Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization

by Emmett J. Scott; Lyman Beecher Stowe

"It is one of the privileges of people who are not always classed among the popular people of earth to have strong friends for the reason that nobody but a strong man will endure the public criticism that so often comes to one who is the friend of a weak or unpopular race. This, in the words of another, is one of the advantages enjoyed sometimes by a disadvantaged race."

Naturally no account of Booker Washington's administration of the great institution which he built would be complete without some mention of Mrs. Washington's part in her husband's work. Aside from her duties as wife, mother, and home maker—duties which any ordinary woman would find quite exacting enough to absorb all her time, thought, and strength particularly in view of the fact that a wide hospitality is part of the rôle—Mrs. Washington, as director of women's industries, is one of the half-dozen leading executives of the institution. In addition to her many and varied family and official duties at the Institute Mrs. Washington has always been a leader in social service and club work among the women of her race throughout the country, and has besides all this come to be a kind of mother confessor, advisor, and guide to hundreds of young men and women. We will conclude this chapter by quoting in large part an article written by Mr. Scott and published some years ago in the Ladies' Home Journal, which describes how and when Mrs. Washington entered her husband's life and work and the part she played in his affairs:

"Even before the war closed there came to the South on the heels of the army of emancipation an army of school teachers. They came to perfect with the spelling-book and the reader the work that the soldiers had begun with the sword. It was during this period in the little straggling village of Macon, Miss., that a little girl, called then Margaret Murray, but who is known now as Mrs. Booker T. Washington, was born. When she grew old enough to count she found herself one of a family of ten and, like nearly all children of Negro parentage, at that time, very poor.

"In the grand army of teachers who went South in 1864 and 1865 were many Quakers. Prevented by the tenets of their religion from entering the army as soldiers these people were the more eager to do the not less difficult and often dangerous work of teachers among the freedmen after the war was over.

"One of the first memories of her childhood is of her father's death. It was when she was seven years old. The next day she went to the Quaker school teachers, a brother and sister, Sanders by name, and never went back home to live.

"Thus at seven she became the arbiter of her own fate. The incident is interesting in showing thus early a certain individuality and independence of character which she has exhibited all through her life. In the breaking or loosening of the family relations after the death of her father she determined to bestow herself upon her Quaker neighbors. The secret of it, of course, was that the child was possessed even then with a passion for knowledge which has never since deserted her. Rarely does a day pass that Mrs. Washington amid the cares of her household, of the school, and of the many philanthropic and social enterprises in which she takes a leading part, does not devote half or three-quarters of an hour to downright study.

"And so it was that Margaret Murray became at seven a permanent part of the Quaker household, and became to all intents and purposes, so far as her habits of thought and religious attitude are concerned, herself a Quaker.

"'And in those early days,' says Mrs. Washington, laughing, 'I learned easily and quickly. It was only after I grew up that I began to grow dull. I used to sit up late at night and get up early in the morning to study my lessons. I was not always a good child, I am sorry to say, and sometimes I would hide away under the house in order to read and study.'...

"When Margaret Murray was fourteen years old the good Quaker teacher said one day, 'Margaret, would thee like to teach?' That very day the little girl borrowed a long skirt and went downtown to the office of Judge Ames, and took her examination. It was not a severe examination. Judge Ames had known Margaret all her life and he had known her father, and in those days white people were more lenient with Negro teachers than they are now. They did not expect so much of them. And so, the next day, Margaret Murray stepped into the schoolroom where she had been the day before a pupil and became a teacher....

"Then Margaret heard of the school at Nashville—Fisk University—and she went there. She had a little money when she started to school, and with that and what she was able to earn at the school and by teaching during vacations she managed to work her way as—what was termed rather contemptuously in those days—a 'half-rater.' It was not the fashion at that time, in spite of the poverty of the colored people, for students to work their way through school.