The Story of My Life and Work

by Booker T. Washington

I went to Europe mainly for the purpose of securing complete rest, and notwithstanding the many engagements which constantly pressed themselves upon me, I succeeded in getting a great deal of needed strength, especially was this true in Paris. From Paris we went to London and arrived there just in the midst of the social season. We had many letters of introduction from friends in America to influential people in England, and our stay in England was occupied mainly in a continual round of social engagements.

Soon after reaching London, friends insisted that I should deliver an address to the public on the race problem in the South. The American Ambassador, Hon. Joseph H. Choate, was especially anxious that I consent to do this. A meeting was arranged to take place in Essex Hall. In connection with this meeting Rev. Brooke Herford, D. D., whom I had formerly known in Boston, gave Mrs. Washington and myself a reception. The meeting was largely attended, and Mr. Choate, the American Ambassador, presided. The substance of what Mr. Choate and myself said at this meeting was widely circulated in England and telegraphed to the American press. This meeting was attended by such well-known people as Hon. James Bryce, who also spoke, and many high officials and members of titled families in England. After this meeting I received many invitations to speak at other gatherings, but as far as possible excused myself from doing so, in order that I might secure the rest for which I went to Europe. I did, however, consent to speak at a meeting at the Crystal Palace, which was presided over by the Duke of Westminster, said to be the richest man in the world. This meeting was also largely attended. We attended, among many other social functions, receptions given by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, by Mr. and Mrs. T. Fischer Unwin, Mrs. Unwin being the daughter of the late Richard Cobden. Lady Henry Somerset was very kind in her attention to us.

While in London the following editorial appeared in the Daily Chronicle:

“The presence in London of Mr. Booker T. Washington, at whose address the other evening the American Ambassador presided, calls for a generous recognition of the remarkable work being done in the United States for the Negro by this gifted member of the Negro race. What Frederick Douglass was to an older generation that Mr. Washington is to the present. At the recent visit of President McKinley to the South, Mr. Washington occupied a place of honor alongside the President, and was almost as heartily acclaimed. When one recalls the tremendous ‘color’ feeling in America, such a fact is exceedingly striking. The great work which Mr. Washington has done has been an educational work. Orator as he is, it is not so much his power of speech as the building up of the remarkable industrial institute at Tuskegee, in Alabama, which has given this Negro leader his deserved fame. The Civil War left the Negro legally and nominally free, and the legislation after the war was over made him legally and nominally a citizen. But we know that the Negro has been in fact in a very different position from that which he occupied on paper. He has been insulted by degrading legislation, he has been in many states virtually deprived of his vote, and in not a few cases an election dispute has afforded the dominant white man an excuse for slaughter of the blacks. The Negro has retaliated in his barbarous way. Though religious in the most emotional form, he is often non-moral, and there can be no doubt that he has committed many grave offenses against social order.

“Mr. Washington, though an enthusiastic advocate of the claims of his race, is by no means blind to the faults which render so many Negroes almost unfit for American citizenship. He saw long ago, what so many American politicians who gave the suffrage to the colored population did not see—that the most important service which could be rendered to the blacks was to make useful artisans and workmen of them. As a result of his meditation on the condition of the colored people, Mr. Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute in the Black Belt of Alabama, stumped the Union for funds, interested in his great undertaking all the best minds of the Northern States, and has had the satisfaction of seeing this institution grow to its present status of the largest and most important training centre of the black race in the world. Here, where both sexes are welcomed on terms of equality, the Negro is taken in hand, given the rudiments of education, taught a useful trade, taught also, if he proves capable, the higher branches of modern culture, subjected to high intellectual and ethical influences, and made a man of in the true sense of the word. No better work is being done in America at the present hour than in this remarkable institution in Alabama.

“That the American conscience is being roused to its duty to the Negroes is evident from the recent important conference at which two leading speakers were an ex-Governor of Georgia and a Bishop of the Episcopal Church. The horrible burnings and improvised hangings by white mobs, who took the law into their hands, have awakened the people of the North, and it is very properly asked whether those who permit such brutalities in their own borders are fit to assume control of black and yellow races in the Pacific. Ex-Governor Northen, of Georgia, took the North to task for having been more responsible for the spread of slavery than the South, and he defended, but without much success, the Southern whites against the attacks made on them. The Bishop, it is gratifying to find, took the strong ground of the Declaration of Independence, and asserted the equal right of black and white to the common rights which the law and the Constitution allow. But the important principle which emerges clearly from the long discussion that took place at this conference is that a laissez faire policy is impossible in the case of the Negro. You cannot ‘emancipate’ him alone. He must be educated, his character must be formed, he must be made a useful and self-reliant being. This is precisely what is being done at the Tuskegee Institute, and therefore, its founder is solving, as far as one man can, one of the chief American problems of the time. And what a problem! The practical humanising and elevation from barbarism of dusky millions on whose own future the future of the United States largely depends.”

Perhaps the most interesting and restful part of our visit to England was the time that we spent as the guest of various English people in their country homes. In order for one to appreciate what English life really is he should have an opportunity to get into the daily life of an English gentleman in his country residence.

We visited Bristol, where we were given a reception by the Women’s Liberty Club, and also Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. In Birmingham we spent several days as the guests of Mr. Joseph Sturge, who kindly gave us a reception, at which we met many of the prominent citizens of Birmingham. Of course we visited a great many places of historical interest and had an opportunity of looking into the methods of education in England. We were specially interested in the work of the large polytechnic institutes and the agricultural colleges, from which we got a great deal of valuable information.

While in Europe I wrote a series of letters for the American Negro press, which was widely published and commented upon.

During our stay in London I took special pains to inquire into the opportunities for our people to better their condition by emigrating to Africa, and convinced myself that there was little, if any, hope of our people being able to better their condition by returning to Africa, largely because Africa is almost completely divided up among various European nations, leaving almost no hope for self-government in any part of Africa, except in the little republic of Liberia, which is notably unhealthy and undesirable from almost every point of view. I found out that in many cases the Negroes are treated by Europeans in Africa almost as badly as they have ever been treated in the South. The letter which I wrote from London on this subject was very widely copied and commented upon by the American press.