Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization

by Emmett J. Scott; Lyman Beecher Stowe

Probably he never made a more well-considered or illuminating statement of his personal attitude toward social intercourse with the dominant race than in a letter to the late Edgar Gardiner Murphy, a Southerner "of light and leading," author of "The Present South," "The Basis of Ascendancy," and other notable books on the relations between the races. Mr. Murphy, as a Southerner, became alarmed at the attacks upon Booker Washington by certain Southern newspapers and public men because of his appearance at so-called social functions in the North. Mr. Murphy, rightly regarding the retention of the favorable opinion of representative Southern whites as essential to the success of Washington's work, very naturally feared any course of action which seemed to threaten the continuance of that favorable opinion. In response to a letter in which Mr. Murphy expressed these fears and asked for an opportunity to discuss the situation with him Mr. Washington replied as follows:

[Personal]

My Dear Sir: I have received your kind letter, for which I thank you very much. I was very much disappointed that I did not have an opportunity of meeting you, as I had planned the other day, so as not to be so hurried in talking with you as I usually am. I shall be very glad, however, the very first time I can find another spare hour when in New York (Mr. Murphy was then living in New York City) to have you talk with me fully and frankly about the matters that are in your mind.

However we may differ in our view regarding certain matters, there is no man in the country whose frankness, earnestness, and sincere disinterestedness I respect more than yours, and whatever you say always has great weight with me.

Your letter emphasizes the tremendous difficulty of the work at the South. In most cases, and in most countries where a large section of the people are down, and are to be helped up, those attempting to do the work have before them a straight, simple problem of elevating the unfortunate people without the entanglement of racial prejudice to be grappled with. I think I do not exaggerate when I say that perhaps a third or half of the thought and energy of those engaged in the elevation of the colored people is given in the direction of trying to do the thing or not doing the thing which would enhance racial prejudice. This feature of the situation I believe very few people at the North or at the South appreciate. What is true of the Negro educator is true in a smaller degree of the white educator at the South. I am constantly trying, as best I can, to study the situation as it is right here on the ground, and I may be mistaken, but aside from the wild and demagogical talk on the part of a few I am unable to discover much or any change in the attitude of the best white people toward the best colored people. So far as my own individual experience and observation are concerned, I am treated about the same as I have always been. I was in Athens, Georgia, a few days ago, to deliver ah address before the colored people at the State Fair, and the meeting was attended by the best class of whites and the best class of colored people, who seemed to be pleased over what I said.

Mr. Blank, a Southern Congressman, just now is making a good deal of noise, but you will recall that Mr. Blank spoke just as bitterly against me before Mr. Roosevelt became President as he has since. I do not want to permit myself to be misled, but I repeat that I cannot see or feel that any great alienation has taken place between the two classes of people that you refer to.

For the sake of argument I want to grant for the moment a thing which I have never done before, even in a private letter, and which is very distasteful to me, and that is, that I am the leader of the colored people. Do you think it will ever be possible for one man to be set up as the leader of ten millions of people, meaning a population nearly twice as large as that of the Dominion of Canada and nearly equal to that of the Republic of Mexico, without the actions of that individual being carefully watched and commented upon, and what he does being exaggerated either in one direction or the other? Again, if I am the leader and therefore the mouthpiece for ten millions of colored people, is it possible for such a leader to avoid coming into contact with the representatives of the ruling classes of white people upon many occasions; and is it not to be expected that when questions that are racial and national and international in their character are to be discussed, that such a representative of the Negro race would be sought out both by individuals and by conventions? If, as you kindly suggest, I am the leader, I hardly see how such notoriety and prominence as will naturally come can be wholly or in any large degree avoided.

Judging by some of the criticisms that have appeared recently, mainly from the class of people to whom I have referred, it seems to me that some of the white people at the South are making an attempt to control my actions when I am in the North and in Europe. Heretofore, no man has been more careful to regard the feelings of the Southern people in actions and words than I have been, and this policy I shall continue to pursue, but I have never attempted to hide or to minimize the fact that when I am out of the South I do not conform to the same customs and rules that I do in the South. I say I have not attempted to hide it because everything that I have done in this respect was published four years ago in my book, "Up from Slavery," which has been read widely throughout the South, and I did not hear a word of adverse criticism passed upon what I had done. For fifteen years I have been doing at the North just what I have been doing during the past year. I have never attended a purely social function given by white people anywhere in the country. Nearly every week I receive invitations to weddings of rich people, but these I always refuse. Mrs. Washington almost never accompanies me on any occasion where there can be the least sign of purely social intercourse. Whenever I meet white people in the North at their offices, in their parlors, or at their dinner tables, or at banquets, it is with me purely a matter of business, either in the interest of our institution or in the interest of my race; no other thought ever enters my mind. For me to say now, after fifteen years of creating interest in my race and in this institution in that manner, that I must stop, would simply mean that I must cease to get money in a large measure for this institution. In meeting the people in this way I am simply doing what the head of practically every school, black and white, in the South is constantly doing. For purely social pleasure I have always found all my ambitions satisfied among my own people, and you will find that in proportion as the colored race becomes educated and prosperous, in the same proportion is this true of all colored people.

I said a minute ago that I had tried to be careful in regard to the feelings of the Southern people. It has been urged upon me time and time again to employ a number of white teachers at this institution. I have not done so and do not intend to do so, largely for the reason that they would be constantly mingling with each other at the table. For thirty years and more, in every one of our Southern States, white and colored people have sat down to the table three times a day nearly throughout the year, and I have heard very little criticism passed upon them. This kind of thing, however, at Tuskegee I have always tried to avoid so far as our regular teaching force is concerned. But I repeat, if I begin to yield in the performance of my duty when out of the South in one respect, I do not know where the end will be. It is very difficult for you, or any other person who is not in my place, to understand the difficulty and embarrassment that I am confronted with. You have no idea how many invitations of various kinds I am constantly refusing or trying to get away from because I want to avoid embarrassing situations. For example, over a year ago Mr. S—— invited me to go to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, near Lenox, to deliver an address on General Armstrong's life and work. When I reached Stockbridge an hour or so before the time of delivering the address, I found that Mr. S——, who had invited me, had also invited five or six other gentlemen to meet me at luncheon. The luncheon I knew nothing about until I reached the town. Under such circumstances I am at a loss to know how I could have avoided accepting the invitation. A few days afterward I filled a long-standing invitation to lecture at Amherst College. I reached the town a few hours before dinner and found that a number of people, including several college presidents, had been invited to meet me at dinner. Taking still another case: over a year ago I promised a colored club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that I would be their guest at a banquet in October. The banquet was held on the third of the month, and when I reached Cambridge I found that in addition to the members of the colored club, the Mayor of the city and a number of Harvard professors, including President Eliot, had been invited; and I could go on and state case after case. Of course, if I wanted to make a martyr of myself and draw especial attention to me and to the institution, I could easily do so by simply writing whenever I receive an invitation to a dinner or banquet that I could not accept on account of the color of my skin.

Six years ago at the Peace Jubilee in Chicago, where I spoke at a meeting at which President McKinley was present, I took both luncheon and dinner in the same dining-room with President McKinley and was the guest of the same club that he was a guest of. There were Southern men present, and the fact that I was present and spoke was widely heralded throughout the South, and so far as I know not a word of adverse comment was made. For nearly fifteen years the addresses which I have been constantly making at dinners and banquets in the North have been published throughout the South, and no adverse comment has been made regarding my presence on these occasions.