In
1880, Lewis Adams, a black political leader in Macon County, agreed
to help two white Democratic Party
candidates, William Foster and Arthur Brooks, win a local election
in return for the building of a Negro school in the area. Both men
were elected and they then used their influence to secure approval
for the building of the Tuskegee Institute.
Samuel Armstrong, principal of the successful Hampton Normal and Agricultural
Institute, was asked to recommend a white teacher to take charge of
the Tuskegee Institute. However, he suggested that it would be a good
idea to employ one of his African American teachers, Booker
T. Washington, instead.
The Tuskegee Negro Normal Institute was opened on the 4th July,
1888. The school was originally a shanty building owned by the local
church. The school only received funding of $2,000 a year and this
was only enough to pay the staff. Eventually Booker
T. Washington was able to borrow money from the treasurer of the
Hampton Agricultural Institute to purchase an abandoned plantation
on the outskirts of Tuskegee and built his own school.
The school taught academic subjects but emphasized a practical education.
This included farming, carpentry, brickmaking, shoemaking, printing
and cabinetmaking. This enabled students to become involved in the
building of a new school. Students worked long-hours, arising at five
in the morning and finishing at nine-thirty at night.
By 1888 the school owned 540 acres of land and had over 400 students.
Washington was able to attract good teachers to his school such as
Olivia Davidson , who was appointed
assistant principal, and Adella Logan.
Washington's conservative leadership of the school made it acceptable
to the white-controlled Macon County. He did not believe that blacks
should campaign for the vote, and claimed that blacks needed to prove
their loyalty to the United States by working hard without complaint
before being granted their political rights.
Southern whites, who had previously been against the education of
African Americans, supported Washington's ideas as they saw them as
means of encouraging them to accept their inferior economic and social
status. This resulted in white businessmen such as Andrew
Carnegie, Seth Low and Collis
Huntington donating large sums of money to his school.
In September, 1895, Booker T. Washington
became a national figure when his speech at the opening of the Cotton
States and International Exposition in Atlanta was widely reported
by the country's newspapers. Washington's conservative views made
him popular with white politicians who were keen that he should become
the new leader of the African American population. To help him in
this President William McKinley visited
the Tuskegee Institute and praised Washington's achievements.
In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt
invited Washington to visit him in the White House. To southern whites
this was going too far. One editor wrote: "With our long-matured
views on the subject of social intercourse between blacks and whites,
the least we can say now is that we deplore the President's taste,
and we distrust his wisdom."
Booker T. Washington now spent most of
his time on the lecture circuit. His African American critics who
objected to the way Washington argued that it was the role of blacks
to serve whites, and that those black leaders who demanded social
equality were political extremists.
In 1903 William Du Bois joined the attack
on Washington with his essay on his work in The Soul of Black Folks.
Washington retaliated with criticisms of Du Bois and his Niagara
Movement. The two men also clashed over the establishment of the
National Association for the Advancement of
Coloured People (NAACP) in 1909.
The following year, William Du Bois and
twenty-two other prominent African Americans signed a statement claiming:
"We are compelled to point out that Mr. Washington's large financial
responsibilities have made him dependent on the rich charitable public
and that, for this reason, he has for years been compelled to tell,
not the whole truth, but that part of it which certain powerful interests
in America wish to appear as the whole truth."
By the time died in November, 1915, the Tuskegee Institute had an
endowment of $1,945,000, a staff of almost 200, and a student population
of 2000.
Booker T. Washington with a group of
his
financial supporters at Tuskegee Institute.
(1) Booker
T. Washington, Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (1901)
I believe it is the duty of
the Negro - as the greater part of the race is already doing - to
deport himself modestly in regard of political claims, depending upon
the slow but sure influences that proceed from the possessions of
property, intelligence, and high character for the full recognition
of his political rights. I think that the according of the full exercise
of political rights is going to be a matter of natural, slow growth,
not an overnight gourdvine affair.
As a rule I believe in universal, free suffrage, but I believe that
in the South we are confronted with peculiar conditions that justify
the protection of the ballot in many of the states, for a while at
least, either by an educational test, a property test, or by both
combined; but whatever tests are required, they should be made to
apply with equal and exact justice to both races.
(2) William
Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks (1903)
Easily the most striking thing in the history of the American Negro
since 1876 is the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. It began
at the time when war memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day
of astonishing commercial development was dawning; a sense of doubt
and hesitation overtook the freedmen's sons - then it was his leading
began. His program of industrial education, conciliation of the South,
and submission and silence as to civil and political rights, was not
wholly original; the Free Negroes from 1830 up to wartime had striven
to build industrial schools, and the American Missionary Association
had from the first taught various trades. But Mr. Washington first
indissolubly linked these things; he put enthusiasm, unlimited energy,
and perfect faith into this program, and changed it from a bypath
into a veritable Way of Life.
(3)
Statement on Booker T. Washington signed
by William
Du Bois and twenty-two other African Americans (26th
October, 1910)
The
undersigned Negro-Americans have heard, with great regret, the recent
attempt to assure England and Europe that their condition in America
is satisfactory. They sincerely wish that such were the case, but
it becomes their plan duty to say that Mr. Booker T. Washington, or
any other person, is giving the impression abroad that the Negro problem
in America is in process of satisfactory solution, he is giving an
impression which is not true.
We say this without personal bitterness toward Mr. Washington. He
is a distinguished American and has a perfect right to his opinions.
But we are compelled to point out that Mr. Washington's large financial
responsibilities have made him dependent on the rich charitable public
and that, for this reason, he has for years been compelled to tell,
not the whole truth, but that part of it which certain powerful interests
in America wish to appear as the whole truth.
Today
in eight states where the bulk of the Negroes live, black men of property
and university training can be, and usually are, by law denied the
ballot, while the most ignorant white man votes. This attempt to put
the personal and property rights of the best of the blacks at the
absolute political mercy of the worst of the whites is spreading each
day.
(4)
Ray
Stannard Baker, American
Magazine, Following the Color Line (1908)
Nothing has been more remarkable
in the recent history of the Negro than Washington's rise to influence
as a leader, and the spread of his ideals of education and progress.
It is noteworthy that he was born in the South, a slave, that he knew
intimately the common struggling life of the people and the attitude
of the white race toward them. The central idea of his doctrine is
work. He teaches that if the Negro wins by real worth a strong economic
position in the country, other rights and privileges will come to
him naturally. He should get his rights, not by gift of the white
man, but by earning them himself.
Whenever I found a prosperous Negro enterprise, a thriving business
place, a good home, there I was almost sure to find Booker T. Washington's
picture over the fireplace or a little framed motto expressing his
gospel of work and service. Many highly educated Negroes, especially,
in the North, dislike him and oppose him, but he has brought new hope
and given new courage to the masses of his race. He has given them
a working plan of life. And is there a higher test of usefulness?
Measured by any standard, white or black, Washington must be regarded
today as one of the great men of this country: and in the future he
will be so honored.
(5)
Ida
Wells was one of the first members of the NAACP.
In her autobiography, Crusade for Justice (1928),
Wells points out that the NAACP was concerned about the activities
of Booker T. Washington in the struggle
for racial equality.
There was an uneasy feeling that Mr. Booker T. Washington and his
theories, which seemed for the moment to dominate the country, would
prevail in the discussion as to what ought to be done. Although the
country at large seemed to be accepting and adopting Mr. Washington's
theories of industrial education, a large number agreed with Dr. Du
Bois that it was impossible to limit the aspirations and endeavors
of an entire race within the confines of the industrial education
program.
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