A boys' life of Booker T. Washington

by Walter Clinton Jackson

“Mrs. Thompson, one of the other speakers on the program, had hardly taken her seat, when all eyes were turned on a tall, tawny negro, sitting in the front row of the platform. It was Professor Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee (Alabama) Normal and Industrial Institute, who must rank from this time forth as the foremost man of his race in America. Gilmore’s Band played the ‘Star-spangled Banner,’ and the audience cheered. The tune changed to ‘Dixie’ and the audience roared with shrill ‘hi-yi’s.’ Again the music changed, this time to ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the clamor lessened.

“All this time the eyes of the thousands present looked straight at the negro orator. A strange thing was to happen. A black man was to speak for his people, with none to interrupt him. As Professor Washington strode to the edge of the stage, the low, descending sun shot fiery rays through the windows into his face. A great shout greeted him. He turned his head to avoid the blinding light, and moved about the platform for relief. Then he turned his wonderful countenance to the sun without a blink of the eyelids, and began to talk.

“There was a remarkable figure; tall, bony, straight as a Sioux chief, high forehead, straight nose, heavy jaws, and strong, determined mouth, with big white teeth, piercing eyes, and a commanding manner. The sinews stood out on his bronzed neck, and his muscular right arm swung high in the air, with a lead pencil grasped in the clinched brown fist. His big feet were planted squarely, with the heels together and the toes turned out. His voice rang out clear and true, and he paused impressively as he made each point. Within ten minutes the multitude was in an uproar of enthusiasm—handkerchiefs were waved, canes were flourished, hats were tossed in the air. The fairest women of Georgia stood up and cheered. It was as if the orator had bewitched them.

“And when he held his dusky hand high above his head, with the fingers stretched wide apart, and said to the white people of the South, on behalf of his race, ‘In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress,’ the great wave of sound dashed itself against the walls, and the whole audience was on its feet in a delirium of applause.

“I have heard the great orators of many countries, but not even Gladstone himself could have pleaded a cause with more consummate power than did this angular negro, standing in a nimbus of sunshine, surrounded by the men who once fought to keep his race in bondage. The roar might swell ever so high, but the expression of his earnest face never changed.

“A ragged, ebony giant, squatted on the floor in one of the aisles, watched the orator with burning eyes and tremulous face until the supreme burst of applause came, and then the tears ran down his face. Most of the negroes in the audience were crying, perhaps without knowing just why.

“At the close of the speech Governor Bulloch rushed across the stage and seized the orator’s hand. Another shout greeted this demonstration, and for a few minutes the two men stood facing each other, hand in hand.”[^[19]]

It was a wonderful speech. It contained much good advice both to the whites and to the negroes. It was fair to both. As Clark Howell, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, said, “It was a platform upon which both races, black and white, could stand with full justice to each other.”[^[20]] In the speech he told the following story: “A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: ‘Water, water; we die of thirst.’ The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, ‘Cast down your buckets where you are.’ A second time the signal, ‘Water, water, send us water,’ ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, ‘Cast down your buckets where you are.’ And a third and a fourth signal for water was answered, ‘Cast down your buckets where you are.’ The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River.” Washington then appealed to his own people to “cast down their buckets where they were,” by making friends with their white neighbors in every manly way, by training themselves where they were in agriculture, in mechanics, in commerce, instead of trying to better their condition by immigration. And, finally, to the white Southern people, he appealed to “cast down their buckets where they were,” by using and training the negroes whom they knew rather than seeking to import laborers whom they did not know.[^[21]]

Frederick Douglass had died only a few months before this great speech was made. At once from all parts of the country came the statement, “Here is the man who will take the place of Douglass as leader of the negro race.” And from that time on, Booker Washington was the accepted leader of his people in this country.

He was immediately called upon to speak in all parts of the country. He was offered big sums of money to lecture. One speaker’s bureau offered him fifty thousand dollars a year. He refused all these offers of money, saying that he must give his time to Tuskegee and to the interests of his people, rather than try to make money for himself.