Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization

by Emmett J. Scott; Lyman Beecher Stowe

"In those days very little had been heard at Fisk of Tuskegee, of Hampton, or of Booker T. Washington. Students who expected to be teachers were looking forward to going to Texas. Texas has always been more favorable to Negro education than other Southern States and has always got the best of Negro public school teachers.

"But upon graduation day, June, 1889, Booker T. Washington was at Fisk, and he sat opposite Margaret Murray at table. About that time it was arranged that she should go to Texas, but, without knowing just how it came about, she decided to go to Tuskegee and become what was then called the Lady Principal of the school. Mrs. Washington has been at Tuskegee ever since.

"Mrs. Washington's duties as the wife of the Principal of the Tuskegee Institute are many and various. She has charge of all the industries for girls. She gives much time to the extension work of the school, which includes the 'Mothers' meetings' in the town of Tuskegee and the 'plantation settlement' nearby. Her most characteristic trait, however, is a boundless sympathy which has made her a sort of Mother Confessor to students and teachers of the Institute. All go to her for comfort and advice.

"The 'mothers' meetings' grew out of the first Tuskegee Negro Conference held at Tuskegee in February, 1892. Mrs. Washington, as she sat in the first meeting of Negro farmers and heard what they had to say, was impressed with the fact that history was repeating itself. Here again, as in the early days of the woman's suffrage movement, women had no place worth mentioning in the important concerns of life outside the household. While there were many women present at this first conference, they did not seem to realize that they had any interest in the practical affairs that were being discussed by their sons and husbands. While her husband was trying to give these farmers new ideas, new hopes, new aspirations, the thought came to Mrs. Washington that the Tuskegee village was the place for her to begin a work which should eventually include all the women of the county and of the neighboring counties. The country colored women crowd into the villages of the South on Saturday, seeking to vary the monotony of their hard and cheerless lives. Mrs. Washington determined to get hold of these women and utilize the time spent in town to some good purpose. Accordingly, the first mothers' meeting was organized in the upper story of an old store which then stood on the main street of the village. The stairs were so rickety that the women were almost afraid to ascend them. It answered the purpose temporarily, however, and there was no rent to pay. How to get the women to the meeting was, for a time, a question. For fear of opposition Mrs. Washington took no one into her confidence except the man who let her have the room. She sent a small boy through the streets with the instruction to go to every colored woman loitering about the streets and say: 'There is a woman upstairs who has something for you.' Mrs. Washington says: 'That first meeting I can never forget. The women came, and each one, as she entered, looked at me and seemed to say, 'Where is it?' We talked it all over, the needs of our women of the country, the best way of helping each other, and there and then began the first mothers' meeting which now has in its membership two hundred and twenty-nine women.'...

"Mrs. Washington asked some of the teachers at Tuskegee to begin to help these people (the people of the country districts surrounding the school). At first they went to the plantation (selected for the purpose) on Sundays only. Mrs. Washington selected what seemed to be the most promising cabin and asked the woman who lived there if she could come to that house the next Sunday and hold a meeting. When the party went down early the next Sunday morning a stout new broom was taken along. Making the woman a present of the broom, it was suggested that all take a hand in cleaning the house a little before the people should begin to come. The woman took the broom and swept half of the room, when Mrs. Washington volunteered to finish the job.

"She had not gone far along on her half before the woman was saying: 'Oh, Mis' Washington, lemme take de brom an' do mah half ovah.' Mrs. Washington says: 'I have always thought that that one unconscious lesson in thoroughness was the foundation of our work on that plantation.'...

"Not the least of the duties which fall to Mrs. Washington is that of caring for the distinguished people who visit the Tuskegee Institute. The Tuskegee rule that everything must be in readiness for the inspection of visitors, as much so in the kitchen as in any other department of the school, prevails in her home also.

"An interesting part of this home life is the Sunday morning breakfast. The teachers have slept later than usual, and, through the year, when Mr. Washington is at home, they are invited in groups of three and four to share this morning meal. In this way he keeps in personal touch with each of his teachers; he knows what they are doing; he hears their complaints, if they have any; he counsels with them; they 'get together.'

"Mrs. Washington's labors for the good of her people are not confined to the school. She is (has been) president of the Southern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, editor of the official organ of the National Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, of which she is also an officer. She is a frequent contributor to the newspapers and magazines. (Mrs. Washington has since served two terms as president of the National Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.)

"Mr. Washington's own estimate of his wife's helpfulness to him may be gathered from his tribute in his widely read autobiography, 'Up from Slavery': 'She is completely one with me in the work directly connected with the school, relieving me of many burdens and perplexities.'"