Perhaps the most unique and impressive session of the National Negro Business League was that held at the invitation of John Wanamaker in his great department store in Philadelphia in 1913. One of the most interesting talks at this meeting was that of Charles Banks of Mound Bayou, Miss. Mr. Banks has been referred to in an earlier chapter. He has often been called the J. Pierpont Morgan of his race. He said in part: "I live in the little town of Mound Bayou, Miss., that was founded by Isaiah T. Montgomery, an ex-slave of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Southern Confederacy. Mr. Montgomery, the ex-slave in question, is present at this meeting. We live in what is called the 'Black Belt of Mississippi' and our plantations embrace some of the richest and most fertile land that can be found in the entire 'Delta.' In some parts of the 'Delta' the Negro population outnumbers the white population in a ratio of five to one. In the town in which I live (Mound Bayou) we outnumber the white population in a ratio of five to nothing. (Laughter and applause.)
"Instead of whining and lamenting our lot, and bemoaning the racial prejudice which exists in our section of the country, we are taking advantage of some of the opposition and the tendency to segregate us and we are trying to show, through the leadership of this ex-slave of Jefferson Davis, that it is possible for us to build up a Negro community, a town owned and controlled by Negroes right there under his direct supervision. And as a result, on the Yazoo and Mound Bayou Branch of the Yazoo Central Railroad, we have one of the best-governed and most prosperous towns on the whole line. We have something like thirty to forty thousand acres of land in that rich and fertile country owned and controlled exclusively by Negro men and women. We have there the little town of Mound Bayou, which it is our privilege to represent, and so far as its management or government is concerned, we have control of everything. There we have a Negro Depot Agent, a Negro Express Agent, a Negro Postmaster, a Negro Mayor, a Board of Negro Aldermen and City Councilmen, and every other official of the city administration is a full-fledged Negro. In that town I am the banker, and I pass for a Negro." (Laughter and applause followed this sally, as the speaker is the blackest of full-blooded Africans.)
In concluding his address of welcome on this occasion Mr. Wanamaker said: "I do hope that meetings like this will come often and be held in every large city in the North. In exhibiting to the world the successful business men and women of your race, your league is doing exactly what every good merchant legitimately does, that is—you are showing your goods. (Laughter.) And you are delivering the goods. (Prolonged applause.) Your league is making an 'Annual Report' as it were; it is making a 'Yearly Inventory' of what your race has on hand, and though this large hall has been the scene of many delightful occasions (mainly connected with this business) your coming here to-day is the first meeting of its kind. (Applause.) I believe that this meeting ought to be put down as historical, and should serve as a set-off—in striking contrast to the stoning of William Lloyd Garrison, in the streets of Philadelphia, scarcely more than fifty years ago. (Prolonged applause.) This meeting will simply help to balance your account. (Applause.) The world is moving on, and it is a glorious thing to-day to find that, instead of stepping backward—contrary to the predictions of some—you are making such splendid strides forward under the fine leadership of Dr. Booker T. Washington—(applause)—as evidenced in this Business League Convention.
"In closing I want not only to pay just tribute to what you have achieved in music, in education, and religious life, but I think it fitting, on this occasion, and I have planned to show you a fine painting from the brush of the greatest artist of your race—the son of Bishop Tanner. I have seen his handiwork in some of the art galleries of the first rank in Europe. For the most part his paintings are religious in conception, and the peculiar beauty of them is that they deal with the heart, even as they are fine expressions of art. (Applause.) Before you leave I have planned to show you several other pictures of real merit that members of your race have produced. (Applause.)
"And oh—when I consider all these things, and when I gazed upon this vast and beautiful audience a few minutes ago, as you were singing so fervently our national anthem, 'America,' as I looked over the sea of earnest, intelligent faces, I wondered how on earth we could sing that song for a hundred years or more—I wondered how it was possible to keep a race like yours enslaved while, for years and years, the people of this nation sang that last line of that song, 'Let freedom ring!!!'" (Prolonged applause, tumultuous cheering, and the waving of countless handkerchiefs as Mr. Wanamaker resumed his seat.)
Aside from having the successful colored men and women tell one another and their less-successful fellows how they had achieved their success at these sessions of the league, Booker Washington also arranged to have one or more prominent white men speak. His reason for this, aside from the obvious one of helping to foster friendly feeling between the races, was, it may safely be hazarded, to impress upon his people that white people succeed by the possession and the application of the same qualities which bring success to colored people. At the Chicago meeting of the league in 1912 Julius Rosenwald spoke—Julius Rosenwald, the Jewish philanthropist who has done and is doing so much to help the Negro. It was he who offered $25,000 to any city in the United States which would raise $75,000 for a Young Men's Christian Association Building for colored men. It is he also who is helping Tuskegee in the building of rural schoolhouses as was explained in the [third chapter]. He is one of Tuskegee's trustees.
The late Robert C. Ogden, the New York manager of the Wanamaker business, addressed the convention of 1905 in New York. He was a man whom Booker Washington delighted to hold up to his people as an example of what a man could accomplish through his own unaided efforts. He had begun his business career at a salary of $5 a week, and from that as his starting-point he had risen to be the New York head of the greatest department store business in the country. He was for twenty-five years President of the Board of Trustees of Hampton, a member of the Tuskegee Board, and the originator and host of the annual educational pilgrimages which gave leading Northerners a first hand and intelligent insight into the dire need of education for the masses of the people both white and black throughout the South. Much of the educational activity in the South to-day may be traced to the early Ogden educational pilgrimages.
Theodore Roosevelt spoke at the New York meeting in 1910. He had just returned from Africa. He said later that nothing connected with his homecoming had touched him so deeply as the ovation given him by these, his fellow-citizens of African descent. Among other white men who have spoken before the league are Henry Clews, the banker; Dr. H.B. Frissell, the Principal of Hampton Institute, and Dr. J.H. Dillard, president of the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation of Negro Rural Schools.
One of Mr. Washington's many methods for inspiring his people to strive for business efficiency and success was to excite their imaginations by holding up before them the achievements of such men as John Wanamaker, Robert C. Ogden, William H. Baldwin, Jr., Henry H. Rogers, Julius Rosenwald, the Rockefellers, and Andrew Carnegie.
Out of the National Negro Business League have developed the following organizations which are affiliated with it: