14 November: Boreham on Booker Washington

The Evolution of the Slave
Booker Washington, the anniversary of whose death this is, richly deserves to be held in grateful remembrance by people of every kind and race.[1] He occupies his niche in history, not as an abolitionist but as an educationist. His work was not negative but constructive. Others tore down; he built up. Born in slavery, he had nothing to do with the emancipation of his people. Such an idea never even occurred to him until, to his boundless astonishment, the sensational proclamation was made. He liked to describe the eventful day on which his mother gathered her children about her and explained to them that they were free. Even then he was not greatly impressed. The vision of millions of black men turned loose to fend for themselves in a free country, seemed to him to involve possibilities at which any thoughtful man might well shudder. Suddenly liberated, they would be like hounds unleashed and might easily become an unruly and undisciplined rabble. To avert the calamity which seemed to him terribly possible, he resolved to seek for himself a good education, and then to labour for the illumination of his people. And the statue that, was erected at Tuskegee represents him—a stalwart, cultured and virile figure—placing the emblems of enlightenment and civilisation in the hands of the creature crouching at his feet.

Effects Of Slavery
A slave inherited nothing—not even a name. Booker Washington's name was his own invention. The property of another; he was, from birth, a creature of little sentiment and of no illusions. He was rather oppressed than elated by the victory of the abolitionists. It was all very well for the liberated people to throw up their caps, shout their weird plantation melodies, dance wildly round blazing campfires and lose themselves in transports of delight over their escape from the white man's tyranny. But Booker Washington was haunted by misapprehension. Were the slaves ready for freedom? Alone among the coloured men, he possessed the perspicacity to see that a slave, in virtue of being a slave, is to a certain extent sheltered from the rough and tumble of commercial and industrial life. If, on the one hand, he has little liberty, he has, on the other, little responsibility. And the very fact that he represents, in his own flesh and blood, so much real estate—personal property with a recognised market value—offers him a certain amount of protection. A sensible man does not, for the sake of exhibiting his own brutality, wilfully neglect or damage his most valuable belongings. This being so, the slave could rely on having a reasonable amount of care taken of him; his food and clothing were assured; his life was serenely immune from all practical anxieties. But emancipation put an end to all this. It involved the black people in the necessity of providing for themselves. They must earn their own living. They must compete with each other, and with white men, in the labour market. They must win for themselves an honourable place in the social economy of the country or else, failing in the struggle, must become outcasts, pariahs and criminals. Booker Washington devoted his life to the attempt to make himself and his compatriots worthy of America's recognition and esteem. He heard of an institution at which he could himself be educated and he tramped 500 miles to reach it. He arrived there, an unwashed, unkempt, dishevelled figure, with only 50 cents in his possession. He learned quickly, for his mind was hungry. And then, as soon as he felt competent to teach, he set out to establish institutions at which his people might be equipped for the titanic struggle to which their emancipation had committed them. In designing a destiny for the liberated slaves, the more thoughtful negroes were divided into two camps. There were many who held that the goal of their desire could only be reached by political agitation. "Let us," they said, "hold meetings, stir up public sentiment and petition Parliament for an ampler recognition of our race!" Booker Washington argued that such agitation was a ridiculous dissipation of energy and a wanton waste of breath. The negroes, he maintained, must work out his own salvation. Let him learn to hold his own in the markets of men, and recognition will come of its own accord. "If," Emerson once exclaimed, "a man can write a better book, or sing a better song, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, then, even though he builds his house in the woods, the world will beat a track to his door." This exactly expresses the philosophy of Booker Washington. "I am constantly trying to impress on our people," he said, "that any man, regardless of colour, will be recognised and rewarded just in proportion as he learns to do something—however humble that thing may be—better than anybody else." Believing this with all his heart and soul, he commenced to educate his people.

Two Notable Distinctions
Beginning in a small way he gradually developed his scheme until at last he presided over magnificent and imposing establishments in which thousands of students were being trained to adorn positions of usefulness in all the trades and professions. To gather ideas for the improvement of his schools, Booker Washington visited England and was everywhere received with tumultuous demonstrations of honour and regard. He was the first negro to be entertained at the White House—a distinction that he owed to the courage of President Theodore Roosevelt—and the first negro to be honoured with a degree by Harvard University. America has not yet solved her colour problem. In many respects it grows more acute as the days go by. Sooner or later it will demand of its leaders a momentous piece of wise and constructive statesmanship. But, whatever sensations the future may hold, the memory of Booker Washington will always stand as an inspiration to those who seek to adjust the relationships between the white and the coloured races with equity, commonsense, and broadminded philanthropy.

F W Boreham

Image: Booker Washington

[1] This editorial appears in the Hobart Mercury on November 16, 1940.