine years in duration, yet it was an extraordinary life spent in the
uplift of and service to others. It was
a life of high ideals, action and productivity, which culminated in a great and
lasting work, still in evidence today.
At his death he was still a towering national influence among all races
and among all social strata, and he was deeply admired and respected throughout
the world.
He received more distinguished honors
than had ever accorded a man of the African-American race. He had the ear of two United States
presidents, and he was the first African American to dine at the White House
with Theodore R. Roosevelt and to share tea at Buckingham Palace with the Queen
of England. He was the first African
American to receive an honorary Masters Degree from Harvard University and an
honorary Doctor of Philosophy Degree from Dartmouth College. He was the first African-American to be
named to the National Hall of Fame and to be honored on a postage stamp and
commemorated on a coin. Mr. Washington
was the first African American to have a United States naval vessel named for
him, and the first African-American to have a giant California Sequoia tree
named in his honor. He was the first
African-American to have schools and organizations all over the country bear
his name, and the first African-American whose birthplace was declared a
national monument.
Yet, with all that he accomplished
personally, perhaps his greatest legacy is what he helped millions of others to
accomplish. He was able, in only a
relatively short time after slavery had been abolished, to help so many of his
race to obtain an education, start a business, and establish a home. These individuals were, in turn, taught to
go out into their communities and help others secure the same.
What is it about this exceptional man
that at the dawn of the 21st century, ninety years after his death, we still
pause to consider his vision for racial and economic advancement? Could it be, that as we revisit his deep
spiritual and economic wisdom that the liberating truth of his words is as
applicable today for the progress of our race, or for any advancing race for
that matter, as it was when it was first spoken many years ago?
Booker T. Washington aptly proclaimed
that, "The future is always built out of the materials of the past."
Prominence Among Blacks: The
1870s to the start of World War I, the period when African American educator
Booker T. Washington was gaining prominence, was also a difficult time for
African Americans. The vote proved
elusive and civil rights began to vanish through court action. Lynching, racial violence, and slavery's
twin children peonage and sharecropping arose as deadly quagmires on the path
to full citizenship. After Reconstruction ended in 1877, the federal government
virtually turned a deaf ear to the voice of the African American populace.
Yet
in this era blacks were educated in unprecedented numbers, hundreds received
degrees from institutions of higher learning, and a few, like W.E.B. Dubois and
Carter G. Woodson, went on for the doctorate.
While only a small percentage of the black population had been literate
at the close of the Civil War, by the turn of the twentieth century, the
majority of all African Americans were literate. The Library of Congress houses the papers of three presidents of
Tuskegee Institute: Booker T. Washington, Robert Russia Moton, and Frederick
Douglass Patterson, and other important manuscripts and photographs relating to
the establishment, operations, aspirations, and success of historically black
colleges and universities.
Also
at this time, African American artistic genius in music, painting, sculpture,
literature, and dance became more evident to white society at large. Some of the artists of this period,
including poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Fisk Jubilee Singers, won
international acclaim. This section of
the exhibit demonstrates the progress of blacks in the last decades of the
nineteenth century.
This
period has been called the "nadir" of black history because so many
gains earned after the Civil War seemed lost by the time of World War I, and
because racial violence and lynching reached an all time high. However, blacks and whites founded both the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the
National Urban League (NUL) during this time.
The papers of both of these major civil rights organizations, which are
among the holdings in the Library's Manuscript Division, document the
unswerving efforts on the part of blacks and their white allies to insure that
the nation provide "freedom and justice to all."
Born
a slave in Virginia in 1856, Booker T. Washington managed to get a primary
education that allowed his probationary admittance to Hampton Institute. There he proved such an exemplary student,
teacher, and speaker that the principal of Hampton recommended Washington to
Alabamians who were trying to establish a school for African Americans in their
state.
Washington
and his students built the school, named Tuskegee Institute after its location,
from the ground up. As a result of his
work as an educator and public speaker, Washington became influential in
business and politics. His vast
collection of personal papers, as well as many early records of Tuskegee
Institute, is housed in the Manuscript Division.
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Booker
T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in 1881 under a charter from the
Alabama legislature for the purpose of training teachers in Alabama.
Tuskegee's program providing students with both academic and vocational
training. The students, under Washington's
direction, built their own buildings, produced their own food, and provided
for most of their own basic necessities.
The Tuskegee faculty utilized each of these activities to teach the
students basic skills that they could share with African American communities
throughout the South. |
|
|
|
Frances
Benjamin Johnston was commissioned to photograph Tuskegee in 1902. This
photograph shows a history class learning about Native Americans and Captain
John Smith in Virginia. |
Dunbar
to Washington -- Defending Artistic Freedom: At the turn of the
century, Paul Laurence Dunbar was the most celebrated black writer in
America. Although Dunbar's reputation
rested on his mastery of dialect verse, he also demonstrated skill as a short
story writer, novelist, playwright, and librettist. In 1902 Booker T. Washington commissioned Dunbar to write the
school song for Tuskegee Institute.
Dunbar wrote his lyrics to the tune of "Fair Harvard." Washington was not pleased with the
"Tuskegee Song." He objected
to Dunbar's emphasis of "the industrial idea" and the exclusion of
biblical references. In this letter to
Washington, Dunbar defends his artistic sensibility.
Booker
T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise Speech:
Booker
T. Washington was already a popular educator and speaker when he gave this
speech in Atlanta. The speech
catapulted him into national prominence.
In the text he challenged both races to adjust to post-emancipation
realities. He stated that the races
could work together as one hand while socially remaining as separate as the
fingers. At the time, Washington's
statement, offering reconciliation between the races, pleased most
Americans. Increasingly, however, as
racial violence and discrimination against blacks escalated at the turn of the
century, African American leaders began to believe that the speech represented
not a compromise but a capitulation.
Dubois
Congratulates Washington:
Although W. E. B. Dubois would later publish his pointed challenge to Booker T.
Washington's educational and political philosophy in his celebrated work, Souls
of Black Folk (1903), at the time of Washington's Atlanta speech, Dubois
wrote this letter to express his congratulations.
In
1905 W. E. B. Dubois and black militant journalist William Monroe Trotter
organized a meeting of black intellectuals and professionals in Niagara Falls,
Canada, to demand full citizenship rights for African Americans: freedom of
speech, an "unfettered and unsubsidized" press, recognition of the
principle of human brotherhood, the right of the best training available for
all people, and belief in the dignity of labor. The Niagara Movement later allied with an interracial group to
form the NAACP.
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A Biographical Sketch By Gerald C. Hynes |
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Introduction: William
Edward Burghardt Dubois, to his admirers, was by spirited devotion and
scholarly dedication, an attacker of injustice and a defender of freedom.
A
harbinger of Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanize, he died in self-imposed
exile in his home away from home with his ancestors of a glorious past—Africa.
Labeled
as a "radical," he was ignored by those who hoped that his massive
contributions would be buried along side of him. But, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, "history cannot
ignore W.E.B. Dubois because history has to reflect truth and Dr. Dubois was a
tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for
truth about his own people. There were
very few scholars who concerned themselves with honest study of the black man
and he sought to fill this immense void. The degree to which he succeeded
disclosed the great dimensions of the man."
His
Formative Years: W.E.B. Dubois was born on February 23, 1868
in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. At
that time Great Barrington had perhaps 25, but not more than 50, Black people
out of a population of about 5,000.
Consequently, there were little signs of overt racism there. Nevertheless, its venom was distributed
through a constant barrage of suggestive innuendoes and vindictive attitudes of
its residents. This mutated the
personality of young William from good natured and outgoing to sullen and
withdrawn. This was later reinforced
and strengthened by inner withdrawals in the face of real discriminations. His demeanor of introspection haunted him
throughout his life.
Dubois
showed a keen concern for the development of his race during his high school
years. At age fifteen he became the
local correspondent for the New York Globe. And in this position he conceived it his duty to push his race
forward by lectures and editorials reflecting upon the need of Black people to
politicized themselves.
Dubois
was naturally gifted intellectually and took pleasurable pride in surpassing
his fellow students in academic and other pursuits. Upon graduation from high school, he, like many other New England
students of his caliber, desired to attend Harvard. However, he lacked the
financial resources to go to that institution.
But with the aid of friends and family and a scholarship he received to
Fisk College (now University), he eagerly headed to Nashville, Tennessee to
further his education.
This
was Dubois' first trip south. And in
those three years at Fisk (1885–1888) his knowledge of the race problem became
more definite. He saw discrimination in
ways he never dreamed of and developed a determination to expedite the
emancipation of his people.
Consequently, he became a writer, editor, and an impassioned
orator. And in the process acquired a
belligerent attitude toward the color bar.
Also,
while at Fisk, Dubois spent two summers teaching at a county school in order to
learn more about the South and his people.
There he learned first hand of poverty, poor land, ignorance, and
prejudice. But most importantly, he
learned that his people had a deep desire for knowledge.
After
graduation from Fisk, Dubois entered Harvard (via scholarships) classified as a
junior. As a student his education
focused on philosophy and centered in history.
It then gradually began to turn toward economics and social
problems. As determined, as he was to
attend and graduate from Harvard, he never felt himself a part of it. Later in life he remarked, "I was in
Harvard but not of it." He
received his bachelor's degree in 1890 and immediately began working toward his
master and doctor's degree.
Dubois
completed his master's degree in the spring of 1891. However, shortly before that, ex-president Rutherford B. Hayes,
the current head of a fund to educate Negroes, was quoted in the Boston
Herald as claiming that they could not find one worthy to enough for
advanced study abroad. Dubois' anger
inspired him to apply directly to Hayes.
His credentials and references were impeccable. He not only received a grant, but a letter
from Hayes saying that he was misquoted.
Dubois chose to study at the University of Berlin in Germany. It was considered to be one of the world's
finest institutions of higher learning.
And Dubois felt that a doctor's degree from there would infer unquestionable
preparation for ones life's work.
During
the two years Dubois spent in Berlin, he began to see the race problems in the
Americas, Africa, and Asia, and the political development of Europe as
one. This was the period of his life
that united his studies of history, economics, and politics into a scientific
approach of social research.
Dubois
had completed a draft of his dissertation and needed another semester or so to
finish his degree. But the men over his
funding sources decided that the education he was receiving there was
unsuitable for the type of work needed to help Negroes. They refused to extend him any more funds
and encouraged him to obtain his degree from Harvard. Which of course he was obliged to do. His doctoral thesis, The Suppression of the African Slave
Trade in America, remains the authoritative work on that subject and is the
first volume in Harvard's Historical Series.
Easing
On Down the Road: At the age of twenty-six, with twenty years
of schooling behind him, Dubois felt that he was ready to begin his life's
work. He accepted a teaching job at Wilberforce
in Ohio at the going rate of $800.00 per year.
(He also had offers from Lincoln in Missouri and Tuskegee in
Alabama.) The year 1896 was the dawn of
a new era for Dubois. With his
doctorate degree and two undistinguished years at Wilberforce behind him, he
readily accepted a special fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania to
conduct a research project in Philadelphia's seventh ward slums. This responsibility afforded him the
opportunity to study Blacks as a social system.
Dubois
plunged eagerly into his research. He
was certain that the race problem was one of ignorance. And he was determined to unearth as much
knowledge as he could, thereby providing the "cure" for color
prejudice. His relentless studies led
into historical investigation, statistical and anthropological measurement, and
sociological interpretation. The
outcome of this exhaustive endeavor was published as The Philadelphia Negro: "It revealed the Negro group as a
symptom, not a cause; as a striving, palpitating group, and not an inert, sick
body of crime; as a long historic development and not a transient
occurrence." This was the first
time such a scientific approach to studying social phenomena was undertaken,
and as a consequence Dubois is acknowledged as the father of Social Science.
After
the completion of the study, Dubois accepted a position at Atlanta University
to further his teachings in sociology.
For thirteen years there he wrote and studied Negro morality,
urbanization, Negroes in business, college-bred Negroes, the Negro church, and
Negro crime. He also repudiated the
widely held view of Africa as a vast cultural cipher by presenting a historical
version of complex, cultural development throughout Africa. His studies left no
stone unturned in his efforts to encourage and help social reform. It is said that because of his outpouring of
information "there was no study made of the race problem in America which
did not depend in some degree upon the investigations made at Atlanta
University."
During
this period an ideological controversy grew between Dubois and Booker T.
Washington, which later grew into a bitter personal battle. Washington from 1895, when he made his
famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech, to 1910 was the most powerful
black man in the America. Whatever
grant, job placement or any endeavor concerning Blacks that influential whites
received was sent to Washington for endorsement or rejection. Hence, the
"Tuskegee Machine" became the focal point for Black
input/output. Dubois was not opposed to
Washington's power, but rather, he was against his ideology/ methodology of
handling the power. On one hand
Washington decried political activities among Negroes and on the other
hand dictated Negro political objectives from Tuskegee.
Washington
argued the Black people should temporarily forego "political power,
insistence on civil rights, and higher education of Negro youth. They should concentrate all their energies
on industrial education." Dubois
believed in the higher education of a "Talented Tenth" who through
their knowledge of modern culture could guide the American Negro into a higher
civilization.
The
culmination of the conflict came in 1903 when Dubois published his now famous
book, The Souls of Black Folks.
The chapter entitled "Of Booker T. Washington and Others"
contains an analytical discourse on the general philosophy of Washington.
Dubois edited the chapter himself to keep the most controversial and bitter
remarks out of it. Nevertheless, it
still was more than enough to incur Washington's continued contempt for him.
In
the early summer of 1905 Washington went to Boston to address a rally. While speaking he was verbally assaulted by
William Monroe Trotter (a Harvard college friend of Dubois). The subsequent jailing of Trotter on trumped-up
charges, apparently by Washingtonites, raised the wrath of Dubois. This incident caused Dubois to solicit help
from others "for organized determination and aggressive action on the part
of men who believe in Negro freedom and growth.
Twenty-nine
men from fourteen states answered the call in Buffalo, New York. Five months later in January of 1906 the
"Niagara Movement" was formed.
The meeting was held at the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. (They were prevented from meeting on the
U.S. side.) Its objectives were to
advocate civil justice and abolish caste discrimination. The downfall of the
group was attributed to public accusations of fraud and deceit instigated and
engineered presumably by Washington advocates, and Dubois' inexperience with organizations
and the internal strain from the dynamic personality of Trotter. In 1909 all members of the Niagara Movement
save one merged with some white liberals and thus the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was born. Dubois was not altogether pleased with the group but agreed to
stay on as Director of Publications and Research.
The
main artery for distributing NAACP policy and news concerning Blacks was the
Crisis magazine, which Dubois autocratically governed as its editor-in-chief
for some twenty-five years. He was of
no mind to follow pedantically the Associations views, and therefore wrote only
that which he felt could lift the coffin lid off his people. His hot, raking editorials oftentimes lead
to battles within the ranks of the Association. Besides this, the NAACP was, at that time, under the leadership
of whites, to which Dubois objected. He
always felt that Blacks should lead, and that if whites were to be included at
all, it should be in a supportive role.
The meteoric and sustained rise in the circulation of the Crisis,
making it self-supporting, tranquilized the moderates within the Association.
This afforded Dubois the ability to continue his assault on the injustices
heaped upon the Blacks.
World
War I had dramatic affects on the lives of Black folks. Firstly, the Armed Forces refused Black
inductees, but finally relinquished and put the "colored folks" in
subservient roles. Secondly, while the
war was raging, Blacks in the southern states were moving north where industry
was desperately looking for workers.
Ignorant, frightened whites, led by capitalist instigators, were fearful
that Blacks would totally consume the job market. Thus, lynching ran rampant.
Finally, after the war, Black veterans returned home to the same racist
country they had fought so heroically to defend.
Dr.
Dubois, using the Crisis as his vehicle, hurled thunderbolts of searing
script, scorching the "dusty veil" and revealing the innards of a
country whose quivering heart beat bigotry.
So vitriolic and eloquent was his pen that subsequent reaction from his
followers caused congressional action to:
- Inaugurate the
opening of Black officer training schools.
- Bring forth legal
action against lynches.
- Set up a federal
work plan for returning veterans.
His
articles never quit. The countryside
was inundated with DuBois' unmitigated protest. This period marked the height of Dubois' popularity. The Crisis magazine subscription rate
had grown from 1000 in 1909 to over 10,000 in May of 1919. His "Returning Soldier" editorial
climaxed the period. "By the God
of Heaven, we are cowards and jackasses if now that the war is over, we do not
marshal every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight the forces of hell in our
own land.
Shortly
after the Armistice was signed, Dubois sailed for France in 1919 to represent
the NAACP as an observer at the Peace Conference. While there he decided it was an opportune time to organize a
Pan-African conference to bring attention to the problems of Africans around
the world. While this was not the first
Pan-African Congress (the first one was held in 1900) he had long been
interested in the movement. While a few
revolutionaries lauded the concept, it failed because of lack of interest by
the more influential Black organizations.
Dubois
realized that for Africans to be free anywhere, they must be free
everywhere. He therefore decided to
hold another Pan-African meeting in 1921.
While this one was better organized, he was dealt double trouble. First, following the war, "a political
and social revolution, economic upheaval and depression, national and racial
hatred made a setting in which any such movement was entirely out of the
Question." More importantly,
however, was the encounter with the astonishing Marcus Garvey.
"Unlike
Dubois, Garvey was able to gain mass support and had tremendous
appeal." He established the
Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) for the purpose of uniting
Africa and her descendants. He
instituted the visionary concept of buying ships for overseas trade and travel;
he issued forth uncompromising orations on race relations and inspiration. You can accomplish what you will!" He held pageants and parades through
"Harlem" with red, black, and green liberation flags flying. (The colors symbolize the skin, blood, hopes
and growth potential of Black people.
The green is also symbolic of the earth.). His methodology was refreshing and inspiring. And it was in direct contrast to the
intellectual style of Dubois.
Dubois'
first efforts were to explain away the Garvey movement and ignore it. But it was a mass movement and could not be
ignored.
Marcus
Garvey Conflict: Later, when Garvey began to collect money
for his steamship line, Dubois characterized him as "a hard-working
idealist, but his methods are bombastic, wasteful, illogical and almost
illegal." Marcus Garvey, choosing
to ignore the critiques of Dubois, continued with his undertakings until
charges of fraud were brought against him.
He was imprisoned and upon his release, he was exiled from the United
States. He died in 1941. The white press amplified the conflict
between the two men. It also served to
debilitate the progress of the future planned Pan-African Congress.
Pan
African Congress: Nevertheless, Dubois held his conference in
1923 and as expected the turnout was small.
When the conference was concluded, he set sail for Africa for the first
time. During the trip through "the
eternal world of Black folk" he made a characteristic observation
–"The world brightens as it darkens." His racial romanticism was given free reign as he wrote
–"The spell of Africa is upon me."
Ideology
Change: Returning home from his African
experience, Dubois had a chance to reflect upon his past. Dubois noted how America tactically
sidestepped the issues of color, and how his approach of "educate and
agitate" appeared to fall on deaf ears.
He felt that his ideological approach to the "problem of the
twentieth century" had to be revised.
Russian
Revolution: The Russian Revolution of 1917 illuminated
and made clear the change in his basic thought. The revolution concerned itself with the problem of poverty.
"Russia was trying to put into the hands of those people who do the world's
work the power to guide and rule the state for the best welfare of the
masses." Dubois' trip to Russia in
1927, his learning about Marx and Engles, his seeing the beginning of a new
nation form with regard to class, prompted him to say –"My day in Russia
was the day of communist beginnings."
He could no longer support integration as present tactics and relegated
it to a long-range goal. Unable to
trust white politicians, white capitalists of white workers, he invested
everything in the segregated socialized economy. His ideology carried over to his editorials in the Crisis
magazine.
NAACP
Policy Change: By 1930 he had become thoroughly convinced
that the basic policies and ideals of the NAACP must be modified and/or
discarded. There were two alternatives:
1.
Change
the board of directors of the NAACP (who were mostly white) so as to substitute
a group that agreed with his program.
2.
Leave
the organization.
By
1933 Dubois decided his financial, organizational and ideological battles with
the NAACP were unendurable, and he recommended that the Crisis suspend
its operation. He resumed his duties at Atlanta University and there upon
completed two major works.
Dubois’
Books: His book Black Reconstruction dealt
with the socio-economic development of the nation after the Civil War. This masterpiece portrayed the contributions
of the Black people to this period, whereas before, the Blacks were always
portrayed as disorganized and chaotic.
Dusk
of Dawn: His second book of this period, Dusk of
Dawn, was completed in 1940 and expounded his concepts and views on both
the African and African American's quest for freedom.
As
in years past, Dubois never relented in attacks upon imperialism, especially in
Africa.
The
World and Africa: The World and Africa was written as a
contradiction to the pseudo-historians who consistently omitted Africa from
world history.
UN
Conference: In 1945 he served as an associate consultant
to the American delegation at the founding conference of the United Nations in
San Francisco. He charged the world
organization with planning to be dominated by imperialist nations and not
intending to intervene on the behalf of colonized countries.
Fifth
Pan African Congress: He announced that the fifth Pan-African
Congress would convene to determine what pressure could be applied to the world
powers. This conference was dotted with
an all-star cast:
1.
Came
Nkrumah, dedicated revolutionary father of Ghanaian independence, and first
president of Ghana.
2.
George
Padmore, an international revolutionary, often called the "Father of African
Emancipation," later became Kwame Nkrumah's advisor on African Affairs.
3.
Jomo
Kenyatta, called the "burning spear," reputed leader of the Mau Mau
uprising, and first president of independent Kenya.
The
congress elected Dubois International President and cast him a "Father of
Pan-Africanism.” Thus, W.E.B. DuBois
entered into his last phase as a protest propagandist, committed beyond a
single social group to a world conception of proletarian liberation.
Alienation:
Always antagonizing and making guilty groups feel extremely
uncomfortable, he wrote in 1949: "We want to rule Russia and cannot rule
Alabama." As a member of the
left-wing American Labor Party he wrote: "Drunk with power, we (the U.S.)
are leading the world to hell in a new colonialism with the same old human
slavery, which once ruined us to a third world war which will ruin the
world."
As
the chairman of the Peace Information Center, he demanded the outlawing of
atomic weapons. The Secretary of State
denounced it as Soviet propaganda. Jumping
at the chance to quiet "that old man," the U.S. Department of Justice
ordered Dubois and others to register as agents of a "foreign
principal." Dubois refused and was
immediately indicted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Sufficient evidence was lacking, therefore
Dubois was acquitted.
The
subversive activity initiated by the U.S. government acted as a catalyst in the
alienation Dubois already felt for the present system. His feelings were heard around the world in
1959. While in Peking he told a large
audience –"In my own country for nearly a century I have been nothing but
a NIGGER." By the time the U.S.
press published the account, he was residing in Ghana; an expatriate from the United
States. President Nkrumah welcomed
Dubois and asked him to direct the government-sponsored Encyclopedia
Africana. The offer was accepted
graciously and a year later, in the final months of his life, Dubois became a
Ghanaian citizen and an official member of the Communist party.
Free
at Last: On August 27,1963, on the eve of the March
On Washington, Dubois died in Accra, Ghana.
His role as a pioneering Pan-Africans was memorialized by the few who
understood the genius of the man and neglected by the many who were afraid that
his loquacious espousals would unite the oppressed throughout the world into
revolution.
Quote by W.E.B. Dubois:
"I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm and arm with Balzac
and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded
halls. From out of the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed
Earth and the tracery of stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously
with no scorn nor condescension. So,
wed with Truth, I dwell above the veil."
W.E.B. Dubois
W.E.B.
Dubois and the 1900 Paris Exposition:
Included
in an award-winning exhibit at the Paris Exposition, this photograph--one of
500--was part of the evidence collected under the direction of W. E. B. Dubois
to illustrate the condition, education, and literature of African Americans at
the turn of the twentieth century, only thirty-five years after the abolition
of slavery. In his own description of
the exhibit, Dubois noted that by 1900 African Americans owned one million
acres of land and paid taxes on twelve million dollars worth of property. In addition to photographs about black-owned
businesses like this one in Georgia, the exhibit included a number of images
related to successful black businesses elsewhere. The related display in the
foyer of the Library's John Adams Building features additional photographs of
black businesses assembled for the Paris Exposition.
African Americana at the Library of
Congress: Daniel
Alexander Payne Murray was a successful African American businessman,
librarian, and historian who worked for the Library of Congress for fifty-two
years beginning in 1871. In late 1899
the U.S. commissioner general asked the Library of Congress to organize a
display of literature about African Americans for the Paris Exposition of
1900. Murray was assigned to the task
and worked swiftly to publish a preliminary list. He also worked with W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington on
organizing the full "Negro Exposition" in Paris.
Training African American Girls: Nanny Helen Burroughs, an educator, public speaker, and
churchwoman, was an ardent follower of Booker T. Washington's philosophy. She worked tirelessly with the National
Baptist Convention's Women's Auxiliary, first as recording secretary and then
as president, for over fifty years. She
established a school for girls in the District of Columbia in 1909 so as to
provide them with vocational and missionary training. She stated that in addition to the three R's--reading, writing
and arithmetic, these young women needed the three B's-- Bible, bath, and
broom. Burroughs often battled men
within her denomination about the ownership and administration of her school.
Rights for African American Women:
While Burroughs represented working class women, Mary Church Terrell was
a member of the African American elite.
As a speaker, writer, and political activist, she dedicated the lion's
share of her talent to the pursuit of full citizenship for both women and
blacks. In 1898, Terrell, then
president of the National Association of Colored Women, gave this address
before the all-white National American Women's Suffrage Association. She pointed out that for black women, access
to education and employment were as important as the vote. Terrell's autobiography was called A
Colored Woman in a White World (1940); some of her papers, including the
manuscript for her autobiography, as well as those of her husband, are in the
Library's Manuscript Division.
|
Madame
C. J. Walker's Mansion on the Hudson |
||
|
This
home was designed in 1918 by an African American architect, Vertner Woodson
Tandy, for an African American cosmetics magnate, Madame C. J. Walker, on the
Hudson River north of New York City. When Madame Walker was asked why she
built such a palatial home, she replied that she had not built it for herself
but so that blacks could see what could be accomplished with hard work and
determination. |
||
|
|
Madame C. J. Walker. |
|
|
Villa
Lewaro, the name of the estate, has significance for both its architect and
original owner. Tandy was New York's
first licensed black architect. This
building was known as his best work.
No one knows Mme. Walker's exact worth, but she was considered to be
the nation's first African American woman millionaire. |
||
National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People—Platform: Even though Booker T. Washington called for
reconciliation between the races, the period of his ascendancy as a leader was
one of tremendous racial violence toward African Americans in various parts of
the United States, but especially in the South. After a terrible race riot in Springfield, Illinois in August
1908, an interracial group, comprised mainly of whites but with a few prominent
African Americans, met in 1909 to form an organization that was soon named the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The organizational goals were the abolition
of segregation, discrimination, disenfranchisement, and racial violence,
particularly lynching. The "first
and immediate steps" of the organization are listed at the bottom of the
document.
Formation of the National Urban
League: After the turn of the century the
distribution of the African American population shifted dramatically as
thousands migrated from the rural South to the urban North in search of better
economic, social, and political opportunities.
The Committee on Urban Conditions among Negroes was founded in 1910 by a
coalition of progressive black and white professionals. The following year the Committee merged with
two other interracial social welfare agencies in New York to form the National
League on Urban Conditions among the Negroes, later known as the National Urban
League. The League's principal goal was
to promote the improvement of "industrial, economic, social, and spiritual
conditions among Negroes" in the cities.
The League helped migrants and other urban blacks to find jobs and
housing and sponsored training and other programs.
George
Washington Carver (1864-1943):
American
educator and outstanding innovator in the agricultural sciences. Carver was born of slave parents near
Diamond, Missouri. He left the farm
where he was born when he was about ten years old and eventually settled in
Minneapolis, Kansas, where he worked his way through high school.
Following his graduation in 1894 from
Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now Iowa State
University), Carver joined the college faculty and continued his studies,
specializing in bacteriological laboratory work in systematic botany.
In 1896 he became director of the
Department of Agricultural Research at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute
(now Tuskegee University), where he began an exhaustive series of experiments
with peanuts. Carver developed several
hundred industrial uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soybeans and developed
a new type of cotton known as Carver's hybrid.
His discoveries induced southern farmers to raise other crops in
addition to cotton. He also taught
methods of soil improvement.
In recognition of his accomplishments,
Carver was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1923 by the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People. In
1935 he was appointed collaborator in the Division of Plant Mycology and
Disease Survey of the Bureau of Plant Industry of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. In 1940 he donated all his
savings to the establishment of the George Washington Carver Foundation at
Tuskegee for research in natural science.
Carver died at Tuskegee, on January 5, 1943. His birthplace was
established as the George Washington Carver National Monument in 1943.
Carver’s Accomplishments: American scientist George Washington Carver
taught and conducted important agricultural experiments at Tuskegee in the late
19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Today, the Carver Foundation and Tuskegee’s Agricultural Research
and Experiment Station carry on work in the natural sciences. The university houses the George Washington
Carver Museum, which contains memorabilia and historical collections. The museum is part of the Tuskegee Institute
National Historic Site, which is located on the campus and administered by the
National Park Service. Tuskegee’s Daniel “Chappie” James Memorial Hall houses
the Black Wings aviation exhibit, which focuses on the Tuskegee Airmen, a group
of black aviators who trained near Tuskegee during World War II (1939-1945). The Tuskegee Archives, devoted to black
history, was established in 1904.
Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site: The national historic site authorized in
1974 was located in Tuskegee, Alabama.
At Tuskegee University, the site preserves structures associated with
Tuskegee Institute, the school for African Americans established in 1881 by
American educator Booker T. Washington.
Historic structures include the original brick buildings constructed by
students and The Oaks, Washington’s Victorian-style home. The Oaks was built in 1899 with bricks made
by students of the institute and restored in 1980. The site also contains the George Washington Carver Museum,
established in 1938 to house the extensive scientific and artistic collections
of this American scientist. Carver, who
joined the faculty at Tuskegee in 1896, worked at the institute for more than
40 years. The museum features exhibits
on his agricultural research with peanuts and sweet potatoes as well as pieces
of Carver’s artwork. Administered by the National Park Service, the area was 23
hectares (58 acres).
George Washington Carver National Monument: The national monument was authorized in
1943. Located in Diamond, Missouri, the
monument preserves the birthplace and childhood home of scientist and educator
George Washington Carver. Carver was born a slave in 1864. He was orphaned as an infant and raised by
relatives. The monument includes the Moses Carver House, built in 1881, in
which Carver was raised. The Carver
Trail winds through the woods and prairie around the home, and a statue
entitled Boy Carver by Robert Amendola is along the trail. The Carver family cemetery is part of the
monument. Administered by the National
Park Service, the area was 85 hectares (210 acres).
Botanist
George Washington Carver: A former slave, he contributed
immensely to the understanding and development of the South's economic
potential. Carver shared the
results
of his useful agricultural experiments--especially the peanut and the sweet
potato--in pamphlets such as this one.
In the preface, Booker T. Washington writes:
"I
have asked Professor George W. Carver to make a careful study of the condition
and needs of the farmers in Macon and surrounding counties and to publish
something that will be of immediate and practical help to the farmers in this
section. It will pay, in my opinion,
for every man interested in farming...to read carefully the suggestions which
Prof. Carver has made."
Sculptor Richmond Barthé: In the 1940s black artists experimented with
a variety of styles to capture the distinctive spirit of their African American
subjects. Sculptor Richmond Barthé took
the African American figure as his subject.
Barthé sculpted busts of famous African Americans, such as Booker T.
Washington and George Washington Carver, as well as more monumental works such
as The Boxer (1942). William Henry
Johnson adopted a style he termed primitivism to evoke the lifestyle of rural
African Americans. Although Johnson was
highly sophisticated, his colorful primitivism paintings of religious subjects
and everyday life resemble folk art.
Painter Jacob Lawrence depicted the 20th-century migration of blacks to
the North in a series of paintings titled ... And the Migrants Kept Coming
(1940-1941). Romare Bearden created
collages that combine drawings, paintings and photographs.
National Inventors Hall of Fame: The National Inventors Hall of Fame is a
U.S. organization founded in 1973 to honor successful inventors. Members are chosen by the selection
committee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation, which is composed
of representatives from national scientific and technical organizations.
Best Known Inventors: The best-known black inventors of the late
19th century were George Washington Carver, Jan Matzeliger, and Elijah
McCoy. Arriving at Tuskegee Institute
(now Tuskegee University) in Alabama in 1896, Carver in his Laboratory was
always inventive, industrious, and committed to aiding his fellow African
Americans in the largely rural South.
George Washington Carver determined that years of cotton farming had
depleted nitrogen in the soil.
Inventions: George Washington Carver invented cosmetics,
paint, and dye.
Carver received acclaim for his innovative work
there with agricultural products, particularly the peanut, the sweet potato,
and the cowpea.
He made more than 500 different kinds of products from the
peanut and about 120 from the sweet potato.
Carver was also one of the first people in that
era to promote the use of organic fertilizer.
He promoted the
replenishment of nitrogen through the planting of peanuts. He also taught farm wives ways to use the
nutritious peanut in recipes and invented 500 uses.
George
Washington Carver concentrated his agricultural research on improving
cotton harvests.
The George Washington Carver War Housing
Building in Arlington, Virginia in 1942 gives further evidence of Cassell's
expertise as architect and supervisor.
Matzeliger, Jan
Earnst (1852-1889):
Suriname-born African American artist and inventor revolutionized the
shoe industry. Matzeliger was born on
September 15, 1852 in Paramaribo, Suriname, South America, the son of a Dutch
engineer and a native black mother. In
1855 Matzeliger moved to the home of a paternal aunt. At the age of ten, he began an apprenticeship in the machine
shops superintended by his father. His
father’s experience and observations sparked young Matzeliger's interests and
talents in mechanics.
Matzeliger left Suriname in 1871 to
become a sailor aboard an East Indian vessel.
Two years later, at the end of the cruise, he disembarked in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For the
next few years, Matzeliger worked in odd jobs around the Philadelphia
area. In 1876 he left for the New
England states, living in Boston, Massachusetts, and eventually settling in
Lynn, Massachusetts.
Shortly after settling in Lynn,
Matzeliger found employment in a shoe factory operating a McKay sole-sewing
machine. He also spent time on the
heel-burnisher and the buttonhole machine.
During his first days in Lynn, Matzeliger had some trouble, since his
facility with the English language was limited. He quickly made up for the shortcoming by attending night school
and studying during his free time. His
spare hours soon became absorbed in self-education, and he maintained a
personal library emphasizing scientific and practical works. Matzeliger's abilities ranged beyond the
mechanical, for he possessed a marked talent in painting. He presented a number of paintings to
friends and gave lessons in oil painting.
By September 1880, after years of
observation and practical experience, Matzeliger assembled his first machine
over a period of six months. The
device, constructed of wire, wood, and cigar boxes, was the first crude step
toward perfecting a mechanical luster for the manufacture of shoes. The machine stretched leather shoe uppers
around a foot-shaped model, or last. Matzeliger’s second version, built from
assorted castings and iron parts, took four years to construct. The assembly process took place in a vacant
corner of the plant where Matzeliger worked.
Adequate financing for the invention soon presented a major
problem. To secure a patent, arrange
demonstrations, and complete finishing touches, Matzeliger knocked on doors to
obtain the needed capital. He soon
obtained financial support from investors C. H. Delnow and M. S. Nichols of
Lynn, at the cost of two-thirds ownership of the device.
With sufficient capital in hand,
Matzeliger was granted patent No. 274,207 on March 20, 1883, for the Lasting
Machine. The drawings sent to the
Patent Office confused the patent officials so much that one patent officer had
to journey to Lynn to personally observe the machine. In the following year, Matzeliger joined the Christian Endeavor
Society at the North Congregational Church.
Although he was never a formal member of the church, he attended
services regularly and participated in a number of church functions. Matzeliger's affiliation came about only
after suffering a number of rebuffs from other churches in the community
because of his race.
Indefatigable in his zeal for work, the
inventor continued to perfect his Lasting Machine for its first factory
test. On May 29, 1885, during the first
public operation of the machine, it made a record run of lasting 75 pairs of
shoes. In subsequent days the machine
came to be termed the Nigger Head Luster.
Finding themselves unable to properly
finance the production of Matzeliger's invention, Delnow and Nichols sought
additional capital from George A. Brown and Disney W. Winslow. The result was the creation of the
Consolidated Lasting Machine Company, which began to manufacture Matzeliger's
device. The Lasting Machine was indeed
revolutionary, for it could turn out from 150 to 700 pairs of shoes a day,
compared to a maximum of 50 a day by using the manual method. Proper recognition for the machine came only
posthumously, with the awarding of the Gold Medal and Diploma at the
Pan-American Exposition of 1901. The
Consolidated Lasting Machine Company, which had purchased Matzeliger's patents,
quickly expanded. By the late 1890s, a
number of smaller companies merged to form the United Shoe Machinery
Corporation. The corporation soon came
to dominate the shoe machinery industry in the United States with a capitalization
of millions.
Matzeliger's mechanical genius was not
limited to a single Lasting Machine. He
patented a number of items prior to his death and had several granted
thereafter. The patents included no.
415, 726, Mechanism for Distributing Tacks, Nails, etc. (October 12, 1888); no.
421,954, Nailing Machine (February 25, 1890); no. 423,937, Tack Separating and
Distributing Mechanism (March 25, 1890); and no. 459,899, Lasting Machine
(September 22, 1891).
In the summer of 1886, Matzeliger
contracted what appeared at first to be a cold. When properly diagnosed, however, it turned out to be
tuberculosis. While bedridden, he
continued to paint and work on his experiments. His health continued to worsen, and he died in Lynn Hospital on
August 24, 1889, less than a month before his 37th birthday. He was buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery,
Lynn. Never married, he did not live to
see the profound impact of his invention on the shoe industry or to reap the
financial benefit of the invention. He
willed to the North Church a substantial portion of his holdings in the shoe
machinery companies.
Highlight of Invention: Corbis Matzeliger invented a shoe-lasting
machine that made the skill of shoe lasting by hand, the shaping of a shoe
around a foot-sized form obsolete.
Matzeliger studied the problem of shoe lasting
for years, and by the time that he was able to produce a working model of his
invention, he was suffering financially and physically from his devotion to his
work. Matzeliger was so desperate for
funds to complete construction of his demonstration model, test its
performance, and apply for the patent, that he sold two-thirds of the rights to
two local investors.
Matzeliger received his patent in 1883, and the
trial run of the first Matzeliger lasting machine was a success, lasting 75
pairs of shoes. Matzeliger continued to
refine his ideas and produced two more lasting machines that were improvements
on his first machine.
McCoy, Elijah (1844-1929): An American inventor. McCoy was best known
for his inventions of devices used to lubricate heavy machinery
automatically. He was born in
Colchester, Ontario, Canada, to parents who had escaped from slavery in
Kentucky in 1837. McCoy went to
Edinburgh, Scotland, at age 15 and studied mechanical engineering for five
years. Returning home, he became a
railroad fireman on the Michigan State Railroad. In those days steam locomotives had to stop at intervals so that
the fireman could oil their pistons, levers, and connecting pins. About 1870, while living in the town of
Ypsilanti, Michigan, McCoy began to experiment with automatic lubricators for
steam engines.
He received his first patent in 1872 for
a "lubricator cup" that provided a steady but unregulated flow of oil
to a lubricating point. Later that year
he patented a lubricator equipped with stopcocks linked to a rod that enabled
the oil flow to be controlled. The oil
was steam-heated to keep it from congealing in cold weather. In 1925 McCoy invented a graphite lubricator
for steam engines that ran on superheated steam. The graphite was suspended in oil and the design prevented
lubricant clogging. McCoy's lubricators
were used on locomotives, steamships, and factory machinery.
McCoy also patented an ironing table
(1874) and a scaffold support (1907).
He spent most of his adult life in Detroit, where he often worked with
black children and urged them toward success.
Highlights of His Invention: Engineer McCoy’s invention of a
self-lubricating device for steam engines transformed the railroad industry. McCoy was the most prolific of the
19th-century black inventors. In 1872
he patented the first of his automatic lubrication devices to be used on
stationary steam engines. The money that McCoy received for this patent he put
toward further studies of the problems of lubrication. In 1873, McCoy patented an improved
lubricator, and he went on to develop over 50 improvements in lubricators for
both stationary and locomotive engines.
Many railroad and shipping companies adopted McCoy’s lubricators, and he
became an instructor, and later a consultant, in the proper fitting and use of
his devices. Many other kinds of
lubricators were patented, but none could stand up to the standard of McCoy’s.
Chemurgy: A branch of
chemistry involving the use of farm and forest products and their residues in
industrial manufacture and in the development of new types of plants for
industrial use. The word was coined in
the United States in the early 1930s, when ways were being sought to use
increasing farm surpluses. Plants,
because they consist mainly of cellulose, starch, sugar, oils, and proteins,
serve readily as raw materials for industrial and chemical products.
In 1938 Congress authorized the U.S.
Department of Agriculture to establish laboratories at Philadelphia, New
Orleans, Louisiana, Peoria, Illinois, and Albany, California, for the purpose
of finding new uses for farm products grown in their respective sections of the
country. From these and other
laboratories associated with the Department of Agriculture have come the first
large-scale processes for producing penicillin and other antibiotics.
The development and promotion of new
kinds of plants led to many new chemurgical uses. For example, safflower was planted on some 121,400 hectares
(about 300,000 acres) in the U.S. in the late 1960s. Processed safflower oil is used as a food to reduce the amount of
cholesterol in the diet. It is also
used in the paint industry as a drying agent.
Safflower meal is increasingly used as feed for livestock.
An early chemurgist, Charles H. Herty,
developed improved newsprint through experiments he conducted with the pulp of
the southern pine tree. Another pioneer
in chemurgy, George Washington Carver,
developed many products from such plants as the peanut and sweet potato.
Cotton Production in the United States: Cotton Production in
the United States, the South's most important agricultural product,
following Eli Whitney's 1793 invention of the cotton gin, permitted commercial
use of American short-staple cotton and was closely bound up with slavery in
the United States and with late 19th-century sharecropping. During the early
20th century African American scientist George
Washington Carver concentrated his agricultural research on improving
cotton harvests. Since the 1930s,
however, the number of African Americans engaged in cotton production has
dropped greatly as a result of the impact of the boll weevil and the
mechanization of cotton farming, both which helped accelerate a massive
20th-century black migration out of the South.
NAACP Spingarn Medal: Recipients of the NAACP Spingarn Medal,
instituted in 1914 by J. E. Spingarn, former chairman of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was for the highest
achievement by a Black American and awarded annually for the previous year.
Missouri National Park Units: The George Washington Carver National
Monument, near Diamond in southwest Missouri, marks the birthplace of the
famous scientist, agronomist, educator, and humanitarian.. Wilson’s Creek
National Battlefield, near Springfield, preserves the site of an important
American Civil War battle for control of Missouri.
W.E.B. Dubois’s Views on Carver: "Someday when the Crisis is treating of
Negro leaders I should like to see another comprehensive sketch on Dr. George
W. Carver appear. He is doubtless a
warm friend of yours. He is the first
Negro I remember. He was completing his
undergraduate work at Iowa State College at Ames, Iowa, when my father went
there as president in 1891. I was only
porridge-eating size then, but I have a distinct remembrance of him working
among the flowers around the dilapidated old horticultural building (long since
replaced). That must have been several
years later, probably when he was an instructor in the botany department.
His old chief in that department, Dr. L. H.
Pammel, resigned only the other day after many years' service. "Dr. Carver irritates me enormously at
times when he wholly discounts his own abilities and gives all credit for his amazing
chemistry discoveries to a 'Divine Guide', a 'Divine Fire' and the like. All genius, I suppose, has the backing of
the Angels of the Lord, but certainly his forty years of patient study cannot
be dismissed so lightly and rudely. For
all that, he remains a wizard who receives my unbounded admiration. It depresses me when I encounter many
supposedly educated Negroes who do not seem to have heard of him. He keeps his light too well hidden under a
bushel. You may agree with me that the average Negro pays little attention to
the real achievements of his race outside of politics and sports—though
perhaps, to be entirely fair, I should say 'too little attention.'"
Tuskegee
University: Tuskegee
University is a
historically black college in Tuskegee, Alabama, organized by Booker T.
Washington to emphasize industrial education.
Tuskegee's roots lie in the
post-Reconstruction era in the South, when African Americans’ opportunities for
higher education were still severely limited.
Tuskegee University was technically chartered by the Alabama state
legislature to repay black voters for their support. However, its early history is almost synonymous with the name of
its first administrator, 19th-century African American leader Booker T.
Washington.
In February 1881 the Alabama legislature
voted to set aside $2,000 each year to fund a state and normal school for
blacks in Tuskegee. The trustees asked
officials at several other black institutions to recommend someone to head the
new school. Although they were implicitly
asking for white candidates, Hampton Institute’s president Samuel Chapman
Armstrong suggested his black protégé, Booker T. Washington. The trustees agreed to hire Washington as
principal. Washington arrived in
Tuskegee on June 24, 1881, and opened the Normal School for colored teachers at
Tuskegee in a shack adjacent to the black Methodist church on July 4. The first 30 students ranged in age from 16
to 40; most were teachers hoping to further their own education.
Washington's most significant
contribution was his strong belief in industrial education and training as the
key to success for African Americans.
Students were required to learn a trade and perform manual labor at the
school, including making and laying the bricks for the buildings that became
the first campus. Tuskegee's charter
had mandated that tuition would be free for students who committed to teaching
in Alabama public schools. The students' labor helped with financial costs, and
Washington solicited much of the remaining funding from northern white
philanthropists.
Tuskegee was incorporated as a private
institution in 1892, and its name was changed to the Tuskegee Normal and
Industrial Institute that year. Social
conventions would have prohibited white instructors from serving under a black
principal, so Tuskegee became the first institution of higher learning with a
black faculty. In 1896 the school hired
George Washington
Carver, whose groundbreaking
agricultural research received international recognition. Washington became nationally accepted as a
black leader during the 1890s because many whites appreciated his
accommodations approach to race relations, and Tuskegee gained wide recognition
and substantial funding.
The original industrial training approach
gradually changed after Washington's death in 1915. Tuskegee awarded its first baccalaureate degree in 1925 and began
its first college curriculum in 1927 and nurses' training. In 1937 its name was changed to Tuskegee
Institute.
During World War II (1939-1945) the Army Air Corps
established an airfield at Tuskegee that trained more than 900 black pilots
known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Graduate programs in veterinary medicine,
nursing, business, architecture, agriculture and home economics, education, and
arts and sciences were eventually added.
In the 1960s and 1970s Tuskegee became the first black college to be
designated a Registered National Historic Landmark and a National Historic
Site.
By the schools centennial in 1981,
Tuskegee's campus included 150 buildings on 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres), and
its endowment was approximately $22 million.
Five years later, the school changed its name to Tuskegee
University. Today, approximately 3,200
undergraduates are enrolled at Tuskegee, and there are an additional 200 graduate
students. The school offers 70
different degrees and has an especially strong engineering program.
Notable Tuskegee graduates include writer
Ralph Ellison, who portrays a
fictionalized version of the school and its "founder" in his novel Invisible
Man (1952); Arthur W. Mitchell, the first black Democratic congressman; and
actor/comedian Keenan Ivory Wayans.
Tuskegee's 30,000 living alumni are professionals in communities across
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Booker
T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois Debate: The
issues raised by the celebrated debate between Booker T. Washington and W. E.
B. DuBois will be its central theme.
For two decades Washington established a dominant tone of gradualism and
accommodations among blacks, only to find in the latter half of this period
that the leadership was passing to more militant leaders such as W. E. B.
Dubois. The following is a summary of
the issues raised by Dubious:
·
During the
four decades following reconstruction, the position of the Negro in America
steadily deteriorated.
·
The hopes
and aspirations of the freedmen for full citizenship rights were shattered
after the federal government betrayed the Negro and restored white supremacist
control to the South.
·
Blacks were
left at the mercy of ex-slaveholders and former Confederates, as the United
States government adopted a laissez-faire policy regarding the “Negro problem”
in the South.
·
Strict
legal segregation of public facilities in the southern states was strengthened
in 1896 by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case.
·
Racists,
northern and southern, proclaimed that the Negro was subhuman, barbaric,
immoral, and innately inferior, physically and intellectually, to
whites—totally incapable of functioning as an equal in white civilization.
Between
the Compromise of 1877 and the Compromise of 1895, the problem facing Negro
leadership was clear: how to obtain first-class citizenship for the Negro
American.
Some
black leaders encouraged Negroes to become skilled workers, hoping that if they
became indispensable to the prosperity of the South, political and social
rights would be granted to them.
The
most heated controversy in Negro leadership at this time raged between two
remarkable black men—Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois. The major spokesman for the gradualist
economic strategy was Washington.
Dubois was the primary advocate of the gradualist political strategy. Booker T. Washington emerged in the midst of
worsening social, political, and economic conditions for American blacks. His
racial program set the terms for the debate on Negro programs for the decades
between 1895 and 1915
Washington
learned the doctrine of economic advancement combined with acceptance of
disfranchisement and conciliation with the white South from Armstrong. His rise to national prominence came in 1895
with a brief speech, which outlined his social philosophy and racial
strategy. Washington was invited to speak
before an integrated audience at the opening of the Cotton States and International
Exposition held in Atlanta in September 1895.
He was the first Negro ever to address such a large group of southern
whites.
Washington
is remembered chiefly for this “Atlanta Compromise” address. In this speech, he called on white America
to provide jobs and industrial-agricultural education for Negroes. In exchange, blacks would give up demands
for social equality and civil rights.
His message to the Negro was that political and social equality were
less important as immediate goals than economic respectability and
independence. Washington believed that if blacks gained an economic foothold,
and proved themselves useful to whites, then civil rights and social equality
would eventually be given to them. Blacks were urged to work as farmers, skilled
artisans, domestic servants, and manual laborers to prove to whites that all
blacks were not “liars and chicken thieves.”
The
philosophy of Washington was one of accommodation to white oppression. He advised blacks to trust the paternalism
of the southern whites and accept the fact of white supremacy. He stressed the mutual interdependence of
blacks and whites in the South, but said they were to remain socially separate:
“In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet
one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”
Washington
counseled blacks to remain in the South, obtain a useful education, save their
money, work hard, and purchase property.
By doing such things, Washington believed, the Negro could ultimately
“earn” full citizenship rights.
Dubois
Statements Against Washington’s Strategy: White Americans
responded with enthusiasm to Washington’s racial policies and made him the
national Negro leader. “It startled the
nation,” wrote Dubois, “to hear a Negro advocating such a program after many
decades of bitter complaint; it startled and won the applause of the South, it
interested and won the admiration of the North; and Dubois after a confused
murmur of protest, it silenced if it did not convert the Negroes
themselves.” Northern whites saw in
Washington’s doctrine a peace formula between the races in the South.
Southern
whites liked the program because it did not involve political, civil, and
social aspirations, and it would consign the Negro to an inferior status. Because Washington’s program conciliated
whites, substantial contributions from white philanthropists were given to
Tuskegee and other institutions that adopted the Washington philosophy. Washington’s
prestige grew to the point where he was regarded as the spokesman for the
entire Negro community. With strong
white support, Washington became the outstanding black leader not only in
the fields of education and philanthropy, but in business and labor relations,
politics and all public affairs.
In
1901, Washington published his carefully executed and immensely popular
autobiography, Up From Slavery.
Washington’s career is full of paradoxes. He advised blacks to remain in the South and avoid politics and
protest in favor of economic self-help and industrial education. But he became a powerful political boss and
dispenser of patronage, the friend of white businessmen like Andrew Carnegie
and advisor of presidents.
Washington
publicly accepted without protest racial segregation and voting discrimination,
but secretly financed and directed many court suits against such proscriptions
of civil rights. He preached a gospel
of Puritan morality and personal cleanliness, yet engaged in acts of sabotage
and espionage against his black critics.
Before
whites he was a model of humility and ingratiation; to his staff and students
at Tuskegee he was a benevolent despot.
Several
Negro leaders voiced their opposition to Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” with
its admonition to work and wait. They
could not topple Washington from power, but one of them did win recognition as
a leader of the opposition—W. E. B. Dubois.
W.E.B.
Dubois: W. E. B. Dubois was born in Great
Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868. His family had not known the stigma of slavery
for over a hundred years. Dubois was
educated at Fisk University, Harvard University (where he earned his Ph.D. in
history in 1895) and the University of Berlin.
Dubois was a professor of economics and history at Atlanta University
where he conducted a series of sociological studies on the conditions of blacks
in the South at the same time Washington was developing his program of
industrial education.
Dubois
was not an early opponent of Washington’s program. He enthusiastically accepted the Tuskegee “Atlanta Compromise”
philosophy as sound advice.
He
said in 1895 that Washington’s speech was “a word fitly spoken.” In fact, during the late 1890’s, there were
several remarkable similarities in the ideas of the two men, who for a brief
period found issues on which they could cooperate.
Agreement:
Both Washington and Dubois tended to blame Negroes themselves for their
condition. They both placed emphasis on
self-help and moral improvement rather than on rights. Both men placed economic advancement before
universal manhood suffrage. The professor and the principal were willing to
accept franchise restrictions based on education and property qualifications,
but not race. Both strongly believed in
racial solidarity and economic cooperation, or Black Nationalism. They encouraged the development of Negro
business. They agreed that the black
masses should receive industrial training.
Washington/Dubois
Controversy: The years from 1901 to 1903 were years of
transition in Dubois’ philosophy.
Dubois grew to find Washington’s program intolerable, as he became more
outspoken about racial injustice and began to differ with Washington over the
importance of liberal arts education when the latter’s emphasis on industrial
education drew resources away from black liberal arts colleges.
Dubois
noted that Washington’s accommodating program produced little real gain for the
race. Another factor that alienated
Dubois from Washington was the fact that Washington and his “Tuskegee
Machine”—an intricate, nation-wide web of institutions in the black community
that were conducted, dominated, and strongly influenced by Washington—kept a
dictatorial control over Negro affairs that stifled honest criticism of his
policies and other efforts at Negro advancement.
Dubois
came to view Washington as a political boss who had too much power and used it
ruthlessly to his own advantage.
Although Dubois admitted that he was worthy of honor, he believed
Washington was a limited and misguided leader.
Dubois launched a well-reasoned, thoughtful, and unequivocal attack on
Washington’s program in his classic collection of essays, The Souls of Black
Folk, in 1903.
Dubois
took the leadership in the struggle against Booker T. Washington and headed the
radical protest movement for civil rights for Negroes. He took the position that “the Black men of
America have a duty to perform; a duty stern and delicate—a forward movement to
oppose a part of the work of their greatest leader.”
Dubois
said that Washington’s accommodations program asked blacks to give up political
power, insistence on civil rights, and higher education for Negro youth. He believed that Washington’s policies had
directly or indirectly resulted in three trends: the disfranchisement of the
Negro, the legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the
Negro, and steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training
of the Negro.
Dubois
charged that Washington’s program tacitly accepted the alleged inferiority of
the Negro. Expressing the sentiment of
the radical civil rights advocates, Dubois demanded for all black citizens 1)
the right to vote, 2) civic equality, and 3) the education of Negro youth
according to ability.
Dubois
Opposed Washington’s Program: Dubois opposed Washington’s program because
it was narrow in its scope and objectives, devalued the study of the liberal
arts, and ignored civil, political, and social injustices and the economic
exploitation of the black masses.
Dubois firmly believed that persistent agitation, political action, and
academic education would be the means to achieve full citizenship rights for
black Americans. His educational
philosophy directly influenced his political approach.
Dubois
Stressed on College Education: He stressed the necessity for liberal arts
training because he believed that black leadership should come from
college-trained backgrounds. Dubois’
philosophy of the “Talented Tenth” was that a college-educated elite would
chart, through their knowledge, the way for economic and cultural elevation for
the black masses.
Niagara
Movement: In 1905, Dubois helped found a radical civil
rights protest organization called the “Niagara Movement.” Its members were predominately northern,
urban, college-educated black men—the “Talented Tenth.” This short-lived movement launched a
campaign for complete equality and justice for blacks, with an emphasis on
political rights. Lack of financial
support caused the Niagara Movement—the direct forerunner of the NAACP—to
dissolve by 1910.
NAACP
Establishment: In 1909, after an outbreak of rioting and
murders of Negroes in Springfield, Illinois, a protest meeting was held in New
York that led to the formation of the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People. Dubois was one of
the founding members of the organization.
The NAACP was a coalition of black and white radicals, which sought to
remove legal barriers to full citizenship for Negroes. The association began an intensive campaign
to bring about the enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
The
NAACP fought against segregation and discrimination mainly in the courts.
Dubois
was the director of NAACP publications and research, and founder-editor of the
association’s official publication, The Crisis. This magazine, one of the best sources of
information about the black world, became the vehicle through which Dubois
could delineate his racial program and political ideals to the black American
community.
From
1910 to 1915, Dubois voiced the new aspirations of the American Negro in The
Crisis. This was a period of
increasing influence for the leadership of Dubois and the NAACP. Washington felt threatened by the rise of
the association, and the ideological battle between Washington and Dubois
continued until the formers death in 1915.
Both
Washington and Dubois wanted the same thing for blacks—first-class
citizenship—but their methods for obtaining it differed. Because of the interest in immediate goals
contained in Washington’s economic approach, whites did not realize that he
anticipated the complete acceptance and integration of Negroes into American
life. He believed blacks, starting with
so little, would have to begin at the bottom and work up gradually to achieve
positions of power and responsibility before they could demand equal
citizenship—even if it meant temporarily assuming a position of inferiority.
Dubois
understood Washington’s program, but believed that it was not the solution to
the “race problem.” Blacks should study
the liberal arts, and have the same rights as white citizens. Blacks, Dubois believed, should not have to
sacrifice their constitutional rights in order to achieve a status that was
already guaranteed.
Summary: Mr. Washington had a major influence on
southern race relations and was the dominant figure in black public affairs
from 1895 until his death in 1915.
In
1881 he founded Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute on the Hampton model
in the Black Belt of Alabama. Booker
taught two years at Hampton before he was asked to fill the position at
Tuskegee as headmaster. Early in the
history of the Tuskegee Institute he began to combine industrial training with
mental and moral culture. He convinced
southern white employers and governors that Tuskegee offered an education that
would keep blacks "down on the farm" and in the trades.
He had the ear of
two United States presidents and was the first African American to dine at the
White House with Theodore R. Roosevelt and share tea at Buckingham Palace with
the Queen of England. Washington
offered black acquiescence in disfranchisement and social segregation if whites
would encourage black progress in economic and educational opportunity. Washington opposed the Niagara Movement
launched by W.E.B. Dubois.
Booker T.
Washington was raised "Up From Slavery" during one of the lowest
periods of race relations in American history to become one of the greatest
leaders of the African American race and a voice for the conscience of the
American south. He was the first person
in the United States to convene an international conference addressing the
concerns of Black people throughout the world.
He received more distinguished honors than ever accorded a man of the
African-American race. Booker T.
Washington was a pioneer in education and set the tone for the black
advancement in the United States of America.
He was the first African American to receive the following degrees and
awards for his work of advancing the cause of the black people:
- Honorary
Masters Degree from Harvard University and an honorary Doctor of
Philosophy Degree from Dartmouth College.
- Named to
the National Hall of Fame and honored on postage stamps and commemorated
on a coin.
- A United
States naval vessel named for him.
- A giant
California Sequoia tree named in his honor.
- Schools
and organizations all over the country bear his name.
- Birthplace
was declared a national monument.
Bibliography
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T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, Web Site: Http://Www.Jimcrowhistory.Org/
University
President, Web Site: Http://Www.Virginia.Edu/History/Courses/Courses.Old/Hius323/Btw.Html
Up
From Slavery, Web Site: Http://Www.Alcyone.Com/Max/Lit/Slavery/Index.Html
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Questia Collection, Web Site: Http://Www.Questia.Com/
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Case Of The Negro,” Web Site: Http://Afgen.Com/Booker2.Html
Booker
T Washington and W.E.B. Dubois Debated, Web Site: http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1978/2/78.02.02.x.html
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