BnB,
I have read Booker T. Washington's autobiography, Up from Slavery, I am quite aware of his position on things at that time and place in which he lived. I have also read Dubois' "Souls of Black Folks".
Among Washington's harshest critics were Dubois, Trotter and Ferris. All of them were Harvard educated northerners that no doubt got into Harvard during that era via white benefactors. Think about that for a moment. If you put their criticism of Washington under close examination their complaint has more to do with what their class of black folks, at that time, would lose rather than what the black masses stood to gain. You can look, but you will find little to no actual labor or practicums for the theories or ideologies they espoused to help the masses. Does that make them bad people, lost or misguided? Of course not, but I think for all their education each of them failed to fully grasp the complexities of life in the south for blacks, and how carefully blacks in the south had to tread just to survive after union troops were pulled from the south as a result of the Hayes-Tilden Compromise. Also, in their failure to weigh all considerations, is the noticeable absence of mentioning the lynching of black folk, black church burnings, black school burnings, black businesses burned to the ground and land owned by blacks forcibly stolen from them.
I believe those guys whole-heartedly believed their theories and ideology were the best path for black folks, but I also believe they failed to realize their thoughts were not an absolute, and certainly did not equate to a one size fits all solution for blacks at that time no more so than it does now. I venture say history has proven that out. What I'm saying may seem hyper-critical of them, but it has to be acknowledged they went after Washington first and not vice-versa.
As for Washington, let's be real as real can get. To a large degree he is mainly criticized and excoriated by some for the speech he gave known as the Atlanta Compromise. With that said, if while looking back, we fail to consider the challenges and threats Washington and all blacks faced in the antebellum south, and allow ourselves to get caught up in a fit emotion because it seems he is appeasing whites with his words at the expense of black progress then we become susceptible to making the same erroneous assertions as Dubois, Trotter and Ferris.
In my opinion, as I assess Washington's words and deeds, I see a man well aware of his time that definitely understood white folks of his time. It can be said that he either played white southerners like a fiddle or thought the ends justified the means. Since he successfully got in their pockets, was summoned by two U.S. presidents and successfully persuaded another U.S. president to visit Tuskegee I will declare he played them like a fiddle with one persistent goal in mind. That singular focused goal was to uplift the masses from their prior condition.
Conjecture aside, what can't be denied, despite what some consider words of appeasement in the Atlanta Compromise speech, is his intentional devotion and commitment of his life to the training, educating and uplifting of the poor huddled masses of black folks fresh out of enslavement that would have to find a way to survive in a terroristic environment, an environment in which he, Washington, could have easily been lynched himself, at a moment's notice, had he not found a way to make southern white folks that could kill blacks with impunity feel comfortable and unthreatened.
My final thoughts on Booker T. Washington come to close with this caveat, to accurately understand his intentions and motives requires a look at his actions first, and words a distant second, in order to better understand what he said and why he said it. If done, there is not much left to conclude other than he considered his words a necessary evil to engage white southerners in terms acceptable to them, all in furtherance of his overall goal and commitment to uplift his people.
Tuskegee is now 142 years old and still primarily educates black folks. Washington's legacy and work endures till this very day. Instead of excoriating him we should be unquestionably venerating him.
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