THE RACIAL POLITICS OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
i
RESEARCH IN RACE AND ETHNIC RELATIONS Series Editor: Rutledge M. Dennis Volume 10: Volume 11: Volume 12:
The Black Intellectuals – Edited by Rutledge M. Dennis The Sociology of Oliver C. Cox – Edited by Herbert Hunter Marginality, Power and Social Structure: Issues in Race, Class and Gender Analysis – Edited by Rutledge M. Dennis
ii
RESEARCH IN RACE AND ETHNIC RELATIONS
VOLUME 13
THE RACIAL POLITICS OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON EDITED BY
DONALD CUNNIGEN Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Rhode Island, USA
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS Department of Sociology and Anthropology, George Mason University, USA
MYRTLE GONZA GLASCOE Founding Director, Avery Institute and Museum, USA
Amsterdam – Boston – Heidelberg – London – New York – Oxford Paris – San Diego – San Francisco – Singapore – Sydney – Tokyo JAI Press is an imprint of Elsevier
iii
JAI Press is an imprint of Elsevier The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, UK Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, The Netherlands 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101-4495, USA First edition 2006 Copyright r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone (+44) (0) 1865 843830; fax (+44) (0) 1865 853333; email:
[email protected]. Alternatively you can submit your request online by visiting the Elsevier web site at http://elsevier.com/locate/permissions, and selecting Obtaining permission to use Elsevier material Notice No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN-13: 978-0-7623-1011-1 ISBN-10: 0-7623-1011-1 ISSN: 0195-7449 (Series) For information on all JAI Press publications visit our website at books.elsevier.com Printed and bound in The Netherlands 06 07 08 09 10 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
iv
CONTENTS DEDICATION
vii
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
ix
INTRODUCTION
xi
PART I: RACIAL POLITICS, LEADERSHIP, AND THE THEORY OF PRACTICALITY THE SITUATIONAL POLITICS OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Rutledge M. Dennis
3
A BLACK LEADER IN THE AGE OF JIM CROW Louis R. Harlan
23
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON: RACIAL PRAGMATISM REVISITED W. Avon Drake
33
PART II: RACIAL CULTURE, MASKS, MYTHS, AND SYMBOLS ‘‘YOUR ARMS ARE TOO SHORT TO BOX WITH ME’’: ENCOUNTERS WITH BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, INTERNATIONAL TRICKSTER Amanda Kemp
v
63
vi
CONTENTS
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND THE ART OF RESISTANCE Michael Bieze
85
PART III: RACE AND THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF BLACK DEFICIT Carl Jorgensen
105
MONROE N. WORK’S CONTRIBUTION TO BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S FIGHT AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY Vernon J. Williams, Jr.
133
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, ROBERT EZRA PARK AND SECOND GENERATION AFRICAN-AMERICAN SOCIOLOGISTS Donald Cunnigen
149
PART IV: WASHINGTON THE INTERNATIONALIST: THE WORLD BEYOND TUSKEGEE BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND THE DANISH FOLK HIGH SCHOOL Erik Overgaard Pedersen
183
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S EUROPEAN ENCOUNTER vivian greene-gantzbergy
193
EPILOGUE Rutledge M. Dennis
211
FROM DONALD CUNNIGEN DEDICATED TO Corinne Griffin Cunnigen, my mother Bernadine Grady-Cunnigen, my wife Geneva Nero Patterson, teacher and friend the memory of the honorable Stanley Miller, friend and former Milwaukee court judge FROM RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS DEDICATED TO Susan And to the memory of my parents and godparents David and Ora Porcher Dennis Joseph and Rebecca Rutledge Weathers FROM MYRTLE GONZA GLASCOE DEDICATED TO In memory of my godmother Myrtle C. Henry
vii
This page intentionally left blank
viii
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Michael Bieze
Fine Arts Department, Marist School, Atlanta, GA, USA
Donald Cunnigen
Department of Sociology-Anthropology, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, USA
Rutledge M. Dennis
Department of Sociology-Anthropology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
W. Avon Drake
School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
vivian greene-gantzbergy
Department of Germanic Languages and Literature, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Myrtle Gonza Glascoe
Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston, South Carolina, USA
Louis R. Harlan (Emeritus)
Department of History, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Carl Jorgensen
Department of Sociology, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA, USA
Amanda Kemp
Africana Studies, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, USA
Erik Overgaard Pedersen
Red Cross Nordic United World College, Flekke, Norway
Vernon J. Williams, Jr.
African American & African Diaspora Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA ix
This page intentionally left blank
x
INTRODUCTION Booker T. Washington was, and is, an enigma. Ninety years after his death his name and image continue to puzzle many, inspire others, and repulse, yet others. But, like it or not, we must deal with Washington, if nothing more than his image and his legacy which we have inherited as projected and promoted by both friends and foes. As we reflect on Washington’s slight reputation, if any, among the larger black population and perhaps his guarded support among many scholars, religionists, and community organizers, it is often difficult to imagine that he was once the most popular man of African descent in the United States following the death of Frederick Douglass, and his fame and popularity extended to Europe as well as Africa. Like his great adversary W. E. B. Du Bois, he was to carve his name, personality, and philosophy on his era to such an extent that one might rightly characterize his era as The Age of Washington. What epitomized this age was the indefatigableness of Washington and the fact that his was a life in perpetual motion and one overwhelmingly devoted to achieving his objective of remolding and refashioning the world of black Americans in all spheres. In promoting this objective, he rejected the thesis that blacks were doomed to a life of degradation and inferiority, and in his books and public speeches, highlighted the fact that options may be possible, even in a conflictive South, albeit in conditional and situational circumstances. But the ambivalent figure of Washington remains with us, though he is often in the shadow. Perhaps he is with us even more today because as many reflect on the uneven successes of voting and civil rights, areas which Washington viewed as secondary to the greater, then, economic survival needs of blacks, sharper focus has been drawn to the economic plight of contemporary blacks and whether this plight would exist in its present dimension had more attention been given to Washington’s economic and educational agenda. We cannot say with any degree of certainty what might have been the case. However, what can be said is that the programs and agendas of both Washington and Du Bois have been largely unfulfilled. That being the case, it is important to return to Washington and to the black past in order to understand Washington’s historical significance and his continuing importance for this and future generations. xi
xii
INTRODUCTION
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE Washington’s life and work, like Douglass’ before him, epitomized the degree to which humans may transcend the conditions surrounding their birth and early environment. In this way, his story, like that of Franklin and Douglass before him, and like Malcolm X much later, demonstrate the very American qualities by which individuals shape and remake the clay that was theirs at birth, and created new selves. These new selves were created from some of the clay from the old selves with added new clay. Washington’s two autobiographies and his personal accounts of his becoming ‘‘Booker T.,’’ provides pithy accounts of how an ex-slave, poor, but highly ambitious and forward-looking youngster scanned the social landscape of the nation, especially the South, and saw great opportunities, rather than great unsurpassable obstacles. Against great odds he acquired an education at Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, and against even greater odds, went on a one-man campaign to raise the money to establish Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, and kept it afloat. Washington was not unique in his first quest, his education, whereas he was in his second quest, because it was the latter which would force him to enter, though he does not define it as such, a ‘‘Faustian Deal’’ with Southern whites, Northern whites, Southern blacks, and Northern blacks(see the chapter by Rutledge M. Dennis in this volume). This ‘‘Faustian Deal,’’ made it possible for Washington to make his contributions to black Americans, entailed minimizing, softening, and even under some circumstances, omitting discussions of suffrage rights for blacks. This was done so that Washington’s grand plan could be put into play: keeping the white lower classes at bay as much as possible, while dampening any heightened black desire, at least in the South, to place voting and civil rights as major priorities for blacks; paying tribute and embracing what he called ‘‘the better class’’ of whites who would be his defenders and channel the necessary funds to support Tuskegee; generating enough ideas, economic strategies, programs and activities for Southern blacks to demonstrate that it was in their interest to devote their time and energies towards developing an economic muscle, and place on the back-burner all ideas which would force a confrontation with whites on issues of civil rights and the ballot. To Northern blacks who were generally more critical, Washington offered a program of entrepreneurship, recognizing that the Northern black population constituted the most educated and the most economically advanced segment of the entire black world.
Introduction
xiii
Washington had an unwavering commitment to Tuskegee as an experimental station to test his ideas on farming, construction, and family economics; this was central if he were to realize another central theme throughout his life: assisting black Southerners, primarily, but all black Americans in their quest for an individual and collective economic sufficiency which he hoped would fit into an ongoing symbiotic relationship with whites. To do both, Washington believed it was necessary to emphasize industrial education, and to allocate a place for higher education, though not as a priority, since it was not possible for the vast majority of blacks to avail themselves to such an education, as many of his critics claim. Indeed, when all is said and done, this two-prong action can be said to encapsulate Washington’s life and history and illustrate several unique traits he held in common with Du Bois: They were both indefatigable, restless, and committed to social action, though with different foci. Secondly, they both epitomized the ‘‘organizational man’’ type and saw organizations and institutional networks as vehicles to enable a better and greater facilitation of a group’s collective national message: Du Bois with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Niagara Movement, Phylon, The Moon, and the Negro Encyclopedia – all to be used as weapons in the struggle against social injustice. Washington’s greatest vehicles in his desire to uplift his people were the creation of Tuskegee and the National Negro Business League, and a host of ancillary organizations and institutions. Be we should not sell Washington short, for whereas Du Bois could openly and clearly tout his organizational and institutional intent, Washington could not do so. But one should not assume that Washington’s organizational strategies were any less pointed towards eliminating social injustices than Du Bois’. For him, Washington would be a matter of emphasis. Washington taught blacks in the South the ‘‘art’’ of challenging the system without seeming to do so, a point made in Amanda Kemp’s article. To do so required fancy foot works and as much ducking and dodging as one found in a Muhammad Ali boxing bout, and Washington, the former slave, became a master at the game. This is why we can almost hear him saying to himself about Du Bois: ‘‘Why is he revealing his hands to whites? He certainly must trust them more than I do.’’ Washington taught blacks in the South to say little and go their own way, a message most appropriate for the last two decades of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century when blacks were without protection, and Southern terrorism would be at its peak. It would not be an appropriate message for the 1940s–1970s eras. If
xiv
INTRODUCTION
Washington accommodated to the demands of an oppressive South during his era, one must ask if there were possible alternatives at the time. Washington could have been outspoken, launched an aggressive civil rights struggle, and eventually lynched. Would this have made a difference for the plight of blacks at the time? Or seeing the social obstacles and blockades, he could have chosen to commit suicide. Would these have made a difference? Or, he could have fled to the North in exile. He did neither of these acts, because he was committed to unfolding a program which he believed would move blacks from their semi-slave status and usher in an era whereby blacks would have freer minds and bodies, and he had the patience to understand that freedom for blacks would not come in an instant, but instead would take years and decades, but that the leg-work would have to begin or the goal would never be realize. These words have a conservative and accommodative edge, yet despite his rhetoric, Du Bois, too, believed that freedom would not come in an instant, but he was willing to agitate and believed that by so doing, he could shorten the time-span for the freedom. Washington also taught blacks that it was possible to live a social life apart from whites, precisely what most whites wanted, while making the case for greater intergroup economic ties. When Washington asserted his love of being ‘‘colored’’ and that he would not trade his color for that of a white, and he says so before both white and black audiences, one is inclined to believe him, for he was interested in demarcating new versions of individualism and the collectivism. Both types existed under slavery, were important to the socialization of blacks into the economics and culture of slavery. But Washington wanted a ‘‘new’’ type of individual and a new type of the social collective-ones, which focused on a complex inner black community division of labor and an array of cultural forces and institutions accompanying the new types. Looking back at the times, it is clear that Washington gave Southern blacks hope, one based on his own energy and drive which characterized a strength of mind and character which they viewed as important to their welfare and survival. Southern and Northern blacks watched Washington as he crisscrossed the country giving lectures, collecting money for Tuskegee, and asking whites to donate farm equipments and other machinery to help farmers and small-town dwellers. But critics of Washington wanted something from him that might have been impossible, given the times. So Washington’s historical role was one of a broker-accomodationist, one, who works both in-front of and behind the scenes. If he presented a model to whites of the possibilities, albeit limited, available to blacks, he would use himself as a model of what blacks could accomplish, even under
Introduction
xv
such oppressive conditions. Hence, his plea for greater justice and a new type of partnership between blacks and whites, for, to use his logic, if blacks can accomplish so much with such great odds against them, think of what could be accomplished were greater freedoms given and realized. This plea was Washington’s strategy in telling whites to help blacks gain greater freedom so that blacks could take care of themselves. Whites might be frightened by the idea of greater black autonomy, Washington contended, but a freer black population would mean a freer white population, for if blacks had more freedom, they could take care of themselves, Washington, asserted, and their lives would interact and intersect less often with whites. Finally, Washington is significant because he demonstrated the importance of persistence, hard-work, and devotion to a cause which he basically wanted to demonstrate for the advancement of blacks. Washington’s historical significance rests on his willingness to work tirelessly to create and promote a ‘‘collective will’’ among blacks. He viewed this as a perquisite for any discussion of a future for blacks in a changing America. One detects his logic in promulgating such a collective will as he lectures to blacks, both North and South, recounting the horrors of the past, and what they have been able to accomplish despite that oppressive past. He asks them to reflect on the group’s progress since emancipation, and if so much had been done in so little time, think of what can be done today, he asserts, if blacks worked together, with fewer restrictions, and used their collective wills to remain steadfast as they retained a sense of self-sufficiency and built an economic base in order to enhance their economic and social inter-dependency with the larger white population. But for any collective will to exist, there must be an array of ‘‘individual wills.’’ For this reason, so much of Washington’s speeches focused on the individual’s motivation, discipline, and foresightedness. If individuals could remain steadfast in their sobriety, religious convictions, focus on acquiring skills and higher education, and use their talents and skills to move the larger black population towards a commitment to a more comprehensive view of self-help and efficiency, blacks would have fewer reasons to rely on whites for the essentials of life. Washington wisely presented his life history as a model and case study of how ‘‘individual wills’’ connect to form ‘‘collective wills’’ and hence serve as an instrument for the individual as well as the collective social change. Finally, Washington is historically significant because, though he failed to create the black economic enterprise he so desired, he was first the inspiration for, Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), probably the largest black-based mass movement in U.S. history, and later for Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam. The latter, though not
xvi
INTRODUCTION
numerically large, provided the first, and only example, of a black-led collective economic enterprise. The economic and nationalistic motifs in both movements, and the fact that Washington’s economic and political strategies were adopted by both men and both movements: Both focused on the creation of economic enterprises, while asserting the diminished importance of political participation and the quest for civil rights, themes highlighted by Du Bois and the NAACP. The irony is that neither Washington nor Du Bois succeeded in his respective quest, Washington in economics, and Du Bois in politics and civil rights, for the nation was unready for such a revolutionary lurch at the time. While Washington and Du Bois debated the future of black America, other ethnic and religious groups, Jews, the Irish, Russians, the Germans, and the Italians were busy establishing their often highly successful group-based economic networks that contributed largely to their first or second generational upward mobility. Given Washington’s major importance as a hero and inspiration for both groups, and given the nationalistic ethos in both groups, it is natural that some might view Washington as a nationalist in disguise, just as many viewed the obliqueness of many of his statements as verification that he was a subtle integrationist in disguise.
WASHINGTON’S IMPORTANCE TODAY Today, in many academic and social circles, it takes a lot of courage to even half-heartedly defend Washington’s educational, economic, and social strategy, or to attempt to place his strategies and tactics in a contextual framework. As one looks back in retrospect on the conflicts between the battling giants, Washington and Du Bois, there is a growing sentiment for an honest and objective assessment of aspects of Washington’s strategy. For instance, one of the co-editors of this volume has used The Souls of Black Folk and Up From Slavery in Black and African American Studies courses at three different colleges and universities. When students are asked to compare the books it is always the case that there is always overwhelming admiration for Du Bois as a great intellectual and scholar. But there is also a nod towards Washington as a great builder. There is also notable sympathy for Washington for having come ‘‘up from slavery’’ and to have achieved, and assisted others, in reshaping themselves and their world. Of the issues separating Washington and Du Bois, it might be said that Du Bois won in the short-run, because it was the public agitation, marches, demonstrations, and other visible confrontations which sparked the passage
Introduction
xvii
of bills designed to address issues of school segregation, civil rights, voting rights, housing discrimination, and job discrimination. But today blacks have become so reliant on the white political, educational, and economic leadership that the very ideas proposed by Washington that would have eliminated the current impasse, black communities find themselves in appearance, difficult to overcome. Much of the time and energy of blacks over the past 50 or more years have been in the pursuit of racial and social desegregation, and so little time and energy invested in the Washingtonian strategy of creating a solvent, creative, and cohesive economic foundation within our communities. As a result, blacks are even more dependent economically on the larger white society, now more than ever. In fact, as recent studies on black entrepreneurship demonstrates, the rate of black entrepreneurship vis-a`-vis the total black population is smaller today than it was in 1900. Granted, there were oppressive political, social, and moral conditions under which blacks lived which precipitated an emphasis on social and civil rights, and these issues and their consequences were lucidly analyzed by Du Bois throughout his long life. But the civil and social rights victories and a concomitant liberalization on certain racial issues have come at a cost: greater black economic and political dependency. Blacks are primarily consumers, not producers or creators, as Washington had hoped. And it is for this reason, blacks have not been able to use their wages to assist in their internal community development as other groups can and do. Given Washington’s pragmatism, today’s generation might want to revisit Washington as it re-thinks such issues as school desegregation. Despite the long years and the tireless energy of many, the efforts towards school desegregation does nor appear to be bearing much fruit, in as much as our schools are becoming increasingly more segregated than ever, and our children lag far behind many groups in educational achievements. Though he would favor desegregation, in his practical wisdom he might ask: ‘‘What do we do when schools are not working, the system is broken, and our children neither receive the quality of education which would aid their self-enrichment nor the type of education which places them in a position to successfully enter the world of work?’’ The papers in this volume focus on various aspects of Washington’s life, political strategies, institutional and organizations programs and activities, economic policies, and his intra- and inter-racial ties and relationships. These papers also highlight the fact that the unique life and persona of Washington may yet yield a plethora of new facts and insights which, in the end, may prompt new interpretations of his life, ideas and work, thus essentially blurring or changing the one dimensional view of him held by
xviii
INTRODUCTION
many. This volume is a call, and an invitation, for writers and scholars to revisit Washington, for as Black America and the nation enter the twentyfirst century, there may be features of Washington’s ideas and views which might make more sense in our present era than they did at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. As discerning and, hopefully, insightful interpreters of both black and white worlds, the sociologists, historians, political scientists, economists, and policy analysts among us must continue to rethink old ideas, schema, and strategies in order to ascertain what works for us. At the same time, we must never be afraid to propose new radical or revolutionary strategies and tactics. The ideas expressed in the articles presented here are not sacrosanct. They point to the need for continual dialogue and debate with the issues and personalities which have shaped the tenor and contours of black life in the United States. Washington sought to tackle many issues and areas in black life. That he was not always correct, should be noted, but an incorrect decision or judgment in the midst of one of the most horrifying and terrorridden periods in American history might be the least of his ‘‘sins.’’ His greatness lies in the fact that he stayed the course at a time when millions of starving, impoverished, and frightened blacks needed someone to counsel and to demonstrate them that it would be possible to build, create, and carve out a life, as Ralph Ellison said so profoundly, ‘‘ y on the horns of the white man’s dilemma.’’ As one of the editors of this volume once asked his students: ‘‘Should Washington have escaped to the North and made a name for himself among abolitionists?’’ ‘‘Should he have launched a revolutionary movement which would have resulted in tens of thousands of black deaths with an even more oppressive consequence for blacks?’’ ‘‘Or should he have simply confined his activities to Tuskegee and not involve himself in the life and the world of black farmers and businessmen?’’ Such questions remove us from the world of a simple one-dimensional view of Washington and his times and present us with intellectual and interpretative dilemmas as well as new challenges and opportunities. We hope the articles in this volume will assist in shining new light on old issues and problems,and, likewise, prove to be an intellectual Geiger in unearthing new and provocative variations on traditional Washingtonian themes which might open new doors as we search for solutions to contemporary challenges. Washington, his life and times, and the papers presented here prompt us to assess both his world and our own for continuities and discontinuities, and contradictions and ambiguities, both within each and between both. The papers in this volume invite us to assess the many features of Washington’s life, personality, and work. Part One introduces the reader to the
Introduction
xix
racial politics of his era, and how and to what degree Washington, in his version of Real Politik elevated the art of practicality and pragmatism in a manner so as to have them take on the characteristics of virtual theories. Though not technically a politician, his decisions, even in the realm of education, would have political implications and consequences. Rutledge Dennis’ paper is both a comparative analysis of the themes in Washington’s lectures as he sought to gain favor, influence, money, and strengthen his leadership role, and position in the black South, white South, the black North and the white North. By documenting what he said, how he said it, and to the kind of audience it was said, Dennis was able to trace the manner in which Washington shrewdly and calculatingly tailored his message to fit his audience. In these speeches one hears the charisma of the story teller, the ex-slave, the entreprenuer, and the leader. In the black South, the group and region with which he was most familiar, Washington dwelled on the themes of the creation of the ‘‘new’’ men, rising from slavery to take their place among the great people of the world. But there would be a price to be paid: diligence, thrift, hard work, sobriety, education, and a concern for the black collective. As he was one of them, Washington’s constant theme was the message that he was one of them, and if he could do it, so could they. But he knew he had to keep the black South tied to a symbiotic relationship with the white South. Washington’s most difficult task in the South was that of holding the lower classes of whites at bay while finessing what he called the ‘‘better class’’ of whites. He cultivated this class, for this was his protection and the source of funds for Tuskegee. He needed this class, as he was to state in the infamous Atlanta Exposition Address of 1895 to shape an economic and social partnership, albeit an unequal one, between black and white employers, and between black and white workers. But such a partnership, though unequal, would only be possible if blacks made no claims on the ballot. So Washington agrees to soft pedal and ignore the ballot as one of the compromises for a tepid peace which would at least provide blacks with the space and time necessary to get their own economic package together. When his speeches to the white South are carefully scrutinized, one finds that he says more than the audience may believe he is saying, especially his references to ‘‘equal protection before the law’’ and the appeals to Christian values and the good and just life as encompassing all citizens. The black North constituted one of the great problems for Washington, for the North was the center of black agitation against him and his leadership. Du Bois had thrown down the gauntlet at the end of the nineteenth century and this had marked him as the Great Compromiser and even more
xx
INTRODUCTION
negatively as the ‘‘race traitor.’’ For this reason, Washington was very cautious in speaking before black groups, and addressing teachers and librarian associations. He was most eager to address the annual conferences of the National Negro Business League, an organization he founded in 1900. He especially avoided meetings where intellectuals would predominant, for since the publication of Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folk, he often went out of his way to castigate ‘‘the so-called black intellectuals.’’ To Northern blacks Washington extolled the values of thrift and enterpreneurship, which he believed would work to the advantage of Northern blacks as they would eventually for Southern blacks. He constantly informed Northern blacks of the great progress of the race, how it was possible, and the progress yet to come. Finally, Washington looked to the white North as the main source of funds for Tuskegee. If he were not speaking before such groups in the North, they were touring Tuskegee in the South. Washington understood that like white Southerners, these whites, upper class and generally philanthropists, would only support him as long as he advocated separation between the races, modeled on his 1895 address in Atlanta. Just as the Horatio Alger stories became enshrined in the white American mythic pantheon, Washington sought to project its utility as a similar theme for black America. The poor boy, homeless, maybe parentless, but hard-working, religious, and sober, starts on the journal towards success and achieves his goals. Washington never suggested that all who embark on the journey towards success will make it, but what other message could he have given a weary and oppressed black population? Tell them they could not make it, hence there is no point in trying? He had to, as Kemp and Beize contend, wear many masks, but he always knew the proper mask to wear before the right group. Dennis’ paper raises the issue of whether a case should be made for those who’s ‘‘heads are in the lion’s mouth’’ at special moments in history. He also raises the important point of how, if possible we can with any degree of objectivity know whether an individual’s actions are due to cowardice, knowingly or unknowingly selling out, or a case of bad judgment. There are probably those who would indict Washington in each of these areas. However, Dennis’ position throughout the article corresponds with Harold Cruse in Cruse’s claim that Washington’s actions and positions, through all of his argumentative and verbal contortions, twists, shifts, and turns, can be described as primarily pragmatic and dialectical. Dennis also makes the case for students, academicians, and the general public to actually read Washington’s speeches, rather than simply accepting second- or third-hand interpretations of the speeches. Doing so may not make Washington, his views, and positions any more acceptable, but the reader by doing so may
Introduction
xxi
place the speeches in the situations and contexts of the times in which they were made. Louis Harlan’s essay continues his exploration of Washington as a leader, and re-enforces his position as one of the leading and most prolific Washington scholars. Like virtually all the essayists in this volume, Harlan notes that Washington was a ‘‘child of his time y,’’ and that his core values, formed early in life and continued at Hampton Institute, would remain his central values throughout his life. He also regrets that Washington’s ascendancy occurred at a time of intense ‘‘white racism, disfranchisement, lynchings, segregation laws and other discrimination was rampart.’’ Early in his essay Harlan makes known his ambivalence towards Washington as he cites his strengths and failures. Washington’s greatness resided in his ability to create and sustain powerful institutions: Tuskegee, the Negro Business League, black schools, and his work with the National Baptist Convention. In this role Washington became one of the leading successful role models to millions of blacks. On the other hand, Harlan assessed Washington’s role as ‘‘race leader’’ as a failure, though he hastens to add that ‘‘there is little evidence that his black critics would have been any more successful.’’ But Harlan, like many of us, may ‘‘understand’’ Washington’s plight but refuse to give him a complete pass in that Washington’s failures cannot be minimized or explained away: ‘‘He compromised too much for too little reciprocal gain y he never achieved the objectives of black freedom, black prosperity and black equal opportunity that he sought.’’ But having written that, we must again return to Harlan’s statement and ask, ‘‘Could someone else have done any better?’’ Harlan’s critique of Washington is dialectical, rather similar to Washington’s life and politics, a point asserted in the essay on Washington’s situational politics. But Harlan is greatly disturbed by Washington’s misdeeds: his authoritarian control over both people and institutions, his attempts to silence and even destroy those with whom he disagreed, but even after such a litany of misdeeds, we must confront the ‘‘actual’’ Washington, the practical man, not hardly a saint, who shoves himself into a position of leadership, and who is simultaneously pushed into the leadership role by Southern and Northern whites, Southern blacks, and a sector of Northern blacks. The central question then becomes, if Washington could not and did not provide blacks with freedom, independence, and security, just what did Washington do for blacks? In the final third of his paper, Harlan elaborates on some of the specific decisions and activities engaged in by Washington that had far-reaching consequences for the national black community. His almost 40-year
xxii
INTRODUCTION
‘‘obsession’’ with the life and times of Washington enables him to draw conclusions contrary to commonly assumed conventional wisdom. One such assertion was that Washington was a ‘‘racial traitor’’ who willingly and completely ‘‘claimed to the whites that he disfranchisement, segregation, and other humiliations, for example, his private papers show that he was secretingly undermining the South’s racial settlement. He initiated, guided, and raised money for court cases that challenged Southern voting restrictions, Jim Crow railroad cars, peonage, and other forms of black subordination that he publicly accepted.’’ In the end, Harlan sees Washington as a ‘‘paradox with a mask’’ behind which there was no face. But one might resist such a characteristic and assert that there is a face, but one not so readily read or understood. Avon Drake’s paper explores Washington’s practical programmatic objectives, and like the Dennis and Harlan papers, evokes a dialectical schema central to Washington’s overall political strategy. He asserts that a close reading of Washington’s books, and his life, reveals that the key to unlocking Washington’s approach to thinking about and thinking through problems rests on his early socialization, and Drake presents a brief sociopolitical sketch of the world into which Washington was born and against which he would practice his political and racial pragmatism. Drake then walks the reader through the Reconstruction and its aftermath, and how such a world became the stage upon which Washington acted out his role as leader, politician, and educator. There were decisive periods in Washington’s life that shaped his worldview for the rest of his life. Indeed, according to Drake’s portrayal of Washington, every experience, no matter how minute, was apparently stored in the recesses of his mind to be retrieved later when necessary. From his birth into slavery and his memory of pieces from his slave experience, to his Malden, West Virginia experience as a houseboy under the tutelage of General and Mrs. Lewis Ruffner, then on to Hampton Institute where its president, General Samuel Armstrong became his spiritual as well as ideological mentor, Washington was absorbing all of the psychological and sociological memories and rehearsing the social and psychological drama, which he would later re-configure and pour into his mental and social framework in order to shape the man he would become. Drake recounts the failures and shortfalls of Washington – the leader, and the vanity and peevishness of Washington – the man, but he also informs the reader that Washington was a man given to hiding behind smoke and mirrors and, hence, the hidden Washington was often unlike the visible Washington, and there were inconsistencies with both the hidden and the
Introduction
xxiii
visible. But even as he quotes Washington so as to challenge what many view as his undying opposition to the arts and higher education or to his views on racial integration and assimilation, Drake indicts Washington for his inability to chart a course for blacks which would have led to Du Boisian-type changes, but even as he does so, he reminds the reader of the great obstacles which would prevent such a framework from occurring. We are thus led into a philosophical and political cul-de-sac, and the presentation of Du Bois’ life and political and philosophical differences with Washington when juxtaposed against Southern hatred and terrorism, Northern indifference, and the fate of eight million blacks facing a variety of hardships, only serve to deepen the dilemma posed by both Dennis and Harlan related to the questions: Given the circumstances, what could/should Washington have done? We all admire the spunk and intellect of Du Bois, but would he have succeeded in the South had he replaced Washington? Drake, without a doubt, would probably concede that it would not have been possible, but like many, Drake views Washington’s public silence on some issues as more than regrettable and his attempts to use his influence to silence opponents and, in some cases, deny employment opportunities for those who disagreed with him, and to wreck both the Niagara Movement and the NAACP. Though he understands Washington’s need to balance on the Southern political tightrope, he believes that Washington’s policy and practice of accommodation contributed greatly to the degradation and humiliation of blacks in the nation, especially in the South. Amanda Kemp’s paper introduces Washington as a ‘‘sly, shuffling trickster’’ so pronounced in African and Diaspora cultures. Beginning with excerpts from a 1926 edition of Up From Slavery in a South African newspaper, followed by a reading of the autobiography of Gilbert Coka, a former communist, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, along with Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, Kemp attempts to make the case for Washington as a ‘‘consummate trickster.’’ She proceeds to provide the reader with examples from Washington’s autobiography which she suggests can best be understood if Washington is portrayed wearing a mask in a ‘‘house of smoke and mirrors, with many rooms and hidden closets.’’ Though she illustrates the dialectics of Washington’s life, thoughts, and ideas as she depicts his various maneuvers, side steps, and camouflages, and while disagreeing with many of his tactics and strategies, she understands that he has lived ‘‘with his head in the lion’s mouth, telling Southern whites what they wanted to hear.’’ But as she also asserted, this was done because he needed them to ‘‘assist and support his efforts [to] uplift his people.’’ She suggests, therefore, that the trickster was merely using his act as a front, a canard, which would enable
xxiv
INTRODUCTION
him to obtain a goal, in this case, support for Tuskegee and other programs Washington initiated, both North and South. But her use of Ellison demonstrates, as Ellison depicts the Washington-type character in his novel, the trickster is a trickster is a trickster, and will use his trickster skills to delude blacks as well as whites. Kemp’s use of Larsen only serves to illustrate the point that Washington was a man of his times and as such, was pre-disposed to view women, especially his wives, as simply wives and mothers. And though she injects contemporary assumptions on the female body, female sexuality, and female freedoms, she asserts that Washington’s ‘‘idealization of black womanhood y [with the help of the Tuskegee Machine] y crushes female sensuality and pleasure to produce a cast of black ‘true women.’’’ Whereas Kemp indicts Washington for appearing to accept a view of women which fixes the female body ‘‘between the cult of domesticity and true womanhood and the discourse of black female licentiousness,’’ she cites her certainty as mere speculation, only asserting, without citing data in support of her position, that she is ‘‘convinced’’ that it is the case. Kemp also uses one of the characters from Larsen’s novel Quicksand, published in 1928, and compares her dismal attempts to obtain power, position, and influence in her world only to see her dreams end with five children. In a sense Kemp’s comparison of the role and world of men and women at the turn of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may be comparable to the then existing worlds of blacks and whites. One reflected gender inequality, the other racial inequality. But whereas in her description of Washington’s relations with men, black and white, she demonstrates that she is on target with her succinct observations of Washington as trickster. Her observations are less on target when she seeks to tie Washington to what she refers to as ‘‘disembodiment,’’ both of black people in general, and of women in particular. She does, however, presents cogent arguments on the use of Washington’s Up From Slavery as a ‘‘cloaked message of black selfrelaince and black progress’’ for those in South Africa waging war against apartheid. In his autobiography Gilbert Coka describes his discovery of Washington’s book, and decides to emulate him, calling himself, ‘‘an African Washington,’’ and he sets out to follow Washington’s example of ‘‘perseverance and industriousness as well as ambition.’’ He, too, uses some of Washington’s trickster tactics in his trade union activities as he sought to radicalize African politics. Larsen’s novel and Coka’s autobiography both illustrate the uses of cultural politics as a key ingredient of a society’s racial politics. Michael Bieze’s article focuses on a seldom written about feature of Washington: his carefully crafted self-image which he controlled through his
Introduction
xxv
use of photographs and his use of his image to sell himself as the great leader and educator. Bieze uses Roland Barthes’s semiotic approach to demonstrate how Washington used his association with elite whites to create an image, a myth, of himself so as to move among white men of power. He, in fact, characterizes Washington as ‘‘one of America’s first photo-celebrities.’’ What is important for Bieze is Washington’s entry into the world of aesthetics with his his message to blacks of the importance of ‘‘high culture’’ and refinement, which were the end products of his strategy of black economic relative self sufficiency. Though he does not use the term, Bieze’s Washington is the twin of Kemp’s Washington in that they are both tricksters outmaneuvering others and situations to suit their objectives. For Bieze the view of Washington as simply a ‘‘submissive victim of racist imagery’’ is far from true. Instead, Washington’s role in creating the public image he desired consisted of ‘‘intentional misdirection, word-play, and parody.’’ Like Dennis’ essay, Biez describes Washington’s situational presentations through two prisms, one black and the other white, each representing white and black audiences. For his white audience Washington acted the role of ‘‘an upper class man, a romantic figure covered in gilding Victorian arabesques, a man who combined the practical with the beautiful.’’ For his black audience he represented ‘‘success and power, one who subverted visual racial race codes y .’’ For both audiences he projected himself as a renaissance man: ‘‘college president, professor, religious leader, businessman, common laborer, intellectual, and cultured man of the Progressive Age,’’ and through his many books articles and speeches Washington tied himself to the history, image, and life of Frederick Douglass. Through stereographs, illustrations, photographs, and paintings Washington sought to mythologize himself in his lifetime, and succeeded more than he imagined. In all of this Washington parodied whites and white society, and manipulated them without their even knowing what he was doing. This evokes the passage Kemp quotes from Ellison’s Invisible Man in which Bledsoe notes that he controls whites more than they control him, though such an idea may be counter to conventional wisdom. The papers by Jorgensen, Williams, and Cunnigen assess Washington from unique sociological perspectives. Thus far, all of the writers whose chapters have been briefly reviewed, have warned us that Washington was a master of the art of circumlocution, and that if we read and accept his speeches at face value, we do so at our great peril, and negate his role as a shrewd and cunning manipulator of individuals and situations. Jorgensen devotes more than half of his article to a detailed analysis of Washington’s Exposition Address, and asserts that ‘‘read carelessly, Washington’s speech
xxvi
INTRODUCTION
appears to endorse the subordination of the Negro. Read precisely, it endorses Douglass’s goal of political, social, and economic equality for all Americans, masking that endorsement with flattery of Whites, deprecation of Blacks, and ambiguous utterances y .’’ Jorgensen makes the case that the Atlanta speech was a carefully crafted message to both blacks and whites presented in decorous Machiavelian language which required the listener to probe beneath the surface in order not to miss the subtle dialectical nuances lurking behind the almost ‘‘ah shucks’’ demeanor in which Washington delivered his address. As Jorgensen extracts portions of Washington’s speech and subjects these to minute analysis, he along the way cautions the reader, and the larger public, to read Washington with much circumspection for the flow of the words may not lead in the direction we think they are or should. Making his case, Jorgensen argues that much of the speech is equivocal and conditional. For example, when analyzing Washington’s famous hand and fingers metaphor, Jorgensen notes that Washington did not say blacks and whites ‘‘should be’’ or ‘‘will be’’ separate. He simply said they ‘‘can be’’ separate, but though he did say ‘‘can,’’ we have all read ‘‘should’’ or ‘‘will.’’ Throughout the first half of his paper Jorgensen alerts the reader to what Washington actually says and how we have infused his words with different meanings. Like other writers in this volume Jorgensen recites Washington’s unyielding obsession with power and his desire to control a variety of institutions and organizations in black life. He ends the first part of his paper with a quote by Du Bois, which acknowledges Washington’s innocence in the initiation and propagation of segregation or the withdrawal of aid from blacks higher education. Jorgensen apparently agrees with Du Bois when the latter indicts Washington’s position and ‘‘his propanganda’’ as aiding their ‘‘speedier accomplishment.’’ In the second half of his paper Jorgensen presents an insightful comparison of Washington and the leader whom he replaced, Frederick Douglass. Though Washington and Douglass had similar views on vocational and industrial education and work, they differed in their emphasis on the two issues Jorgensen analyzes as central to twentieth century sociology: whether to define black life and the social condition emanating from this life as the result of White Racism or the result of Black Deficit. As Jorgensen describes the two concepts, Douglass was a spokesman for the former, along with Anna Julia Cooper, Kelly Miller, Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, Charles Johnson, and as he notes more recently, Joyce Ladner and Cornel West Washington, along with E. Franklin Frazier, and the William J. Wilson of The Declining Significance of Race, represented the
Introduction
xxvii
Black Deficit position. Jorgensen sees these two schools as pivotal schools in African American sociological thought and the two poles upon which contemporary African American sociology rests. Both schools have far ranging implications with reference to social and public policy, and Jorgensen cautions the reader that a choice between the two must be made, which mat entail using both models or blending the two. Vernon Williams’ paper begins with a description of Washington, quoting George M. Fredrickson as leaving us with ‘‘an ambiguous legacy’’: he was both an accommodationist on questions related to segregation and political, but he was also one who ‘‘championed a black self-reliance and capacity for progress that contradicted white supremacist ideology.’’ Williams himself describes Washington as a ‘‘consummate mythmaker,’’ a position taken by most of the authors in this volume. Williams delves into African American sociology and the sociological thinking of Washington, but he does so by analyzing the works of Monroe N. Work, one of Washington’s many ghostwriters. Before meeting Washington, Work who was born in the South journeyed Northward and Westward, sought but later rejected a theological education, studied sociology at the University of Chicago under W.I. Thomas, was associated with the Social Gospel Movement and was influence by the environmental and cultural anthropology of Franz Boas. As he moves from one phase of life to another, several consistent patterns were maintained. First, he was and saw himself as a ‘‘self-made man,’’ and when he returned to the South to teach at Georgia State Industrial College, his paramount concerns rested on the importance of self reliance and the deeply held belief in the idea of black progress. When Washington asked Work to join Tuskegee in 1908, Work was prepared to contribute immensely to the then center of national black education. He was also prepared to utilize his historical and scientific knowledge to further his ideas on self, or a collective black reliance, the concept of black progress, a perspective on social knowledge grounded in empirical data which was culled from his associations with Thomas, and the anthropologists Boas and Taylor; his negative experiences with the racist views of Hoffman, and his intellectual and emotional awakening to the themes of Africa. In addition, he had worked with Du Bois as Du Bois edited the massive Atlanta University series that entailed a massive collection of data on almost every facet of African American life. At Tuskegee, Work was determined to do what Du Bois had done and was doing in Atlanta: collecting data which might first refute the claims of racists on the conditions of black life, and secondly, to get an inside look into the lives of a people who were currently pariahs. According to Williams, one of the great contributions, which Work
xxviii
INTRODUCTION
made to Washington’s education was instilling him with the knowledge of the existence and legacy of ancient African civilizations. Using data collected by Boas, Work would, as Washington’s ghostwriter, list the various scientific discoveries created by Africans. Williams asserts that like Washington, ‘‘ y Work eschewed the early campaign for civil and political rights y’’ but says in the end, Work like Washington, was no ‘‘Uncle Tom.’’ Donald Cunnigen’s essay looks at a heretofore neglected sociological type: second-generation African-American Sociologists, their place of birth, university education, mentors, sociological and intellectual contributions, place of employment, and whether they were associated with the ideas and philosophy of Washington through second or third parties, or whether they received ideas which were the foundation of Washington’s philosophy, while teaching at Tuskegee. For Cunnigen, Robert Park is a central figure in any attempt to link these second-generation sociologists to Washington because he was at the center of two major intellectual and educational currents in the society at the time. He was once a ghostwriter and advisor to Washington, and at the University of Chicago, his race relations theory would be the model against which all others would be compared. He would teach, or those whom he had taught, would teach many second-generation sociologists. Park’s race relations cycle became one of the most cited models used to explain the evolution of race relations and relations between dominant and non-dominant groups. Cunnigen evaluates the evolution of African-American sociologists within four distinct generational time frames: First Generation, 1895–1930; Second Generation, 1931–1959; Third Generation, 1960–1975; and Fourth Generation, from 1976 to the present. Of these generations, Cunnigen focuses on the Second and presents a case study of two sociologists of this generation: Lewis Wade Jones and Oliver C. Cox. Jones and Cox are excellent case studies in which to probe Cunnigen hypothesizes of the possible impact of Washington through the legacy of Park’s philosophy and sociology, on general sociological principles, assumptions and theories of these men. In addition, for Cunnigen’s purpose, whether Washington’s racial ideology and practices influenced how both Jones and Cox conducted their sociological studies. Briefly reviewing some of the studies of both men, Cunnigen concluded that neither was influenced by the Park–Washington concept of race and race relations. Jones was employed at Tuskegee from 1932 to 1979, but as Cunnigen asserts, one finds a complete absence of any references to the ideas and philosophy of the Park–Washington thesis. Jones’ studies were completely confined to an analysis and comparison of the rural and urban
Introduction
xxix
hinterlands, the creation and importance of social centers throughout the South in rural and urban areas, the importance of folk culture in a people’s survival strategy arsenal, and the importance organizational networks, especially churches, in softening the blows of racism and discrimination, but also as institutions essential in grounding a people in an identity and having their cultural roots serve as a reminder of their pool of collective memory which forms the basis for viewing themselves as people. Cunnigen’s analysis of Cox alerts us to several important facts when assessing Cox. First, among all the sociologists of his generation, he was the one most committed to the creation of sociological theory as a guide to sociological inquiry. Second, and perhaps more important, Cox was a neoMarxist, and though he has enough reasons to oppose Washington because of his racial stances, utterances, and policies, as Cunnigen presents the Cox opposition to Washington by citing various references to the latter, Cox’s neo-Marxist logic seems to predominate. And though Cox views Washington as a ‘‘consummate collaborator,’’ he does not view him as an ‘‘Uncle Tom.’’ Somehow, one wishes that Cox would have made theoretical and practical distinctions between the two, since for many, the terms may be one and the same. Because Cox is both a theoretician and a neo-Marxist, he raises issues profoundly important in class, racial and ethnic, and power relations between groups, and within groups, in the society. As Cunnigen states, Cox’s views on Washington as a leader needs to be probed much more than it has, not only in the theoretical realm as a part of Cox’s typology of leadership, but more importantly, as Dennis, Drake, Kemp, Williams, and Jorgensen assert, one of the keys to an evaluation of Washington is to assess him within the social, political, and economic contexts in which he operated. As a profound neo-Marxist analyst, Cox understood this, but he seemed not to have analyzed Washington completely with a view in mind. The papers by Erik Overgaard Pedersen and vivian greene-gantzberg assess Washington – the internationalist and give us a thumb-nail’s sketch of Washington’s impact in Europe. Pedersen’s paper highlights Washington’s trip to Denmark and his exposure to a Danish folk high school and schools similar to it. The origins and importance of Danish folk schools are deeply embedded within Danish culture, thus existing long before Washington established Tuskegee. As Pedersen explains, when Washington visited Denmark and saw the folk high school in the city of Roskilde, he was greatly impressed because it almost seemed to mirror in organization, structure, ideology, and mission the blueprint he had already constructed for Tuskegee. It was interesting to read the parallel philosophies for the high school and Tuskegee. It was created for the ‘‘common man’’ and its
xxx
INTRODUCTION
emphasis would be non-academic. It would focus on character and spiritual building in order to prepare students to take their place as functional and active citizens in their cities and towns, and as Pedersen hypothesizes, it would not appeal to nor attempt to address very futuristic goals, but would rather concentrate on ‘‘the life of the nation at the moment.’’ This quote is used by Pedersen as a quote similar to Washington’s idea of ‘‘casting down your buckets where they are.’’ Pedersen does not mention whether Danish teachers and administrators from the folk schools ever visited Washington’s Tuskegee, but the parallel structures, ideologies, and missions are striking. Lastly, the paper by the late vivian greene-gantzberg, who unfortunately died shortly after her paper had been accepted, covers Washington’s two European tours, one in 1899, the other in 1910. According to green-gantzberg, these tours exposed Washington to the leading politicians, royalty, educators, and other members of the European elite. It gave the elites an opportunity to see the individual who had come to personify black leadership in America, though this leadership was not universally accepted by all black Americans. Some of Washington’s observations of his European tours are in his books Up From Slavery and My Larger Education. As a result of these tours Washington would be able to explore issues that were tangential to many of the racial and class issues he often raised in his speeches and books. In these books and in his speeches Washington would compare and contrast the world of the slave and that of the European peasants, and to illustrate that the fate of the peasant was not unlike that of the slave in many ways. Rather, it would be a matter of degree, though he had to admit that the lowest man on the European totem pole, the peasant, did live quantitatively and qualitatively, better than the black in America. He also astutely compared the conditions of blacks as a powerless ethnic racial group to the powerless position of the Hungarian within the Austro–Hungarian Empire and was very interested in the question of whether many racial and racial groups could live together in harmony. In the last section of her paper greene-gantzberg covers a topic, which is the centerpiece of the Pedersen paper: Washington’s visit to Denmark and his visitation to the Danish folk school. Pedersen’s description of the schools are repeated in this section by greene-gantzberg, but she noted that Washington wanted to forge links between Denmark and Tuskegee in order to make Tuskegee an educational center for black students from the Danish West Indies, currently the American Virgin Islands. He sought such an alliance through his Danish biographer Johannes Knudsen, but they were not able to forge such a deal. greene-gantzberg hints that there may have been an element of racism as well as an element of religious intolerance,
Introduction
xxxi
which may have contributed to the lack of success for this idea. Blacks were not viewed in a positive light, but Washington’s image as a religious freethinker might not have endeared him to members of Denmark’s national church. These tours increased his prestige among many European and Americans in a positive direction. For others, it confirmed what they suspected to be his great desire to mingle among the famous and the rich, notwithstanding his theme of representing the ‘‘little man.’’ Donald Cunnigen Rutledge M. Dennis Myrtle Gonza Glascoe Editors
This page intentionally left blank
xxxii
PART I: RACIAL POLITICS, LEADERSHIP, AND THE THEORY OF PRACTICALITY
1
This page intentionally left blank
2
THE SITUATIONAL POLITICS OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Rutledge M. Dennis Two classical sociological and historical books were published during the first three years of the twentieth century: Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery (1901) and W. E. B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Washington’s first autobiography (1900) was written especially for a white audience. The centennial of Du Bois’ book was ushered in by a plethora of books, articles, and television programs hailing the book’s prescience, its accurate critique of the era, its assessment of the role of race and color in the new century, the perils of Western colonialism and imperialism, and the forces shaping what was later, in the 1920s, to be called ‘‘The New Negro.’’ When Du Bois was later ‘‘discovered’’ by intellectuals, academicians, and students who were then historically and sociologically impoverished, he seemed very current and modern, and his sociological insights and interpretations, written with his unique literary turn of the pen, spoke of the aspirations and strivings that were deeply felt by the generation of the 1960s and 1970s. In contrast, the silence surrounding the centennial of Up From Slavery was deafening. It was as if Washington never lived, despite the fact that he was, in 1901, the most recognized, the most influential, and the most powerful, black man in the world. The silence surrounding Washington was understandable for the simple reason that Washington remains an enigma for many Black Americans. Those of us who spent our youth in the South during the 1950s and early
The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 3–21 Copyright r 2006 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13001-9
3
4
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
1960s remember that during the years of intense racial segregation, the only two portraits of blacks that hung regularly in the entrances of many elementary and high schools were those of Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. Because segregationists so loudly praised Washington and held him up as the only black leader of any merit, it was inevitable that, with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, and later, the Black Power Movement, Washington would be excoriated by blacks, and the person ignored and castigated by whites, Du Bois, would be held up as a bold and fearless advocate for Black Studies, Black Identity, Pan Africanism, and anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism, and new and creative explorations of African-American sociology. Thus, the more we learned about Du Bois, and the more we read his books, the less we liked Washington (Dennis, 1992). What was, and still is, the issue with respect to any leader, whether that leader is Washington, Du Bois, Malcolm, Garvey, or King, is that in our evaluation of each, we must be mindful of the historical and sociological circumstances and situations surrounding the rise to leadership, the geography (place or location) in which the leader emerges, the type of leadership needed or demanded by endemic crises and problems, and the era (time) in which the leadership emerges. These situational or intervening variables present constraining forces and limitations on the world of the possible, so that objectively, and realistically, we should not expect leaders of the nineteenth century to possess the language and style of twentieth century, post-civil rights era leaders. Moreover, we do leaders a great disservice when we discuss them in the abstract and are unmindful of the fact that given their individual circumstances, they may lack the means to do the impossible, and that opportunity structures must be available before certain types of actions are viable. Washington’s rise to leadership among black Americans coincided with the great events and activities that shaped the last quarter of nineteenth century America: the rise and permanency of Jim Crow in the South and the continuation of discriminatory practices in the North; the popularity of the ideology of social Darwinism; the rise of the entrepreneur and the economics, politics, and culture of capitalism; the growing colonial and imperialistic powers of Europe and the United States; and the quest by black Americans, North and South, to gain and sustain greater human freedoms and rights. Given the times and the weakened position of black Americans in an era that cared very little for the freedom and rights of blacks, Washington, if he were to play a role in the emerging national body politics, had to operate within circumscribed boundaries. This meant that his politics had to be situational in that he was being pulled and pushed on all sides with varied
The Situational Politics of Booker T. Washington
5
and conflicting expectations from his audiences in the South and North, both black and white. Washington often made the claim that he was consistent in what he told his audiences whether he was in the North or South, or whether the audience was black or white. Technically, that statement is correct, though a close reading of his speeches would indicate differences in emphases. That he did, indeed, tailor his speeches for particular audiences. The remainder of this paper will probe the messages conveyed in Washington’s speeches as he crisscrossed the country on his many lecture tours. In so doing, we will be attentive to the issues raised by Washington and the urgency with which he discussed them. Finally, after an analysis of these speeches we wish to assess whether, together, they prove or disprove the commonly held view of Washington as one who downplayed racial injustices before white audiences but highlighted these injustices before black audiences. Washington viewed himself, and was viewed by others as a leader of men, an entrepreneur who epitomized the gospel of success, self-reliance, and racial solidarity. He saw himself as a representative of the ‘‘new colored’’ or ‘‘new negro,’’ emerging out of the morass of slavery and forging a new racial and class identity that would negate the horrors of the past. But he, like Douglass before him, understood that forging and solidifying this new identity would not be easy, and that if blacks wanted to be the ‘‘new,’’ they would have to be severe with themselves, and just as they had been tough in order to survive the worst of slavery, they would have to be even tougher to survive the perils of freedom. In fact he believed that a freedom unprepared for would soon vanish. It is within the contexts of this sense of urgency that Washington is best understood, for like Douglass, who had also experienced slavery, Washington was prepared to be an example of what was possible with a strong will to succeed, and throughout his life he sought to transfer that will to other blacks, and was impatient with others who turned away from willing their success via a deeply rooted self-determination, discipline, self-reliance, and bravado. And though Washington always spoke of his great humility, the humility was lined with steely selfconfidence buttressed with the view that his view of the world would best alter the course of black Americans and the entire American society. So, it is interesting to read his speeches, and to move with him from North to South and from black to white audiences. We see the supreme teacher outlining his approaches, appealing to his audiences to follow his logic, and explaining why his approach, if followed, will advance black and white Americans. The analysis that follows was taken from a book of his selected speeches (E. D. Washington, 1932).
6
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
THE BLACK SOUTH Washington understood the psychology and sociology of the black South, for he was a part of that sociology, culture, and history. But he knew that people who had been technically free, yet continually tied to the realities of racial oppression had to make almost revolutionary and Herculean adjustments if they were ever to become the ‘‘new people,’’ Washington envisioned. Like many leaders, Washington seemed to have used the carrot and the stick in moving the people in the direction he thought best for them. So, from Washington came both praise and blame – praise for having come so far, so soon, and blame for not advancing as far and as quickly as he and others expected and demanded. This is why many of his speeches to black audiences in the South were pep talks, and there was a need for such pep talks because between 1880 and the early 1900s, lynchings, maiming, and physical intimidations increased, and there was a reign of terror throughout the South. For this reason, we understand why he began his address before the AfricanAmerican Council (pp. 92–99) by urging his audience not to be discouraged by recent events, and asserts that all achieving groups must struggle and prove their worth. He then encourages those assembled to be brave, for whereas blacks are not cowards, they must also not succumb to risky outbursts that might threaten entire communities. It was this fear that made Washington hammer his audience on the need for maintaining a collective group self-control and publicly display an inordinate collective patience. One of the greatest responsibilities of those who attempt to explain the ideology and philosophy of others is that they have a correct understanding of those views as stated and explained by the authors of those views, and not rely on the interpretations of the views as they are filtered through the lenses of others, especially those opposed to the philosophy of the person or persons being assessed. This is often the case with Washington. So much about Washington has been filtered through the lenses of Du Bois and others who sided with Du Bois in the Du Bois–Washington conflict. It is instructive to read Washington’s speeches to college audiences. A comparison of Du Bois’ lectures (Du Bois, 1973) to some of these same colleges would not reveal the great differences suggested by Du Boisians. In these lectures Washington is the master of common sense and practicality. The important theme running through all of these college addresses is the importance of doing something, of addressing problems and issues. It was indeed intriguing to read how Washington sought to redefine the world of the scholar, a concept he had been accused of negating and minimizing. One could very well read this as a frontal attack on the Du Boisian Talented Tenth and the world of
The Situational Politics of Booker T. Washington
7
scholarship as then understood. If Washington attacked the world of the intellect, it was because he believed intellectuals, the luftmenschen (Babel, 1987), were not really doing, but were rather good talkers. For him, the scholar was one who mastered a genuine and urgent social issue and problem, understood what he mastered, and was always in complete control of himself in all situations. Washington repeated this mantra over and over in his addresses to college students: The chief objective of black education is to help black people help themselves, and this was only possible through cooperative and collective action, for Washington believed that the goal of education was similar to the goal of life – to help others, especially blacks, but to help them in order that they might better help themselves. This could only be done, he asserted, if less time was spent complaining about life and their situation, and more time was spent seeking creative solutions and opportunities. In another counter-attack against the Du Boisians who often accused him of advocating an industrial education that belittled the need for the arts and humanities, Washington asserted, in an address to Fisk students, that there was no natural opposition between industrial education and higher education (pp. 37–41), and that both would utilize brains and skills. But he wanted this brain and skill combination to come together to provide creative approaches to the common everyday economic and occupational problems confronting blacks. This brains and skills power would be best manifested when put to use for the advancement of the common everyday citizen. This is why he did not want the educated to be overly obsessed with learning languages and the fine arts. These areas constituted a miniscule feature of the larger black world. In words similar to the basic theme of Mao’s Cultural Revolution (Gurley, 1971) that was launched because Mao believed educated Chinese to have strayed too far from the ideals and values of the common man and the peasants, and sent students, educators, and intellectuals to the farms and hinterlands for a massive sociological and psychological re-education. While not advocating such a forced exile, Washington said ‘‘educated blacks must go to the farms, into the trades, start brick yards, saw mills, and factories, and open coal mines. y use education to control nature y ’’ That is, less time should be spent talking about what had to be done, and more time doing what had to be done. This was why he believed true happiness was derived, not from possessing things, a point he hammered away in his speeches to black college students, but from doing things, more particularly, solving great problems. Religion was also a major theme in Washington’s speeches to colleges. At Hampton (pp. 148–153) and Montgomery (pp. 12–22), his utterances were
8
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
almost Du Boisian in tone: ‘‘y[blacks] must use material wealth, material success, not as an end but as a means to reach the highest life and to help their fellows to reach and live the higher life y . We must choose between the lower life and the higher life y ’’ Du Bois could have said that. The Bible and spiritual development would be needed if success were to be achieved, because he accused the people of spending too much time in idleness, of gossiping rather than reading, of coming together and spending too much time thinking about themselves and talking too much about others. He seemed to be calling for a ‘‘spiritual revolution.’’ In the two speeches before national religious conferences, Washington emphasized the importance of the church and religion in black life. Speaking before the National Negro Baptist Convention, Washington noted that blacks constituted a ‘‘nation within a nation,’’ a statement Du Bois made on numerous occasions. To the Baptist Convention (pp. 154–159), he asked that they take their responsibilities and not permit unprepared ministers lead a flock. That indeed, there were too many ministers running around who hurt rather than helped blacks because, while claiming to represent the church, led many astray. He urged the ministers to emphasize, to their members, the great gains made by black despite the great odds against them, and not simply dwell on the failures. For, Washington contented, blacks were moving forward, and the key to moving ahead had been, and will be, demonstrated by action, by doing things, and solving problems. Perhaps in another jab at intellectuals and the concept of the Talented Tenth, he admonished the group to focus on action, for ‘‘performance is key,’’ not abstract theories or ideas. Nor will making external demands suffice for the internal work that must be done in shoring up the internal fabric of black life. Pragmatism, the centerpiece of Washington’s life and construction program, dictated that there would be no purpose in pursuing a pipe dream. Better to work on the possible. The address before the AME Zion Conference was more pointedly religious. First, he said that religious men were imbued with the spirit of Christ. With that spirit, they should pursue a desire to acquire land, build homes, acquire additional land and houses, and fill their homes with decent furniture, newspapers, and magazines. In this sense, their material acquisitions would converge with their cultural acquisitions. The lives of blacks in the South have been greatly enriched by the churches blacks have built to enrich their social, religious, and everyday world. He also asserted that ministers and bishops must push for the church to be useful to the practical needs of the community and not shy away from using their churches to promote practical and progressive movements. In a new twist of the obligations of
The Situational Politics of Booker T. Washington
9
the church, Washington informed those assembled (pp. 208–212) that they had an obligation to save whites as well as blacks. Addressing the theme that the oppressor hurts himself as well as the oppressed, he informs the ministers and bishops that they must help save blacks in order to save whites. Whites, he asserted, needed to be saved because they had demeaned and degraded themselves by degrading blacks, though many did not reason from this perspective. This analogy was similar to one of Washington’s themes throughout his life: that injustices against weaker groups would rebound to hurt the perpetrator, the stronger group.
THE WHITE SOUTH If Washington advised Southern blacks to focus on strengthening their communities, what they had to do for themselves, and how they should make themselves the centerpiece of the economic life of black and white communities, his addresses to white audiences emphasized the beauty of the South, the common interests of the two groups, and obligations of whites to blacks and their obligations to the ideas of freedom, fairness, and democracy. But before white audiences Washington was the consummate dialectician. With this audience there were jabs and counter-jabs. In the same Huntsville, Alabama speech (pp. 78–86) in which he embarrassingly says, ‘‘I see blacks loving you, trusting you y .’’ a statement that fed into the suspicions of Du Bois and others that he was bowing to the white South, he proffers the view that the legal system must be just and protect all citizens, blacks as well as whites. He said both blacks and whites must rise above hatred and ignorance because their lives are interdependent, and they will either ‘‘rise or fall together.’’ He admonished his white audience to help demonstrate to the world that two groups with differing cultural backgrounds, but with a mutual history, may live together peacefully. What distinguishes the messages to black and white audiences were the emphases in his speeches before whites on a version of his Southern patriotism and how the Southern strategy of change ends up helping both blacks and whites. For example, in a speech at Vanderbilt University (pp. 160–189) Washington retold the story of his slave birth and the pride he felt in remaining in the South. In his speeches before blacks in the South he emphasized ways of strengthening the community and the need to forge links to white communities. Before whites he went into greater detail on the ways whites could assist blacks. His detailed recommendations of the ways whites could/should help blacks were enumerated in his Vanderbilt
10
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
speech (pp. 160–189) in which he clearly outlined the actions and activities that whites had at their disposal which would greatly aid blacks. These will be noted in their entirety, because the fact that he asserted these claims while speaking to a white audience, flies in the face of claims made by many that Washington avoided mentioning negative features about the white world while addressing whites, or that he softened his message while addressing whites. In reality, Washington was a master reader of the white mind, character, and psychology, especially of white Southerners. As a means of appealing to the morality and ethics of his white audience, Washington was careful in prefactory statements to announce that he wanted to focus on how the ‘‘Christian South can help blacks.’’ Having placed his audience into a Christian mold, he then asked whites to do the following: tell other whites that black morals were no lower than white morals; attend black churches; visit black colleges; be even-handed in dealing with black and white criminals; create greater police–community ties; impress on whites the Christian values of citizenship; treat blacks as they would be treated; plant the idea of mutual confidence, trust, and friendship in the hearts and minds of whites; not use the fear of ‘‘social equality’’ as an excuse to resist associating with blacks; convict white men for the rape of black women just as black men are convicted for the rape of white women, and neither blacks nor whites should attempt to dominate the other, but should co-exist based on their necessary interdependence. The above recommendations by Washington to his audience is a reminder of the importance of reading the actual words of key figures rather than reading others’ interpretations of them. Hence, the importance of moving beyond the myth. Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Address, delivered in 1895 (pp. 31–36), set the tone for what, for many, would be his eternal legacy. It represents early Washington, a Washington less sure of himself and his status, and a Washington literally shoved into national and international prominence by whites. It is essentially this speech that doomed Washington among a few black Southerners and many more black Northerners. It is in this speech that Washington comes closest to groveling before a white audience. Here, the tone of the message has to be taken into account as well as the contextual effect. That is, taken at face value, his comment that ‘‘it is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top,’’ has relevance because it asserts a truism. However, in the contexts of an oppressive race-dominated society, it is like throwing oil on an already burning fire. Likewise, in that same address, his metaphor of the symbiotic relationship between the fingers and the hand, his assertion that it was folly to use agitation to promote social equality, and finally, his condemnation of artificially forcing groups
The Situational Politics of Booker T. Washington
11
together as a means of achieving social equality – all placed a C, for accommodationist, on his forehead. Perhaps if Du Bois and Washington were less vain and egotistical, they might have acknowledged the dire needs of the collective black population. They could have given each other a wink and a nod for all the things each might be forced to say within circumstances, and that each would forgive the other for such statements. Du Bois would then have been free to organize Northern blacks, while Washington would have been free to maneuver and continue his manipulation of Southern whites as best he could. Beyond the ‘‘cast down your bucket where you are’’ story, and the appeal to whites that they not permit past grievances to ‘‘overshadow opportunities.’’ Again, this is an early Washington who probably felt more beholden to white Southerners, and thus, had not yet sketched out a clear path in which he would be emboldened to assert claims against white audiences. In a review of Washington’s speeches, one could draw a trajectory to illustrate a fact that as he grew older and had worked more closely with both Northern and Southern whites, his speeches, in fact, did reflect views that promoted greater social equality and inter-racial togetherness than many assume. For example, in his address before the Southern Sociological Congress (pp. 235–242), the organization that later evolved into the Southern Sociological Society, he emphasized the common interests of blacks and whites, how cooperation is vital to each group, how the sociological group is important in promoting a place for inter-group dialogue, and how Southern whites may devise measures ostensibly to hurt blacks, may in fact, rebound to hurt whites as well. Just as he was more direct and very directed in his advise to whites during his Vanderbilt address, he was similarly direct in his address to the Southern Sociological Congress, often using the same language. But whereas he highlighted Christian values and ethics in his Vanderbilt address, after all, it was an address to a theological faculty, he zeroed in on the role of a sociological organization and appealed to the use of the organization to promote racial and social change. Washington wanted the Sociological Congress to do the following: state the case for blacks among important local and state officials – governors, sheriffs, and judges; given the history of slavery and its consequences, tell the truth about the degree of black social and educational progress; inform whites that the primary objective of blacks is not to mingle socially with whites; create a venue that would enable educated and successful blacks and whites to get a chance to know each other better; instruct the white press to give less space to black crime and more space to black successes and accomplishments; press upon the larger white society that blacks deserve
12
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
equal justice in the American court system; inform the legal system of the injustice of arresting blacks for petty and trivial offenses; push for better schools for black children; prevent selfish white politicians from using false images of blacks to frighten and deceive white citizens; and insure that ways are found to prevent whites from being ignorant, weak, and poor, because when whites are afflicted by these ills, they are more likely, and more tempted to use and abuse blacks. As he was wont to do before Southern audiences, both black and white, Washington ended his address with an assertion that he was proud to be a Southerner; that he both loved and preferred the South; that social change will come to the South, though it will occur slowly; that the mutual collective self and group interests of blacks and whites will force degrees of cooperation, and that though positive changes have clearly been made, more can be made. A review of Washington’s speeches before Southern white audiences reveals that with the exception of his Atlanta Exposition address, an address made prior to his rise to national prominence, he is very direct and does not hesitate to make a plea for greater fairness and equal justice for blacks.
BLACK NORTH If the white South comprised the greatest opposition to Washington, the intellectuals and the educated classes in the North constituted the second largest opposition group. Du Bois’ chapter on Washington in his Souls of Black Folk set the tone and provided the ammunition for the antiWashington group and its anti-Washington fervor, and Monroe Trotter, a leading Northern intellectual and the editor of The Guardian, so despised Washington that he set off stench bombs to prevent Washington from speaking in a local Boston church (Boulware, 1969). Washington would later write of this episode (Washington, 1911) as ‘‘The Intellectuals and the Boston Mob.’’ Though Washington often advised blacks to remain in the South, he was not unmindful of the importance of Northern blacks, their financial, political, and educational advances, and their access to newspapers, which would also enable him to propagate his educational and entrepreneurial views. Like his addresses to blacks in the South, Washington’s infrequent addresses to black Northern audiences contained brief sketches of the progress of the race. In an address to the National Teachers (pp. 200–207) he made an oblique attack on the concept of the Talented Tenth, he proffered the view that ‘‘in the past education was for the exceptional man, for the middle and upper classes, not for the masses,’’ and prophesized that
The Situational Politics of Booker T. Washington
13
in the future, ordinary folks would have access to education which they will utilize for those ordinary things in life both at home and at work. And as he made clear in lectures to Southern blacks, he hammered away at the theme that education should not enable the educated to live in a world of abstraction; rather, the benefits of education must reside in the world of the concrete and with concrete benefits and results. Since manual labor comprised the bulk of the work available in the South, Washington urged his listeners to teach blacks the value and ‘‘dignity’’ of labor. But here he differentiates between manual labor and ‘‘trade education,’’ a significant point, and one central in his dispute with Du Bois and other intellectuals who often accused him of desiring only ‘‘manual labor’’ for blacks. The fact that Washington not only understands the need for manual labor but also favors highly a trade education, shifts the battlefield between Washington and his opponents. Like the list of things he had given Southern whites as aids in helping blacks, Washington urges black teachers not to divorce themselves from average and ordinary citizens, and he reminds them that one of the functions of education in the everyday life of blacks is to help blacks to become homeowners and purchase land. He charged the teachers with spreading a vision of black life to encourage blacks to do the following (pp. 200–207): save and invest, create jobs for themselves, be proud of being black, emphasize to whites and blacks their mutual responsibility to each other, and the urgency to speak out on the futility of racial hatred. Finally in a response to those who accuse him of silence on the matter of lynching Washington says, ‘‘I do not overlook injustice – I condemn lynching – whether black or white.’’ Hoping to offset a pessimism that constantly lingered over the population, Washington asked the teachers themselves to acknowledge instances of black gains and to convey those gains to others. He believed that blacks would struggle more if opportunities for advancements were more known and people could see the progress of their struggles. If not, a sense of resignation or fatalism may prevail. A close reading of Washington reveals a subtleness with different emphases given to certain themes. For example, while he admonishes teachers to be proud of being black, in an address before the American Peace Congress (pp. 213–217), he cautions the group to ‘‘learn to think not in terms of race or color or language or political boundaries, but in terms of humanity.’’ In one of the two addresses to the National Negro Business League Washington, apparently in answer to sharp criticisms of his materialistic messages, the duties of blacks to purchase homes and land, by Du Bois and other critics, opens with an almost Du Boisian quote (pp. 87–91) that
14
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
‘‘ y material possession is not the chief end of life, but should be a means of aiding us in securing our rightful place as citizens.’’ As he does in his message to Southern blacks, Washington forcefully makes the claim in addressing blacks that their individual and group successes depended solely upon their individual and collective talents and skills; that individually and collectively, they must struggle, but it is only in struggling that strength and endurance are achieved. In his final address before the National Negro Business League in Boston, in 1915, shortly before his death (pp. 251–270), Washington recounted the historical purpose of the organization and recited some of the group’s accomplishments. He enumerated the organization’s objectives and how it played a role in guiding its members and the larger black population in education, religion, politics, and economics. He urges the organization to continue to provide an avenue for blacks to organize their lives in a practical manner, for as he asserts, ‘‘an ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.’’ Above all, he urges blacks to continue to have faith in their ability to weather the storms and still emerge victorious. What he is suggesting is that blacks must succeed despite efforts by whites to curtail their success; that they must be attentive to inter-racial challenges, but ultimately, the internal dynamics of black life, its strengths and weaknesses, will have an impact on black individual and group advancements. And he conveys a message to Northern blacks with the words used in his address to Southern blacks. Blacks must: be honest with each other; help and guide each other; learn from Haiti and Liberia – to be self-supporting, and resist being in debt to merchants; lay aside personal jealousies and work for the good of the groupspread the word that is not a sin to start at the bottom, but there is no reason for anyone to do such jobs forever. What Washington taught was that a group’s emergence as a successful group depends upon its own internal solidarity, and its ability to help the needy within its group. Success also depended upon the group’s ability to interact with other groups, and thereby form a symbiotic relationship and become eventually necessary to another group’s existence and future in order for a degree of interdependency to emerge and become stable.
WHITE NORTH As Washington’s fame increased, he would spend more time in the North, addressing mainly white audiences and soliciting funds for Tuskeegee. But he was only in quest of money, though money was crucial. Washington uses
The Situational Politics of Booker T. Washington
15
the occasion to appeal to the North to make overtures to the white South in order to heal the wounds of the civil war. In fact, he said the North was duty-bound to help the white South, because the South continued to suffer from some of the social and economic conditions that existed during slavery, and the North had the financial resources to help pull the South – both whites and blacks from backwardness. As he was to say on more than one occasion, ‘‘when the South is poor, the North is poor.’’ Concomitantly, he hoped a byproduct of this North–South cooperation would entail a joint effort to assist blacks, especially those in the South. This joining of hands by the North and the South, Washington proffered, should then join hands with blacks to stimulate black self-help, giving blacks the rights of all men, so that in combination with the North and the South, blacks would help create a New South and a New North. In his addresses in the North he was forthright in his condemnation of injustices perpetrated against blacks. To his Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences (pp. 100–117) audience, he declared that blacks wanted and needed freedom and liberty; liberty and freedom would arrive not as a bequest, but instead as a conquest, co-existence between blacks and whites required an equality before the law for both groups, and whites had a moral obligation to assist blacks. To another group, the National Educational Association (pp. 1–11) he said blacks ‘‘should not cower to satisfy the unreasonable whims of whites,’’ and he denounced slavery in an address to the Republican Party in New York City (pp. 190–199), and noted that the white cannot keep the black ‘‘down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.’’ The second theme in Washington’s Northern addresses was the appeal for white assistance because blacks were making progress. In an address to a Conference on Race Betterment in Battle Creek, Michigan (pp. 218–238), Washington laid out a history of the evolution of blacks in the U.S.: the violent history of blacks from Africa to America; the history from slavery to freedom; and the movement from the South to the North. He notes that despite slavery and bondage, and against great odds, blacks have made progress by acquiring property, developing skills, learning industrial habits, acquiring education, and developing Christian characters. Besides, in that same lecture, he praises blacks for having survived through decades of degradation. Blacks have, and will, he asserted. Washington almost appears to gloat when he proclaims that ‘‘blacks have been the only group with a dark skin that’s undergone the test of living side by side with Anglo-Saxons and survived.’’ Then in another variation on this theme he addressed a group at Madison Square Garden (pp. 118–134) and compares positive black literacy rates with Spain, Italy, and countries in South America. At Harvard (pp. 51–53)
16
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
he praised blacks for being able to compete and excel when opportunities for competition and excelling exist, and at the Republican Club (pp. 190–199) he used his own life as an example of the overall progress of blacks as a people, citing his life in slavery, his knowledge of Lincoln, and Lincoln’s contribution to the American nation – the ‘‘blending of tongues, religions, colors, races, into one composite nation.’’ Then he added that ‘‘Lincoln lives – ten million blacks [are] marching forward.’’ A third theme was a message to the white North that the organization of black life did not entail socially intermingling with whites. As he often told his audiences, North and South, this time the group in Battle Creek, Michigan (pp. 218–234), ‘‘I would not change races or colors with the whitest man in America. No man can be prouder of his race than I am.’’ And in the same lecture he was to add, blacks ‘‘are proud of associating with their race just as whites are proud of associating with their race.’’ To the Republican Club (pp. 190–199) he noted that Lincoln had brought the country together, but despite being together in one country, ‘‘each group and race [was] free to live its own separate social life, and yet all [remain] a part of the great whole.’’ This message was also presented before the National Educational Association (pp. 135–147) in which Washington declared that blacks did not seek political supremacy over whites; does not seek to mingle inter-racially, and were proud of their racial heritage just as whites were proud of their own racial heritage. It was clear that both the white North and South liked this message. Finally, Washington understood the ‘‘polar antitheses’’ undergirding questions of the black presence in America, and he presents these polarities (pp. 135–147): slavery was good–slavery was bad; racial mixing weakens blacks–racial mixing accounts for the success of blacks; racial integration good–racial separation good; blacks should return to Africa–blacks should remain in America; blacks should be given the ballot–the ballot should be withheld from blacks, and education helps blacks–education hinders blacks. Washington presents these opposite positions, but he never fails to note in his speeches how black and white social life have been distorted and emptied of rationality. As he told one of his audiences (pp. 218–234) ‘‘ y now my friends the two races are going to remain together in this country y you cannot shut the Negro away from the white man [because] Negroes are more like whites than any other race, aside from skin color y [since they have] the same language, eat the same food y [have] similar ambitions and aspirations y [for in the end] Negroes are either going to help whites or hurt whites y [they] want to help whites and help themselves.’’
The Situational Politics of Booker T. Washington
17
SITUATIONAL POLITICS AND SITUATIONAL LOGIC Since the title of this paper deals with situational politics, it might be helpful to provide a framework for understanding the validity and objectivity of situational politics and how it is linked to the idea of situational logic. The very use of the term ‘‘situational’’ conjures up images of relativism with its accompanying view that universal values and truths do not exist but are only true within the specific contexts, time, and location, in which they occur. But it is important to disassociate situationalism from relativism, for the latter is commonly associated with historicism, and there are many social thinkers, particularly Popper (1961), who reject both ideas, while not rejecting the concept of situationalism. One person who rejects the idea of situations is Martin Buber, and in the explanation for Buber’s rejection, we hear much of the logic used by those rejecting Washington contradictions and inconsistencies. Buber (1967, p. 722) contrasts ‘‘situations’’ to ‘‘principles,’’ asserting that situations represent the ‘‘unclean’’ reality whereas principles represent ‘‘pure’’ abstraction. In making the case for sticking to a principled position in contrast to basing one’s behavior and actions on the situation Buber (ibid.) states in unequivocal terms what many of Washington’s critics expected of him: ‘‘You stand before a political decision y You are driven by the command of justice and your heart stirred by it, you look into the depths of a situation, there from where the contradiction looks back at you y [you] do not spare yourself, you let the cruel reality of both sides inflict itself on you without reducing it. You, theater of war and judge, let the battle be fought out unchecked.’’ In that statement, Buber makes the case for an unadulterated principled stand on whatever is under review. He also implies that there are no situations under which consideration should be given to extenuating circumstances, for these circumstances will themselves be situational, and thus place one back into the logic of the situation as the prime mover of our thoughts and actions. But one wonders whether the terms ‘‘situations’’ and ‘‘principles’’ are mere ‘‘ideal types’’ in Buber’s mind. This is suggested by his idea that ‘‘principles’’ are pure abstractions, never to be realized in the real world, or as he suggests, the ‘‘unclean’’ reality. It may be the case that Buber simply prefers, in the best of all worlds, principled positions on issues, while recognizing that the ‘‘unclean’’ situational logic or politics, exists, and must be dealt with, though one may detest doing so. It is Karl Popper, however, who helps us understand and work through the issues inherent in the predicament of a Booker T. Washington, for the
18
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
issues associated with the contradictions in the life and works of Washington loom larger than those confronting previous leaders, Frederick Douglass and the young W. E. B. Du Bois. There were also much greater than the contradictions facing the post-Washington leaders – an older Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X., and Dr. Karl Popper (1994, pp. 168–171) – suggests that we construct a typical situational model in which situational thinking and logic would simply mean ‘‘acting appropriately to the situation.’’ With such a definition, it may be possible to objectify one’s action from an array of objective possibilities. To briefly return to Washington, we might ask whether, given the choices he could have made, whether he acted appropriately to each situation. The problem is that we sit here in the twentieth and twenty-first century and attempt to ascertain an objective stance taken by Washington in the uncertain and troubling decades following the Reconstruction, the imposition of Jim Crow Laws, and the overall terrorism perpetuated by whites toward blacks. We may read the history of slavery and we can imagine the horrors as expressed by Douglass and many other ex-slaves, we identify with the sufferers of the time because they represent a part of us, and on some level, we may want to indict Washington because, though he suffered as a child and youth, as an adult, we see less suffering, but we see a man attempting to control and master his environment and to control all around him, whites as well as blacks. In a sense Washington does not get too much of our sympathy because he appears to be too much above the fray, but that is no different from Du Bois’ claim that he lives above the veil (Dennis, 1996). The difference is that there is always anger in Du Bois and virtually none in Washington. But to return to Popper’s situational model again, we might ask, in what objective sense should Washington have gotten Southern blacks angry. In the situation expressed above, what were they going to do in this state of anger? Given Northern indifference and outright hostility to blacks during that time, who would come to their assistance? Certainly Washington was a man of many faults, and because he was placed, and placed himself, in a position where situational logic and politics were necessary, does not mean we should give him a pass. It also means, however, that scholars should dismiss the concrete and objective world in which Washington and millions of blacks lived and act as if Washington existed in a vacuum in which he had too many choices and simply chose to be the Great Accommodationist and compromiser. Such a reading of Washington and his times is largely a historical and given to much distortion and misinterpretations. It may be possible to return to Washington’s times, study his decisions and actions within prescribed settings in order to ascertain whether, given accurate data, we can
The Situational Politics of Booker T. Washington
19
through documentation claim that Washington did, or did not, act appropriately to the situation. This exploratory chapter can hopefully induce subsequent researchers to dig more deeply into the actual words and actions of Washington to find out whether or not the situational nature of his politics represented the then objective realities in which limited choices were available, or whether his politics included many subjective choices Washington himself made, not because of the situation, but because he subjectively wanted to make them.
CONCLUSION In analyzing the speeches of Washington from a variety of perspectives: Southern Blacks, Southern Whites, Northern Blacks, and Northern Whites, it is obvious that he tailored his speeches to focus on specific issues he wanted each group to hear. This was necessary because he wanted different things from these groups. For Southern blacks his message was directed to their struggle and their victories, their desire to transcend the horrors of slavery and segregation, and to build new lives. They looked to Washington because he was one of them and he stayed in the South to help their cause. They, too, recognized the difficulties of living in a South where terrorism reigned unabated. Washington knew Southern blacks were not prepared to launch a civil rights assault against an angry white South with an indifferent white North looking on. Though Washington cautioned blacks to be patient, maintain goodwill, and retain their courage and determination, behind this seemingly mellow demeanor was a steely iron will and gritty and stubborn determination, characteristics so prevalent in the philosophy of the ‘‘self-made man,’’ see (Lorimer, 1902; Rischin, 1965; Wyllie, 1954; Cawelti, 1965). Southern blacks were a part of Washington’s social, racial, and economic experiment, and would be his model for change and progress. So his massive plan to reconstruct Southern black life by emphasizing trade education, and the purchase of homes and property had to move through them. But he had to teach blacks to be bold and aggressive in their pursuit of their self-development and just as bold and aggressive in pursuing the type of education and occupational skills that would indelibly link them to the economic and occupational needs of the South. In the white South, Washington sought, not much finances, as he did protection from the segment of the white population that would unleash terror against blacks. Besides, he knew the Southern economy needed labor, and he sought to tighten a work relationship that eventually would prompt
20
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
an improvement in the social relations between blacks and whites. To offset the fears of whites due to the large black population, Washington emphasized the need for goodwill, loyalty, and the ability of blacks to endure suffering. Above all, he would frame the world of blacks and whites in the South as constituting two separate spheres within one bowl, and it might not be without a degree of racial pride that he presents the case that blacks are no more eager to associate with whites on a social level as whites are to associate with blacks. He simply wanted friendly working relations and a modicum of social civility to prevail in order for Tuskegee to exist and succeed and for his economic and educational program to create the middle class blacks who could develop their communities and thus prosper. Washington needed to convince Northern whites that their funding of Tuskegee was helpful and that black success was a direct of their financial largess. This was why in his addresses to Northern groups there was always the invitation to come to Tuskegee to witness its great success. The Northern trips were also designed to explain the Southern black and white destitution. In many of his speeches Washington often sounded like a roving Southern ambassador to the North. As mentioned previously, this was an important strategy because he wanted both the North and the South to be of one mind in recognizing that certain black needs were vital in addressing needs in the South as well as the North. He duly recognized all philanthropic assistance in his building program at Tuskegee, but their assistance was in line with the idea and ideology of helping ‘‘backward’’ people, and Washington was just as much a feather in their cap as they were in his. Lastly, Northern blacks had a very contentious relationship with Washington. Yet, ironically, he chose to have the inaugural meeting of the National Negro Business League in Boston in 1900, and there were chapters of the League in many Northern cities. For this reason, it is understandable why most of his speeches before black Northerners were League speeches: The League was his brainchild. In one of his Northern speeches (pp. 1–11) he speaks of certain ‘‘so-called Negro leaders,’’ but he usually simply ignored those who opposed him. Washington entre´e into the black North made sense on many levels: Northern blacks were better educated, had more money, and had better access to occupational opportunities, and had a relatively free press and were less dependent upon whites. Unfortunately, many scholars appear to have closed their research and investigative book on Washington and have acted as if everything is already known about Washington that can be known, or is necessary to know. Fortunately, there is much more about his life and times that should be mined and unraveled.
The Situational Politics of Booker T. Washington
21
REFERENCES Babel, I. (1987). In: H. Bloom (Ed.), Isaac Babel. New York: Chelsea House. Boulware, M. A. (1969). The oratory of Negro leaders: 1900–1968. Westport, CT: Negro Universities Press. Buber, M. (1967). The philosophy of Martin Buber. LA Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing. Cawelti, J. G. (1965). Apostles of the self-made man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dennis, R. M. (1992). Washington and Du Bois revisited. Diversity, 1(3), 5–7. Dennis, R. M. (1996). W.E.B. Du Bois: The scholar as activist. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of black folk: Essays and sketches. Chicago: A.C. McClurg. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1973). The education of Black people. Amherst: University of Massachusetts. Gurley, J. G. (1971). Capitalist and maoist economic development. Monthly Review, 22(9), 39–49. Lorimer, G. H. (1902). Letters from a self-made merchant to his son. New York: Small, Maynard & Co. Popper, K. (1961). The poverty of historicism. New York: Harper and Row. Popper, K. (1994). The myth of the framework. London: Routledge. Rischin, M. (Ed.) (1965). The American gospel of success. Chicago: Quadrangle Books. Washington, B. T. (1900). The story of my life and work. Toronto: J. Nichols & Co. Washington, B. T. (1901). Up from slavery: An autobiography. New York: Doubleday, Page. Washington, B. T. (1911). My larger education. Garden city: Doubleday, Page & Co. Washington, E. D. (1932). Selected speeches of Booker T. Washington. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Co. Wyllie, I. G. (1954). The self-made man in America. New York: Free Press.
This page intentionally left blank
22
A BLACK LEADER IN THE AGE OF JIM CROW Louis R. Harlan Booker T. Washington was an important and a controversial figure in African-American history and in American history as a whole. So alive is his memory today, particularly among black nationalists and conservative African-Americans in the South, that it is sometimes hard to keep in mind that more than a century has passed since he delivered his career-making Atlanta Compromise Address in 1895. His significance as the preeminent black spokesman of his generation and as one of the larger-than-life part-mythical leadership figures of African-American history would seem to warrant fresh biographical consideration from time to time. I would welcome such a labor of scholarship, since my own study of the man is now a generation old.1 I can even envision the form such a reassessment might take. It might be more sympathetic to Washington’s social philosophy and his predicament as a leader in hard times. It might emphasize, more than I have, Washington’s contributions to black education, his underground struggle for civil rights during an era of white supremacy, his efforts to uplift southern black farmers from tenancy to ownership, and his strengthening of black institutions to help African-Americans weather the storm of white racism. It might claim him as a social realist or a precursor of such black nationalists as Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. Such a reconsideration would conclude that my biography was too harshly critical of Washington’s racial strategy.
The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 23–32 r 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd. ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13002-0
23
24
LOUIS R. HARLAN
I can also envision, however, a new biographer who would conclude that I did not go far enough, that I was content merely to tell what happened instead of passing righteous judgment on a leader who led nowhere, a compromiser who traded his people’s rights for a mess of economic pottage that was snatched away before it could reach the mouth.2 These are only two hypothetical examples. I shall leave it to the hypothetical but probably inevitable next biographer to devise the format of reconsideration. I am willing to concede that Booker T. Washington was too complex and protean to be captured by any one interpreter, but until another biographer brings convincing evidence of another view of Washington, I will stand by my own interpretation based on 20-odd years of scholarly labor. In my own work I have tried to strike somewhat of a balance between Washington’s achievements and his shortcomings, between his altruism and his personal ambition. He was the last African-American national leader born in slavery, as his rival and successor W. E. B. Du Bois was the first African-American national leader born free. Washington was a child of his time, that is, of the time of his childhood. His social ideas were formed early in life at Hampton Institute and changed very little in the changed circumstances of the early twentieth century.3 He was unfortunate in the timing of his rise to leadership during the age of rising white racism, disfranchisement, lynchings, segregation laws, and other discrimination. Washington, in my estimation, was a man of good intentions, with roughly the same ultimate goals as his critics, including full freedom and equality in the long run. Where he differed from his critics was in strategy, not in basic ideals. He did much good for people of his race, through education at Tuskegee Institute and at other black schools modeled on it, and in the building and strengthening of other sustaining black institutions such as the National Negro Business League, the black public schools, and the National Baptist Convention. A good but sometimes neglectful family man, he treated all of his three wives well and gave his daughter and two sons all the education they could take advantage of. He was a role model of a successful man whom other black people might emulate. As a race leader, on the other hand, Washington seems to me to have been pretty much of a failure, though there is little evidence that his black critics would have been any more successful. Nevertheless, it must be said that he compromised too much for too little reciprocal gain. He personally gained power and influence through his compromises with powerful whites, but as a national race leader he never achieved the objectives of black freedom, black prosperity, and black equal opportunity that he sought. The period of his leadership has been aptly described by the black historian Rayford Logan as
A Black Leader in the Age of Jim Crow
25
‘‘the nadir,’’ the lowest point of African-American experience since emancipation.4 Whether the times determined the leader, or whether the faults and failures of the leader had a part in shaping the times is open to debate.5 How did a conservative such as Booker T. Washington, with his preference for compromise, become so powerful at time when a firebrand would seem to be called for? And why would I, a 1960s liberal, spend 20 years studying this conservative? The best general answer is that I have always been interested in the study of historical irony, that is to say, in the incongruity between expectations and actual results in history. Every epoch of history is replete with instances of irony and unanticipated consequences, but none more ironic than Washington’s leadership. When Prince Peter Kropotkin, the Russian anarchist, heard that black Americans had a conservative leader, he is said to have roared with laughter and asked what did they have to conserve.6 I first became interested, not so much in Booker T. Washington himself, but because of the window into the black world of his time that his large collection of private papers offered. Of greatest interest to me was the sheer quantity and the revealing quality of his papers in the Division of Manuscripts of the Library of Congress, about one million letters and other documents that go to the heart of his life and times. It is the largest collection of the papers of any individual African-American, the only collection rivaling it being the organizational archives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), also at the Library of Congress. It was a little more than 50 years ago, when I was a graduate student researching another topic at the Library of Congress, that I was allowed for an hour or so to look into the Washington Papers that the Library had recently acquired from Tuskegee Institute. They were still unprocessed, still in the large boxes in which they had been shipped. In the few hours I had with them, seated on the marble floor of the stacks, it was clear that these private letters, some with notes to destroy when read, pulled back the veil that concealed the private world of African-Americans of the segregation era. I had found the subject of my next book, and I could hardly wait until I could finish my dissertation and return to Booker T. Washington. Note that it was not hero-worship of Washington but intellectual curiosity that drove me. Washington achieved a local or regional leadership when he founded Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama in 1881. He threw his enormous energy into making it an effective institution for the education of black people. Starting with a handful of students in a building that had previously been a henhouse, he built Tuskegee into a million-dollar normal
26
LOUIS R. HARLAN
and industrial school. Along with a basic English language education, Tuskegee trained students in agriculture, domestic skills, and a variety of skilled trades. This industrial education won southern whites’ approval because it implied artisan skills rather than professional training, and local blacks approved because they believed it would provide practical means for self-help. Anyone living today in a century of technological revolution may well have doubts about the efficacy of industrial education, as blacks and whites of the turn of the century conceived it, as a preparation for living in the twentieth century. Tuskegee, however, was also a normal school, training hundreds of students each year to go out and teach in the black public schools of Alabama and the South. Most of the graduates and even many of the drop-outs of Tuskegee Institute taught in the black rural schools rather than becoming farmers or artisans, since teaching did not require any capital investment. It was not until 1895, however, that Washington achieved national fame through his Atlanta Compromise Address at a southern commercial convention that attracted northern potential investors in southern enterprises. In this address Washington promised southern white leaders that black people would give up the vote, at least for the time being, and accept segregation, at least for the time being, and would be loyal, nonunion employees. He asked the whites in return to place no obstacles in the way of black economic and educational opportunity. The resulting climate of racial peace would make the South a promising field of northern investment. ‘‘Put down your buckets where you are,’’ he intoned.7 White leaders in North and South hailed the Atlanta Compromise as a formula that would solve the race problem, and hailed Washington as the new black leader replacing Frederick Douglass, who had died a few months earlier. Even most black opinions were favorable or silent. But whites never came through with their part of the Faustian bargain that Washington had proposed. Having taken the black vote away, southern whites never gave blacks their fair share of the educational funding they might have been able to demand if they had possessed the ballot. Whites also limited black job opportunities and business opportunities even more than before. And most northern whites went elsewhere for investment opportunities. Washington, several times tried to get whites to round out the compromise of 1895, but he was never successful.8 So he himself prospered in the two decades that followed until his death in 1915, but African-Americans gained little if anything from the Atlanta Compromise. Washington quickly rose to power and influence after the Atlanta Compromise address and particularly after the appearance of his popular
A Black Leader in the Age of Jim Crow
27
autobiography, Up from Slavery in 1901.9 This was chiefly because of the favor of influential white people, but the mass of black people acquiesced in his leadership because they perceived the need for a spokesman whom white people would listen to. Washington’s doctrines of self-help and of gradual race progress through economic rather than political means also made some practical sense to many African Americans at a time when political avenues of race advancement were closed. Over time, however, his optimistic promises of improved prospects for the race following his strategy turned out to be empty. That circumstance explains the rising star of W. E. B. Du Bois, who with his black professional-class followers presented a minor challenge to Washington’s personal leadership but a major intellectual challenge to his ideas and racial strategy.10 Washington’s response to his critics was to organize what became known as the Tuskegee Machine. He publicly belittled politics and black politicians and never held public office. Privately, however, he was a master politician, a political boss who controlled the loyalties of key leaders not only throughout the South but also in all of the northern cities with substantial AfricanAmerican populations. His private papers are filled with correspondence that drew together a machine that encompassed the entire national black community and virtually every avenue of advancement within it. Washington’s machine was bankrolled by white philanthropists, enjoyed the favor of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft and other white political leaders. It also controlled national opinion on racial matters through Washington’s friendship with the editors and writers of leading newspapers and magazines. Washington protected the machine from flank attacks by cultivating the friendship of southern white leaders. He thus commanded a phalanx of power in the African-American world, while enjoying the favor of the white leadership class. In the years after the Atlanta Compromise, Washington used his power over the black community in myriad ways. In 1900 he founded the National Negro Business League, of which he was the lifetime president, to promote and encourage the small businessmen in every black community and make them his loyal supporters.11 Among influential blacks of the professional class, many privately disagreed with Washington’s stated racial policies but were beholden to him for favors done or favors hoped for. It was not for nothing that his contemporaries called him ‘‘the Wizard.’’12 White philanthropy for its own reasons consulted with him before giving to black colleges – a dormitory here, a Carnegie library there. Andrew Carnegie gave library buildings to 29 black schools and colleges, all of them after conferring with Washington. Not only college presidents owed Washington for favors, but
28
LOUIS R. HARLAN
so did church leaders, black YMCA directors, political appointees, and many others. Though never much of a joiner in his younger days, he became a power in the Baptist church, and schemed through lieutenants to control black fraternal orders and cultivate the friendship of high potentates of the Odd Fellows, the Prince Hall Masons, and others. As a machine boss would do, he turned every favor into a bond of obligation. It was politics, however, that became the most elaborate tentacle of the octopus-like Tuskegee Machine. In politics, as in other aspects of his life, Washington cultivated ambiguity. He minimized politics in an era of disfranchisement as a solution of black problems, did not recommend politics to the ambitious young black man, and never held public office. But when Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901 and sought his advice on southern appointments, Washington seized the opportunity to privately enter politics as a major player. For 12 years he controlled practically all black federal appointments to office, in North and South, filling them with the lieutenants of his Tuskegee Machine. Washington had little effect from his efforts to liberalize Republican policies toward black voting rights, lynching, and other aspects of racial discrimination, but in patronage politics he was very successful. It was one way he used to win over key black figures in the legal profession in Boston, Chicago, New York, and of course Washington, DC, including some men who had been outspoken critics. There were several hundred black weekly newspapers in the country, usually on the verge of bankruptcy, and several shaky black magazines. The Tuskegee Machine spread its web over most of them through advertisements, subsidies, and occasionally outright ownership through third parties. No critic or potential critic was too small to escape his notice and his effort either to silence or win over, for he was always uneasy and fearful of being toppled. Uneasy is the head that wears a crown. Washington would not have remained the all-purpose black leader for 20 years, however, if he had not rendered real services, small and large, to countless members of his race. These acts of service began long before the Atlanta Compromise thrust him into national leadership, and continued throughout his life. Washington played a creative role in philanthropy for black education on a region-wide scale, not only for Tuskegee Institute and the many small industrial schools that were offshoots of Tuskegee, but also for black public education. Washington was largely responsible for the establishment of the Jeanes Fund in 1906, which supplied black supervisors of the teachers of black rural schools all over the South, where usually white county superintendents never even visited the black schools of their system. Washington also recommended to Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears,
A Black Leader in the Age of Jim Crow
29
Roebuck, and Company, that he create under Tuskegee supervision the forerunner of the Rosenwald Foundation, which worked with local AfricanAmericans to build thousands of more adequate black schoolhouses in the rural South. Washington persuaded industrial and banking millionaires such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Jacob Schiff, and Henry H. Rogers to give money to black education at a time when the Sunday-School philanthropy born of Reconstruction was losing support. Washington was a sort of patriarch of southern African-Americans, particularly sharecroppers in the rural South. He founded the Tuskegee Negro Conference, modeled on a similar annual gathering at Hampton Institute, haranguing local farmers to work hard, save their money, get land of their own or a bank account, and soon all other things would be given unto them. He was much less friendly to the college-educated African-Americans, whom Du Bois dubbed as the Talented Tenth, or to the black professional class in general. Businessmen in his view were the natural leaders and role models for the entire race because of their relative economic independence and practicality. One reason my two-volume biography took so long is that I was simultaneously the coeditor with Raymond W. Smock of Washington’s papers, published in 14 volumes. Since historical editing is very demanding and exacting work, trying to write and edit at the same time slowed down the pace of the biography. I had to meet the deadlines of the funding agencies for the papers, whereas the biography was on my own time. On the other hand, the editing work turned up a lot of additional information on Washington that I might not have found by the biographer’s standard methods. The editing work also slowed me down enough to allow me to think through some of the interpretive problems and to locate additional information on obscure points.13 Another reason I stayed with the study of Washington for so long was sheer fascination and puzzlement with the riddles of Washington’s complex life. Washington was not complex in the way that an intellectual would be, with contradictions ultimately resolved in generalizations or consistent abstractions. Washington was a man of action, not an intellectual, a crafty, pragmatic politician who built a racial political machine. His intellectual life was one of seeming simplicity, of platitude, of ambiguities that meant one thing to whites and another to blacks. Washington hated the intellectual abstractions that he recognized as the playthings and weapons of his enemies. Washington had another sort of complexity, that of stratagem and secrecy. While he claimed to the whites that he accepted disfranchisement, segregation, and other humiliations, for example, his private papers show
30
LOUIS R. HARLAN
that he was secretly undermining the South’s racial settlement. He initiated, guided, and raised money for court cases that challenged southern voting restrictions, Jim Crow railroad cars, peonage, and other forms of black subordination that he publicly accepted. He did all this in the deepest secrecy, swearing his correspondents to equal secrecy and even using code names in some of his correspondence, out of fear of the consequences if segregationist leaders found out.14 Washington did not confine his use of secret methods to benign activities, however. In the same secret way, and to more telling effect, he attacked his black critics and their white liberal allies. He used spies, paid and unpaid, to snoop on the Niagara Movement organized by W. E. B. Du Bois, infiltrating its meetings and reporting on its plans so that he could counter them and keep their publicity out of the newspapers. His secret agents also purloined letters, acted as agents provocateurs, and did whatever it took to counter the Niagara Movement and the Constitution League, the leading civil rights organizations of his day. When a young magazine editor in Atlanta, J. Max Barber, began to criticize Washington, he tried to muzzle Barber through his publishers and advertisers, then hounded Barber not only out of his magazine but out of job after job until Barber retired from race work to become a dentist.15 Even the well-to-do white liberals who joined with the Niagara Movement to form the NAACP were not immune from Washington’s secret attacks. Washington learned in 1911 through his chief New York lieutenant that the Cosmopolitan Club, an interracial social group that included several white NAACP leaders, was to meet in a fashionable downtown restaurant. Washington and his lieutenant arranged with racially biased New York newspaper reporters to cover the dinner in a sensational fashion. One newspaper reported, ‘‘White women, evidently of the cultured and wealthier classes, fashionably attired in low-cut gowns, leaned over the tables to chat confidentially to Negro men of the true African type.’’ The guests were acutely embarrassed by the publicity, but none of them even imagined that Washington could have done this in collusion with racist whites.16 Washington was a man of paradox, contradictions, and mystery. As I wrote many years ago: ‘‘If we could remove those layers of secrecy as one peels an onion, perhaps at the center of his being would be revealed y a minotaur, a lion, fox, or Br’er Rabbit, some frightened little man like the Wizard of Oz, or, as in the case of the onion, nothing.’’17 His character contained multitudes, and his endless changing of the masks make him an ever-fascinating biographical subject.
A Black Leader in the Age of Jim Crow
31
NOTES 1. See Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, 1856–190 l (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972); Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); Louis R. Harlan and Ray Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers (14 Vols., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972–1989); and Raymond W. Smock, ed., Booker T. Washington in Perspective: Essays of Louis R. Harlan (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988). 2. Conspiracy theories implicating Washington and his industrial philanthropist friends have a long history, beginning with W. E. B. Du Bois. See a note on an interview with Du Bois in Merle Curti, Social Ideas of American Educators (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935, reprint Paterson, NJ: Pageant Books, Inc., 1959), p. 290. A later and more elaborate version is in Donald Spivey, Schooling for the New Slavery: Black Industrial Education, 1868–1915 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978). 3. C. Vann Woodward very early understood this aspect of Washington’s ideas. See his Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1951), p. 367. 4. Rayford W. Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Theodore Roosevelt (new enlarged ed., New York: Collier Books, 1965) had the title The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877–1901 when first published in 1954. 5. See the incisive interpretation of how Washington’s leadership fitted his time, in August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915: Racial Ideologies in the Age of Booker T. Washington (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963), particularly pp. 100–118. 6. Cited in Louis Filler, Crusaders for American Liberalism (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1939), p. 276. 7. The Atlanta Exposition Address is published in Harlan and Smock, eds., Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 3, pp. 583–587. 8. See, e.g., Washington’s speech at the Chicago Peace Jubilee in 1898 and the southern press reaction to it, in Harlan, Washington: The Making of a Black Leader, pp. 236–238. 9. See the Penguin edition of Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (New York: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1986), including my substantial introduction recounting its writing and publication history. 10. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (Chicago, A. C. McClurg, 1903) included the first major critique of Washington’s ideas and strategy. See also David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1993). 11. For more detail, see Louis R. Harlan, ‘‘Booker T. Washington and the National Negro Business League,’’ in William G. Shade and Roy C. Herrenkohl, eds., Seven on Black: Reflections on the Negro Experience in America (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1969), reprinted in Smock, ed., Booker T. Washington in Perspective, pp. 98–109.
32
LOUIS R. HARLAN
12. The earliest known reference to ‘‘the Wizard’’ is in a letter by the black journalist T. Thomas Fortune in 1899. See Harlan and Smock, eds., Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 6, p. 233n. 13. On the symbiotic relationship of editing and writing, see Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock, ‘‘The Booker T. Washington Papers,’’ and Louis R. Harlan, ‘‘Booker T. Washington: The Labyrinth and the Thread,’’ in Smock, ed., Booker T. Washington in Perspective, pp. 180–202. 14. Louis R. Harlan, ‘‘The Secret Life of Booker T. Washington,’’ Journal of Southern History, Vol. 37 (August 1971), pp. 393–416. 15. Louis R. Harlan, ‘‘Booker T. Washington and The Voice of the Negro,’’ Journal of Southern History, Vol. 45 (February 1979), 45–62. 16. Harlan, ‘‘The Secret Life of Booker T. Washington,’’ pp. 414–415. 17. Louis R. Harlan, ‘‘Booker T. Washington in Biographical Perspective,’’ American Historical Review, Vol. 71 (January 1966), p. 1586.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Louis R. Harlan is University Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus of the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author, among other works, of Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black Leader 1856–1901 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972); Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee 1901–1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); and coeditor with Raymond W. Smock and others of The Booker T. Washington Papers (14 Vols., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972–1989). His selected essays are reprinted in Raymond W. Smock, ed., Booker T. Washington in Perspective (Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 1988). His biography of Washington received the Beveridge Prize, two Bancroft Prizes, and the Pulitzer Prize.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON: RACIAL PRAGMATISM REVISITED W. Avon Drake INTRODUCTION: FOCUS AND PROCEDURE The enigmatic Booker T. Washington (1856 1915) left a legacy of black leadership that continues to evoke a polarizing discourse well over threequarters of a century after his death. That Booker T. Washington was a substantial force in shaping the black progress agenda of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is without question. However the origin, nature and effects of that leadership is still being debated in the councils of black academia. One of the most salient reasons that this debate remains so dynamic is based on the popular notion that at the core of Booker T. Washington’s race leadership was black economic development. This assertion has even been extended to argue that Booker T. Washington was a black nationalist.1 While this last point has been articulated only sporadically by a scattering of black activists, it never received currency among African-American intellectuals. Nevertheless, some black intellectuals do embrace the idea that Booker T. Washington’s efficacy as a race leader was predicated on his black economic development stand. In the current era of American Politics it seems worthwhile to revisit this age-old debate. The stalled state of progressive politics, the hegemonic rise of the Republican Party, and the increasing attention given to black The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 33–59 Copyright r 2006 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13003-2
33
34
W. AVON DRAKE
conservatives warrant a fresh perspective on Booker T. Washington’s leadership. Hopefully, this effort will help illuminate the opportunities and pitfalls that are confronting black America at present. The over-riding objective here is to take a fresh look at probably the most powerful black American leader ever. ‘‘As an advisor not only to Theodore Roosevelt but also to President William Howard Taft, Booker T. Washington secured political appointments for black men loyal to his philosophy.’’2 He used his power as boss of black America to pursue a controversial political strategy of racial uplift. It was called accommodationism and it was the philosophical and strategic predicate upon which Booker T. Washington’s power was built. A willingness to give up social and political rights – as well as ‘‘higher education’’ for black youth – in exchange of white support for black economic development and industrial schools were at the core of Booker T. Washington’s leadership strategy. The paper begins with some brief reflections on black life and black leadership voices of the late nineteenth century. The purpose here is to recapture the sociological essence of black life in the post-Reconstruction era and introduce alternative racial uplift voices to that of Booker T. Washington. Civil War legacies and the American South – as they relate to black disadvantage – will help provide texture for this part of the paper. The essay then turns directly to the politics of Booker T. Washington. A cursory bio-sketch will be provided including an illumination of the role that Hampton played in shaping Booker T. Washington’s philosophical outlook. Next, the paper turns to Tuskegee and the development of Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist stance, which ultimately lead to his enduring leadership of black America. We will investigate his ascendance to power and discuss the philosophy, politics, and goal of this most dominant political figure. His signature speech in 1895 at the Cotton Exposition in Atlanta will be highlighted. The final section of the paper will reflect on the Washington Aftermath, that is, the political environment and societal conditions awaiting blacks following his death in 1915. In this regard, a number of perplexing questions regarding his leadership can be noted.
VOICES OF STRUGGLE: BLACK LEADERSHIP IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY Following the downfall of Reconstruction in 1877 a core of dynamic black voices emerged to challenge racial violence, political disenfranchisement,
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
35
and a set of legal obstacles established to undermine the liberties of the new Freedmen. Not only was W. E. B. Du Bois (1868 1963) among this group, but other black protest voices were Mary Church Terrell (1863 1954), Ida Wells-Barnett (1862 1931), Henry M. Turner (1834 1915), Alexander Crummell (1819 1898), and journalist T. Thomas Fortune (1856 1928). This group of black leaders was not always monolithic or completely against Washington’s program. This was true for Terrell, Turner, Thomas as well as the early Du Bois. While a wide spectrum of black leaders were somewhat stunned at Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise address of 1895, few offered immediate criticisms. The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass died earlier in 1895 and Mississippi and other Southern states were moving with rapid political fire to resubjugate blacks as much as possible. The leadership void left by Douglass was quickly occupied by Washington. Again, the replacement of Douglass was too quick and Washington’s speech too complicated for alternative black voices to usher a definite and thoughtful response just then. In 1865, following the close of the Civil War and passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, slavery was abolished. Along with 500,000 free blacks more than 5 million ex-slaves were now emancipated, ending roughly 250 years of black servitude. Even though the U.S. Government did embark on a half-hearted effort to help usher the new Freedmen into mainstream American society, multiple factors prevented this from becoming a reality. The dynamic hostility of the defeated South towards the Federal Government and blacks, the wretched socio-economic condition of the exslaves, and the Compromise of 1877 were among the most significant obstacles to racial inclusion. The 1876 presidential election helped to establish the political context of black life, contributing greatly to the downfall of Reconstruction. That election, which ended in a deadlock, was resolved by an agreement between the Republican Party’s candidate Rutherford B. Hayes and several southern states with disputed election results. To gain the electoral votes of the deadlocked states (South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida) Hayes and the Republicans ‘‘promised not only to withdraw troops but also to assist the South in its long-cherished ambition for federal subsidies for internal improvements and better representation in affairs in Washington.’’3 The Federal Government’s removal of the troops from the South delivered a devastating blow to the hopes of the Freedmen. Already homeless and unemployed, the great majority of blacks had justly looked to the Federal Government for help in negotiating the transition from enslavement to self-sustaining citizens of America. Based upon the promises of the
36
W. AVON DRAKE
government as well as their contributions to the Union effort during the war, it was reasonable for blacks to expect rigorous and sustained help. Initially it did appear that the Federal Government would fulfill black expectations. A broad program of service for the newly emancipated was established in March of 1865. The Freedmen’s Bureau acted as a comprehensive ‘‘semi-social welfare agency’’ or ‘‘mini-government.’’ It furnished supplies and medical services, established schools, supervised contracts between Freedmen and their employers, and provided for the acquisition of land for some blacks.4 But all this took place in the political context of a weak government commitment to the Freedmen. The politics of intense regional white reconciliation and the national elite’s post-Civil War concern with capitalizing on the new industrial economy forced the issue of black progress to the back of the government’s agenda.5 The abdication of the government’s efforts to help facilitate the Freedmen’s transition into mainstream America, at least in terms of political rights, social and educational equality, and economic betterment, was directly related to the effort of regional white reconciliation. A by-product of this intraracial politics was the excising of the concerns of the Freedmen from the Federal Government’s responsibility and into the domain of Southern vigilantism. It was not long before the South’s agenda became strikingly clear. In its plan to return race relations in the South as close as possible to the pre-Civil War era, ex-Confederates, with little opposition from the Federal Government, unleashed a political choke-hold on the new Freedmen. The infamous Black Codes provided legal structure and sociological meaning to the South’s intentions. In this newly emerging environment the major goal of Southern politics, as it related to race, was to maintain an abundant supply of cheap black labor and mute the Freemen’s voice in the efforts to benefit from the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The wide-spread proliferation of antiblack violence, political disenfranchisement, and the forced return to near economic slavery6 through the system of tenant farming and sharecropping brought the status of blacks in the late nineteenth century into sharp relief. Before and soon after Booker T. Washington was catapulted into the limelight as leader of black America, numerous African-American men and women contributed mightily to the struggle for racial advancement. These leadership voices of the late nineteenth century were responding to the increasingly dismal plight of the great mass of blacks in the North and the South. In general their main focus, at least initially, was to challenge the South’s direct attack on the Reconstruction gains of blacks.
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
37
Shortly after the Compromise of 1877, Alexander Crummell7 entered the frey. After spending twenty years in West Africa as a missionary and educator, Crummell returned to America in 1873. No longer active in the Emigration Movement,8 he turned his attention directly to the plight of blacks living in America and who planned to remain here. Speaking in 1888 on ‘‘The Race Problem in America,’’ Crummell evidenced a substantive knowledge of ‘‘various races in the same national community in every period of time and in every quarter of the globe.’’9 A clergyman, his philosophical trajectory was fueled by Christian values and teaching. At the core of this pedagogy was the idea of ‘‘the entrance of Christianity in the center of the world’s civilization and the planting of the idea of human brotherhood amid the ideas in the laws and legislation of great nations.’’10 In the late 1880s, after having given up on an alternative black improvement strategy, Crummell used his voice and energies to hammer at the blatant contradictions in the American political system as they related to race. He castigated America for proclaiming to be ‘‘a democracy on one hand and crushes the weak and helpless on the other.’’11 After further elaboration on Christian ethics and the democratic ethos, Crummell concluded his address on this poignant note: ‘‘It is democracy which has demanded the people’s participation in government and the extension of suffrage and it got it. In this land the crucial test in the race-problem is the civil and political rights of the black man. The only question now remaining among us for the full triumph of Christian democracy is the equality of the Negro.’’12 While Crummell’s protest voice was earlier a leading supporter of the Emigrationist Movement, during the ascendancy of Booker T. Washington he was unalterably committed to improving the domestic condition of the American Negro. The crux of Crummell’s commitment was a demand that blacks have the franchise and civic equality, the two particulars that Washington did not fully embrace during Crummell’s lifetime. Three years after Booker T. Washington gave the Atlanta Compromise address in 1895, Alexander Crummell died. Still, a hard-core group of militant black leaders continued hammering the message: Blacks must have the full catalogue of democratic rights that any other American citizen enjoys. An important contributor to this aspect of the black struggle was Henry M. Turner.13 Turner, also a former Emigrationist, turned his full attention on the prospects of black progress in America. In so doing, ‘‘he became one of the first to object to Washington’s Atlanta address.’’14 What lay in this challenge? It was a part of Turner’s moral and political disgust with America’s
38
W. AVON DRAKE
racist and degraded treatment of blacks, particularly in the post-Reconstruction era. This resentment took two essential forms: a vehement opposition against blacks fighting in the Spanish American War in 1898 and an insistent demand that blacks have the vote. On both of these accounts Turner was most likely at odds with Washington, but certainly on the issue of political rights for blacks. In a 1903 editorial, Turner blasted Washington by asserting, It seems from the papers, that Prof. Washington had used terms, phrases and sentences that were countenancing or excusing, or palliating disfranchisement of our race in Alabama, South Carolina and other states. And from the trend of his discourses, he was educating the white people of the nation to regard the Negro as a simple and scullion, and that he was not fitted or qualified by nature to pursue professions, callings and studies of the higher kind.15
In an apparent note of finality, Turner wrote rather poignantly that ‘‘Washington’s policy is not worth a cent. It accomplishes no racial good, except as it helps about a thousand students at Tuskegee.’’16 But of course Turner and Washington’s other critics of his philosophy and program knew that improving the educational lives of 1,000 black students in the late nineteenth century was a substantial contribution to the general quest for black advancement. The question burning in the minds of Turner and his late nineteenth century cohorts in struggle was whether the gains that blacks were making under Washington’s leadership were worth the losses that his accommondationist project conferred on them. This question remains salient in the on-going effort to understand Washington’s legacy better. Before he joined with Washington in 1900 to form the National Negro Business League, T. Thomas Fortune was in the center of the black progress debate. A leading journalist, Fortune advocated black political participation, unionization of colored labor, and liberal and industrial education for the Negro. In 1884 and 1885 he published his two most important works: Black and White: Land, Labor and Politics in the South and The Negro in Politics, respectively. Fortune, a northerner and editor of the New York Age and New York World, articulated ideas that both challenged and supported Booker T. Washington. The latter was particularly evident following Washington’s elevation as the dominant leader of black America in the late nineteenth century. This of course was influenced by Washington’s economic support to an increasingly needy Fortune. As a black northerner, Fortune’s voice was both dynamic and unorthodox. He particularly held strong views on the issue of education for the Negro. He deviated from the position of northern black spokespersons by
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
39
criticizing support among them for the higher education of Negro youth, arguing that ‘‘the Classics were not the things most suited to and urgently needed by a class of persons unprepared in rudimentary education, and whose immediate aim must be that of mechanic and farmer.’’17 The point here was not to oppose the higher education but to challenge the priority that it appeared to be accorded by much of the black elite of the era. As early as 1885, only four years after Washington went to Tuskegee, Fortune was insisting that ‘‘what blacks in the South stand most in need of is elementary and industrial,18 education.’’ Fortune was equally vehement in his advocacy of blacks participating in politics. But again his role was not symmetrical with that of most other black spokespersons. Fortune was not wedded to the Republican Party but to a republican form of government. Basing his stand on this American foundation, particularly the U.S. Constitution, he strongly asserted the demand that blacks have the vote and a fair count, which ‘‘are the birthright of every American citizen and are the guarantees which make men free.’’19 Through their vigorous participation in politics, Fortune wrote that the Negro could effectively contribute to his own uplift. To do so required that his vote represents an expression of black political independence, ‘‘thinking less of the Republican Party and more of themselves y giving less heed to a name and more heed to principles.’’20 While most late nineteenth-century black protest voices were obviously male, women championed important issues specific to them as well as to the broader black community. Mary Church Terrell21 and Ida WellsBarnett were the most vociferous among them. And like their male cohorts they often stood on the critical edge of Booker T. Washington’s leadership. Terrell, a graduate of Oberlin College and later a teacher at the M. St. High School in Washington, DC, was in the opposition camp to Washington. A highly educated and politically connected woman, she usually sided with the anti-Washington forces like William Monroe Trotter and W. E. B. Du Bois. Terrell was not only outspoken on traditional issues like black enfranchisement but she was also critical of the very nature of Washington’s leadership. A clubwoman, a race woman, and a women’s rights reformer22 Terrell was uncompromising in her demand for black self-assertion. Speaking to the mostly white National American Women’s Suffrage Association in 1904, she stated, So long as hundreds of our brothers and sisters, many of whom have committed no crime or misdemeanor whatever, are thrown into cells, whose cubic contents are less than those of a good size grave, to be overworked, underfed, and only partially covered with
40
W. AVON DRAKE vermin-infested rags, and so long as children are born to the women in these camps who breath the polluted atmosphere of these dens of horrow and vice from the time they utter their first cry in the world till they are released from their suffering by death, colored women who are working for the emancipation and elevation of their race know where their duty lies. By constant agitation of this painful and hideous subject, they hope to touch the conscience of the country, so that this stain upon its escutcheon shall be forever wiped away.23
This brutally frank pedagogy was totally alien to Washington when he spoke to white audiences. In fact Washington’s style was to castigate blacks and to seemingly make fun of their social debilities, particularly as they relate to language.24 Terrell and most of Washington’s black opposition were aware of his penchant to make whites feel comfortable when he was invited to speak before them. In this regard, Terrell was particularly critical. Reporting on her anti-Washington tirades, Charles W. Anderson, a member of the Tuskegee Machine25 and Washington informant, warned Washington of the fact. According to Anderson, at a lecture in New York, Terrell ‘‘devoted considerable time to drastic criticisms of that sort of race leadership, which holds up the seamy side of the race, tells dialect stories at the expense of the race, advises the race not to retaliate, but to seek the approval of those who approve of Negroes, only as subordinates and inferiors, and counsels the race to acquire only an inferior sort of education.’’26 During the late nineteenth century when blacks were experiencing widespread racial violence, state-by-state abrogation of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution and the denial of equal educational opportunities, it might appear to some scholars of the contemporary period that the only political option for them was to follow Booker T. Washington’s program as outlined in his epoch-making Atlanta Compromise address. But obviously numerous black protest voices of that era disagreed. Joining them was Ida Wells-Barnett, a legendary antilynching crusader and militant journalist. Her name and work, like that of Du Bois, continue to resonate in the minds of many informed blacks today. For Wells-Barnett, Washington’s pragmatic politics was not efficacious enough to temper her running battle against racial injustice. Unlike Washington, Wells-Barnett did not see currency in placating whites when dealing with the brutal conditions that were being inflicted on blacks. The single issue that consumed her most was lynching, and she used her position as editor of the Memphis Free Press to circulate her views. Often considered inflammatory by whites, Wells-Barnett’s oratorical fire never dimmed. Her protest vigilance in the following 1900 essay, ‘‘Lynch
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
41
law in America,’’ reveals this dynamic, In support of its plans the Ku-Klux Klan, the ‘red-shirt,’ and similar organizations proceeded to beat, exile, and kill Negroes until the purpose of their organization was accomplished and the supremacy of the ‘unwritten law’ was affected. Thus lynching began in the South, rapidly spreading into the various states until the national law was nullified and the right of the ‘unwritten law’ was supreme. Men often taken from their homes by ‘redshirt’ bands and stripped, beaten, and exiled; others were assassinated when their political prominence made them obnoxious to their political opponents; while the Ku-Klux Klan barbarism of election days reveling in the butchery of thousands of colored voters, furnished records in Congressional investigations that are a disgrace to civilization.27
While Ida Wells-Barnett’s legacy as a militant spokesperson is primarily that of an antilynching crusader, she championed with great vigor the same racial advancement issues that most black leaders embraced. The franchise, industrial and higher education, and social equality for blacks were essential to all of these leaders. Along with W. E. B. Du Bois, they constituted what was loosely called the Niagarites.28 This group constituted the main opposition to Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Machine. No doubt W. E. B. Du Bois was the most vitriolic leader to challenge the accommodationist philosophy of Booker T. Washington. As perhaps the leading black scholar and a highly regarded activist, Du Bois represented a double threat to Washington’s leadership. After an earlier but cautions admiration of Washington, Du Bois provided the seminal challenge to him. In his classic 1903 masterpiece, The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois crafted a special response to what some late nineteenth-century black leaders considered to be Washington’s abrogation of the post-Civil War black agenda. That agenda included the right to vote, higher education (as well as industrial), and social equality. These particulars, except industrial education, Washington generally spoke against or did not support. It did not seem fair, Du Bois once noted, that ‘‘Mr. Washington should decry political activities among Negroes, and on the other hand dictate Negro political objectives from Tuskegee.’’29 Du Bois went on to carefully chastise Washington for his tendency to acquiescence or at least no open agitation against black disenfranchisement and racial discrimination. Instead, Du Bois charged ‘‘between 1890 and 1909, and when these were being supplemented by ‘Jim Crow’ travel laws and other enactments making color caste legal, his public speeches, while they did not entirely ignore this development, tended continually to excuse it, to emphasize the short comings of the Negro, and were widely interpreted as putting the chief onus for his condition upon the Negro himself.’’30
42
W. AVON DRAKE
Of course Du Bois continuously spoke out against the fact that white philanthropists made it impossible for Negro institutions to garner funds without the recommendation or acquiescence of Washington. As a general rule, Du Bois wrote, few political appointments were made anywhere in the United States without his consent. Du Bois would contextualize his criticisms of Washington in chapter three of The Souls of Black Folk. Writing on ‘‘Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,’’ Du Bois noted, Booker T. Washington arose as essentially the leader not of one race but of two-a compromiser between the South, the North, and the Negro. Naturally the Negroes resented, at first bitterly, signs of compromise which surrendered their civil and political rights, even though this was to be exchanged for larger chances of economic development. The rich and dominating North, however, was not only weary of the race problem, but was investing largely in Southern enterprises, and welcomed any method of peaceful cooperation. Thus, by national opinion, the Negroes began to recognize Mr. Washington’s leadership; and the voice of criticism was hushed.31
Still, Du Bois would continue to be at the front end of attacks on Washington’s accommodationist politics. From the founding of the Niagara Movement in 1905 to his editorship of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Crisis magazine in 1909 to Washington’s untimely death in 1915, Du Bois remained the straight-arm opposition of the most powerful black leader in American history. The unrelenting efforts of Du Bois and his cohorts, though stymied by the power of the Southern oligarchy and Northern industrialists, began to evidence positive movement after the formation of the NAACP in 1909 and Washington’s death six years later. One of the early signs of racial change was the 1915 Supreme Court decision invalidating the ‘‘grandfather clause,’’ which made it illegal for most blacks to vote.32
CIVIL WAR LEGACIES AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH Even though racial conflict had nearly always been a patchwork of black white relations in America, it was not until after the Civil War that this phenomenon took on an emotionally charged and brutally violent antiblack character. The crystallization of white supremacist ideology undergirded by state and national governmental policy was the predicate for the post-Civil War racial order that soon emerged in the South. And Booker T. Washington’s leadership, formented and given financial sustenance by southern plantation barons and northern industrialists, emerged within this context. On one level Washington’s leadership reflected extraordinary power, especially for a Negro of his era. Alternatively, though, his proposal
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
43
of ‘‘a triple alliance’’ between northern capitalists, the New South white leadership class and blacks33 was problematic from the very beginning. It has been argued by the eminent historian John Hope Franklin that ‘‘in few periods of our history has the whole fabric of American life been altered so drastically as doing the Civil War and the period immediately following it.’’34 In fact, some changes appeared so riveting that soon after the war was over ex-Confederates began to conspire to abrogate them. This was particularly true as it related to blacks gaining the franchise or other institutional benefits like land redistribution. A key reason that the South was quickly able to put a brake on black progress was because of the abruptness with which Congress allowed ex-Confederates to return to political power. This process began immediately after the war and by ‘‘1871 the ‘ironclad’ oath, which Congress had imposed at the beginning of Radical Reconstruction to disqualify many exConfederates, was repealed.’’35 They soon, even in the midst of military defeat, reconstituted their racial hegemony. Blacks, even though associated with Union victory, were relegated to conditions of semislavery. Peonage, sharecropping, and lawlessness (especially lynching) were the anchor of this neo-servitude. The political basis of the post-Civil War racial atmosphere in the South was framed by the Compromise of 1877. Following the government’s withdrawal of Union troops from the South and its simultaneous delivery of desired regional benefits, such as Federal subsidies, ex-Confederates began in earnest to orchestrate a counter-revolution. That counter-revolution was aimed directly at the improved prospects of former slaves. Violence, the denial of legal redress, and the severing of basic social and political rights from blacks were at the core of the counter-revolution. Between 1877 and the early part of the twentieth century, the white South had succeeded in wiping out nearly all of the gains made by blacks immediately after the war. Again, it should be noted that the most striking usurpation of black achievements was the southern states withdrawal of the franchise. Mississippi, beginning in 1890, led the way in holding state conventions to rewrite regional constitutions. Other Southern states soon followed, including South Carolina, Virginia, and Louisiana. Disenfranchising obstacles such as the grandfather clause, poll taxes, and literacy tests became standard obstacles to black voting in many Southern states. These antidemocratic practices supplemented by widespread intimidation and physical violence had by the early part of the twentieth century virtually shut down black political participation. Black voting dropped precipitously and black representation in Congress was completely eliminated.36
44
W. AVON DRAKE
In addition to the stripping away of the Fifteenth Amendment from blacks, Civil War legacies included the development and codification of rigid racial segregation. This too began incrementally as it related to places of public accommodations state by state. In 1896 however, the U.S. Supreme Court solidified this trend with its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the national doctrine of ‘‘separate but equal.’’ This naturally closed all doors of legal redress regarding the public policy of mandating the segregation of black and white in America. While the racial atmosphere and general status of blacks in the South following the crash of Reconstruction are often associated with regional disenfranchisement and state-imposed racial segregation, multiple other factors also contributed to the demise of the ex-slaves’ advance. These particulars related to organized labor force participation, lack of capital, and massive government discrimination in the distribution of funds for public education. All of these phenomena elimination of blacks from politics, rigid racial segregation, denial of black union membership, lack of access to capital for land or farming, and the paucity of aid for black schools helped to deepen the societal divide between the races. They also helped to cement the ex-slaves as well as free blacks to the bottom of America’s social structure. A glimpse of relevant data for two of these debilitating factors make the point. In terms of farming, historian Manning Marable recorded the following: The vast majority of black farmers rented their homes and property in 1890, 82 percent of black farmers were tenants, compared to only 47 percent of whites. By the end of Reconstruction, fewer than three million acres of land had been purchased by or redistributed to black Freedmen.37
In the last decade of the nineteenth century, this black farming community seemed to be moving more towards semislavery than freedom. Of course in 1895, the ex-slaves’ new leader, Booker T. Washington, had advocated their embrace of the South. As will be highlighted later, Mr. Washington asserted with extreme finality that ‘‘it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world.’’38 But was this really so or was this simply among the catalogue of ‘‘good sounding notions’’ that served Booker T. Washington’s accommodationist stand? But one point is very clear. The post-Reconstruction era was brutal to blacks. Using Booker T. Washington’s best punch, that is, the South is the one place in America where the Negro is given a man’s chance does not answer the ‘‘choke-holding grip’’ that white supremacy had on the black
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
45
community there. Nine of every ten blacks lived in the South during this era and eight of ten blacks in the region lived in the rural areas. Manning Marable provides the following picture: In 1890, 65 percent of them [rural blacks] were illiterate. They had scant knowledge of such modern agricultural techniques as crop rotation and soil conservation or use of complex farm machinery. Barely one-fifth of them could even afford fertilizers. As sharecroppers, they were forced to give half of their cotton and corn crop to their landlord.39
In this environment blacks had an extremely difficult time acquiring needed credit for farm equipment, seeds, and other production necessities. But when rural merchants did extend credit the annual interest rate was 35 60% and it was usually refused to farmers who were not producing cotton or corn.40 By all accounts, this state of affairs deepened black dependency and further cemented their station to the bottom of America’s socio-economic order. Another of the aforementioned factors that crystallized after the Civil War was the racist distribution of state funds for public education. Even though the ex-slaves clearly had the greatest needs in terms of education their share of public funds in this area was wretched. In Alabama, the home state of Washington’s Tuskegee Institute, ‘‘one county reduced the number of black schools from thirty to three; in many cases black teaching pay was as little as $10 a month; and Booker T. Washington noted that he had seen a contract between a black teacher and a white school official for a salary of $1.40 per month.’’41 In another Alabama county, Booker T. Washington revealed in 1909 to the Southern Education Board that $20.00 per capita went to white school children and $0.67 per capita to black school children. Additionally almost every southern state, Washington wrote, had appropriated legislative funds for building schoolhouses, but none of this money went for black schools. Indeed the picture of black education was as bleak as every other area of the ex-slave’s life. In this regard, ‘‘the typical black school was a black church full of barefoot children of tenant farmers, children allowed to go to school for three or four months in the off-season, taught by a teacher barely more knowledgeable than the pupils.’’42 These brief reflections on the salience of certain aspects of black life following the Civil War provide context for crafting a fresh perspective on the philosophy and politics of Booker T. Washington. The goal here is to juxtapose the post-Civil War life condition of blacks to the ‘‘practical’’ leadership of Booker T. Washington.
46
W. AVON DRAKE
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S RACE LEADERSHIP Obviously it would be inappropriate, even useless, to attempt to examine Booker T. Washington’s leadership philosophy, style, and objectives of a much earlier period to the life conditions of African-Americans today. But this should not stifle the advance of a fresh perspective of his leadership in the context of its time. Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, perhaps the most significant black American leaders ever, were ideological and political adversaries. That these two giants of the African-American community embraced some common objectives is not contested here. Their differences, however, were salient and enduring. What was the predicate for this? On one level one can specify context, that is, the circumstances influencing the socialization and development of both men. Unlike Du Bois who was born and raised in the North, Washington was a black southerner. The former grew up around a moderate and relatively educated white community, while the latter grew up in a more rigid and hostile racial environment. Du Bois’s socialization allowed him a more openended conception of what blacks, and especially he, could achieve. Certainly this was not true for Washington, for his life from birth through Hampton Institute fundamentally shaped his view of black white relations and how blacks might negotiate an improved experience from that sociological quagmire. To Du Bois, education, talent, and culture were sufficient for blacks to make dramatic gains in American life. To Washington, practical skills, hard work, and deference to whites were the bridge to racial uplift. The first chapter of Booker T. Washington’s 1901 autobiography opens illustriously: ‘‘I was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia.’’ Shortly thereafter he pinned, Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not even know his name. I have heard reports to the effects that he was a white man who lived on one of the nearby plantations. Whoever he was I never heard of his taking the least interest in me or providing in any way for my rearing. But I do not find especial fault with him. He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at the time.43
Booker T. Washington was born in 1856 on a small Virginia farm. His mother was a slave and his father was a white man who probably worked as a laborer for the plantation owner. Shortly after the Civil War Washington’s step father moved to Malden, West Virginia to find work. He soon sent for Washington’s mother and the children.
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
47
In The Booker T. Washington Papers Vol. 1, Washington describes his early living environment thusly: I remember very distinctly the appearance of the cabin in which I was born and lived until freedom came. It was a small log cabin about 12 16 feet, and without windows. There was no floor except a dirt one. In this cabin my mother did the cooking, the greater part of the time, for my master’s family. Our bed or ‘‘pallet,’’ as we called it, was made every night on the dirt floor.44
At other times, Washington would refer to the family living quarters in more melodramatic terms, as a ‘‘hen-house.’’ He seemed to like painting a picture of solemn depravity followed by a cautious and methodical emergence from it. It could even be intimated that this served as a philosophical paradigm of Washington’s functional framework for advancing black progress efforts. A careful reading of his 1895 Cotton Exposition address in Atlanta provides sustenance to this view. In this regard, using his standard pedagogy, Washington employed blacks to remain wedded to the bastardly South by ‘‘casting down your bucket where you are.’’45 As though speaking with allegorical religiosity Washington, sermoning to blacks via his all white audience, admonished them, Out greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor, and put brains and skills into the common occupations of life, shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life, and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.46
These ideas while having some practicality were at the least partially the product of Washington’s early socialization, and to a less extent his experience at Hampton. Deference to whites, hard work, and the acceptance of incremental advancement were the cornerstone of Washington’s black leadership philosophy. Much of this foundation was seemingly acquired during Washington’s four years in the personal employ of General Lewis Ruffner and his New England wife, Mrs. Viola Ruffner. As a houseboy under the tutelage of the strict and hard to please Mrs. Ruffner, Washington acquired the building blocks for his life’s success. ‘‘Her habit of requiring everything about her to be clean, neat and orderly, gave me an education in these respects that has been most valuable to me in the work that I have since tried to accomplish,’’47 Washington proclaimed. Furthermore he asserted that aside from
48
W. AVON DRAKE
Hampton Institute under its President General Armstrong, Mrs. Ruffner gave him the most valuable part of his education. The similar and reinforcing socializing experiences of Malden, West Virginia under Mrs. Ruffner and of Hampton Institute under General Armstrong constitute the spiritual and ideological foundation of Booker T. Washington’s political sojourn.
Significance of Hampton Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of accommodationism the view that blacks in the South should adjust to racial oppression in exchange for benefits like industrial education was forged at Hampton Institute from 1872 to 1875. However, note should be made of the fact that other socializing influences contributed to Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of black leadership. Both Washington’s mother and the strict Mrs. Ruffner had provided the philosophical predicate for the Hampton experience. His mother Jane, an uneducated former slave, instilled in Washington ‘‘the lessons of virtue and thrift that she lived.’’48 Mrs. Ruffner added deference to white authority and perfection in the execution of work-related activities to the catalogue of personal values and behavior patterns that Washington thoroughly embraced. Thus when he arrived at Hampton from his home in West Virginia, Washington was prepared for the new challenge. When Miss Mary F. Mackie, the lady Principal, soon told Washington to sweep a large classroom, he seized upon his preparation and performed the task with undoubted perfection. Following the dictates of Mrs. Ruffner, Washington cleaned the room immaculately. In fact, according to him, when lady Principal Mrs. Mackie finished rubbing her handkerchief over the tables and benches in the large room ‘‘not a particle [of dust] could she find.’’ This experience, Washington was certain, was the key to his being admitted to Hampton without the ability to pay. Shortly afterwards, Washington was provided a job as ‘‘assistant janitor’’ to defrey his school expenses as he had but fifty cents when he arrived at Hampton. The most profound and enduring influence that the Hampton experience had on Washington was orchestrated by its Principal, General Samuel Armstrong (1839 1893). General Armstrong was one of several prominent teachers who came from the North to help educate the new Freedman. He taught the students that labor was a ‘‘spiritual force, that physical work not only increased wage-earning capacity but promoted fidelity, accuracy,
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
49
honesty, persistence and intelligence.’’49 According to historian John Hope Franklin, ‘‘Washington drank deeply of Armstrong’s teachings and in time became the most eloquent spokesman of his ideas.’’50 General Armstrong also emphasized the value of acquiring the ‘‘economic building blocks’’ that he felt were essential for the ex-slaves’ development. These were land, homes, vocations, and skills. General Armstrong obviously had other qualities to supplement his philosophy. After Washington saw General Armstrong for the first time he would later write that ‘‘he made an impression upon me of being the most perfect specimen of man, physically, mentally and spiritually, that I have ever seen, and I have never seen a man in whom I had such confidence.’’51 Clearly, after three years of living the Hampton experience and closely observing General Armstrong orchestrating its philosophy, Booker T. Washington had inculcated in him the main ingredients for his educational program at Tuskegee Institute and his political thought as a future black leader.
Tuskegee and the Rise of Political Hegemony After graduating from Hampton in 1875, Booker T. Washington worked as a teacher. After several years, General Armstrong invited Washington back to Hampton to deliver a graduation address. Afterwards, Washington was asked by General Armstrong to return to Hampton partly as a teacher and partly a postgraduate student.52 Following the conclusion of his second year as a teacher at Hampton, Washington was given an opportunity that he would fully take advantage of and leave an indelible mark on black education, politics, and economics. Responding to a call from the small town of Tuskegee, Alabama for someone to come there and lead the development and become principal of a normal school,53 General Armstrong, of course, sent perhaps his most desirable and trusted student Booker Taliaferro Washington. After a short visit to his home in West Virginia, Washington headed to Tuskegee, arriving there in the summer of 1881. Once at Tuskegee, Washington pursued a strategic move that of placating the local white elite. He immediately embarked on assuaging the fears that local whites might have regarding blacks with education. Washington went out of his way to insure whites in and around the small town of Tuskegee so that there was no need for them to harbor anxiety or resentment of the impending onslaught of Negro youth seeking an education. He assured whites that the students coming to their community would not
50
W. AVON DRAKE
meddle in local affairs but would be a positive force there. The students, Washington noted, would neither involve themselves in politics nor attempt to change well-established race relation patterns. Instead, Washington declared, we want to ‘‘teach students the dignity, beauty, and civilizing power of intelligent labor.’’54 This, of course, the local whites cautiously embraced. Washington’s immediate objective was to ‘‘establish a relationship of mutual interest with the conservative whites, and as his larger ambitions for national leadership became more central to his life, he continued to tend the garden of good will.’’55 This aspect of Washington’s leadership style was forged during his youth and early manhood as he ‘‘learned to survive through deliberate compromises with the white men who owned and controlled the South.’’56 One might say that this view evolved and strengthened to such an extent that it became the cultural and ideological foundation of Washington’s accommodationist leadership. In Washington’s mind because whites had almost absolute power, especially in the post-Reconstruction South the only viable option for blacks to pursue in their attempt to improve their broad socio-economic condition was to willingly accept a fundamentally oppressive situation. But it would be unsatisfactory to any study of Washington’s thoughts and politics to leave the impression that his leadership voice was static. While history rightly records him as an accommodationist leader, Washington did not always evince a unilateral thought pattern. Sometimes his ideas regarding the black experience were quite dynamic. On one occasion he said, I would set no limits on the attainment of the Negro in arts, in letters or statesmanship, but I believe the surest way to reach those ends is by laying the foundation in the little things of life that lie immediately about one’s door. I plead for industrial education and development for the Negro not because I want to cramp him, but because I want to free him. I want to see him enter the all powerful-business and commercial world.57
This seemingly ‘‘unWashingtonian’’ stand was revealed on several occasions during Washington’s life. Though not widely known he, it has been said, ‘‘looked forward to the complete acceptance and integration of Negroes into American life.’’58 From time-to-time Washington would unfold this perspective. But more often than not he articulated a racial philosophy of Negro subservience. In this regard, Washington sometimes went to the extreme to placate the souls of southern whites. One example of this pedagogy, according to historian David Levering Lewis, was Washington’s penchant to extolling the virtues of slavery as an early version of citizenship
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
51
training. Washington stated, ‘‘We went into slavery without a language; we came out speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue.’’59 On another occasion, Washington asserted, ‘‘If in the providence of God the Negro got any good out of slavery, he got the habit of work.’’60 The above comments by Washington were not slips of the tongue or ideological abberations. They were carefully crafted statements that were intended to reinforce a nonthreatening image of blacks to the southern white elites and maintain the comfort level that Washington had developed in the oligarchy and its supporting cast. This strategy was perhaps the pillar of Washington’s effort to gain and retain the support of southern white elites and northern philanthropists. This is a key point that most scholars seldom shed direct light on. ‘‘Whether or not he truly believed the bromides he dispensed far and wide and with indefatigable good humor, Washington never doubted their necessity.’’61 In this Pulitzer Prize winning book, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, David Levering Lewis brings into bold relief Washington’s penchant for satirizing, before his white benefactors, the Negro people that he represented. Lewis highlights this tendency with striking clarity: A leisurely perusal of Black-Belt Diamonds, the popular 1898 edition of his speeches, yielded such gems as that lynching ‘‘really indicates progress. There can be no progress without friction;’’ that slavery gave the African-American ‘‘the habit of work’’; or that, if the oppressed African-American ‘‘can be a medium of [southern whites’] rising into the atmosphere of generous brotherhood and self-forgetfulness, he will see in it a recompense for all that he has suffered.’’62
Later, Lewis reveals that when Washington was at Harvard to receive an honorary Master’s he quipped that ‘‘Negroes and mules had so much in common that you are bound to find as many of one as the other in every Alabama Black Belt County.’’63 These off-the-cuff remarks were supplemented by something else Washington’s extraordinary close relationship with President Theodore Roosevelt. Washington was the Negro advisor to Roosevelt as well as to his successor William H. Taft. In this position, especially under Roosevelt, Washington brokered all black federal appointments. Washington could single-handedly make or break the careers of up-and-coming Negroes. With this power, built on the accommodationist philosophy first enunciated in Atlanta in 1895, Washington was able to strengthen his Tuskegee Machine and keep in check any challenges of blacks with ideas that were different from his own.
52
W. AVON DRAKE
WASHINGTON’S AFTERMATH: LEGACY OF CAPITULATION It lasted only twenty years but it must have seemed to some an eternity. Booker T. Washington’s near control over black political choices put a ‘‘choke-hold’’ on any emergent opposition from 1895 to near his death in 1915. Even though W. E. B. Du Bois and the Talented Tenth engaged in a valiant ideological struggle to widen and intensify black progress efforts during the period, the endeavor produced less than stellar benefits. Washington’s indomitable power, undergirded by the likes of William A. Baldwin, Jr., Andrew Carnegie, and President Theodore Roosevelt, was simply so much for a black opposition not go endowed. That Washington played a strategic and commanding role in black political and educational life has never been challenged. However, the results of his leadership for black advancement are still open to serious analytical debates. One proposition is that Booker T. Washington’s pragmatism and educational program laid the foundation for subsequent black economic development. Considering that the masses of blacks but three decades out of slavery at the time of Washington’s Atlanta Exposition address were rural and fundamentally uneducated, it seems plausible that substantial emphasis be put on acquiring agricultural and industrial skills. A competing vision however held that blacks needed a broader progress agenda that included the full array of social, political, and educational rights accorded to all Americans. This included among other things, industrial and ‘‘higher education,’’ the right to vote and hold public office, and equal access to places of public accommodations. The first proposition championed by Booker T. Washington was guided by the philosophy and politics of accommodationism. This strategy was predicated on three fundamental components: black adjustment to racial oppression in the South in exchange for white support of industrial education at schools like Hampton and Tuskegee, change through incrementalism, and racial advancement limitations established by the South’s white leadership class. The alternative to Washington’s strategy was militant integrationism whose main architect was W. E. B. Du Bois. With the 1903 publication of The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois began what can be called a seismic challenge to Washington’s philosophy. This would ultimately torpedo, following the founding of the NAACP in 1909, Washington’s accommodationist stand. But the ‘‘dye had been cast’’ and following his death in 1915 and the ideological turmoil had settled, a somber inquiry of the broad effects of Washington’s leadership could be made.
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
53
While Washington’s program was at its zenith during the late nineteenth and very early twentieth century, cracks began to be evident after 1903. ‘‘During the last decade of Washington’s life, more and more of the intellectuals drifted into the ranks of the radicals and the NAACP; and even some of his strongest supporters came to give qualified endorsement to the position of the opposition.’’64 Part of this had to do with the increasing appeal of the NAACP, but it was also related to the accumulated negative condition of black life during Washington’s leadership. The disenfranchisement movement of 1890 1910 virtually shut down black political participation. Louisiana, Mississippi, and other southern states created various obstacles to prohibit or reduce black voting. In some places where blacks were the majority, mob violence prevented blacks from exercising the franchise. The 1898 election in Wilmington, NC, makes the point as ‘‘a mob of 400 men led by a former Congressman demolished a Negro newspaper office, set it on fire, shot up the Negro district, killed 11 Negroes, wounded a large number and chased hundreds into the woods.’’65 Lynching of course was another fixture in America during Washington’s leadership and he rarely, if ever, expressed public indignation about it. ‘‘From 1889 1899 the average number of lynchings per year was 187.5 and the proportion of lynchings taking place in the South increased from about 82 percent of the total in the earlier decade to about 92 percent in the period 1900 1909.’’66 To reiterate, Washington virtually remained silent. During his leadership of black America, Washington did not challenge the damnable ideology of white supremacy. Between 1902 and 1907 some of the most racist literature appeared and to a wider audience than ever. A detestable dramatization of blacks, Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman was released during this period. This was supplemented by other racist publications such as The Negro A Beast, The Caucasian and the Negro in the United States, and The Negro, A Menace to American Civilization. Unlike Du Bois and the Talented Tenth, Washington and the Tuskegee Machine did not openly contest these fictional creations. To usher forth a comprehensive, vigorous challenge to disenfranchisement, lynching or the general philosophy and policy of white supremacy would, Washington thought, deflate the black leadership pedestal that Northern philanthropists and the Bourbon South had placed him on. When Washington died in 1915 the racial climate in America was every bit as bad as it was when he first emerged in the late nineteenth century as the uncontested leader of the Negro people. Having served in that capacity for two decades, there was time for him to have left a broad foundation for the steady advancement of his people. A dynamic program designed to
54
W. AVON DRAKE
achieve social and political equality, comprehensive education, and knowledge and practice of modern economics for black America would have been a positive development. Certainly, especially when coupled with the militant integrationism of Du Bois and the NAACP, this program could have positioned blacks to intensify their struggle for first-class citizenship immediately following World War I. But this could not be, for Washington had chosen to plow in a different direction. In pursuing his accommodationist program he inevitably, some would say, helped the white South to undermine the political assertiveness of his people. Additionally, it can be forcefully argued, Washington’s accommodationism helped to massage the racist, oppressive atmosphere and practice of the white South. This of course sheds light on our understanding of the brutal Atlanta race riot of 1905 and President Theodore Roosevelt’s dismissal in 1906 of black soldiers, without due process, following the Brownsville affray.67 In regard to Brownsville, Washington did attempt to convince Roosevelt to abort the dismissal of the black soldiers until the president had considered all of the facts. Even though Washington was Roosevelt’s top black advisor and leading political supporter, the president responded to him with a hint of exasperation new to their correspondence: I could not possible refrain from acting as regards those colored soldiers. You can not have any information to give me privately to which I could pay heed, my dear Mr. Washington.68
In spite of their alleged close relationship, Washington’s capitulation throughout his leadership of black America did not evince respect from Roosevelt or other whites of his pedigree. Instead, from the time of his Atlanta Exposition address of 1895 until his death in 1915, whites built Washington up as a powerful leader because he embraced and forcefully articulated a paradigm of race relations that was conducive to what the white South demanded. In so doing he, on balance I think, helped to undermine the emergent struggle for black advancement and left a legacy of capitulation that haunted blacks up to World War II. These racially defined exigencies make the point. In spite of Washington’s leadership, built on deference to white authority and advocacy of black self-help and industrial education for economic development of the race, the life condition of Negroes became increasingly bleak following his death. The popular and effective spread of white supremacist ideology, the continuing effects of black disenfranchisement, and the steady proliferation of racial violence were evidence of this trend.
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
55
In 1915, W. D. Griffith released his butcherous film ‘‘The Birth Of A Nation,’’ a popular and powerful melodrama that was a vicious work of racial propaganda for the white South. ‘‘President Woodrow Wilson, after a screening in the East Room of the White House on February 18, exclaimed that ‘The Birth of a Nation’ was like ‘writing history with lighting’; adding that it was all so terribly true.’’69 Five years later during the 1920 elections, 635,512 votes were cast in five deep South states, but only 19,000 were by blacks, leaving some 2.2 million other blacks aged 21 and older without the right to exercise the franchise.70 A third illustration of black life in the post-Washington era was related to violence and murder. The specific illustration revolved around the lynching of 78 blacks during 1918, coupled with boasts of white newspapers in the South about the bloody fate in store for any black man daring to come back from the war expecting to be treated like a white man.71 During this period, culminating into ‘‘Red Summer’’ of 1919, a tidal wave of organized antiblack violence swept up from the Deep South and Longview, Texas into Washington, DC, across the country to Chicago and, dipping down to Knoxville, Tennessee, rolling on finally over Omaha, Nebraska.72 As the years went by, the general deterioration of black life continued unabated. Springfield, Illinois, Rosewood, Florida, and Toledo, Ohio make the point. Years later, the infamous Scottsboro Boys73 case further established, for the whole world to see, the official complicity of the American legal system in the institutional oppression of the Negro people. Certainly, it would be incorrect to lay at Washington’s feet the blame for black atrocities following this death. It does seem fair, however, to surmise that Washington’s philosophy and practice of accommodationism must be assigned a good share of the responsibility for the uncurtailed racist environment, especially in the South, that facilitated the continued degradation of blacks in the aftermath of this death.
CONCLUSIONS In 1911, shortly after the NAACP was founded, Du Bois in his new position as editor of The Crisis magazine, ushered a defiant editorial which proved in sharp relief the ideological alternative to Booker T. Washington’s accommodationism. In his editorial, Du Bois, almost a decade before Claude McKay’s stunning poem, wrote the following: ‘‘Let every black American gird up his loins. The great day is coming. We have crawled and pleaded for justice and we have been cheerfully spit upon and murdered and burned. We
56
W. AVON DRAKE
will not endure it forever. If we must die, in God’s name let us perish like men and not like bales of hay.’’74 This was the voice that competed with Washington’s leadership. It was the voice that attempted to energize blacks to more forcefully demand their full rights as American citizens. And of course the tenor of Du Bois’ editorial was the antithesis of Washington’s philosophy and politics. That Washington could not speak go forthrightly about the debased condition of blacks was connected to the source of his power. For as his biographer Louis Harlan has written ‘‘Washington had license to criticize but not challenge the white supremacy system, since his own position of preeminence rested on his accommodation to the system.’’75 His ‘‘practical’’ response to white supremacy speaks to the compromises and accommodations that guided Washington’s program for black progress. But the history of his years of black leadership in America illustrates the impossibility of reforming a system while at the same time accommodating to its ‘‘institutions and spirit.’’76 History is unambiguous of the fact. Washington was a towering leader of black America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But his legacy is less clear. Certainly Washington was profoundly important as the seminal leader of blacks during this era. He made a signal contribution to the mandate for black self-help and economic development, though the latter has been grossly exaggerated. His insistence on blacks acquiring a practical education was extraordinarily important. Any review of Washington’s leadership must readily acknowledge the utility of these exigencies, particularly in light of the racist and violent-prone atmosphere in America during Washington’s leadership. But history must insist on an accurate reading of Washington’s full leadership legacy. In doing so note should be made of the fact that ‘‘Washington’s greatest failing was his inability to reverse the hard times for blacks during what whites called the Progressive Era. What was for Washington personally the best of times was for most blacks the worst, the most discouraging period since the freeing of the slaves.’’77 While one body of opinion asserts that Washington’s accomodationism was simply a pragmatic strategy designed to extract maximum benefits for blacks during this era, a competing view is that his submissive leadership, in style and substance, contributed to the absence of an aggressive model of political activism as well as the continuing dynamics of white supremacist politics. The aftermath of Washington’s death, at least for some political thinkers, seems to support the latter thesis.
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
57
When the full spectrum of Washington’s strengths and weaknesses as a black leader is codified and juxtaposed, it might reveal with more clarity Washington’s true legacy. This paper has attempted to contribute to his imperative.
NOTES 1. This point was strongly argued by Bob Brown, a comrade of now deceased Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael), during a conference of the Student Organization for Black Unity (SOBU) a nationalist student group in Frogmore, South Carolina, Fall 1969. 2. See ‘‘About Booker T. Washington’’ in Up From Slavery (The New York Public Library Collectors Edition) 1998. New York: Double-day, p. xxiv. 3. John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1988), p. 231. 4. Ibid., p. 208. 5. Here I refer to the mutual interest of the North and South and the national elite, following the downfall of Reconstruction, to focus on making money at the expense of continuing conflict over blacks. 6. By economic slavery I refer to the post-Civil War labor system that blacks were subjected to by white farmers and local government officials. 7. For a brief bio-sketch of Crummell see Howard Brotz (ed.): Negro Social and Political Thought – 1850–1920 (New York and London: Basic Books, Inc., 1966), p. 171. 8. This was a mid-nineteenth century socio-political movement designed to help facilitate the relocation of blacks from America to (primarily) Africa. 9. Brotz, p. 180. 10. Ibid., p. 186. 11. Ibid., p. 187. 12. Ibid. 13. For bio-sketch of Bishop Henry M. Turner see Hughes Hawkins (ed.): Booker T. Washington and His Critics (Lexington, Toronto and London: D.C. Heath and Company, 1974), p. 97. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., p. 100. 16. Ibid. 17. Brotz, pp. 332–333. 18. Ibid., p. 333. 19. Ibid., p. 339. 20. Ibid., 343. 21. See Beverly Guy-Sheftall (ed.), Voices of Fire (New York: The Free Press 1995), p. 63. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., p. 67.
58
W. AVON DRAKE
24. See Brotz, p. 203 on love for whites and his often-uttered negative comments regarding blacks. 25. The Tuskegee Machine was a loose organization of somewhat prominent black leaders who were strong supporters of Booker T. Washington. Mainly conservative, they lived primarily in the South. 26. Harlan, p. 95. 27. Guy-Sheftall, p. 71. 28. The ideological opposition to Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Machine, the Niagarites or Niagara Movement supported W. E. B. Du Bois and militant integrationism. See Harlan, pp. 84 85. 29. W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn (New York: Schocken Books 1968), pp. 70–80. 30. Ibid. 31. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York and Scarborough, Ontario: New American Library 1969), pp. 86–87. 32. Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (New York and London: The Free Press-A Division of MacMillan, Inc. 1984), p. 14. 33. Harlan, p. viii. 34. Franklin, p. 201. 35. Ibid., p. 228. 36. Ibid., pp. 231 and 237. 37. Manning Marable, Black Leadership (New York: Columbia University Press 1998), p. 25. 38. Brotz, p. 357. 39. Marable, p. 25. 40. Ibid. 41. Quoted in Harlan, p. 192. 42. Ibid., p. 197. 43. See Up From Slavery (The New York Public Library Collector’s Edition) 1998. New York: Doubleday, p. 8. 44. Louis R. Harlin and John W. Blassingame, The Booker T. Washington Papers. Volume I (Urbana, Chicago, London: University of Illinois Press 1972), p. 10. 45. Hawkins (ed.), p. 25. 46. Ibid. 47. See Harlin and Blassingame, p. 19. 48. See Up From Slavery. 49. Franklin, p. 244. 50. Franklin, p. 245. 51. Harlan and Blassingame, p. 21. 52. Ibid., p. 26. 53. A normal school, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was generally a boarding school on an advanced high school level that concentrated on industrial education. 54. Harlan and Blassingame, p. 31. 55. Harlan, p. 239. 56. Ibid., p. 238. 57. Franklin, p. 248. 58. Ibid.
Booker T. Washington: Racial Pragmatism Revisited
59
59. David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois–1868–1919 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1993), p. 169. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid., p. 238. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid., p. 239. 64. Hawkins (ed.), p. 136. 65. Ibid., p. 156. 66. Ibid., p. 157. 67. Harlin, p. 309. 68. Ibid., p. 310. 69. Lewis, 1868–1919, p. 506. 70. David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois–1919–1963 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000), p. 248. 71. Lewis, 1868–1919, p. 579. 72. Ibid. 73. Lewis, 1919–1963, p. 256. 74. Lewis, 1868–1919, p. 427. 75. Harlan, p. 35. 76. Ibid., p. 237. 77. Ibid., p. viii.
This page intentionally left blank
60
PART II: RACIAL CULTURE, MASKS, MYTHS, AND SYMBOLS
61
This page intentionally left blank
62
‘‘YOUR ARMS ARE TOO SHORT TO BOX WITH ME’’: ENCOUNTERS WITH BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, INTERNATIONAL TRICKSTER Amanda Kemp It was in a hot meeting room in October 1995 when the notion of Booker T. Washington as a trickster first came to me. Cornel West was entertaining a flurry of comments and questions about the Million Man March. Finally, a young black man, a former student it seemed, likened Minister Louis Farrakhan and the relinquishing of the public space to Booker T. Washington’s 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech. The implication was how could we easily dismiss Washington’s accommodationism while supporting an event, which spurned the role of the federal government in guaranteeing black citizenship? I paused and realized that if I had heard the Exposition speech, I might have very easily focused my attention on Washington’s optimistic call to black self-reliance and considered his hand analogy a metaphor of black independence. Perhaps I had been rash in reading the 1895 speech through the 1903 lens of the Souls of Black Folk (DuBois, 1903[1979]).1 Perhaps Washington’s popularity with black folks was understandable. Despite an incredible Uncle Tom persona, perhaps at the core of the industrial educator was a man bent on black autonomy. Perhaps he was a sly, shuffling trickster.
The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 63–83 Copyright r 2006 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13004-4
63
64
AMANDA KEMP
In studies of trickster figures in African and Diaspora cultures, common characteristics emerge: moral ambiguity, masterful use of language, and a presence in communications between individuals and between people and their gods. According to Robert Pelton (1980), ‘‘words are what [the trickster] juggles best,’’ allowing him to change ‘‘forms as easily as he can tell lies.’’2 Pelton argues that ‘‘to pin [the trickster] with one meaning is to annul his power to link the many levels of experience, to destroy the imaginative irony that he incarnates.’’3 Similarly, Henry Louis Gates (1988) finds the trickster figures as they appear throughout Africa and its Diaspora, are ‘‘all aspects or topoi of Esu’’ whose function is to mediate through tricks. Gates writes that ‘‘Esu serves as figure for the nature and function of interpretation and double voiced utterance.’’4 In this sense, Washington’s Up From Slavery (1901[1996]) is the trick.5 Through it he offers double voiced utterances that interpret the journey of black people from slavery to y ah and herein lies the trick. Some might say from slavery to accommodation; others would say from slavery to self-reliance and black autonomy. This idea remained buried until I traveled to South Africa to do research, and I came across an excerpt from Up From Slavery in a 1926 edition of the South African newspaper Umteteli was Bantu. According to Tim Couzens (1982), Up From Slavery was even published in South Africa.6 I also began to see Washington’s name and references to his philosophy in conflicting political speeches, autobiographies and editorials. Clearly, he was a productive part of South African discourse on segregation and black autonomy, but, as befits a trickster, Washington was mobilized by radically different constituencies. For example, trade unionist and former Communist, Gilbert Coka writes that Booker Washington was his inspiration as he persevered through many challenges to get an education – to become a ‘‘Great Man’’ (Coka, 1936[1991]).7 Similarly, African moderate, John L. Dube invoked ‘‘the great Booker Washington’’ as his ‘‘guiding star’’ in his acceptance speech as first president of the African National Congress (Walshe, 1970).8 In contrast, white missionaries used Washington’s text to chastise African students reluctant to do manual labor. This directed me back to Up From Slavery, but my reading was also informed by later novels in the African American literary tradition. For example the character, Dr. Bledsoe from Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) crept into my mind, and my dissatisfaction with Washington’s portrayal of black women led me to pick up Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (1986).9 Ellison had studied at Tuskegee in the 1930s and Larsen had served as its superintendent of nursing from 1915 to 1916. After reading Washington’s narrative through
‘‘Your Arms are too Short to Box with Me’’
65
the prism of these key works in the African American literary tradition, I am convinced that Washington’s text is the work of a consummate trickster. In some very explicit ways, Ellison’s novel warns us against the ‘‘straightforward’’ story that Washington purports to tell. Similarly, Larsen directs our attention to the Tuskegee trickster’s camouflage of black female bodies, introducing the notion of Tuskegee as a disciplining machine that crushes female sensuality, individuality, and pleasure to produce a cadre of black ‘‘true women.’’ Shuttling between Up From Slavery, the novels of Larsen and Ellison, and the autobiography of South African radical Gilbert Coka, this essay argues that Up From Slavery is a consummate ‘‘trick’’ whose multivalent tales, above all, serve Washington’s interests in maintaining power and influence; and then, secondarily, inspires black audiences to believe in their abilities to determine their lives. In effect, I use Larsen and Ellison to help me read against the grain of Up From Slavery, to see more than Washington would have me see and to hear beyond his silences. I begin by tracing the parallels between Ellison’s trickster figures and Mr. Washington, pointing out the often humorous references Ellison makes to the Founder of his alma mater. After exploring Ellison’s critique, I turn to Larsen’s narrative to explore Washington’s idealization of black womanhood, considering the devastating effects that such constructions seem to have on Up From Slavery’s black female subjects. Finally, I consider the subversive uses of the autobiography and the figure of Booker T. Washington in the 1920s and 1930s in South Africa. I argue that despite white South Africans’ appropriation of the gospel of industrial education, Gilbert Coka and many others translate the Tuskegee trickster’s message to emphasize black self-reliance and autonomy. In the preface to Up From Slavery, Washington purports to ‘‘tell a simple, straightforward story, with no attempts at embellishment.’’10 This is the trickster’s first sleight of hand, to render his will invisible, to mask his ambition and exercise of power. Seeing the minstrel mask as central to the reading of Up From Slavery, Houston Baker (1987) argues that Washington simultaneously masters the form of minstrelsy and deconstructs it.11 Baker concentrates on the short passage where Washington’s mother has ‘‘procured a chicken’’ for her children to eat as the masterful use of the chickenthieving darky trope of minstrelsy to entice white readers. I agree with Baker’s emphasis on the mask, but I do not think it is limited to the minstrel imagery of the text; rather, I read the entire narrative as a sleight of hand, a house of smoke and mirrors, with many rooms and hidden closets. Ellison’s Invisible Man offers some helpful tips on deciphering the trickster’s tale.
66
AMANDA KEMP
Invoking Booker T. Washington in the first chapter of his nameless protagonist’s tale, Ellison exposes Washington’s many masks through a series of Washington-like characters. These older father figures are tricksters who act as foils to the protagonist’s naivete. In fact, I would argue that the protagonist is the novel’s Bakhtinian ‘‘fool,’’ someone who constantly highlights the hypocrisy and debauchery of the society of the novel through his sincere straightforward actions.12 The first trickster is the fool’s meek grandfather who supposedly believes that the newly emancipated slaves ‘‘were free, united with others of our country in everything pertaining to the common good, and in everything social, separate like the fingers of the hand.’’13 However, on his deathbed, the meek old man orders his son and grandchildren to Keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ‘em with yesses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open.14
This greatly disturbs the whole family, especially the fool who is likened to his grandfather and praised ‘‘by the most lily-white men of the town.’’15 All of a sudden the much approved of philosophy of humility is linked to a strategy of violent subversion by his grandfather who is a model Negro. Death, destruction, vomiting, and explosion are the end results of ‘‘fooling’’ white folks. Linking Booker T. Washington’s metaphor of the hand to the secret rebellion of a yes-man, Ellison has suggested that if we look beyond the mask, the heavy overlay of submission in Up From Slavery, we might find secret acts of treachery. In fact, Up From Slavery contains evidence of secret rebellions, but they are carefully embedded in larger tales of white agency. These anecdotes are so deep in the ‘‘lion’s mouth’’ that they can be overlooked by the reader looking for evidence of white charity to the Negro people. For example, Washington ignores the advice of a New York-based missionary who recommends that he returns to Alabama and not attempt to fundraise in the North. In other words, a black man trusts his own judgment over that of a white, and proves the white wrong. However, Washington mutes the insubordinance of this act by immediately relating that he humbly spent half a day in Massachusetts seeking a colored family to board with because he did not imagine a hotel would admit him. Further, he only notes that the trip was a success by pointing out that the school held its first service in the Northern funded Porter Hall. This success is limited to single sentence
‘‘Your Arms are too Short to Box with Me’’
67
whereas immediately after, Washington spends two paragraphs describing the white minister who consented to preach the Thanksgiving sermon. Describing the Rev. Bedford as ‘‘one of the rarest men that it has ever been my privilege to know,’’ Washington likens him to Christ. ‘‘[H]e has seemed to me to approach as nearly to the spirit of the Master as almost any man I ever met.’’16 Thus, Washington muffles his initial transgression of white supremacy by extravagantly praising a white preacher. Up From Slavery makes judicious use of this rhetorical strategy. For example, Washington recounts his embarrassment at sharing a seat, supper, and even tea with two Bostonian ladies while on a Pullman sleeper in Georgia. ‘‘These good ladies were perfectly ignorant, it seems, of the customs of the South, and in the goodness of their hearts insisted that I take a seat with them in their section.’’17 Using a variation of the word ‘‘embarrassed’’ three times, Washington nonetheless breaks the social separation taboo that he upholds in the famous ‘‘fingers to the hand’’ speech. However, he skillfully couches this anecdote in a passage where he makes the extraordinary statement that ‘‘in all my contact with the white people of the South I have never received a single personal insult.’’ With this set up, the punch line to his tale is necessarily that the white men aboard the car who watched him break this convention greeted him later with gratitude. ‘‘Nearly every one of them a citizen of Georgia, came up and introduced himself to me and thanked me earnestly for the work that I was trying to do for the whole South.’’18 The white Southern reader perhaps sensitive to criticism regarding lynching or other highly publicized acts such as disenfranchisement of black citizenry has been manipulated into overlooking this most devastating of breaches because the point of Washington’s narrative is to show that Southern whites assist and support his efforts at uplifting his people. Indeed, Washington lives with his head in the lion’s mouth, telling Southern whites what many wanted to hear while successfully accomplishing his mission. In light of Tuskegee’s fabulous growth from a ‘‘stable and a hen house’’ to an endowed institution with a campus of over forty buildings in 1901, the reader knows that Washington has met with considerable success in raising money among northern whites. Further, despite his official support of social separation, he demonstrates his ability to break even this social convention without retribution in the South. Indeed Washington’s social calendar in Europe seems to be limited to the local aristocracy and notable white Americans. It would appear that Mr. Washington has ‘‘yessed em’’ to the point where his transgressions and insubordinance are invisible. However, Ellison’s suggests that the trickster also uses this stealthy mode of retribution against blacks as well as whites. For example, upon viewing a
68
AMANDA KEMP
sculpture of the college ‘‘Founder’’ and a former slave, the protagonist in Invisible Man (Ellison, 1952) stands ‘‘puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly in place; whether [he is] witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding.’’19 The parallels to the founder of Tuskegee are profound. Tuskegee’s mission was to enlighten the former slaves and their children through industrial education, but many argued that industrial education would simply fit blacks for the most menial of professions rather than equal participation in American society. Apparently, Ellison, a Tuskegee alumnus, finds this strategy less than convincing. Furthermore, the ambivalence of the ‘‘Father symbol’’ is further exacerbated by the school principal, Dr. Bledsoe, who like Booker T. Washington, comes to college a ‘‘barefoot boy’’ and rises from feeding hogs to presiding over the college. This reference to hogs is actually a humorous poke at Washington who announces in Up From Slavery ‘‘I think the pig is my favorite animal. Few things are more satisfactory to me than a highgrade Berkshire or Poland China pig.’’20 The ‘‘simple’’ Bledsoe skillfully manipulates rich white trustees and poor black folks alike. For example, after the protagonist obediently takes a trustee to the former slave quarters and a brothel because the old man directed him to, Bledsoe explodes. ‘‘Order you?’’ he said. ‘‘He ordered you. Dammit, white folks are always giving orders, it’s a habit with them y . My God, boy! You’re black and living in the South – did you forget how to lie?’’ y And here you are a junior in college. Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie! What kind of education are you getting around here?’’21
Bledsoe decides to expel the fool despite his assurances to the contrary to the trustee. However, to defuse the fool’s threat of exposure, Bledsoe gives him letters of introduction to friends of the school in New York with assurance that the friends will hire the protagonist. In fact the letters urge these powerful men to avoid seeing the fool but without indicating the true reason. Ellison cleverly demonstrates how Bledsoe manipulates both the trustees and the black youth without the fool’s knowledge. Thus, the sleight of hand is not only reserved for whites, and we will perhaps see traces of betrayal of the community in Up From Slavery. The trickster is not an inherently moral character but rather is consumed by self-interest and winning the game. As Bledsoe tells the fool: You’re nobody son y . The white folk tell everybody what to think – except men like me. I tell them; that’s my life telling white folk how to think about the things I know about. Shocks you, doesn’t it? Well that’s the way it is y . But I’ve made my place in it and I’ll have every Negro in the country hanging on tree limbs by morning if it means staying where I am.22
‘‘Your Arms are too Short to Box with Me’’
69
Your arms are too short to box with me, son. And I haven’t had to really clip a young Negro in years y . You let the white folks worry about pride and dignity – you learn where you are and get yourself power, influence, contacts with powerful and influential people – then stay in the dark and use it.23
Clearly, Negro education concerns Dr. Bledsoe only in so far as it increases his power and influence over powerful people. The fool must be expelled because he has not learned the fundamental lesson of masking, of telling white folks what they want to hear while pursuing his own self-interests. The danger of Dr. Bledsoe’s will to power, again, informs our reading of Up From Slavery. It is no accident that Bledsoe implies that he is willing to condone lynching to maintain his power and position. Similarly, Washington’s narrative offers very little commentary on the wave of lynching in the South at the time of publication. In fact, he only mentions lynching in the very last chapter on the second to last page where he claims that Southern newspapers have supported his pleas ‘‘for justice for the race.’’24 This small note on lynching gives the reader reason to believe that it is an aberration in Southern justice and that it is not supported by Southern newspapers. However, the exact opposite is true. For example, in March 1899 nine black people in Palmetto, Georgia were accused of setting a series of fires. A mob of 150 whites shot the detainees, killing four and badly wounding all the others. A few weeks later, Sam Hose, a black Palmetto resident claimed to have killed a plantation owner in self-defense, but the Atlanta press contended that Hose had not only killed the owner, but also injured his two children and raped his wife. Furthermore, the Macon press promoted a conspiracy theory that linked this killing and the earlier arson conspiracy to a local black preacher, Lige Strickland. Shortly after, both Hose and Strickland were lynched. In fact, Strickland was killed and then lynched again and again. Whereas other race leaders, such as African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Henry Turner, railed against white lawlessness and the press’ complicity, Washington remained silent on lynching until six months later with the publication of a letter in the New Orleans Times Democrat and that was later reprinted in Hampton’s Southern Workman. In his letter, Washington accepted critical parts of white supremacist discourse. He assumed that Hose was guilty, accusing him of the ‘‘the most terrible crime ever charged against a member of my race’’ and promised to ‘‘condemn with all the indignation of my soul any beast y guilty of assaulting women.’’ Further, he only opposed lynching on the grounds that it did not prevent other Negroes from committing heinous crimes. Instead of pointing the finger at Southern whites, he advises Negroes to bring to justice
70
AMANDA KEMP
those accused of crimes and urged both races to stand for ‘‘law and order and justice’’ (Mixon, 1994).25 This letter participates in the dehumanization of black people by referring to the victim as a beast and emphasizing black responsibility in bringing ‘‘beasts’’ to justice. Recall Dr. Bledsoe’s threat that he would first see every Negro lynched rather than lose his positioning. Similarly, Mr. Washington’s emphasis on black responsibility for white violence confirmed him as the darling of the white Southern press. For example, the Atlanta Constitution published an editorial in 1899 entitled ‘‘Booker T. Washington and His Opposites’’ which trumpeted Washington as the sole black leader qualified to lead the race because he was not a politician or preacher ‘‘except in the widest sense.’’ According to the editorial, while preachers and ‘‘pretentious Negro leaders’’ declared the lynchings an attack on the whole race, Washington ‘‘sees and speaks the truth because he is a conservative and self-respecting.’’ Instead of protecting rapists, the Constitution urges blacks to follow the example of Washington who did not teach that they must hate whites but stressed education. Moreover, the editorial advised Southern whites to fund Tuskegee because it was ‘‘the greatest work ever undertaken in behalf of the better understanding of both races’’ (Mixon, 1994).26 It would seem that Washington is willing to pay ‘‘the price of the ticket’’ for white Southern support. Nonetheless, despite commendation from the Southern white press on his moral conservatism, Washington wisely chooses not dwell on lynching in Up From Slavery. A brief mention of a letter to a single legislature about the issue shows his concern without treading into the murky water of black men raping white women or the lack of due process to prove that black men had raped white women. In addition, I suspect that a broadly published accommodation of lynching might have undermined his legitimacy with black people. Far more was to be gained by a cursory mention of his opposition to lynching than by delving into Southern white fears and the responsibility of the black population to avoid giving themselves cause to be lynched. If Ellison shows us the trickster’s many guises and his willingness to sacrifice black men to accrue power, then Larsen’s novel exposes Washington’s narrative as a camouflaged ‘‘quicksand’’ that engulfs the black female body between the cult of domesticity and true womanhood and the discourse of black female licentiousness. After considering Larsen’s articulation of this double bind and the role of Tuskegee in tightening it, I am convinced that Washington embraces the cult of true womanhood to enhance his presence and to render himself morally perfect. Moreover, the strategy of disembodiment, where women appear in the narrative as
‘‘Your Arms are too Short to Box with Me’’
71
abstract, non-material forces, reinforces his red herring philosophy of the primacy of merit over color. I say red herring both because Washington clearly does not believe that color is irrelevant in the pursuit of ambitions in America and because, as Larsen shows, the blackness of the female body cannot be escaped. Let us now turn to Quicksand’s (Larsen, 1986) revision of Up From Slavery. Nella Larsen, superintendent of nurses at Tuskegee from 1915 to 1916, publishes Quicksand in 1928. Like Up From Slavery, the novel charts the journey of its mulatto protagonist, Helga Crane, from Naxos, a Tuskegeelike institution in the Deep South, to Harlem, Copenhagen, and then back to the South. However, unlike Washington, the young Helga begins and ends in dissatisfaction with the constricting discourses in which she finds her black body. Whereas, Washington’s is a tale of triumph, of ascendance to power, position, and prestige as symbolized by the growth of Tuskegee, Helga’s is a lurching descending path which ends with her bearing four children, with a fifth, likely to kill her, on its way. In addition to paralleling the physical journey of the Up From Slavery, Larsen offers alternative visions, directing us to see what the trickster has avoided, as if to bring into focus the fuzzy portraits of the black women in Washington’s text. For example, all of the black women closely associated with the Tuskegee Wizard, specifically his mother and three wives, embody the ideals of the discourse of domesticity which defined ‘‘true’’ women in this period. According to Nancy Cott (1997), domesticity features ‘‘a calm, devoted and self-abnegating wife and mother’’ whose home serves as ‘‘a moral beacon, a restorative haven from the anxieties and adversities of public life and commerce, comforting the hardworking husband and provider for the family, and furnishing a nursery of spiritual and civic values for the children.’’27 In his text, these dusky displays of Victorian womanhood, the Washington wives, selflessly serve others to the detriment of their own health, graduate from Hampton or Fisk, bear and or raise children, and work at Tuskegee in positions of leadership over women students. Washington’s narrative portrays them as quite content with these responsibilities even though both Fannie and Olivia, his first two wives, die soon after childbirth and private letters show that Margaret Washington had no desire to bear or raise children, especially his daughter. However, like many of the leading white ladies of his times, Washington uses the principles and tropes of domesticity to justify the public work of his wives. For example, Olivia and Margaret both served as Lady Principal and raised funds for Tuskegee. Washington’s text carefully couches the activities of Olivia, an effective and well-known fundraiser, in the rhetoric of true womanhood. He writes:
72
AMANDA KEMP For some time, before our marriage, and also after it, Miss Davidson kept up the work of securing money in the North and in the South by interesting people by personal visits and through correspondence. At the same time she kept in close touch with the work of Tuskegee as Lady Principal and classroom teacher. In addition to this, she worked among the older people in and near Tuskegee, and taught a Sunday school class in the town. She was never very strong, but never seemed happy unless she was giving all of her strength to the cause, which she loved. Often, at night after spending the day in going from door to door trying to interest persons in the work at Tuskegee, she would be so exhausted that she could not undress herself. (my emphasis)28
It is impossible to miss Olive’s femininity as expressed by her good works, fragile health, and elevated class status. After all, a woman who cannot undress must have a servant to assist. Certainly, the large amount of detail devoted to Olivia might have appealed to the donors she had so effectively cultivated for Tuskegee. Neither his first wife, Fannie, nor Margaret, his wife at the time of writing Up From Slavery, receives such a lengthy portrayal. In any case, Olivia, quite appropriately, dies after giving birth to their second son. In contrast to the happy women of Tuskegee, Quicksand describes the Naxos exemplar of true womanhood, Dormitory Matron Miss MacGooden, in less flattering terms. She is ‘‘humorless, grim, ugly, with a face like dried leather [and] prided herself on being a ‘lady’ from one of the best families.’’ MacGooden is so refined that she refrains from marriage to avoid ‘‘things in the matrimonial state that were of necessity entirely too repulsive for a lady of delicate and sensitive nature to submit to.’’29 In keeping with the prescribed standards, Mss MacGooden commits herself to the female students in her charge and guards her virtue. Larsen’s humorous reference to sex hints at the hidden assumptions of true womanhood, which counterpose virtue and passion, and by implication white and black. For Helga, the desiccated MacGooden is a product of the Naxos machine, which, in seeking the moral purity of whiteness, deadens those it wishes to uplift. After two years of teaching, Helga decides that Naxos Was no longer a school. It had grown into a machine. It was now a show place in the black belt, exemplification of the white man’s magnanimity, refutation of the black man’s inefficiency. Life had died out of it. It was, Helga decided, now only a big knife with cruelly sharp edges ruthlessly cutting all to a pattern, the white man’s pattern.30
Helga, dressed in a ‘‘vivid green and gold negligee’’ and ‘‘glistening brocaded mules’’ finds herself at odds with the ‘‘white pattern’’ that Naxos seeks to reproduce. She is alienated from the other teachers and even distant from her fiance´ who has found a place in the Naxos culture. Larsen’s protagonist likens uplift at Naxos to a ruthless ‘‘paring process [that] tolerated
‘‘Your Arms are too Short to Box with Me’’
73
no innovations, no individualisms.’’ After teaching for two years in the machine where spontaneity and enthusiasm ‘‘were y regretted as unladylike y’’ Helga confronts her disillusionment. The South. Naxos. Negro education. Suddenly she hated them all. Strange, too, for this was the thing which she had ardently desired to share in, to be a part of this monument to one man’s genius and vision.31
Apparently, Helga is lured into the ‘‘monument to one man’s genius’’ – perhaps through an autobiography or two – but finds the reality of the institution stifling. Perhaps Larsen subtly warns us to beware the visions of Washington’s narrative. Indeed where Washington’s women answer the call to motherhood (symbolic or actual) without any apparent hesitation, Larsen’s locates physical and psychic demise in childbearing. Instead of the culmination of life or the expression of womanhood as promised by the cult of true womanhood, Helga feels weak. ‘‘It seemed hundreds of years since she had been strong. And she would need strength. For in some way she was determined to get herself out of this bog into which she had strayed. Or – she would have to die.’’32 This speaks directly to Washington’s nonplused announcement of two wives’ death after childbirth. In his text, it seems quite natural that the ‘‘never physically strong’’ Olivia would choose to bear two children only two years apart. Similarly, Fannie’s death elicits no explanation from the author. Quicksand makes us aware of the individuality and passions of these women that Washington’s text has stifled. Washington attempts to subvert the prevailing idea of black women as overly sexual by removing their bodies. His autobiography explicitly addresses the ‘‘statement made lately y that taking the whole Negro race into account, ninety per cent of the Negro women are not virtuous’’ by arguing that ‘‘No one can come into contact with the race for twenty years, as I have done in the heart of the South, without being convinced that the race is constantly making slow but sure progress materially, educationally, and morally.’’33 In Up From Slavery, the virtuous character of his wives and mother demonstrate the perfectibility of black women whilst numerous examples of local women’s moral laxity confirm the need for Tuskegee’s work. In contrast, Larsen’s text shows how both the ideology of black women’s excessive sexuality and the cult of true womanhood keep her protagonist ‘‘in a bog.’’ For example, Helga goes to a Harlem club and thoroughly enjoys the music. ‘‘She was drugged, lifted, sustained, by the extraordinary music, blown out, ripped out, beaten out, by the joyous, wild murky orchestra. The essence of life seemed bodily motion.’’ However, when the music ends she
74
AMANDA KEMP
feels shame ‘‘that not only had she been in the jungle, but that she had enjoyed it’’ and decides to leave.34 Thus, Helga who cannot fit in at Naxos because she is entirely too sensual and spontaneous is also unwilling to allow herself to commit to the ‘‘bodily motion’’ of ‘‘the jungle’’ of Harlem. Seeking relief from this bind, she runs to Copenhagen but again finds herself trapped in a discourse of exoticism. The man she loves proposes that she become his mistress rather than his wife. She returns to Harlem and, after an illicit kiss with a married man, returns to the South as the bride of a charismatic preacher. At the novel’s end, the domesticated Helga has four children and another on the way that is likely to kill her; weakened, she realizes that she is trapped yet again. Because Helga’s fate is so determined by her body, Larsen’s text highlights the rhetorical strategy of disembodiment that might normally go unnoticed in Washington’s autobiography. Indeed my survey of literary critiques of Up From Slavery has not uncovered any reference to Washington’s disembodiment of the black female characters. Reading the autobiography alongside Quicksand renders this choice visible because Larsen devotes considerable attention to the material bodies of black people, especially women. For example, the novel opens with a description of Helga: ‘‘A slight girl of twentytwo years, with narrow, sloping shoulders and delicate, but well-turned arms and legs, she had, none the less, an air of radiant, careless health.’’35 The emphasis on the body in Quicksand shows how the prevailing discourses of primitivism and racism create ambivalence in blacks and whites about the black body and its ‘‘jungle like’’ sensations. One might argue that Larsen’s emphasis on the body and Washington’s erasure of it is the difference between a novel and an autobiography. However, Washington does include several photographs of himself and family members in his first autobiography although he provides none in Up From Slavery. Moreover, he does choose to physicalize himself in Up From Slavery through the lengthy excerpt of a New York World article on the Atlanta Exposition speech. In it, Washington is described as ‘‘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.’’36 The disembodiment of black people, especially the black women with whom he is most intimate, serves Washington in two ways. One, it helps to subvert the equation of the black female body with licentiousness which would then reflect on him. Two, it substantiates his assertions that the content of character supersedes race or the physicality of a person. By removing the physical body which is absolutely tainted because of its blackness, however little there might be, Washington invites the reader to focus
‘‘Your Arms are too Short to Box with Me’’
75
on the actions and internal motivations of the virtuous women who populate Up From Slavery. For example, his mother, who clearly plays a pivotal role in the author’s life as both succor and emotional center, has no name and no physical description. In his previous autobiography The Story of My Life and Work, Washington (1900[1972]) tells us her name is Jane on the first page.37 The un-naming then, in Up From Slavery would seem to be a conscious move which gives the narrative’s First Lady, so to speak, even greater emphasis as an ideal. With no attention to specific details of personality or individuality, the mother of Washington perhaps becomes the mother of the race, our moral inheritance from a slave past. More important, the disembodiment of his mother, someone whose physical person he should remember in great detail, loosens her from the discourse of the black female body as the site of desire, unruly passions, and exotic difference. This is especially important to establish because Washington states that his father is an unknown white man who offers no assistance in his upkeep. Thus, the circumstances of his birth might have confirmed the myth of the black highly sexed slave woman who enticed the morally vulnerable white man to her bed. To cover the scent of sex, Washington removes her material body and emphasizes her actions and moral rectitude. There is no charge of rape or mention of acquiescence. The act of sex is undone. There is no discussion of a connection between his mother and white man who fathered him. After slavery, her virtue is assured by the presence of a husband and the rearing of her three children. She is the true woman. By shrouding her physical attributes and even her name, Washington tries to free her from the discourse. Similarly, Washington makes his mother the emotional, tender center of his narrative because it is too risky to employ that language with regard to his wives, who by their function are necessarily sexualized. Hardworking, self-sacrificing, dedicated to racial uplift, child bearers and/or rearers, and assisting their husband in his ambitions, these women are specimens of Victorian womanhood. Passion, unbearable sadness at their deaths, or sheer pleasure in their companionship might implicate them as sexual beings, and from there it is but a short jump to the image of the inherently libidinous black female body. Finally, disembodiment serves Washington’s emphasis on the content of character as the determinant of a success rather than bodily disabilities such as race. However, this is arguably a magician’s distraction, much like saying ‘‘abra cadabra.’’ A white philanthropic audience wants to hear that a black man of true genius, such as painter Henry O. Tanner, who Washington cites, can succeed if he works hard. A statement about the loss of talent, the
76
AMANDA KEMP
grinding of the creative spirit through slavery, lynching, and white supremacy is less attractive to this audience. Abra cadabra: Merit triumphs over prejudice and covers up the sleight of hand where Washington shows that his skin color has been a burden overcome only by dogged persistence and a willingness to be limited to the ‘‘leadership of his people.’’ Washington is clearly aware that his prominence stems from his blackness. If he were a Southern white man promoting industrial education, it is doubtful Harvard University would have offered him an honorary degree. His statements of accommodation are highly visible because he is a Negro. In all of his speeches included in Up From Slavery, Washington highlights his ‘‘race’’ or his slave beginnings. A consummate magician, he satisfies a white audience’s desire for a denial of racism. Yet, in all fairness, Washington’s text also encourages black readers to persist and strategically challenge the constraints of white racism. Upon reading excerpts of his autobiography in the South African context, I began to hear a call for black autonomy and faith in black people’s ability to direct their liberation struggles. In this next section, I briefly consider the impact of Up From Slavery on black South Africans. Using The Autobiography of Gilbert Coka as a starting point, I argue that mission-educated Africans, including the founders of the African National Congress (ANC), responded to a carefully cloaked message of black self-reliance and black progress. Because Coka’s narrative begins with a frontal attack on ‘‘White South Africa, White Prestige, European Supremacy, Western Civilization and other projects, which are inimical to his interest,’’ it comes as a surprise that he also invokes Washington as a worthy model. Published in 1936, Gilbert Coka’s narrative begins with a description of his parents’ lineage and home, immediately linking them to Chaka, ‘‘the great Zulu military leader and founder of the Zulu nation.’’38 Born in 1910, Coka writes that he grew up amidst of conversations about religion and ‘‘recapitulation of the ‘glorious days of the Zulu people.’ These early lessons influenced me to revere my race, be proud of it and forget our superimposed and artificial inferiority.’’39 Unlike Washington, Coka confronts his opponents directly. Invoking Chaka, he identifies himself with a period of African autonomy likely to cause anxiety on the part of white South African readers. Moreover, the assertion of race pride and implicit counter European scientific pronouncements of African inferiority, clearly mark Coka as a ‘‘spoilt’’ Kaffir. In South Africa, this roughly corresponds to the notion of an uppity Negro. It would seem surprising that Washington’s text finds its way in this rather bellicose autobiography.
‘‘Your Arms are too Short to Box with Me’’
77
Nonetheless, Up From Slavery clearly serves as a model for Coka’s narrative and Booker T. Washington as a model for the education-hungry young man. During his second year at a mission intermediate school, Coka discovers Up From Slavery and decides he is to be a ‘‘Great Man.’’ He writes ‘‘I perused the biographies of famous men with avidity. I spent every odd six pence in buying books from second-hand dealers. I had little time for frivolity.’’40 In Up From Slavery, Washington, also expresses a preference for biographies and says that he did not play as a child because he was put to work and spent all remaining time pursuing an education. Coka draws many parallels between his struggle for secondary education and the details of Washington’s efforts. For example, when his father cannot afford fees for secondary school, Coka must search for assistance himself. First, he approaches the superintendent, whose refusal spurs our narrator to try harder. He writes, ‘‘his refusal reminded me of Booker Washington. I decided to emulate him. I walked to our District Inspector in Dundee.’’41 Similarly, Washington’s narrative traces his journey primarily on foot from West Virginia to Hampton. The young Coka impresses the District Inspector with his tenacity – especially as he was only thirteen – and the Inspector agrees to support his efforts. In fact, Coka works as a domestic for the Inspector for an unspecified amount of time – but it appears to be at least a year – before he receives any information about his schooling. As a domestic, Coka has to endure the sneers of a fellow domestic but perseveres because ‘‘I had decided to be an African Washington and so would put up with the slight inconveniences y’’ Buoyed by the similarity with Washington, Coka recalls, ‘‘As I washed and wiped dishes my fertile imagination weaved scenes of Booker Washington in parallel circumstances. My resolution did not shake.’’42 Mr. D, the District Inspector, turns out to be Coka’s Dr. Armstrong, that is the narrator’s demanding but good white father who builds the boy’s character. Pleased with Gilbert’s industriousness, Mr. D. calls the boy to him one day and orders him to ‘‘teach school in the country districts of Umsinga.’’ Coka’s success in this would determine whether or not the Superintendent would support his efforts to enter secondary school. Mr. D’s African assistant explains that Mr. D. ‘‘has not forgotten your courage in walking such a long distance, your eager determination to secure higher education, your hard work and patience in his house and your undoubted abilities. Now he wants to see if you’re a balanced young man.’’ In effect, by assigning the young Coka to a country district, the Superintendent tests his willingness to serve poor ‘‘backward’’ Africans, living amongst them in even humbler conditions than that of his own family.
78
AMANDA KEMP
Infused with Washington’s optimistic narrative, Coka looks on this assignment as a ‘‘Great Adventure.’’ He even enjoys the ride via ox wagon because ‘‘it brought resemblance between me and my prototype.’’43 Like Washington on his arrival at Tuskegee, Coka finds that the school is located in a building ‘‘more like a stable than a place in which children would y be instructed y’’ Moreover, like Washington, he immediately moves to establish discipline. He writes ‘‘I puts some regulations of punctuality, cleanliness and orderliness.’’44 His term at the school ends in success as parents approve of his social bearing; most of the students pass their exams; and he is popular with students. He writes: I had every reason to be proud of my achievements. On a small scale I had paralleled Booker Washington. I had been highly commended for all I had undertaken.45
Though Coka writes this portion of his autobiography with a strong dose of irony, his sincerity in following the example of Washington is not in doubt. It appears that Washington’s fundamentally optimistic narrative infuses Coka with a sense of his ultimate rise to become a Great Man, who is of course, educated. By emulating Washington’s example of perseverance and industriousness as well as ambition, a poor African boy earns his Junior Certificate and becomes a trade union activist. Once he gets involved in the industrial and Commercial Workers Union, Coka ceases to make any reference to Washington and appears to have instead become smitten with Marcus Garvey and then, briefly communism. In any case, Coka’s text shows us that Washington’s narrative, weighted down as it is in accommodation to segregation, provides an object lesson to the colonized reader. Whereas, Washington’s masks his will and assertion of an autonomous self, it is a subtext nonetheless recognizable to Coka and other African readers. For example, Coka writes that he read Up From Slavery along with ‘‘an old copy of the Negro World.’’46 Apparently, both publications fueled his sense of self-worth and ambition. Even the prominent South African, John L. Dube, a moderate anti-trade union man who founds Ohlange Institute as a South African Tuskegee, seems to have taken Washington’s message of self-reliance and autonomy to heart. For example, when Dube accepts the presidency of the ANC in 1912, he announces his intention to model himself after Booker T. Washington. Booker Washington is to be my guiding star (would that he were nigh to give us the help of his wise counsel!). I have chosen this great man, firstly because he is perhaps the most famous and best living example of our Africans sons; and, secondly because, like him I too, have my heart centered mainly in the education of my race. Therein methinks, lies the shortest and best way to their mental, moral, material and political betterment y 47
‘‘Your Arms are too Short to Box with Me’’
79
Though usually most accommodating to white liberal allies, Dube expresses the core of Ohlange’s significance when it is suggested that it be brought under a white Principal and white dominated Board of Trustees. Dube argues that such a change would betray the dreams and aspirations of Africans. What would be the feelings of my people if for the sake of relief from financial anxiety I were to yield up as an European concern the only characteristically Native Institution in South Africa upon such terms? What a task would be mine when I sought to explain the transaction to them! In what light would their European friends be presented to the ever suspicious imagination of the Natives? I have been called an Ethiopian by those who have misunderstood my attitude, although it is my constant struggle to harmonize the best Native aspiration with the best European opinion; but what complexion of thought is it that would thus emasculate all Native control over an essentially Native endeavor? (Marable, 1976).48
The trickster reinforces local aspirations for autonomy even whilst his text is promoted by white segregationists who believe that Africans are only ready for junior partnership at most in terms of the great cause of African uplift. Returning to Coka, I would like to consider why the narrative makes such explicit and strategic use of Washington’s Up From Slavery. As Dube’s acceptance speech shows, Washington is a familiar figure in South African political and literary discourse. Comparing himself to Washington reinforces the Coka’s credibility as a talented, hard working leader of his people. Further, the Washington references and text’s publication in English, continually remind readers that Coka is an educated man comfortable in English equal to the American Negroes. This is critical because from 1890s, American Negroes symbolized African aspirations to progress, wealth, and independence (Kemp, 1997).49 Still further, by the 1920s and 1930s the period covered in Coka’s autobiography, the American Negro is increasingly seen as the embodiment of radical black politics. Booker T. Washington gets absorbed into the popular rhetoric of ‘‘Africa for Africans,’’ a slogan embraced at one time by Coka’s union. As Robert Hill and Gregory Pirio (1987) argue, the ‘‘‘American Negro’ had come to symbolise a radical black consciousness which rested on a multitude of organisational and political linkages between the ICU [Industrial and Commercial Workers Union] and UNIA [Universal Negro Improvement Association] y’’50 Washington and Garvey become linked in a larger construction of the American Negro. Coka shows change over time by putting Washington in the autobiography’s past and Garvey closer to the present. Still, the narrative places greater emphasis on Washington and never indicates a break with the Tuskegee founder or his philosophy of self-reliance. Thus, while the
80
AMANDA KEMP
narrative ends in a blistering critique of White South Africa, its final paragraph contains a faint optimism. Coka writes: ‘‘South Africa is a pleasant country for all that and things will not continue like this. Such a state is against history, science and common sense.’’51 In conclusion, I must say that Washington has received a wealth of scholarly attention in the field of literature, history, political science and cultural studies. New information has emerged about Washington’s diplomatic efforts on behalf of Liberia, his secret participation in civil rights efforts, and his support of African students in America (Erhagbe, 1996).52 I suspect that he will remain a controversial figure, with some continuing to argue his fundamental conservatism and others proving his secret support for full enfranchisement of African Americans. In the above pages, I have not attempted to flatten out the contradictions, or present an ultimate truth about the real Washington. Rather, I have shown that Washington is a trickster figure who manages to satisfy multiple constituencies, thereby preserving his influence amongst both whites and blacks. Reading his tales along side the fiction of Larsen and Ellison reveals the hidden costs of his ‘‘fooling’’ to black people as a whole and black women in particular. In contrast, reading his tales in the context of South Africa literature and popular culture, one hears the muted rumblings of black autonomy and selfreliance. Ultimately, like Esu, Washington remains open to endless interpretation.
NOTES 1. W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903; New York: Dodd, Mead, 1979). 2. Robert Pelton, The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Scared Delight (Berkeley: University of Cailfornia Press, 1980), pp. 223–224. 3. Pelton, p. 224. 4. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Signifying Monkey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. xxi. 5. All page numbers will refer to the following edition: Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery: An Authoritative Text, Contexts, and Composition History, Criticism, ed. William L. Andrews (1901; New York: Norton, 1996). 6. Tim Couzens, ‘‘Moralizing Leisure Time: The Transatlantic Connection and Black Johannesburg 1918–1936.’’ Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa: African Class Formation, Culture, and Consciousness 1870–1930, eds. Shula Marks and Richard Rathbone, (New York: Longman, 1982). 7. Gilbert Coka, The Autobiography of Gilbert Coka (1936; Belleville, Cape Town: University of Western Cape Historical and Cultural Center, 1991), p. 11.
‘‘Your Arms are too Short to Box with Me’’
81
8. A. P. Walshe, ‘‘Black American Thought and African Political Attitudes in South Africa,’’ Review of Politics, 32 (1970), p. 55. 9. All references will be to the following editions: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York: Signet, New American Library, 1952). Nella Larsen, Quicksand and Passing, edited with an introduction by Deborah McDowell (1928; New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1986). 10. Washington, n. p. 11. Houston Baker, [Booker T. Washington’s Mastery of Form] in Up From Slavery: An Authoritative Text, Contexts, and Composition History, Criticism, ed. William L. Andrews (1901: New York: Norton, 1996). First published in Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). 12. M. M. Bakhtin, The Diaologic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (1981; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990). 13. Ellison, p. 19. 14. Ellison, pp. 19–20. 15. Ellison, p. 20. 16. Washington, p. 73. 17. Washington, p. 78. 18. Washington, pp. 78–79. 19. Ellison, p. 37. 20. Ellison, p. 121. 21. Ellison, p. 124. 22. Ellison, p. 128. 23. Ellison, p. 129. 24. Washington, p. 145. 25. See Gregory Mixon, ‘‘Henry McNeal Turner versus the Tuskegee Machine: Black Leadership in the Nineteenth Century,’’ Journal of Negro History, 79 (Fall 1994), p. 376. 26. Mixon, p. 374. 27. Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Woman hood (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p. xvii. 28. Washington, p. 67. 29. Larsen, p. 12. 30. Larsen, p. 4. 31. Larsen, pp. 3, 4. 32. Larsen, p. 134. 33. Washington, p. 113. 34. Larsen, p. 59. 35. Larsen, p. 2. 36. Washington, p. 109. 37. Booker T. Washington, The Story of My Life and Work. Reprinted as The Booker T. Washington Papers Volume I: The Autobiographical Writings, ed. Louis Harlan (1900; Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1972). 38. Coka, p. 7. 39. Coka, p. 8. 40. Coka, p. 11.
82
AMANDA KEMP
41. Coka, p. 14. 42. Coka, p. 15. 43. Coka, p. 17. 44. Coka, p. 19. 45. Coka, p. 24. 46. Coka, p. 11. 47. Walshe, p. 55. 48. Quoted in Manning Marable, African Nationalist: The Life of John Langalibalele Dube. Dissertation, University of Maryland, 1976, p. 318. 49. For more on sign of the American Negro in black South African discourse, see Amanda, ‘‘Up From Slavery’’ and Other Narratives: Black South African Performances of the American Negro (1920–1940). Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1997. 50. Coka, p. 216. 51. Coka, p. 60. 52. Edward Erhagbe, ‘‘African-Americans and the Defense of African States Against European Imperial Conquest: Booker T. Washington’s Diplomatic Efforts to Guarantee Liberia’s Independence 1907–1911,’’ African Studies Review, 39:1 (April 1996), pp. 55–66.
REFERENCES Baker, H. (1987). Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Coka, G. (1936[1991]). The autobiography of Gilbert Coka. Cape Town: University of Western Cape Historical and Cultural Center. Cott, N. (1997). The bonds of womanhood. New Haven: Yale University Press. Couzens, T. (1982). Moralizing leisure time: The Transatlantic connection and Black Johannesburg 1918–1936. In: S. Marks & R. Rathbone (Eds), Industrialisation and social change in South Africa: African class formation, culture, and consciousness 1870–1930. New York: Longman. DuBois, W. E. B. (1903[1979]). The souls of black folk. New York: Dodd, Mead. Ellison, R. (1952). Invisible man. New York: Signet New American Library. Erhagbe, E. O. (1996). African-Americans and the defense of African states against European imperial conquest: Booker T. Washington’s diplomatic efforts to guarantee Liberia’s independence 1907–1911. African Studies Review, 39(1), 55–66. Gates, H. L., Jr. (1988). The signifying monkey. New York: Oxford University Press. Hill, R., & Pirio, G. (1987). Africa for Africans: The Garvey Movement in South Africa, 1920–1940. In: S. Marks & S. Trapido (Eds), The politics of race, class, and nationalism in twentieth century South Africa. London: Longman. Kemp, A. (1997). Up from Slavery and other narratives: Black South African performances of the American Negro (1920–1940). Dissertation, Northwestern University. Larsen, N. (1986). Quicksand and Passing. In: D. McDowell (Ed.), New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Marable, M. (1976). African nationalist: The life of John Langalibalele Due. Dissertation, University of Maryland.
‘‘Your Arms are too Short to Box with Me’’
83
Mixon, G. (1994). Henry McNeal Turner versus the Tuskegee Machine: Black leadership in the nineteenth century. Journal of Negro History, 79, 363–380. Pelton, R. D. (1980). The Trickster in West Africa: A study of mythic irony and sacred delight. Berkeley: University of California Press. Walshe, A. P. (1970). Black American thought and African political attitudes in South Africa. Review of Politics, 32, 51–77. Washington, B. T. (1900[1972]). The story of my life and work. The Booker T. Washington Papers Volume I: The autobiographical writings. In: L. Harlan (Ed.). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Washington, B. T. (1901[1996]). Up from slavery: An authoritative text, contexts, and composition history, criticism. In: W. L. Andrews (Ed.). New York: Norton.
This page intentionally left blank
84
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND THE ART OF RESISTANCE Michael Bieze We wear the mask that grins and lies Paul Laurence Dunbar
Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in rural Alabama, directed the creation of several hundred photographs in order to promote himself, Tuskegee, and African-Americans of all classes as dignified and intelligent. He did so in order to counteract the countless racist images, which mainstream Victorian culture offered as normal and to combat the fiction that blacks were inferior to whites in every way. Unlike W. E. B. Du Bois, who pursued a course of direct activism, the ever cautious and practical Washington believed in gradual, indirect activism. The new mass reproduction capabilities of photography provided Washington with the perfect medium for his indirect resistance to white power. Whereas Du Bois used photographs primarily as a form of sociological evidence, Washington initially sent images to white America of black cultural grace and refined taste. At the same time, both Du Bois and Washington used photographs because they are fact and fiction, aesthetic evidence rather than cold science.1 Washington did so knowing that, in the social hierarchy of the era, such refinement signified intelligence and hence equality. At the same time, Washington accommodated white power with these images. When he hired photographers to show black poverty, it was in contrast to the uplifting effects of the Tuskegee plan, not to indict white supremacy or The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 85–102 Copyright r 2006 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13005-6
85
86
MICHAEL BIEZE
racist policies. While he did attempt to influence court cases and support legislation to effect change, Washington pursued resistance to racism through his own charisma, the national black press, a network of business and other professional organizations, and the ever working printing press shop he created at Tuskegee. These efforts generated a picture of black success measured by the standards of white America. This paper sets out to show how these efforts have been forgotten and what they tried to achieve.
WASHINGTON AND PHOTO HISTORY On discovering the many Washington photographs, it becomes clear that he was a singular figure in the history of the medium. One could teach an entire course on turn-of-the-century photography based on Washington. His national debut as a celebrity in the engraved lines of Harper’s Weekly was soon replaced with photographs (Speed, 1895, pp. 876–879). Washington rose to power at the instant photography could be mass-produced in journals and books through photogravure, the moment Kodak made photography accessible to nearly everyone, and the moment photography was splitting between its documentary and pictorial forms. We literally watch the graphic style of Washington’s works emerge from the flowery Victorian watercolors of the early books such as Daily Resolves and Sowing and Reaping (Washington, 1896, 1900b), to his later efforts which almost all told their stories with photographs. Tuskegee’s own course catalogues were at the forefront of this new technology by utilizing the new medium beginning in the early 1890s. Washington quickly made sure that his image was everywhere: from buttons for the Negro Business League to broadsides and postcards like a talisman. Washington’s connections to the photography world were deep. He corresponded with George Eastman and Jacob Riis. No one else at the time could claim to have been photographed by so many of the major photographers, both white and black. Among the famous white photographers who took Washington’s image are Elmer Chickering, Julian Dimock, Frances Benjamin Johnston, and Gertrude Kasebier. Among the black photographers who worked for Washington were C.M. Battey, A.P. Bedou, Addison Scurlock, and Harry Shepherd. In fact, Bedou traveled with Washington as a personal photographer, something only a few Americans such as Mark Twain were known to have. Washington also saw photography as an important method of inexpensively distributing the work of black artists such as Henry O. Tanner to the black community.
Booker T. Washington and the Art of Resistance
87
Yet for all of Washington’s massive visual output, the scholarly portrait of Booker T. Washington has only recently begun to describe the role he played in the development of African-American visual culture. Tuskegee is often cited as playing a pivotal role in the history of African-American photography, but the photography department was not officially started until after Washington’s death (Bieze, 2003).2 The introduction to Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson’s 1993 survey of African-American art was among the first studies to alter this tradition by acknowledging Washington’s insightful reading of the racist high/low cultural milieu during the time of the first New Negro movement (as opposed to the later New Negro movement or Harlem Renaissance). Bearden and Henderson described how ‘‘one cannot even estimate the damage done to all African-Americans by [racist] caricatures,’’ a widespread practice Washington challenged when he described the effects of books juxtaposing barbaric images of Africans with elite whites (Bearden & Henderson, 1993, p. xv; Washington, 1909).3 More recently, Henry Louis Gates went so far as to assert, ‘‘It was Booker T. Washington who first hoped to institutionalize the cultural and political force of this New Negro’’(Gates, 1997, p. 2). What has yet to be fully examined is the highly complex visual self-image Washington created, primarily through photographs, from within this racist, stratified environment as a form of racial uplift. As the United States’ first African-American college president to enjoy widespread media recognition (and black media celebrity), surprisingly no analysis of the visual record exists of Washington’s media manipulations. From the center of the so-called Tuskegee Machine, he directed a publicity campaign, which places him among the nation’s first masters of mass media. Today, he would be recognized as a media spin-master. For many years, it seemed clear why Washington would dress himself up in photographs as a cultured member of the northern, white elite to solicit money for southern, industrial education – that is where the rainbow ended in a pot of philanthropic gold. When looking at photographs of Washington from the period, he seems so natural among America’s white power brokers that one wonders how he did it. Yet even at the time, some did sense furtive motivations. For example, in 1902, the Presbyterian Banner asked its readers, ‘‘Who is Booker T. Washington?’’ answering that ‘‘he was a Baptist, then a Congregationalist, afterwards a Unitarian; but is independent of all denominational control, and accountable to no ecclesiastical body for the use of funds he gathers in’’(Unknown Author, 1902, p. 2). This elusive nature allowed him to secretly affect court cases, influence newspapers, and advise political officials all the way to the White House. He was a Trickster who not only named himself, but also created a rich personal mythology.
88
MICHAEL BIEZE
Has anyone else in this country ever had three autobiographies and multiple biographies out at the same time – often in multiple versions? (Washington, 1900a, 1901a, 1911; Pike, 1902).4 Washington’s use of mass media provides an opportunity to move beyond visual analysis in the arts and sociology, which emphasizes reproduction and the victimization of the oppressed, toward seeing media used as a form of powerful resistance. Initially, Washington crafted an image of Victorian grace as a fund-raising strategy, which appealed to elite white America’s policy of gradual reform on race issues (Fig. 1). The only other AfricanAmerican to share this distinction was the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, friend of Washington, author of Tuskegee’s song, and occasional lecturer at Tuskegee, who also has been criticized for apparently demeaning himself and marketing works to white audiences. Washington and Dunbar performed on the stage of Post-Reconstruction America in a Jim Crow masque, offering a double-coded expression of both compliance and resistance. On the surface there appears to be merit to the charge that both Washington and Dunbar sold-out by depicting stereotypes recalling a romantic, plantation tradition. However, both men saw art as a sign of progress. For Washington, art represented evidence of intellectual equality as measured by white standards. Both men recognized racism’s
Fig. 1. Stereograph. ‘‘Booker T. Washington and Distinguished Guests, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama,’’ 1906. Photograph Taken at Tuskegee’s 25th Anniversary Celebration. Back Row from Left to Right: J.G. Phelps Stokes, Lyman Abbott. Hollis Burke Frissell, Andrew Carnegie, and Charles W. Eliot. Front Row from Left to Right: George McAneny, Robert C. Ogden, and Booker T. Washington.
Booker T. Washington and the Art of Resistance
89
aesthetic ugliness and the need to use art in the effort to combat its effects. And it should be remembered that they lived during an historical moment, which saw African forms as barbaric, leaving them to demonstrate black progress by using mainstream America’s forms of high taste. Moreover, Washington slowly shifted his efforts toward speaking directly to black audiences with the assistance of only black photographers. Therefore, analyzing the massive output of images directed by Washington and his staff requires doing something our teachers told us not to do – that is, judge books by their covers. By this is meant that the actual site of the text is seminal in understanding the meaning of the book or article. These writings and images appeared in a diverse range of journals, from black to white, conservative to liberal, and from lower to upper class. Washington crafted an image for each of these audiences.
PERSPECTIVE To understand the complex and contradictory messages Washington projected, two types of iconographic inquiry or studies of signs, were joined.5 This study began by examining individual photographs of Washington while considering Henry Louis Gates’ approach to signifying as rich with double entendre within black culture. Roland Barthes semeiotic approach to photography then offered a method of giving a larger historical context to Washington’s photographs. Barthes described the way myth ‘‘transforms history into nature,’’ that is, the way signification distorts and ‘‘naturalizes form’’ (Barthes, 1972, p. 129). Images of Washington always seem natural, but are not. When blacks were visually depicted in mainstream journals, they were usually distorted by vicious, racist, visual codes. Washington’s image was exceptional. A visual analysis of the codes of signification reveals how he enacted his roles in costumes borrowed from white elites. This study follows Barthes’ position that three areas need to be studied in order to understand text and images (1) the historical moment (the social and political context), (2) the location of the text (in other words the book or journal), and (3) the cultural formation of the reader (the race, class, gender, education, and cultural capital of the audience to name a few). Washington walked in uncharted territory as America’s first black mass media celebrity. He was confronted with the task of creating a public mythimage of the empowered, black elite American man without an AfricanAmerican cultural repertoire to activate. He had to move with caution and stealth. His genius lies in his ability to maneuver around the racist
90
MICHAEL BIEZE
stereotypes of the Progressive Age and mobilize his myth in the high cultural forms of white America. In Barthes’ terms, this means that the ‘‘connotations of signs are not simply produced, but activated from an already existing cultural repertoire’’ which connected old meanings to new ones (Storey, 1993,p. 80). Washington’s visual texts almost always offered a contrast between black poverty (low culture) and black success (middlebrow culture) through association with elite whites (high culture). For example, Washington often had his photograph strategically placed at speaking engagements, whether at black or white events. A post-structuralist reading of Fig. 2 of ex-president Theodore Roosevelt on the speaker’s platform in Barthesian terms reveals Washington’s image-within-an-image as an example of the signified (Washington photograph placed before Roosevelt) and the signified (Washington himself on the rostrum) together forming the new signifier (a natural political alliance).
Fig. 2. Booker T. Washington and Other Black Leaders Listen to Theodore Roosevelt Speak. A portrait of Booker T. Washington by the African-American photographer C.M. Battey Leans Against the Speaker’s Platform in front of Roosevelt (Drinker, 1915, p. 9).
Booker T. Washington and the Art of Resistance
91
Early in his career, Washington projected images of black success by employing the styles of elite white taste. For a man who preached the gospel of the toothbrush, he spent a great deal of time talking about aesthetics. What is often missed by critics of his educational philosophy is the belief that economic empowerment was an end in itself. Washington’s words and images make clear that his goal is equality with whites. For example, in 1903 Washington wrote his favorite syllogism in The Negro Problem, ‘‘Without industrial education there can be no wealth; without wealth there can be no leisure; without leisure no opportunity for thoughtful reflection and the cultivation of the higher arts’’ (Washington, 1903, p. 19). Washington presented Tuskegee and himself as the models. In the same way that the Tuskegee campus was conceived as an Arcadian black paradise filled with classical buildings, Washington reproduced his thoughts and images in the most sumptuous designs of the day.
HISTORICAL MOMENT Educational Philosophy The complex nature of Washington matched the complexity of the times. He has always polarized audiences. Yet, his rise and fall as a celebrity provides a case study in the role of biography in assessing ideas. Washington’s familiarity, or what we think we know about him, is part of the problem. So much is known about him from secondary sources that few people actually ever read his words or examine the images he created. The educational philosophy of Washington was forged during a period in American history riddled with extreme contradictions. Perhaps it is the French intellectuals who describe the 1890s best since, for them, it is both fin de siecle and la belle epoch. Americans of privilege saw the post-reconstruction era as a victory for big business while African-American intellectuals have called the period the ‘‘nadir’’ for black Americans (Logan, 1954). Washington’s educational philosophy was situated in the middle of the two worlds as he tried to funnel the wealth of the former in hopes of uplifting the latter. Contemporary critics such as W. E. B. Du Bois did not have a problem with industrial education for economic advancement, but with what they perceived to be the acceptance of civil inferiority and the shifting of funds away from the Talented Tenth (Du Bois, 1903[1982], p. 88). This judgment, now a familiar part of the scholarly literature, essentially reduced the reading of Washington to his second autobiography, Up From Slavery. The man
92
MICHAEL BIEZE
became subsumed by this one book, burying his many other, heavily illustrated works in history’s ash can. Perhaps no educational thinker from the period has been as revered and then vilified or forgotten as Washington. His thoughts on education developed during a period of volatile change in the history of American secondary and higher education. Debates raged on the merits of elective systems, research schools, liberal education, general education, industrial education, and manual education. Although known as solely supporting industrial education, Washington’s plan grew from these debates and went far beyond training students to master basic agricultural and trade skills. As outlined in his essay, ‘‘Twenty-Five Years of Tuskegee,’’ Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute also offered night school courses and an adult education program, hosted annual farmer conferences and minister and teacher meetings, sponsored local primary school fund raising, organized a local Negro Business League group and loan associations for farmers, oversaw a variety of courses taught in town in Tuskegee, and sent students to Togo, Africa, to develop a farming program (Washington, 1906). Nearly all of these efforts were promoted using photographs. Toward the end of his lifetime, he was thought of less as a thinker and more as an aging celebrity. Whether in the white world’s Chautauqua circuit tours or on the stages of black townships, Washington in his last years was hailed as the world’s greatest living Negro. Within a few decades after he died, Ralph Ellison, who attended Tuskegee, typified the ambivalence felt toward Washington, wondering if he had lifted blacks up or repressed them (Ellison, 1952[1980], p. 36).The scholarly portrait of Washington, which continued to develop over the 20th century largely ignored the complexities of both the text and images of Washington, reducing him to a trope for accomodationism. Even when his paradoxical nature was discussed, such as in Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk, there is never a mention of his use of photography, the arts, or media. The 1950s witnessed a shift toward contextualization in Washington studies, as seen in the works of Rayford Logan and August Meier. Logan’s brilliant analysis of the juxtaposition of racist stereotypes inculcated by the mainstream press and literary magazines with Washington’s Atlanta speech should be considered a watershed in reexamining the Tuskegee educator. At the same time, Meier characterized the two masks worn by Washington by writing, ‘‘in short, the felicitous manner of expression decidedly masked the protest content of his thought and effectively bridged the contradictions in his philosophy’’ (Meier, 1953[1976], p. 79). It is perhaps ironic that these scholars began to reexamine the layers of Washington during the 1950s, a period in which his image was being used on
Booker T. Washington and the Art of Resistance
93
commemorative coins by conservatives to combat the fear that communism might appeal to African-Americans. There are really two separate histories when discussing Washington’s image, those from his lifetime and those produced posthumously. Although he vigorously controlled the former, various groups later used his image to promote their own ideologies. Washington’s original intent has been buried beneath generations of later ones so that to recover their first meanings requires looking past his image on countless stamps, buttons, programs, paper fans, bronze medals, collectible spoons, and other ephemera. These later images purged the original resistance nature of Washington’s powerful self-representations and helped secure his role as a safe Negro, an accommodator, and an Uncle Tom. National Leader The historical moment for Washington’s rise to power as a charismatic leader may be seen as a narrow window in time between 1895 and 1900. Washington’s rise to celebrity status suddenly in 1895 with the Atlanta speech (September 18) coincided with the death of Frederick Douglass (February 23, 1895), the birth of modern print media, and the interests of northern philanthropists in supporting industrial education. Washington fostered the image of being the chosen successor to Douglass. Even though he feigned embarrassment at constantly being called the Moses of his people and the next Douglass, he repeatedly mentioned it. A clear example of his desire to be portrayed as the natural successor to Douglass is a 1903 poster by W.L. Haskell showing Washington, Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln who all rose from humble beginnings. In this popular turn-of-the-century photomontage, the art of the illustrator perfectly erases the artifice of its creation, leaving us with a new historical artifact. Washington’s rightful place in history is secured by this image of divine lineage, as if providence mandated it. Washington completed his tribute to Douglass by writing a biography in 1906, which included a description of Douglass’s support of industrial training and an account of Douglass’s visit to Tuskegee late in his life (Washington, 1907). Looking at the historical context of Washington’s rise to power during the mid-1890s is complicated by the fact that the era itself is one of the great contradictions. It was both the Gilded Age and the nadir. Elites saw Tuskegee as an exemplar of the Northern Social Gospel of redemption through character development, which translated into self-reliance and the Protestant work ethic of thrift and patience on social issues. Those seeing the period as the nadir of social progress watched in despair as a vacuum in
94
MICHAEL BIEZE
black leadership was created after the death of Douglass, the Plessy v. Ferguson decision (May 18, 1896) became the law of the land, big business held the day politically, and Jim Crow ruled the land. This moment also included a dramatic rise in the types and amount of racist imagery being produced in the popular media. Washington’s rise to power should be seen against a backdrop of what has been termed the symbolic slavery, a period generating a great number of new racist stereotypes accompanying the emerging myths of the Old and New South (Goings, 1994, p. 20). The new media of hate gave us Sambo and Jemima, a new syntax of public monument (Savage, 1997), and a variety of Victorian parlor imagery such as stereographs depicting black chicken thieves, oversexed maids, and lazy workers happily eating watermelons. Washington knew the effects of these images of black inferiority as well as anyone. He too was the subject of vicious cartoons and caricatures. When he rose to speak at the Auditorium Building in Atlanta in 1895, it was before a segregated audience. In order to create an image of empowerment, Washington began enacting several different roles. Washington created his visual role of college president by identifying with contemporary white college presidents. There were no prototypes for him since the visual typology for the black college president did not exist. Beginning with his first autobiography, Washington offered images of himself with both the University of Chicago’s William Rainey Harper and Harvard University’s Charles Eliot. Men such as Harper and Eliot enjoyed the new celebrity status of the college president. When New York University launched the new Hall of Fame of illustrious Americans, college presidents were now counted as national heroes (Banks, 1902). Not surprisingly, no African-Americans made the list. Or, when publishers at the turn-of-the-century produced books on morality, college presidents joined the ranks of poets, inventors, and other ‘‘geniuses’’ (King, 1900). No African-Americans made this list either. Understandably, Washington juxtaposed himself with Harper and Eliot’s images to gain legitimacy through association, gaining power through the backdoor. Washington’s awareness of the codes of high and low culture led him to activate a host of other roles making him an educational leader unlike Harper and Eliot. At other times he presented himself as a farmer, a family man, and even a fiery preacher. But his most common myth making involved the country versus the city. He repeatedly told his readers that the city equaled moral decay, a place where a ‘‘large class’’ of blacks was in a state of constant unemployment, poverty, and a ‘‘dependence upon the government for every conceivable thing’’ (Washington, 1901a, p. 20).
Booker T. Washington and the Art of Resistance
95
Washington lamented that he could not transport this ‘‘class’’ to the ‘‘solid and never deceptive foundation of Mother Nature, where all nations and races that ever succeeded have gotten their start’’ (Washington, 1901a, p. 90). He offered to white America Tuskegee as his creation of a separate black Eden, a bucolic, Ruskinian paradise, one where he would pose for the camera to smell the dogwoods and feed the chickens (Washington, 1901b). As a result, one finds many photographs of Washington on farmland, in the woods, or in this garden. They are double-edged creations which, while showing self-reliance, also show a willingness to live at a distance. No one ever saw Harper or Eliot feeding chickens. Washington offered white America both presence and absence; he could dine in white clubs, but not be foolish enough to ask for membership.
LOCATION OF THE TEXT AND THE CULTURAL FORMATION OF THE READER Barthes next two recommendations for understanding symbolic meaning of text and images ask that we consider where they appear and who was meant to receive them. Washington used artists on both sides of the color line in order to speak to different audiences. For black audiences, Washington photographers such as Bedou and Battey marketed postcards, prints, and photographic albums to the black community. At the same time, Washington hired some of the nation’s best-known white artists to help him write and illustrate books and articles aimed primarily at white audiences. He may be viewed, therefore, through at least two different prisms, one black and one white. For white audiences, Washington navigated the vicious racist codes of the day to portray a cultured black man. He fulfilled the Arts and Crafts sensibility one finds throughout the journals of day, which aestheticized charity, rendering the act of giving as a noble and beautiful deed. Though romanticized, images of Tuskegee and Washington could be seen from a different angle in the black community. They stood up against the popular culture representations of blacks as uncivilized. It is not the subject matter per se, which leans toward conventional stereotypes, but the very idea that black subjects were cast in the style of high art. Like Henry O. Tanner’s ‘‘Banjo Lesson,’’ the style may be somewhat conventional modernism, but the message of black intelligence was subversive. For black audiences listening at the ‘‘lower frequencies,’’ to employ Ralph Ellison’s phrase, Washington embodied success and power in the face of a culture that rarely saw such images.
96
MICHAEL BIEZE
In the black community, Washington’s image rose to the level of an Icon. As Horace Mann Bond noted, ‘‘Washington was, indisputably, a man of the folk’’ (Bond, 1962, p. 76). Again, Barthes is a useful guide when studying Washington’s image. In Camera Lucida (Barthes, 1981), Barthes ‘‘distinguishes between the photograph and other visual images,’’ and shows how the photographic image aligns with the real and the magical (Adams, 1996, pp. 155–156). This new code of rhetoric is one in which the historical is conflated with magical. Black Americans hung Washington’s pictures like talismen. Perhaps this explains why Washington’s first autobiography, Story of My Life and Work, and the serialized version of Up From Slavery, both from 1900, were a mix of photographs and illustrations, while all subsequent Washington productions only used photographs. Washington chose the new medium of photography for many reasons; it was economical, technical, functional, and artistic. But it was also able to conjure, equivocating between correspondence truth and talismanic power.6 Largely unknown to white America was a growing black middle-class amassing Victorian photo albums and the invisible world of black studio photographers, news photographers, and artistic photographers. When a sociologist from Trinity College (now Duke University) took a random sampling of the art in black homes in a black working class section of Durham, North Carolina, known as Hayti, he and his colleagues found a surprising number of works of art. Typically found on the walls were portraits of famous Americans such as Frederick Douglass, William McKinley, and Booker T. Washington. They also found the homes filled with books, including those of John Ruskin. But the big surprise was the number of photographs. ‘‘Besides these [portraits of famous Americans], there were many crayon portraits [chalks based on photographs] representing individuals of the several families occupying homes. Quite numerous photographs were seen in albums and on tables, mantels and bureaus’’ (Dowd, 1901, pp. 91–92). Black journals such as The Colored American frequently ran photo contests while The Voice of the Negro identified black photographers by race, giving them recognition they did not receive in the white press. Washington wrote to George Eastman, ‘‘While there is prejudice in many directions in the matter of photography, strange to say, a colored man would have almost as good an opportunity to succeed as a white man; in fact, there are a number of colored men in the South succeeding in photography.’’7 Washington’s image within the black world followed two intersecting paths. First, his portraits were collected as treasures, worn, hung in homes, and held in crowds as a talisman or a holy relic. Towns were plastered with his lithographed portrait when he came to town. Even after his death,
Booker T. Washington and the Art of Resistance
97
Washington’s image continued to be given a place of honor in people’s homes. In the classic 1924 film Body and Soul, starring Paul Robeson, the early black film director Oscar Micheaux prominently placed two Washington prints on the living room wall of a washerwoman from a small Georgia town. Washington’s image created for black audiences also differed in the way he assumed much more active poses. For example, images of Washington on tour in the black towns often show him striking fiery poses, something never found in the white press (McAdam, 1906, p. 40). In contrast, Washington images created for white publications were conceived in a different, soft focused Pictorialist style. The South was still considered by northerners to be a desolate, dangerous, exotic place. White photographers such as F. Holland Day, John Tarbel, and Julian Dimock ventured into the black belt searching for a primitive beauty in the same way modernist artists such as Paul Gauguin traveled to Tahiti.8 These artists sent back to their publishers pictures of a peaceful land of natural spirituality and rustic charm untouched by the dehumanizing effects of industrialism glimpses of a lost world of tranquil beauty. Gertrude Kasebier’s photographic frontispiece for Up From Slavery is the opposite of the outspoken Washington who often appeared in the black press. The photograph was originally taken for The World’s Work, a journal published by Doubleday and Page (Michaels, 1992, pp. 68–69). Washington appears completely natural, but to use Barthes’ words, his image is ‘‘emptied of history’’ (Barthes, 1972, p. 142). It is an image dislodged and appropriated; creating the myth that this black college president was just like the other cultured individuals whose portraits appeared. He was the only black man in the journal. Similarly, Frances Benjamin Johnston’s photographs of Washington and Tuskegee projected measured restraint as opposed to activism. These photographs continue the work Johnston had created for Hampton Institute a few years earlier for the 1900 Paris World’s Fair. What Pryzblyski notes about the Hampton photographs is also true about the work Johnston created for Tuskegee, that is, they represent ‘‘an effort by African Americans to craft positive self-representation in the face of stereotypes imposed by plantation fictions, blackface minstrelsy, vaudeville, racist pseudo-science, and vulgar Social Darwinism’’(Pryzblyski, 1998, p. 68). Both Kasebier’s and Johnston photographs, produced for white publications, offered a different Washington than the one found in black homes and journals, a safe leader who maintained the image of a satisfied work force in the Deep South. The readership of the journals where Washington and Tuskegee appeared, including The Century, The Outlook, The Independent, The World’s Work, and The Metropolitan Magazine, to name a few, saw an agrarian sunny South
98
MICHAEL BIEZE
bathed in the soft light of a bygone time. Mainstream audiences were meant to be comforted by seeing peaceful pictures of black life safely existing at a distant place. At the same time, the photographs themselves were examples of the best being produced in America, and for all of their compliance, depict dignified workers instead of the frequently shown stereotypes. But it should be remembered that, in all aspects of social life and culture, the color line was often crossed. Washington’s first book, titled Daily Resolves, was a slim leather bound volume made in the manner of the most expensive Arts and Crafts books.9 Its forms and words must have instantly reminded readers of John Ruskin’s ideas. Ruskin’s writings played a prominent role in American education during this period of tension between the old liberal educational models and the new research directions. A great cross section of America found the right balance in Ruskin’s call for linking work, community, beauty, knowledge, and morality. No figure during that time connected high culture with the masses like Ruskin. Not only are his writings found in a great number of mainstream publications, but black intellectuals such as Kelly Miller and the artist John Henry Adams, Jr. also referred to Ruskin in the black press. Therefore, Washington’s extravagant Daily Resolves should be seen in two ways as a marketing device appealing to the taste and style of the philanthropists he was approaching for money and as a concrete sign of success to both black and white Americans. Washington’s powerful white supporters saw him as the very essence of the successful, progressive, African-American man. Nearly all of these supporters, including the Tuskegee Board of Trustees, were Protestant leaders of the Social Gospel. The artful Washington painted a picture for these men to see – a socially conscious, Christian man of action, and civilized taste just like them. Daily Resolves and Washington’s photographic efforts should also be seen as using art as a form of resistance. They should be placed within an emerging scholarship, shaped by Gates’ signification, which studies the 19th century black methods of intentional misdirection, word play, and parody. Literature on the covert use of cultural codes is slowly emerging. Among the findings are Dave the Potter’s cryptic inscriptions (Koverman, 1998), Edmonia Lewis’s sculptures (Boime, 1990, pp. 169–170), the way slave spirituals signify escape strategies (Smith, 1994, p. 151), the ‘‘double-coded meanings’’ of Robert Duncanson’s paintings (Patton, 1998, pp. 84–85), and the rebus found in slave quilts (Tobin & Dobard, 1999). In all of these cases, the comprehension of the messages depends on the color of the audience. White audiences were certainly not aware that many of Washington’s early articles were illustrated by the works of black photographers.
Booker T. Washington and the Art of Resistance
99
CONCLUSION Understanding Booker T. Washington continues to be a challenge to anyone seriously studying 20th century American history. Washington remains a subject worth investigation because so many of the monumental debates on race in America, including the themes of African-American identity, politics, philanthropy, art, religion, social class, education, and leadership, are embodied in the ambiguities knotted in the writings, actions, and visual productions of the leader of Tuskegee Institute. The fact that he is simultaneously so well known and so completely unknown raises questions about how we have judged him. He largely exists as an abstraction, reduced to a World’s Fair speech and a feel-good, up by one’s boot-straps, autobiography. Yet he keeps reappearing in our historical consciousness, resisting such easy conceptualization. Nearly everything one may examine concerning Washington and Tuskegee is riddled with complexities. As a school, Tuskegee does not fit into any easy label as either a high school or a college. Washington himself was referred to as principal and president, further complicating matters. Was he a hero of the downtrodden or a manipulative little man behind the curtain of a black Oz? Was he an integrationist or a separatist? He always claimed to be working for an America of inclusiveness and opportunity, yet he only hired Black teachers and workers for the Black Arcadian campus he designed. Was his plan for agricultural skills and community investment backward looking or not? For those vilifying him, he quickly came to symbolize the worst kind of race traitor, an Uncle Tom who sold out on civil rights for meager material gains. For those who continued to uphold him as a champion of the poor, he remains a folk legend, a Moses of his people, a Black Prometheus who stole from the white philanthropy gods to give the fire of hope to forgotten sharecroppers. Unsatisfied with either portrait, we keep going back to Washington, sensing that these abstractions are incomplete. Every few years, new books and articles are written trying to explain the mysterious Booker T. Washington. Solving his riddles has perplexed great minds. It took Louis Harlan, Washington’s brilliant biographer, two biographies, several articles, and a fourteen volume edited set of papers (Harlan & Smock, 1972–1989) to arrive at the conclusion that ‘‘Washington had no quintessence’’ (Harlan, 1983, p. ix). If that were entirely true, less research would have been necessary. Washington should be considered a man with a rich aesthetic, a friend of many artists, one who was deeply involved with advancement of black culture in America, and a force in producing uplifting images of African-Americans. Examining the overlooked images he supported should add to the emerging
100
MICHAEL BIEZE
literature on race and representation, and in particular the covert activism of African-Americans as suppressed people utilizing the visual codes of the dominant class in order to empower themselves. Washington’s use of photography and art should be seen as an example of how the so-called ‘‘other’’ has manipulated mainstream culture’s iconography or canons for their own purposes. Like the lead characters in Henry James’1893 story The Real Thing, Washington seems more like the real thing because he is not. He played a guest in borrowed clothes looking the part with conviction. He appears timeless and natural, but in fact was singular and exceptional in every way. His uncanny success at media manipulation should be understood as signifying a cakewalk, or in Gates’ words, a ‘‘trope of a trope’’ (Gates, 1997, p. 286). This highly popular form of Victorian parlor entertainment saw many racist versions in stereographic photographs during Washington’s lifetime. Yet, white America probably never realized how they were being parodied. Looking at the Washington stereograph from the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary gathering at Tuskegee (Fig. 1), produced at the height of racist image distribution, the Tuskegee educator is named while Charles Eliot, Andrew Carnegie, Robert Ogden, George McAneny, J.G. Phelps Stokes, Lyman Abbott, and H.B. Frissell are relegated to the status of ‘‘guests.’’ Just as the subversive elements of the cakewalk were lost as the dance went mainstream into white culture, Washington’s photographic cakewalk has been subsumed by all the later uses of his image.
NOTES 1. For a compelling description of Du Bois and photography, see Lewis and Willis (2003) 2. Tuskegee’s photography department officially began in 1916 when C.M. Battey was hired by Washington’s successor Robert Moton. However, several black photographers worked for Washington during his life. Two of them, Charles D. Robinson and A.P. Bedou, worked on the Tuskegee campus in a quasi-official capacity, see Bieze (2003). 3. Bearden and Henderson quote from Washington’s 1909 book, The Story of the Negro. 4. For three autobiographies, see Washington (1900a, 1901a, 1911). To offer some sense of Washington’s complexity in this regard, The Story of My Life and Work was reissued in 1901 and competed for sales with Up From Slavery. As early as 1902, a British biography by Godfrey Pike appeared, From Slave to College President, followed by several others, see Gibson (1993). 5. This was done to avoid some of the problems of structuralism and poststructuralism when interrogating images, see Burke (2001, pp. 176–177). For an introduction to this approach to images, see Adams (1986). 6. T. H. Smith (pp. 166–173), in a similar way, describes Sojourner Truth.
Booker T. Washington and the Art of Resistance
101
7. Booker T. Washington to George Eastman, 28 November 1905, Booker T. Washington Papers, 8, p. 452. 8. For example, see Tarbell (1903). 9. Booker T. Washington, Daily Resolves. For Washington’s connection to the Arts and Crafts movement, and in particular Elbert Hubbard, see Bieze (2005).
REFERENCES Adams, L. (1996). Methodologies of art. New York: HarperCollins. Banks, L. A. (1902). The story of the hall of fame: Including the lives and portraits of the elects and those who barely missed. New York: The Christian Herald. Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies. New York: Farrer, Straus, and Giroux. Barthes, R. (1981). Camera lucida. New York: Hill and Wang. Bearden, R., & Henderson, H. (1993). A history of African-American artists. New York: Pantheon Books. Bieze, M. (2003). Booker T. Washington and the art of self-representation. Georgia State, University dissertation. Bieze, M. (2005). Ruskin in the black belt: Booker T. Washington, arts and crafts, and the new negro. Source: Notes in the History of Art, XXIV(4), 24–34. Boime, A. (1990). The art of exclusion: Representing blacks in the nineteenth century. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Bond, H. M. (1962). The influence of personalities on the public education of negroes in Alabama. In: H. Hawkins (Ed.), Booker T. Washington and His Critics (pp. 67–77). Boston, DC: Heath and Company. Burke, P. (2001). Eyewitnessing: The uses of images as historical evidence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Dowd, J. (1901). Art in negro homes. The Southern Workman, (February), 91–92. Drinker, F. E. (1915). Booker T. Washington: The master mind of a child of slavery. Washington, DC: George W. Bertron. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903[1982]). The souls of black folk. New York: Signet Classic. Ellison, R. (1952[1980]). Invisible man. New York: Random House. Gates, H. L. (1997). Harlem on our minds. Critical Inquiry, 24, 1–12. Gibson, D. B. (1993). Strategies and revisions of self-representation in Booker T. Washington’s autobiographies. American Quarterly, 45, 370–393. Goings, K. (1994). Mammy and uncle Mose: Black collectibles and American stereotyping. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Harlan, L. (1983). Booker T. Washington: The wizard of Tuskegee. New York: Oxford University Press. Harlan, L., & Smock, R. (1972–1989). The Booker T. Washington papers (Vol. 14). Urbana: University of Illinois Press. King, W. (1900). Portraits and principles of the world’s great men and women. Springfield, IL: King-Richardson Publishing. Koverman, J. B. (1998). I made this jar: The life and works of the enslaved African-American Potter, Dave. Columbia, SC: McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina. Lewis, D. L., & Willis, D. (2003). A small nation of people: W. E. B. Du Bois & African American portraits of progress. New York: Amistad.
102
MICHAEL BIEZE
Logan, R. (1954). The negro in American life and thought: The nadir 1877–1901. New York: The Dial Press. McAdam, C. (1906). Booker T. Washington’s recent trip through the southwest. The Colored American, (January), 33–51. Meier, A. (1953[1976]). Booker T. Washington and the negro press. In: A. Meier & E. Rudwick (Eds), Along the color line. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Michaels, B. (1992). Gertrude Kasebier: The photographer and the photographs. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Patton, S. (1998). African-American art. New York: Oxford University Press. Pike, G. (1902). From slave to college president. London: Fisher Unwin. Pryzblyski, J. M. (1998). American visions at the Paris exposition, 1990: Another look at Frances Benjamin Johnston’s Hampton photographs. Art Journal, 57(Fall), 61–68. Savage, K. (1997). Standing soldiers, kneeling slaves: Race, war, and monument in nineteenth century America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Smith, T. H. (1994). Conjuring culture: Biblical formations of black America. New York: Oxford University Press. Speed, J. G. (1895). The Tuskegee plan. Harper’s Weekly, (September 14), 876–879. Storey, J. (1993). An introductory guide to cultural theory and popular culture. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Tarbell, J. (1903). My experiences photographing the negro in the South. New England Magazine, (December), 463–478. Tobin, J. L., & Dobard, R. G. (1999). Hidden in plain view: The secret story of quilts and the underground railroad. New York: Random House. Unknown Author. (1902). Booker T. Washington: Where does he belong? Presbyterian Banner, April 10, 2. Washington, B. T. (1896). Daily resolves. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Washington, B. T. (1900a). The story of my life and work. Atlanta, GA: J. L. Nichols and Co. Washington, B. T. (1900b). Sowing and reaping. New York: H. M. Caldwell Co. Washington, B. T. (1901a). Up from slavery. New York: Doubleday, Page and Co. Washington, B. T. (1901b). Chicken, pigs, and people. The Outlook, (June 1), 291–300. Washington, B. T. (1903). Industrial education for the negro. In: The negro problem (pp. 9–29). New York: James Pott & Co. Washington, B. T. (1906). Twenty five years of Tuskegee. The Worlds Work, (April), 7433–7450. Washington, B. T. (1907). Frederick Douglass. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs and Co. Washington, B. T. (1909). The story of the negro (Vol. 1). New York: Doubleday. Page & Co. Washington, B. T. (1911). My larger education. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.
PART III: RACE AND THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
103
This page intentionally left blank
104
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF BLACK DEFICIT Carl Jorgensen Historians Howard Brotz (1976), Louis Harlan (1986), and August Meier (1963), sociologists Kelly Miller (1908) and Charles Johnson (1952), and literary critic and social commentator Harold Cruse (1967) all agree that Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass shared the same goals (Brotz, 1966; Cruse, 1968; Harlan, 1986; Johnson, 1952; Meier, 1963; Miller, 1908). Both worked for economic, political, and social liberty for African Americans; both advocated development of the character and skills necessary to transform that liberty into full human equality for Black citizens of the United States. Washington wrote dozens of articles, delivered hundreds of speeches, and wrote several books. Contained within them is sociology, sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit, of the Negro and of Black–White1 relationships. In many ways, and despite the differences in their political strategies, Washington’s sociology of Afro-America matches Douglass’. Those points of connection and divergence, grounded in the structural and existential realities of African American life late in the 19th century, have historic and – to the extent that the past resonates in the present – contemporary significance. Washington’s social thought, for example, provides a foundation for the sociological perspectives of E. Franklin Frazier and William J. Wilson, at least the William J. Wilson of The Declining
The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 105–131 r 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd. ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13006-8
105
106
CARL JORGENSEN
Significance of Race (1978). Douglass’ social thought establishes the tradition mined by W. E. B. DuBois, Kelly Miller, Charles Johnson, Joyce Ladner, and Cornel West. It is difficult to characterize Washington’s sociology because his actions often appear to contradict his words and his words often appear to contradict each other. Harlan puts it eloquently: ‘‘Washington’s life and thought were layered into public, private, and secret, and also segmented according to which subgroup of Black or White he confronted. For each group he played a different role, wore a different mask. Like the proverbial cat, Washington lived nine lives, but he lived them all at once. Yet there were so few slips of the mask that it is no wonder his intimates called him ‘the wizard’’’ (Harlan, 1970, p. 1582). Kelly Miller, pioneering Black sociologist and prolific defender of the Negro,2 also reflects on the ambiguity in Washington’s words in his 1908 essay, still the best examination of Washington’s social thought and that of Frederick Douglass:3 ‘‘He sinks into sphinxlike silence when the demands of the situation seem to require emphatic utterance. His carefully studied deliverances have the equivocalness of a Delphic oracle.’’4 (Miller, 1908, p. 20) The key to decoding the sociology within the words Washington actually spoke and wrote,5 Miller says, is to recognize that in order to gain White support for his social agenda, Washington allowed White racists to ‘‘saddle (their own racist) notions and feelings upon him’’ without ever ‘‘contradicting in distinct terms a single plank in the platform of Frederick Douglass.’’ Miller is almost right. Washington’s support for separate but equal educational institutions and public accommodations does deviate strongly from Douglass’ goals (Harlan, 1970; Meier, 1963). However, otherwise both seek access to all the rights and privileges of citizenship. On strategies, they take different positions. Washington, for example, argues against the militancy Douglass recommends. But militancy is a strategy, not a goal. In Miller’s formulation, Douglass ‘‘held up to public scorn the sins of the white man’’ while Washington ‘‘portray(ed) the faults of his own race’’ (Miller, 1908, p. 32). That difference, too, is strategic, a matter of emphasis: ‘‘Douglass insisted upon rights; Washington insists upon duty y Douglass spoke what he thought the world should hear; Washington speaks only what he feels it is disposed to listen to. Douglass’ conduct was actuated by principle; Washington’s by prudence’’ (Miller, 1908, p. 20). Miller continues: ‘‘Washington’s popularity and prominence depend largely upon the fact that his putative policy is acceptable to whites, because he allow them to believe he accepts their estimate of the Negro’s inferior place in the social scheme. He [Washington] is quiescent, if not acquiescent, as to the white
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
107
man’s superior claims. He shuts his eyes to many of the wrongs and outrages heaped upon the Negro race. He never runs against the Southerner’s traditional prejudices, and even when he protests against his practices the protestation is so palliatory that, like a good conscience, it is void of offense’’ (Miller, 1908, p. 20). As Meier (1963) suggested in a writing 55 years later, a bedrock argument for human equality informs Washington’s strategies. By carefully selected ambiguities in language, by mentioning political and civil rights but seldom and then only in tactful and vague terms, he effectively masked the ultimate implications of his philosophy (Harlan, 1970, p. 110; Meier, 1963). Washington, then, manipulates language to endorse many of Douglass’ assertions without sacrificing the support of White racists.6 This view of Washington as rhetorically manipulative – not accommodating – deserves more systematic exploration than Miller and Meier give it. The Atlanta Exposition Address (1895), which catapulted Washington to fame (it is reprinted in his second autobiography, Up From Slavery, 1901a),7 provides a natural starting point for such an exploration. To provide context for my analysis of this speech, I will also look at the rhetorical technique in Washington’s ‘‘The Educational Outlook in the South’’ (1884), Up From Slavery – which quickly replaced Douglass’ narrative as the most popular autobiography of an American Negro – and The Man Farthest Down, the study of race and class in Europe and the United States that Washington wrote in collaboration with Robert Park (Washington & Park, 1912b). Harlan (1983) and Meier (1963) agree that Washington did not change his argumentative style much until he openly challenged the practices of White Supremacy in ‘‘Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance,’’ also published in 1912. The techniques that are common across the works I analyze can certainly be classified as techniques Washington used commonly. To the best of Washington’s knowledge, the Atlanta speech would mark the first time a Negro had spoken ‘‘from the same platform with white Southern men and women on any important National occasion’’ (Washington, 1901b, p. 201). His duty was clear: he must propose a plan for Black uplift that would elicit the support of an audience of White Southerners, White Northerners, and African Americans. Washington understood that many in his audiences would hope for failure. Frederick Douglass had faced a similar challenge 41 years earlier when he gave the commencement address at Western Reserve College, choosing as his subject a critique of racism in social science. Neither Washington nor Douglass failed. Read carelessly, Washington’s speech appears to endorse the subordination of the Negro. Read precisely, it endorses Douglass’ goal of political, social, and
108
CARL JORGENSEN
economic equality for all Americans, masking that endorsement with flattery of Whites, deprecation of Blacks, and ambiguous utterances as Meier and Miller claimed. The Atlanta Exposition address (18 September 1895) is a masterful exercise in misdirection, one appropriate to a ‘‘wizard’’ or a ‘‘Delphic oracle.’’ Here, in order to advance the interests of the Negro, Booker T. Washington is willing to walk up to the point of telling an explicit lie, and then turn away from it. Letting White people hear what they want to hear, he sedates his audience with stories of Black love, devotion, and forgiveness, and then sneaks in a little explicit truth that they need to hear.
WASHINGTON’S ATLANTA EXPOSITION ADDRESS Disparagement of African American militancy or character underlined, Dissent from basic tenets of White Supremacy in italics One third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent exposition at every stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom. Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the State Legislatures was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump-speaking had more attraction than starting a dairy farm or truck garden. 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 bucket where you are.’’ And a third and a fourth signal for water was answered, ‘‘Cast down your bucket 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. To those of my race who depend upon bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: ‘‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’’ – cast it down in making friends, in every manly way, of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded. Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
109
South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom, we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the production of our hands and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities. To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted, I would repeat what I say to my own race, ‘‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’’ Cast it down among the eight million Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have without strikes and labor wars tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and, with education of head, hand, and heart you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the worst places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and non-resentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. 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. There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest. These efforts will be twice blessed – ‘‘Blessing him that gives and him that takes.’’ There is not escape through law of man or God from the inevitable: Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you, the load downward. We shall constitute one third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one third its intelligence and progress: we shall contribute one third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic. Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humble effort at an exhibition of our progress, you must not expect overmuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership
110
CARL JORGENSEN
here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous sources), remember, the path that has led from these to the inventions and production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam engines, newspapers, books, statuary carving, paintings, the management of drugstores and banks, has not been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations but for the constant help that has come to our educational life, not only from the Southern states, but especially from Northern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement. The wisest among my race understand the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long, in any degree, ostracized. It is important that all rights and privileges of the law be ours, but is vastly more important that we prepared for the exercise of those privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house. In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to you of the white race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that, in your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly in mind, that while, form representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come in a blotting out of sectional differences and social animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, coupled with our material prosperity will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth – September 18, 1895.
Economic and political cooperation between Blacks and Whites will benefit both, Washington argues. He pledges that Negroes will offer love, faith, and kindness to White neighbors in their ‘‘effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South,’’ but he warns that failure to co-operate in the economic and moral elevation of the Negro will bring economic and moral disaster for all. Washington criticizes militant agitation for civil and social rights past and present, but the militancy he targets arises after the Northern victory in the Civil War. Of the morality or efficacy of Black anti-slavery militancy, Washington says nothing here (elsewhere he praises it). He does not mention mistreatment of Blacks by Whites, and he condemns the tactics, not the goals of militants.
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
111
He is careful not to say that Black militancy will always be inappropriate. If formerly enslaved citizens can develop moral character and commercial skills, full human rights will follow, Washington implies. For ‘‘now,’’ Black Americans should concentrate on character and skill-building. The future of militancy, he purposely leaves unexplored. Beginning with the assertion that the material, civil, and moral welfare of the South depends substantially upon the progress of Negroes, Washington then soothes his White audience by effusively thanking its members for their generosity in allowing representation of the accomplishments of Black Americans within the Atlanta Exposition.8 This demonstration of inclusiveness ‘‘will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom,’’ Washington observes. Then he offers his first critique of the Negro immediately after the Civil War: ‘‘Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first few years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress was more south than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump-speaking had more attraction than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.’’ The ‘‘new life’’ of which Washington speaks began with the abolition of slavery. It was natural, perhaps, that a people so long deprived of basic human rights would have sought political office. After 1889, destruction of Negro political power was so complete that it was impossible to hope for further progress in the foreseeable future. Therefore, African Americans, who, like their White neighbors, had ‘‘started practically empty-handed three decades ago,’’ should equip themselves for the new life of freedom through cultivation of moral character and acquisition of productive skills. Washington repeats his carefully calibrated criticism in paragraph four, ‘‘It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.’’ Start at the bottom of life, Washington exhorts his Black listeners. What they can hope for later is left to the imagination. Urging southern Whites to ‘‘cast down your buckets where you are’’ and enlist Blacks in the industrial and agricultural workforce that will build a prosperous South, he makes this promise: ‘‘In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.’’ In this most misinterpreted of his remarks, Washington makes no moral argument for separation. He does not say that Blacks and Whites ‘‘should be’’ separate. Nor does he predict that Blacks and Whites ‘‘will be’’ separate. Instead, he simply notes a conditional possibility: Blacks and Whites ‘‘can be’’ separate leaving open the possibility that, under certain conditions, Blacks and Whites could interact socially.
112
CARL JORGENSEN
Washington himself socialized with Whites throughout his life and he frequently praises Whites who voluntarily socialize with Blacks in his writings. His two other apparent rejections of social equality are equally equivocal, equally conditional: ‘‘The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly,’’ Washington says, ‘‘and that progress in the enjoyment of all privileges that will come to us must be the result of sever and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.’’ It is not the goal of social equality that constitutes ‘‘extremest folly,’’ but rather agitation for, artificial forcing of, that goal. ‘‘Sever and constant struggle’’ may produce the full privileges of citizenship over time. Indeed, Washington invites his listeners to believe in a future more perfect than the present. When his daughter, Portia, was old enough to attend college, Washington used his political influence to gain her admission to Wellesley, one of the most prestigious educational institutions for young White ladies. Presumably, he did this through some struggle that did not include agitation or artificial forcing. Next, Washington rejects the basic premise of White Supremacy, the assumption that Whites will always be superior to Blacks: ‘‘No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long, in any degree, ostracized,’’ he asserts. There is some ambiguity here. White Southerners may assume that Blacks will be accepted as participants in ‘‘the markets of the world’’ but segregated in other arenas of life – the family, schools, and churches. The more logical interpretation is that a race that is not in any degree ostracized, is in every degree treated equally. ‘‘It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours,’’ he says. Again, there is a little ambiguity. White Southerners may assume that Washington refers to privileges granted by laws that guarantee segregation. The more logical interpretation is that he advocates equal rights under color-blind laws. ‘‘But it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of those privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house.’’ ‘‘Just now’’ diverts attention from a future when social equality will be natural and timely, cushions the shock for White Southerners in the audience. Blacks should welcome the opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory because work, economic citizenship, will prepare them for the exercise of privileges to come. What is true ‘‘just now’’ paves the way for a better future. Portia Washington studied piano at Bradford Academy, an elite school of music that had had not admitted a Negro before and did not admit another for decades thereafter (Stewart, 1977). With her public concerts, she invited African Americans as well as Whites to spend their dollars in a concert hall.
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
113
A Judeo-Christian metaphor provides structure in Washington’s Atlanta speech. He limits his temporal references to the ‘‘new life’’ of emancipation, avoiding mention of the sins of the ‘‘old life’’ of slavery. Forgiveness is a sub-text: ‘‘Cast (down your buckets) among the eight million Negroes9 whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides.’’ Of course, those were the days of the Civil War, when White homesteads were relatively unprotected except by the enslaved. Washington promises new prosperity if Southern Whites will cooperate with Southern Blacks for mutual economic, moral, and educational progress. The promise comes with a kind of threat: ‘‘There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable: The laws of changeless justice bind/Oppressor with oppressed:/ And close as sin and suffering joined/We march to fare abreast.’’ Who can the oppressor be but Whites? Who can the oppressed be but Blacks? Who can the sinners be but Whites? Who can the sufferers be but Blacks? What is the fate of Whites if they don’t help Blacks realize full citizenship? ‘‘nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you, the load downward. We shall constitute one third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.’’ A ‘‘veritable body of death’’ – the prediction is chilling. Washington mutes his radical declaration with the pledge that Blacks and Whites ‘‘can be’’ socially separate while they strive together for mutual progress. He ends his speech with a further elaboration of the Christian metaphor. Whites and Blacks can create ‘‘a new heaven and a new earth’’ in ‘‘our beloved South’’ if ‘‘the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South,’’ the race problem, can be solved. Whites will ‘‘have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of [Black people],’’ Washington proclaims. The price for Whites: ‘‘a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of the law.’’ Washington does not distinguish between laws that institutionalize segregation and those that grant equal rights, nor does he define ‘‘absolute justice.’’ Its most likely referent is the ‘‘changeless justice’’ that binds ‘‘oppressor with oppressed.’’ This is how, in the words of Kelly Miller, Washington’s carefully crafted speech – delivered 7 months after the death of Frederick Douglass – allows Whites to ‘‘saddle (their) own (racist) notions and feelings upon him’’ without ‘‘contradicting in distinct terms a single plank in the platform of Frederick Douglass.’’
114
CARL JORGENSEN
Wizardry indeed for a Black man to speak to Whites as the voice of God and the oracle of ‘‘changeless’’ justice, foretelling moral degeneracy and commercial destruction, ‘‘a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic’’ unless Whites end the oppression of Blacks. Wizardry indeed to do this in the 1895 Deep South. Wizardry indeed to elicit thunderous applause for such words. This interpretation of Washington’s Atlanta Exposition address runs so counter to traditional interpretations that the reader may remain skeptical. Washington uses the same rhetorical techniques – and he uses them deliberately – in other places as well: in ‘‘The Educational Outlook in the South,’’ in Up From Slavery; and in The Man Farthest Down (Washington, 1884, 1901b; Washington & Park, 1912b). In ‘‘The Educational Outlook in the South,’’ Washington again appears to condemn militancy, while in fact condemning militancy only under present circumstances. ‘‘The best course to pursue in regard to the civil rights bill in the South is to let it alone. Good school teachers and plenty of money to pay them will be more potent in settling the race question than many civil rights bills and investigating committees.’’ Once again, he highlights the process of education. If his compliments to Whites who materially or emotionally support schooling for Blacks seem effusive and fawning, they are nevertheless also subtly subversive. Praising White supporters of Tuskegee Institute, a former slaveholder who helps build a normal school (for teachers) under the supervision of a Negro master carpenter, the White physicians of Montgomery, Alabama, who assist a Negro physician to establish his practice, he chips away at the norms of White Supremacy. Once again, he relies on the subversive force of Christian metaphor: ‘‘The scales of prejudice are beginning to drop from the eyes of the dominant classes of the South, and through their clearer and more intelligent vision they are beginning to see and recognize the mighty truth that wealth, happiness, and permanent prosperity will come in proportion as the hand, head, and heart of both races are educated and Christianized.’’ Prejudiced Whites are uneducated and un-Christian? More wizardry. Washington’s rhetorical strategies in Up From Slavery (1901b, pp. 81–85) echo his earlier speeches. He criticizes Blacks who aspired to begin at the top after the Civil War as teachers, preachers, and politicians. Many of them were ‘‘capable, earnest godly men and women,’’ he admits. One teacher ‘‘was prepared to teach that the earth was either flat or round, according to the preference of a majority of his patrons.’’ Washington ridicules a former Lieutenant Governor, now a day laborer, who keeps the title, ‘‘governor.’’ However, he uses these racist jokes to lay the ground for an evaluation of
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
115
some of the Black officials in Reconstruction as ‘‘strong, upright, useful men,’’ men ‘‘of high means,’’ fighting words in an era when southern Whites saw Reconstruction as a period of unremitting horror. He also provides anecdotes that tend to support the idea of social equality among the races. In chapter 8 of Up From Slavery, for instance, Washington (1901b, pp. 170–171) recalls an occasion when White ladies who were riding in the Pullman car of a train in the South invited him to visit them and then, to his surprise, ordered dinner. He praises the White men he meets later in the smoking car who express no irritation at this social intimacy. He praises the White passengers on his voyages to and from Europe, and White Europeans, for their civility towards him. Three times, using slightly different arguments, he argues directly for equal voting rights for Blacks. Once, he apologizes for supposed Black abuse of the franchise. Once, he expresses concern that ‘‘a law that permits an ignorant and poverty-stricken white man to vote, and prevents a black man in the same condition from voting [will] encourage the Negro to secure education and property, and at the same time (encourage) the white man to remain in ignorance and poverty.’’ Of White racism, he speaks not with anger, but with pity and sorrow. Once, Washington (1901b, p. 165) says, he ‘‘cherish[ed] a feeling of ill will toward any one who spoke in bitter terms against the Negro, or who advocated measures that tended to oppress the black man.’’ Now, though, he sees that ‘‘the most harmful effect (of prejudice) is not wholly in the wrong done to the Negro, but in the permanent injury to the morals of the white man. When a man perjures himself in order to break the force of the black man’s ballot, he soon learns to practice dishonesty in other relations of life.’’ Washington reprints his Atlanta Exposition address in chapter 13 of Up From Slavery, and throughout the book, he maintains the Judeo-Christian metaphor that pervaded that speech. Blacks are ready to forgive Whites for whatever sins they have committed in the past, he says, but Whites will injure themselves materially and morally if they do not help to fight prejudice and oppression. In 1912, in ‘‘Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance,’’ Washington (1912a) partially recants his sociological vision. He still argues for separate but equal railroad accommodations and separate but equal funding of schools, but now makes explicit goals that were implicit before: laws that provide for equal treatment of Blacks and Whites, equal application of those laws, equality of economic opportunity, equal voting rights for qualified Blacks, reform of convict labor. The essay substantiates the hypothesis that his earlier acquiescence to the dictates of White Supremacy was both deliberate
116
CARL JORGENSEN
and, in some measure, superficial. Beneath Washington’s words, Frederick Douglass’ principles are sometimes visible.10 The Man Farthest Down (1912), Washington’s most sociological book, is not a systematic examination of sociological principles but a travelogue with pieces of sociological analysis scattered throughout. Widely criticized as an apologia for the treatment of the Negro in the American South, the book, which Washington wrote with White sociologist Robert Park, argues that Europeans are more degraded than American Negroes – by their circumstances, including their level of education, and in their character. It argues that White European women are more degraded in their behavior than southern Negro women. The man farthest down in Europe is the woman, Washington says more than once as he contradicts two major theses of White Supremacy, that Blacks are inferior to all groups of Whites and that Blacks, particularly Black males, not speak disparagingly of the morals of White women. Washington’s major concern in this book is to understand why Europeans were emigrating in large numbers to the United States, taking jobs and opportunities away from African Americans. He concludes that Europeans emigrate from countries where they are most oppressed. In his other works, Washington never argues that the low economic, educational, and moral status of Negroes is due to White oppression. Here, he repeatedly asserts that the low economic, educational, and moral status of the European White poor results from their oppression by elites: ‘‘Apparently it is just as easy in Hungary as in America for selfish persons to take advantage of racial prejudice and sentiment in order to use it for their own ends. y racial hatred works in much the same way, whether it exists among people of the same way, whether it exists among people of the same colour but different speech, or among people of different colour and the same speech.’’ ‘‘My own experience has taught me, however, to distrust what I may call ‘racial explanations,’’’ Washington cautions. ‘‘They are too convenient and easy to make, but too sweeping, and, practically, the effect of them is to discourage any effort to improve.’’ Racial explanations, he implies, suggest that the problems they describe are intractable. ‘‘Can the leopard change its spots’ is always used to disparage some attempts to advance the interest of the Negro’’ (Washington & Park, 1912, pp. 181–182). Washington prefers ‘environmental’ explanations for the economic and social status of African Americans because environments may be altered and improved. This is not an attempt to rehabilitate Booker T. Washington. He should be judged primarily on his deeds rather than on his words. Howard Brotz (1966), Harold Cruse (1968), Charles Johnson (1952), August Meier (1963),
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
117
and Robert Park (1911) believe Washington did the best he could under the circumstances, building an institution of higher education and attempting to advance the interests of African Americans in a time of great repression.11 Cox (1951) and DuBois (1903) are much more critical. DuBois argues that Washington facilitated the rise of Jim Crow. Cox classifies Washington as a classic collaborator, advancing the interests of southern White elites rather than those of his own people.12 No one supports the means by which Washington struggled to gain power to advance his interests and philosophy, for there is no justification for it. Washington strove publicly and secretly to take over control of newspapers to advance his message and suppress dissent, to prevent the hiring or facilitate the firing of his opposition, to commandeer successful community-supported academic institutions and transform them into Tuskegee schools. At one time or the other, Washington stifled the interests and ambition of every one of the major turn of the century Black sociologists and students of sociology. The Washington machine opposed Anna Julia Cooper’s academic leadership of the M Street academic high school (later Dunbar high school13) in Washington, DC, at one point having her fired from her pincipalship (Lemert & Bahn, 1998).14 When Kelly Miller attempted to rally support for hiring DuBois at Howard University, Washington opposed the hire (Harlan, 1986, p. 179). When Mary Church Terrell began supporting Black militancy, the Tuskegee machine intimated that her husband, Judge Robert H. Terrell might lose Washington’s support for reappointment (Harlan, 1983, pp. 365–366). Washington struggled to wrest control of the Republican party of Chicago from Ida B. Wells and her husband Ferdinand Barnett (Harlan, 1986, p. 27). Washington could be vindictive and cruel. At a time when few Black tradesmen were employed in the federal government and when such employment might motivate Black youth to cultivate industrial skills, Washington attempted to block the reappointment of Black printer F. H. M. Murray – my great grandfather – to his government post. Nor is this an attempt to support Washington’s rhetorical strategies. For all the complex wizardry of Washington’s shrouded attacks on the practices and beliefs of White Supremacy, the value of his subliminal arguments for equal rights is uncertain. To what extent were Blacks and Whites influenced by the subtexts of Washington’s message. We cannot answer that question, but DuBois provides an interesting argument. Washington did not cause segregation, the disenfranchisement of the Negro, or the withdrawal of aid from Negro higher education, DuBois argues, ‘‘but his propaganda has, without a shadow of doubt, helped their speedier accomplishment’’ (DuBois, 1903).
118
CARL JORGENSEN
WASHINGTON AND DOUGLASS RECONSIDERED Frederick Douglass advocated militant struggle toward full equality for African Americans. He did not tell derogatory jokes about Blacks to ingratiate himself with White audiences. Instead, Douglass frequently expressed outrage at specific acts of White racism and at specific White people and groups. There was no palliation. Douglass almost never talked of African American deficiencies without attributing them in part to the effects of White oppression. Although Douglass rejected the validity of the concept, separate but equal, his views are in many other ways similar to Washington’s, and Washington admits and honors the continuities between his thought and Douglass’. In his discussion of his 1911 attack, ‘‘The Intellectuals and the Boston Mob’’ and My Large Education, he reports that Douglass’ autobiography was one of the first books he ever read, and that he has read it over many times. At the beginning of his first autobiography, The Story of My Life and Work, written in 1900, Washington inserted a full-page picture of Frederick Douglass (Harlan, 1986; Washington, 1901a, 1911). Six years later, he wrote a laudatory biography of Douglass (Washington, 1906). In the context of much praise, Washington reiterated one complaint: Douglass did not realize that militancy was no longer an effective strategy. Beginning with the year 1877, the Negro in the South lost practically all political control y as early as 1885 the Negro scarcely had any members of race in the National Congress or state legislatures, and long before this date had ceased to hold state offices. This was true, notwithstanding the protests and fervent oratory of such strong race leaders as Frederick Douglass, B. K. Bruce, John R. Lynch, P. B. S. Pinchback, and John M. Langston, with a host of others. When Frederick Douglass, the greatest man that the race has produced, died in 1895, it is safe to say that the Negro in the Southern States, with here and there a few exceptions, had practically no political control, or political influence, except in sending delegates to national conventions or in holding by appointment a few federal positions. It became evident y that the race would have to depend for its success in the future less upon political agitation and the opportunity for holding office, and more upon something more tangible and substantial. It was at this period in the Negro developmentythat the idea of industrial or business development was introduced and began to be made prominent (Washington, 1907, pp. 413–414).
In 1853, 42 years before the Atlanta Exposition address, Douglass had argued that the first educational priority for Blacks should be to develop more industrial institutions, there already being several venues for obtaining higher education. Douglass (1853, p. 291) declares that high schools and colleges, although excellent institutions ‘‘are not adapted to our present most pressing wants y . Accustomed, as we have been, to the rougher and
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
119
harder modes of living, and of gaining a livelihood, we cannot y in a single leap from our low condition y reach that of Ministers, Lawyers, Doctors, Editors, Merchants [Negroes should first master] the immediate gradations of agricultural and the mechanic arts.’’ Like Washington, Douglass (1853, p. 292) recognized that ‘‘[Many Blacks] have found themselves educated far above a living condition, there being no methods by which they could turn their learning to account.’’ Therefore, he explains, ‘‘We must become mechanics; we must build as well as live in houses; we must make as well as use furniture; we must construct bridges as well as pass over them, before we can properly live or be respected by our fellow men. We have orators, authors, and other professional men, but these reach only a certain class, and get respect for our race in certain select circles.’’ Douglass (1853, p. 291) prefigures other Washington arguments for industrial education, I assert then that poverty, ignorance, and degradation y constitute the social disease of the free colored people of the United States. Earlier, Douglass (1848, p. 207) proclaimed industrial education can foster human development: ‘‘What we, the colored people, want is character, and this nobody can give us y . We must labor for it. It is obtained by toil – hard toil.’’ Slavery and racist oppression first caused and then perpetuated poverty, ignorance, and degradation amongst the Black population, Douglass argues. African Americans need their own industrial schools, he believes, because prejudiced Whites jealously guard such useful knowledge: ‘‘At this moment I can more easily get my son into a lawyer’s office to learn law than I can into a blacksmith’s shop to blow the bellows and wield the sledgehammer’’ (Douglass, 1853, pp. 293–294). Learning how to blow the bellows and wield the sledge-hammer is critically important, Douglass (1853, p. 294) says, because ‘‘the most telling, the most killing refutation of slavery, is the presentation of an industrious, enterprising, thrifty, and intelligent free black population.’’ These great elements of character, ‘‘find them where you will, among black or white, must be looked up to – can never be looked down upon’’ (Douglass, 1848, p. 207). Yet ‘‘prejudice against the free colored people in the United States has shown itself no where so invincible as among mechanics. The farmer and the professional man cherish no feeling so bitter as that cherished by these. The latter would starve us out of the country entirely (Douglass, 1853, p. 293).’’ Support for industrial education was an important theme amongst Black leaders from at least 1855 onwards, Meier (1963) observes. The conflict that ensued between Washington and DuBois, Wells and other young militant Blacks towards the end of Washington’s life was not
120
CARL JORGENSEN
primarily caused by Washington’s ideas about education or even by his tendency to ignore White racism. Black sociological thinkers have always disagreed about the causes of low social status and living conditions of people of color. Some like Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, and Charles Johnson blame White racism; others, like Washington, E. Franklin Frazier, and William J. Wilson emphasize cultural deficit. The intensity of the clash between Washington and younger militants was driven by Washington’s autocratic pursuit of power. If he had simply pressed his point of view by providing the highest level of education possible in the schools he controlled, the dispute over strategies would have been much more muted.
DEFINING THE STRANDS In the 19th century, as at the beginning of the 21st century, the student of Afro-America faces a dilemma: how to explain the negative social facts that persist among communities of color. Then and now, there are only four possible explanations for these facts: (1) some social or biological deficiency in Black people or Black culture (for example: Blacks are less human than Whites, African culture was less evolved than European culture when contact accelerated); (2) some social or biological deficiency in White people or White culture (for example, Western Europeans were particularly greedy, rapacious, and cruel at the time of contact with Africans); (3) some unfortunate trick of fate (for example, industrialism began in Europe at a time when the previously strong central African empires were weak and powerless); or (4) some combination of the above (most prominently: the past racism of White Americans has created a present cultural deficiency in African Americans). Either Blacks or Whites or fate or some mixture thereof is responsible for a vast misfortune. Frederick Douglass can be said to anchor the first school of African American sociological thought, which I label the White Racism Strand.15 This school responds to the limited range of causal explanations by recognizing Black deficiency, White racism, and acts of fate as causes of the negative social facts of African American life, but emphasizing the importance of White racism. Later proponents of this school include turn-of-thecentury Black sociologists and students of sociology, Anna Julia Cooper, Kelly Miller, Mary Church Terrell and Ida B. Wells; W. E. B. DuBois; Charles S. Johnson; and, more recently, Joyce Ladner and Cornel West. Booker T. Washington can be said to anchor the second school of African-American sociological thought, the Black Deficit Strand. This school
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
121
recognizes Black deficiency, White racism, and acts of fate as causes of the negative social facts of African-American life, but emphasizes the importance of Black Deficit.16 Later proponents of this school include E. Franklin Frazier (at least E. Franklin Frazier after the hostile response to his article, ‘‘The Pathology of Race Prejudice,’’ 1927); and William J. Wilson (at least the William J. Wilson of The Declining Significance of Race, 1978). Black nationalism in the guise of Afro-centrism has been a prominent theme amongst Black psychologists and Black historians, but it has not figured prominently in African American sociological thought, probably because it has given determinative primacy to putative biological differences between Blacks and Whites, an anti-sociological vision. Neither has Marxism been prominent enough amongst African American sociologists to constitute an independent stream of thought, perhaps because of the harassment suffered by moderate class radicals such as Oliver Cox, W. E. B. DuBois, and Paul Robeson. In any case, Marxist or neo-Marxist ideology can choose to emphasize either Black deficit or White racism in explaining the negative social facts of Afro-America. At the 1975 Association of Black Sociologists meeting, St. Clair Drake proved this assertion when, in his words, he came ‘‘out of the closet’’ to declare that he, E. Franklin Frazier, Charles S. Johnson, Horace Cayton, Horace Mann Bond and his whole generation of African-American social scientists were all neo-Marxists, but were afraid to reveal themselves as such.17 The division of African-American sociological thought into two streams has an evaluative component, but should not be used as the single criterion for praise or blame. We know, for example, that Frazier emphasizes Black deficit and de-emphasizes White racism in his sociological writings, but this is certainly not the only measure by which his work should be judged. My comments on this point should not be taken as a judgment of his contribution to sociology as a whole. Further, political behavior is not necessarily consonant with theoretical perspective. In his personal life, Frazier was by all accounts militantly opposed to prejudice and discrimination, and willing to take risks in order to express his contempt for discriminatory laws and practices (Edwards, 1968; Meier, 1963; Platt, 1991). For example, it was Frazier who assumed the duty of organizing a ninetieth birthday celebration for DuBois when government harassment of DuBois for his political beliefs made this a risky proposition. It was Frazier, not Charles Johnson, who militantly protested the American Sociological Association holding annual meetings in segregated facilities. If we were classifying Black sociologists according to their behavior, then, Frazier would join the tradition of Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. DuBois.
122
CARL JORGENSEN
All the prominent early American leaders and intellectuals believed that sometime, somehow, African Americans would secure liberty and prosperity (a few imagined that it would happen in some location outside the United States). Members of both sociological traditions recognized that revisions in the social structure of American society and in the social capital of the Black community would be necessary in order to achieve these goals. Proponents of the Black Deficit Strand have tended to argue that liberation and equality are impossible without first uplifting the Black community. Proponents of the White racism school have tended to argue that liberation and equality are impossible without first democratizing the structure of American society. Proponents of both schools have at times been choosing a strategy that appeared highly improbable over that which appeared absolutely impossible. Many times, leaders became fervent proponents of one strategy for change not because of the strength of their hope in the method they chose, but because of the strength of despair with respect to the method they rejected. Frederick Douglass supported militant protests because it appeared to him absolutely clear that the problems of African Americans could not be solved by uplift alone. Washington (1907, pp. 413–414) observed the extinction of Black political power by legal and illegal means and decided that it was impossible for Blacks to rise through militancy. Selfimprovement, he believed, was the least impossible alternative. W. E. B. DuBois surveyed the consequences of Washington’s policies and declared first that it was impossible for Blacks to rise economically without securing the political rights, and second that militant protest offered the only means to secure those rights.18 E. Franklin Frazier was convinced absolutely that the Black community could not progress without increasing its social capital. Frazier, pursued the tradition Washington established, carefully selecting supportive data from the more militant DuBois to enrich, complicate and make more humane the argument of the Black Deficit Strand in African American sociological thought. Frazier’s influence can hardly be overstated, as Stanford Lyman’s The Black American in Sociological Thought (1972) demonstrates. Lyman devotes 26 pages to Frazier, while DuBois, Johnson, Horace Cayton, and St. Clair Drake receive only a phrase or two each.19 Cornel West (1982, p. 71) characterizes E. Franklin Frazier as the unchallenged chief theoretician of one of four historical traditions in African American thought, the weak assimilationist tradition.20 Weak assimilationists believe that ‘‘Afro-Americans stand below other racial groups because of certain values, modes of behavior, or defects acquired from their endurance of political oppression, social degradation, and economic exploitation.’’ Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
123
The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (1965) references Frazier much more frequently than any other sociologist to support his thesis that Black family dissolution rates in the 1960s represented a delayed negative response to the oppression of slavery. Elkin’s Slavery (1959) and Kardiner’s and Ovesey’s The Mark of Oppression (1951) depend on Frazier for theoretical support of their arguments that Black culture has been damaged greatly by past White racism. These writers often treat Frazier’s theories as if they were original with Frazier, or cite as antecedents such White sociologists such as W. I. Thomas and Robert Park (West, 1982). Frazier’s emphasis of Black deficit and de-emphasis of contemporary racism is best illustrated within his theory of the Negro family. Arguing that family relations in Africa – as in Europe and in White America – were regulated carefully by a coherent set of social norms (Frazier, 1932), he describes how the Middle Passage and enslavement in the southern United States dismantled Black institutional control over family behavior. Thus, amoral and immoral economic needs of slave masters, not African cultural values, regulated (and debased) the social behavior of African American slaves to a primitive state that deviated as drastically from traditional African norms of family relations as it did from White American norms of social behavior. Sexual behavior became regulated primarily by individual desires rather than by institutional norms. Emancipation did not provide liberation, but further normlessness (Frazier, 1932, p. 33). ‘‘On the basis of concrete factual material,’’ Frazier (1948[1968], p. 191) argues, ‘‘it is possible to trace the evolution of the Negro family from its roots in human nature to a highly institutionalized form of human association.’’ Because African American culture had existed in a state of normlessness during slavery, African Americans had to become re-civilized through adoption of European American norms, but not because these norms were superior to African social controls. Those who had been enslaved had little or no memory of African norms and little or no power to institutionalize any African norms they remembered. The choice for African Americans was stark – adoption of European American cultural norms or acceptance of normlessness and social disorganization.21 Frazier’s writings echo Washington’s in their focus on Black deficit and in their silence about contemporary racism. Unlike Washington, Frazier emphasizes the destructive effects of past racism in the special of social disorganization. At the beginning of his career, Frazier even sounds a little like Frederick Douglass. In 1927, five years before the publication of his first book, he wrote ‘‘The Pathology of Race Prejudice,’’ a commentary on contemporary White racism (Frazier, 1927). Here, he takes the psychoanalytic
124
CARL JORGENSEN
categorizations of psycho-pathological defense mechanisms common to neurotic and psychotic behavior – projection, displacement, denial, and the like – and argues that they provide the best means for explaining the distortions of fact, emotion, and desire common in White Supremacist portrayals of the Negro: ‘‘Just as the lunatic seizes upon every fact to support his delusional system, the white man seizes myths and unfounded rumors to support his delusion about the Negro. When the lunatic is met with ideas incompatible with his delusion he distorts facts by rationalization to preserve the inner consistency of his delusions. Of a similar nature is the argument of the white man who declares that white blood is responsible for character and genius in mixed Negroes and at the same time that white blood harms the Negroes!’’ (Frazier, 1927, p. 858). When ‘‘The Pathology of Race Prejudice’’ was published, Frazier was teaching at Morehouse College in Atlanta. Because of death threats, he had to leave his position and his home almost immediately after the essay appeared in print (Edwards, 1968; Platt, 1991). Although the principles of psychodynamic pathology would have enriched his analyses of White Supremacy in his later work, he never used them again. Platt (1991) suggests some reasons for this choice; Frazier found it difficult to secure publication of the essay; he regarded his argument as, in part, satiric; he took the threats he received very seriously. In any case, after ‘‘The Pathology of Race Prejudice,’’ Frazier used his analytic powers almost exclusively to describe pathologies of the Negro, creating in his otherwise quite impressive scientific work, an imbalance that recalls the stance of Booker T. Washington. Frazier’s Black deficit emphasis emerges clearly when we compare his portrait of the Black family in his first book, The Negro in Chicago (1932) with the analysis W. E. B. DuBois offered in The Negro Family in America (1908). ‘‘Without doubt,’’ wrote DuBois (1908, p. 37) a little over two decades ago, Frazier (1932, p. 3) begins, ‘‘the point where the Negro American is furthest behind modern civilization is in his sexual mores.’’ The first sentence of Frazier’s book implies continuity between his own thesis that Black moral degeneration results from the normlessness of slavery and its aftermath and DuBois’ argument that the ravages of past racism have crippled the Black family. DuBois, Frazier observes, asserts that there are no significant African survivals in the patterns of Black family life. If any norms had survived centuries of enslavement, DuBois (1908, p. 21) notes, ‘‘they would be traces only, for the effectiveness of the slave system meant the practically complete crushing out of the African clan and family life. No more complete method of reducing a barbarous people to subjugation can
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
125
be devised.’’ Subjugation brought wrenching cultural loss: ‘‘The great body of field hands was raped of their own sex customs and provided with no binding new ones’’ (DuBois 1908, p. 21). What DuBois does that Frazier does not do is go on and argue that perhaps in some ways Black family life may be considered superior to that of Whites. Deploring the high rate of illegitimacy amongst Blacks in America, he (DuBois, 1908, pp. 41–42) reports that there are instances of even higher rates of illegitimacy in Europe: ‘‘The marriage mores of modern European culture nations while in many respects superior to those of other peoples, are far from satisfactory, as Prostitution, Divorce, and Childlessness prove only too conclusively.’’ Perhaps, DuBois speculates in what most would now regard as a sexist statement, Black sexual morality is in at least one manner superior to that of Whites. Perhaps, ‘‘the Negro woman, with her strong desire for motherhood, may teach modern civilization that virginity, save as a means of healthy motherhood, is an evil and not a divine attribute’’ (DuBois, 1908, p. 42). Frazier does not cite these last references in his rehearsal of DuBois’ argument.22 Frazier’s sociological theory traps him in to denying the existence of an autonomous culture. Frazier as a committed sociologist argues that culture cannot exist without institutions to enforce cultural norms. It therefore follows that since African Americans did not have institutions to enforce norms, they could have no autonomous culture; and therefore, certainly no cultural norms superior to those of Whites. Platt (1991) argues that Frazier’s cultural deprivationist stance has been exaggerated greatly. In particular, he notes the ways in which Moynihan misrepresents Frazier in his famous (infamous) Report on the Negro Family (Moynihan, 1965). It is true that Moynihan quotes Frazier slightly out of context. It is true that there is no way of knowing whether Frazier would have agreed with Moynihan that the increased rate of dissolution of the Negro family in the 1960s represents a delayed reaction to the degradation of family structure under slavery. There can be no doubt that Frazier endorsed the argument that slavery had destroyed the Negro family, and that the destruction of family norms significantly affected prospects for Black cultural improvement. Moynihan’s report, of course, appeared after Frazier’s death, but we can infer his potential reaction from his remarks about two earlier works that greatly emphasized the concept of cultural deprivationism. In ‘‘The Failure of the Negro Intellectual,’’ published shortly before he died, Frazier praises Elkins’ Slavery and Kardiner and Ovesey’s The Mark of Oppression, citing them as the kind of books Black intellectuals should have written. Their theses are more plausible than
126
CARL JORGENSEN
Moynihan’s delayed-time-bomb explanation of increased Black family breakup during the 1960s, but they are no less cultural deprivationist. Like Booker T. Washington, Frazier published a partial retraction of his support for the Black deficit emphasis toward the end of his life.23 In ‘‘The Failure of the Negro Intellectual,’’ he argues that the Negro intellectual must identify, celebrate, and strive to retain positive aspects of African American culture. African American assimilation into European American culture need not – should not – be complete. The Negro intellectual should ‘‘dig down into the experience of the Negro and bring about a transvaluation of that experience so that the Negro could have a new self-image or new conception of himself’’ (Frazier, 1962; Edwards, 1968; Ladner, 1973). The most recent conflict over the Black deficit hypothesis erupted in the early 1970s with publication of William J. Wilson’s The Declining Significance of Race. Like Washington and Frazier, Wilson argues that Black deficit – low economic status and social disorganization – is a more important determinant of the quality of contemporary African American lives than contemporaneous racism. Like Frazier, but unlike Washington, Wilson emphasizes the importance of past racism in the deformation of African American culture. Like Washington, Wilson argues that civil rights have value, but that it is vastly more important to focus on Black educational, cultural, and economic uplift. Like Washington’s social commentary and Frazier’s social theory, Wilson’s calculations intensified controversy around what we can now see as the two poles of African American sociological thought. Arguments about the relative importance of Black deficit and White racism continue. As long as negative social facts of African American life persist, the student of African America will have to choose between explanations for these conditions. As was argued earlier, for the sociologist, there are only four categories of explanations for these problems: (1) some form of deficit in African American people or society; (2) some form of deficit in the general American people or society; (3) some trick of fate; or (4) some combination of the above. When politicians propose health, education, welfare, and employment policies, they carry within them implicit or explicit assumptions about the causes of negative social facts of African American life. They find their ground either in the Black Deficit Strand of social thought or in the White Racism Strand. The conservative perspective, following in the tradition of the Black Deficit Strand, pictures a world in which individuals are responsible for their own destinies. Almost a century and a half after Emancipation, they say, continuing inequalities between Blacks and Whites must
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
127
reflect failures of African American character and industry; this, unadorned and unqualified, is the Black deficit hypothesis. Affirmative action plans are based upon a different assumption, that some substantial portion of the negative social facts of African American life arise from past and present discrimination against Blacks; this is the White racism hypothesis. Movements to ban affirmative action begin with the conviction that the lower rates of entry, promotion, and retention of African Americans in educational institutions and workplaces prove Black deficit and/or the bankruptcy of liberal social programs that lower standards and destroy Black character.24 This is where the road that leads from Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington takes us. The student of African American life – at least those rejecting Black biological deficit theories – whether lay or professional, whether expressing themselves explicitly in theoretical or applied analyses or imbedding their analysis in implicit assumptions within public policy, will have to choose between or blend the perspectives of the Black Deficit and White Racism strands of African American thought for as long as the negative social facts of African American life continue.
NOTES 1. Harlan reports that many times Washington employed ghostwriters, but he generally wrote the first drafts and kept close control over the texts. The ideas in the books appear to have been his. 2. Miller founded the sociology department at Howard University and remained chairperson for several decades. Carter G. Woodson, the father of Afro-American history, and Alain Locke, the father of Afro-American philosophy, both pronounced Kelly Miller to have been the most prolific defender of the Negro of his time, a time in which Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. DuBois, Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells were all writing, defending the Negro. 3. This is not just my opinion. 4. Locke (1924) declared Booker T. Washington as having been ‘‘more aptly interpreted in Professor Miller’s short essay than in the several extant volumes of biography put together.’’ More recently, Doxey Wilkerson found Miller’s comparison of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington to be ‘‘probably the most trenchant appraisal of these ‘two superlative colored men’ to be found in the literature.’’ Many writers on Washington have referenced Miller’s essay others have not. Since others referenced Miller’s essay, it is reasonable to presume that they were familiar with his essay. None of the writers appropriately indicated the degree to which their analysis built in part upon Miller’s analysis. I am not accusing them of dishonesty, but rather of failing to break with the racist conventions of their times of not attending seriously to the ideas of African American intellectuals. I do this not to damn them, but rather to warn us of the potential for our making similar errors.
128
CARL JORGENSEN
5. The other sociology, the practical understanding of societal by which Washington obtained White support for Black uplift towards a goal of full equality at the time of greatest racism is probably interred with his bones. 6. Miller entitled his essay on Washington and Douglass, ‘‘Radicals and Conservatives.’’ In tribute to Miller, Meier uses this as the title for chapter ten of his book, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915. Yet in chapter 7, ‘‘Booker T. Washington, an Interpretation,’’ Meier fails to acknowledge that his central thesis and several of his subsidiary theses are either derived from or built upon the hypotheses of Kelly Miller. Meier’s essay is a creative and valuable extension of the work of Kelly Miller, but it is an extension of the work of Kelly Miller. 7. Harlan (1986) categorizes this biography as the one ‘‘written for White folks.’’ The first biography, presumably written for Black folks a year earlier was The Story of My Life and Work (Washington, 1901a). 8. The thanks may have been a little effusive, but some recognition was in order. The 1893 Chicago Exposition did not invite African American participation. They did invite Haiti to participate. Haiti appointed former ‘‘ambassador’’ to Haiti Frederick Douglass to head their exhibit. Douglass turned the exhibit into, in part, a de facto exhibit on the American Negro. The exhibit was very popular. The exhibition culminated in the launching of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetic career [see Duster, 1970 for Ida B. Wells’ account of these events]. 9. The reference to eight million Negroes here and sixteen million later in the speech is in both copies of the speech I own. 10. An even more explicit repudiation of segregation was published under Washington’s name after his death, ‘‘My View of Segregation Laws’’ (Washington, 1915). Since the piece was published posthumously, Harlan questions whether or not someone at Tuskegee substantially revised the piece before publication. 11. This is, at least, E. Franklin Frazier’s recounting of Park’s views in a June 24, 1942 letter from Frazier to Gunnar Myrdal, ‘‘I would like to add a word concerning the concept of caste and class which is the present I have heard Park say that Booker T. Washington and DuBois were both right.’’ 12. Reprinted in Hunter and Abraham (1987). 13. This school, named after poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, became a major Black academic high school. When Greene reported on the employment of Black Ph.D.’s in America in 1946, there were seven Ph.D.’s teaching in Washington, D.C. public high schools and – as best as I can determine – six teaching in all the predominantly White colleges and universities around the country. 14. Washington subverted the principalship of another Black female educational leader, Fanny Jackson Coppin, the first Black person to teach in the academic high school of Oberlin College. Coppin directed the Quaker supported Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, an academic and industrial training high school. However, the industrial training was not to Washington’s liking. Against the wishes of the Black Philadelphia community, Washington gained control over the Board of Directors and forced Coppin’s resignation (Perkins, 1978). 15. In making these divisions, I deviate substantially from but depend heavily on the categorizations of African American thought made by Harold Cruse (1968) and Cornel West (1982).
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
129
16. Some have argued that Martin Delany’s social analysis was quite similar to Booker T. Washington, and so in many respects it was, but Delany emphasized the importance of White racism in determining the social condition of the Negro. 17. I was there. A somewhat formalized version of Drake’s remarks was published in the fall 1977 issue of The Black Sociologist, a past journal of the Association of Black Sociologists (Drake, 1977). 18. His actual words were, ‘‘It is utterly impossible for working men and propertyowners to defend their rights and exist without the right of suffrage,’’ (One cannot obtain) thrift and self-respect (while) at the same time silently submit(ting) to civic inferiority,’’ and ‘‘neither the Negro common schools, nor Tuskegee itself, could remain open a day were it not for teachers trained in Negro colleges, or trained by their graduates’’ (DuBois, 1903). 19. One hundred and sixty one of 183 pages are devoted to White sociologists’ perspectives on Afro-America. Since W. E. B. DuBois, Kelly Miller, Monroe Work, Horace Mann Bond, Charles Johnson, and others had plenty to say on the subject, the book would better have been titled The Black American in White American Sociological Thought. 20. The three other traditions are the humanist, essentialist, and marginalist. The essentialist celebrates Afro-American culture and personality and assumes it to be superior in particular superior to the culture and personality of Whites. As I noted earlier, this orientation is not prominent amongst African American sociologists and students of sociology but is present amongst a subgroup of psychologists, historians, and Afro-American Studies generalists. West conceives the humanist tradition as celebrating positive aspects of African American culture and personality without assuming superiority or inferiority. My definition of the White Racism Strand builds upon but deviates from West’s definition of the humanist tradition. West conceives of the marginalist tradition as existing within the definition of the humanist tradition. West conceives of the marginalist tradition as existing within the African American humanities, not the social sciences. It consists of those who posit Afro-American culture to be restrictive, constraining, and confining (West, 1982, p. 71). 21. Several of these non-referenced points are implicit rather than explicit in Frazier, but I believe my representation of his basic perspective is fair. 22. Addressing the same issue of chastity and legitimacy, Kelly Miller identifies the contemporaneous high proportion of Black women to Black men in urban cities as the major threat. He attributes this circumstance to contemporaneous racism. Black men cannot earn enough to support their families. Black women cannot earn a decent wage in rural areas, so they travel to the city. 23. In a bizarre parallelism, Washington’s most complete retraction was also published in the year of his death, ‘‘My View of Segregation Laws.’’ However, it was published posthumously and as Harlan notes, one of Washington’s editors may have altered the tone of the article, so I have not discussed it here. 24. Formally, this does not have to be true. One could object to affirmative action on the basis that the remedy is worse than the disease, but usually objections to affirmative action are based upon the concept that societal processes are meritorious.
130
CARL JORGENSEN
REFERENCES Brotz, H. (1966). Negro social and political thought, 1859–1920, representative texts. New York: Basic Books, Inc. Cox, O. C. (1951). The leadership of Booker T. Washington. Social Forces, 30, 91–97. Cruse, H. (1968). Black power. In: Rebellion or revolution. New York: Morrow. Douglass, F. (1848[1966]). What are the colored people doing for themselves. In: H. Brotz (Ed.), Negro social and political thought, 1859–1920, representative texts. NewYork: BasicBooks, Inc. Douglass, F. (1853). Letter to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Reprinted in F. Douglass (1881), Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Hartford, Conn: Park Publishing Company. Electronic edition available at http://docsouth.unc.edu/douglasslife/douglass.html Drake, St. C. (1977). Marxists, Blacks, and radicals in sociology: A reaction to the panel discussion. The Black Sociologist, 7, 39–47. DuBois, W. E. B. (1903[1966]). Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and others. In: H. Brotz (Ed.), Negro social and political thought, 1859–1920, representative texts. New York: Basic Books, Inc. DuBois, W. E. B. (1908[1969]). The Negro family in America. New York: The Negro University Press. Edwards, G. F. (1968). E. Franklin Frazier on race relations. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Elkins, S. (1959). Slavery. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. Frazier, E. F. (1927). The pathology of race prejudice. Forum, 70, 856–862. Frazier, E. F. (1932). The Negro family in Chicago. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Frazier, E. F. (1948[1968]). The Negro family in America. In: G. F. Edwards (Ed.), E. Franklin frazier on race relations: Selected writings. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Harlan, L. (1970). American historical review, 75, 1581–1599. Harlan, L. (1983). Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915. New York: Oxford University Press. Harlan, L. (1986). Introduction. In: B. T. Washington (Ed.), Up from slavery. New York: Penguin Books. Hunter, H. M., & Abraham, S. Y. (1987). Race, class, and the world system: The sociology of Oliver C. Cox. New York: Monthly Review Press. Johnson, C. S. (1952). The social philosophy of Booker T. Washington. Fisk University Archives. Box 173. Folio 30. Kardiner, A., & Ovesey, L. (1951). The mark of oppression: A psychological study of the American Negro. New York: Norton. Ladner, J. (1973). The death of White sociology. New York: Random House. Lemert, C., & Bahn, E. (1998). The voice of Anna Julia Cooper. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Lyman, S. (1972). The Black American in sociological thought. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Meier, A. (1963). Negro thought in America, 1880–1915. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Miller, K. (1908). Radicals and conservatives. New York: The Neale Publishing Company. Moynihan, D. (1965). The Negro family: The case for national action. Washington, DC: Office of Planning and Research, United States Department of Labor.
Booker T. Washington and the Sociology of Black Deficit
131
Perkins, L. M. (1978). Quaker Beneficence and Black Control: The Institute for Colored Youth, 1852–1903. In: V. Franklin & J. P. Anderson (Eds), New perspectives on Black educational history. Boston, MA: G. K. Hall and Company. Platt, A. (1991). E. Franklin Frazier reconsidered. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Washington, B. T. (1884[1966]). The educational outlook of the South. In: H. Brotz (Ed.), Negro social and political thought, 1859–1920, representative texts. New York: Basic Books, Inc. Washington, B. T. (1901a). The story of my life and work. Toronto, Canada: J.B. Nichols Company. Washington, B. T. (1901b). Up from slavery. New York: Doubleday, Page and Company. Washington, B. T. (1906). Frederick Douglass. Philadelphia, PA: George W. Jacobs and Company. Washington, B. T. (1907). The fruits of industrial training. In: H. Brotz (Ed.), Negro social and political thought, 1859–1920, representative texts. New York: Basic Books, Inc. Washington, B. T. (1911). My larger education. New York: Doubleday, Page and Company. Washington, B. T. (1915). My view of segregation laws. In: H. Brotz (Ed.), Washington, B. T. and R. E. Park. 1911. The man farthest down. New Brunswick, NJ: Doubleday, Page and Company. Washington, B. T. (1912a). Is the Negro having a fair chance? In: H. Brotz (Ed.), Negro social and political thought, 1859–1920, representative texts. New York: Basic Books, Inc. Washington, B. T., & Park, R. E. (1912b). The man farthest down: A record of observation and study in Europe. New Brunswick, NJ: Doubleday, Page and Company. West, C. (1982). The four traditions of response. In: Prophesy deliverance: An African American revolutionary Christianity. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press. Wilson, W. J. (1978). The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing economic institutions. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
This page intentionally left blank
132
MONROE N. WORK’S CONTRIBUTION TO BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S FIGHT AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY Vernon J. Williams, Jr. In Black Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the United States and South Africa (1995), George M. Fredrickson has correctly noted that Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) left ‘‘an ambiguous legacy’’: insofar as ‘‘he was an accommodationist on the question of political rights and segregation who also championed a black self-reliance and capacity for progress that contradicted white supremacist ideology.’’1 To my mind, Fredrickson’s articulation of this ‘‘ambiguous legacy’’ is a brilliant insight. In a series of publications, between 1988 and 1997, I have argued that Washington was a ‘‘consummate mythmaker’’ during the height of his influence.2 Before 1908, Washington sophistically interwove the major myths of his day of African inferiority, the civilizing effects of slavery, the horrors of Reconstruction, and the gradual uplift of African Americans through industrial education. Like many historians and historical-minded social scientists, since 1947, who had given the matter some reflection, I have suggested that he rationalized a ‘‘separate-but-equal’’ social order. As a consequence, I went on to argue that Washington’s political mythology provided Anglo-American social scientists with a perfect rationalization for
The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 133–147 Copyright r 2006 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13007-X
133
134
VERNON J. WILLIAMS, JR.
defending the existence of a segregated social order in the United States.3 In other words, I basically concurred in the W. E. B. DuBois (1868–1963) – E. Franklin Frazier (1894–1962) criticism of the first aspect of the ‘‘ambiguous legacy.’’ At the same time, I was aware of a greater malleability in Washington’s political mythology than most scholars had heretofore realized. My investigation in Rethinking Race into the ideologies of Washington, Monroe N. Work (1866–1945), and Robert E. Park (1864–1944) after 1908, uncovered a tremendous amount of cross-fertilization of their ideas in their campaign against white supremacy. Stressing both black self-reliance and the capacity of African Americans for progress, both Work and Park helped to promulgate the aspect of the ambiguous legacy that Marcus M. Garvey (1887–1940) would praise.4 The purpose of this essay is not to delineate Washington’s ideology, but rather to describe and analyze some of the material written by one of Washington’s primary ghostwriters, Monroe N. Work. Work’s beliefs in the African American self-reliance and capacity for progress were part and parcel of his thought, since his youth. Like DuBois, Work, during the early part of his career, vacillated between racial explanations in reference to the cultural background of African Americans and scientism in reference to their socioeconomic status. What changed over time was his commitment to an enhanced, mystical image of black people so that they could attain firstclass citizenship in the United States. During the early years, Work believed that African Americans possessed ‘‘racial characteristics’’ that were obstacles to their progress. Later, during his association with DuBois between 1903 and 1908, he became familiar with the ideas of Franz ‘‘Uri’’ Boas (1858–1942) in reference to the approximate equality of mental ability of whites and blacks and the historical achievements of Africans. Boas’s influence on Work was significant; it reinforced his convictions in reference to the abilities of black people. When he became associated with Booker T. Washington, Work, by informing the former of the achievements of blacks in ancient Africa, helped to compellingly usher Washington to the position of nineteenth-century African American nationalists: that eventually the cycles of history would lead to the fruition of black people’s superior characteristics. In other words, the mysticism that characterized Washington’s later writings, which evinced an interest in Ethiopian history, on black people were directly influenced by Work, and, in turn, indirectly nurtured the chauvinistic dogma of Marcus M. Garvey.5 In the final stages of his career, Work clearly embraced a purely naturalistic worldview in which he sought to document empirically both the achievements of African Americans and to indict Euro-Americans in the South for their past and
Fight against White Supremacy
135
contemporaneous crimes against humanity. In doing so, he sought to counter the irrational forces of racism and reaction that pervaded the South.
THE EARLY PERIOD Monroe N. Work, the son of former slaves (Alexander (?-?) and Eliza Hobbs Work (?-?)), was born in Iredell County, North Carolina, in 1866. He was raised in Cairo, Illinois, and Ashton, Kansas. In 1889, Work enrolled in high school in Arkansas City, Kansas, and, while working several odd jobs, came under the influence of David Ross Boyd (1853–1936), who would later become president of the University of Oklahoma, and graduated in 1892 – ranking as the best mathematician in the history of his high school.6 After one term of teaching at a private school in the Creek and Cherokee Indian territory, Work embarked on a ministerial career. Ordained a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the fall of 1892, Work served for a brief period as the pastor of a congregation in Wellington, Kansas. His congregation, critical of his reserved rhetorical style, terminated his appointment; and Work, seeking to gain income to further his education, obtained eight acres of land when the federal government opened Cherokee lands in Perry, Oklahoma, and farmed there until 1894. He then went to Chicago to continue his education.7 During the 1890s, some 185,000 African Americans migrated from the South to Northern urban-industrial areas. Most of these migrants in the first part of the decade were, as the recent historian of the ‘‘Great Migration’’ James R. Grossman has pointed out, ‘‘better educated and more affluent than most black southerners, as are most self-selecting migrating populations.’’ This group of migrants, which included such prominent persons as the anti-lynching crusader, Ida B. Wells (1862–1931), and the editor of the Voice of the Negro, Jesse Max Barber (1878–1949), came to Chicago to escape the pogroms in the South. Although most of the African Americans who migrated to Chicago in the first half of the decade were a part of the ‘‘talented tenth,’’ the vast majority of them during the second half of the decade were poor farmers and laborers.8 Work did not fit neatly into either of these two categories; for he was a self-made man, migrating from the West, hoping to enter a moral crusade to bring some semblance of order to a city wracked by the pangs of industrialization and rapid growth. Work enrolled in Chicago Theological Seminary in 1895; but, as he later recalled, after three years he ‘‘realized that a theological education was not a very good education being too limited in extent.’’ Yet, it was at the Chicago
136
VERNON J. WILLIAMS, JR.
Theological Seminary that he met William Graham Taylor (1851–1938), chairman of the first department of Christian sociology.9 Taylor was a proponent of the Social Gospel, which, as the recent historian of the movement Ralph E. Luker has defined it, ‘‘sought to be a fresh application of the insights of the Christian faith to pressing problems of social order that gained widespread circulation’’ among turn-of-the-twentieth century religious reformers. Taylor was the founder of Chicago Commons Settlement House and an associate of Jane Addams (1860–1935), and other reformers.10 He sought ‘‘to investigate the conditions of social and personal life, discover the causes of suffering and the sources of inharmonious relations’’ in order ‘‘to adjust the deficiencies and harmonize the varying elements.’’11 Under Taylor, Work completed a paper on black crime in Chicago. When Work changed his career aspiration from the ministry to sociology in 1898 and entered the University of Chicago in order to study under William I. Thomas (1863–1938), he took the paper he had written under Taylor with him. With some revisions, it was published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1900, the first article by an African American to appear in that journal.12
WORK AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Like so many men who formed the ranks of early sociologist, Work – as McMurray put it – sought ‘‘to test the power of the social gospel.’’13 Thus, Work entered the University of Chicago seeking to utilize sociology in his moral struggle for a just society. At Chicago, he came under the influence of William I. Thomas, professor of sociology. Thomas, the son of a lay Methodist minister, had received a doctorate in English Literature from the University of Tennessee; studied literature, folk psychology, and ethnology in Germany; and was awarded the doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1896. The writings of Thomas, whose main interests at that time were social psychology and physical anthropology, on the issues of the differences between the races followed the lead of Boas so closely that later sociologists often credited him, along with Boas, with developing the liberal environmental creed. Thus, although Thomas believed that there were differences in ‘‘temperament’’ between the races, he vociferously denied that intellectual differences were substantial.14 It was under Thomas’s mentorship that Work brought his first article to publishable form. In his article, ‘‘Crime Among the Negroes of Chicago,’’ Work took Frederick L. Hoffman (1822–1904) and other Darwinians to task. Hoffman,
Fight against White Supremacy
137
a German-born employee of the Prudential Insurance Company, was the author of Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, published by the American Economic Association in 1896. The work was an expression of the rampant Darwinism that predicted the impending extinction of African Americans.15 Hoffman argued African Americans after the antebellum period were deteriorating physically and morally because of their ‘‘race traits and tendencies,’’ rather than because of the adverse conditions to which they had been subjected. For Hoffman, it was ‘‘not the conditions of life but in race and heredity that we find the explanation.’’16 In other words, spokesmen for black degeneracy – as George M. Fredrickson has correctly pointed out – thought it seemed logical that ‘‘if the blacks were a degenerating race with no future, the problem ceased to be one of how to prepare them for citizenship or even how to make them more productive and useful members of the community. The new prognosis pointed rather to the need to segregate or quarantine a race liable to be a source of contamination and social danger to the white community as it sank even deeper into the slough of disease, vice, and criminality.’’17 The Southern counterparts during this same period to Northern spokesmen for black degeneracy and extinction such as Hoffman have been described by Joel Williamson as the purveyors of the ‘‘radical’’ mentality – that is, the mentality that viewed African Americans as retrogressing since slavery to their African heritage of bestiality and savagery, and, as a consequence, would become extinct in America.18 For both Northern Darwinians and Southern ‘‘radicals,’’ there was ‘‘no place’’ for African Americans in the United States. Work, like other sociologists of African American descent, such as Kelly Miller (1863–1939) and W. E. B. DuBois who reviewed separately Hoffman’s book – attacked his black degeneracy thesis. Kelly Miller, professor of mathematics at Howard University, led the charge to undermine Hoffman in 1897, when in a 33-page review of Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro he concluded that Hoffman’s assertions were based on ‘‘a priori considerations.’’ Furthermore, Miller argued that Hoffman’s ‘‘facts have been collected in order to justify y a condition. For Miller it was a condition and not a theory that confronts [the African American].’’19 For DuBois, the concept of an African American class structure grew out of his attempt to rebut Hoffman’s prediction of the impending extinction of African Americans. To DuBois, writing in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences in 1897, it was apparent that Hoffman did not have the insight to offer a ‘‘proper interpretation of apparently contradictory social facts y . If, for instance, we find among American Negroes today, at the very same time, increasing intelligence and increasing crime, increasing
138
VERNON J. WILLIAMS, JR.
wealth and disproportionate poverty, increasing religious and moral activity and high rate of illegitimacy in births, we can no more fasten upon the bad as typify the general tendency than we can upon the good.’’ Arguing emphatically against Hoffman’s assertion that the negative tendencies pertained to ‘‘the race’’ rather than to the class structure that had developed since emancipation, DuBois believed that the extent of an African American’s progress or retrogression was determined by the individual’s rank within the black structure. He was certain that white prejudice was an obstacle to black progress because it kept more blacks in the lower class.20 Basing his long article, which attacked Hoffman, on an enormous amount of statistical data on crime perpetrated by African Americans in Chicago, Work argued that crimes committed by African Americans was due to the fact that he [the African American] is in this transitional state from a lower to a higher plane of development. Although Work conceded to the Darwinians that some of the criminality was a result of ‘‘race characteristics peculiar to him [the African American],’’ he nevertheless went on to declare that ‘‘the economic phase of this transition y accounts for a large part of the excess of negro crime in the United States.’’21 By arguing that blacks were presently dominated by peculiar ‘‘race characteristics,’’ Work unwittingly excused the harsh and often brutal conditions under which most African Americans lived. Furthermore, he failed to answer questions in reference to how long it would take African Americans to raise themselves to the level of equality with Anglo-Americans; and would all of the purported ‘‘racial characteristics’’ vanish? Assuming that African Americans were capable of progress, Work believed racial prejudice would disappear. Despite his entanglement in the labyrinth of the progressive evolutionist argument, Work was nevertheless definitely not a subscriber to white supremacy; for he felt that African Americans had the capacity to evolve to a higher plane in the social order. During this same period Work met Reverdy Ransom (1861–1959), who, in 1900, founded Chicago’s Institutional Church and Social Settlement – an organization that provided for black migrants from the South as well as middle-class black residents of Chicago.22 Ransom, who viewed himself in the tradition of the abolitionists, was an African Methodist Episcopal minister (and later Bishop of the aforementioned denomination) had attended Wilberforce and Oberlin, receiving his B.D. from Wilberforce in 1886.23 After several pastorates in small mid-western towns, he was appointed pastor of Bethel Church in Chicago, and worked with Jane Addams in the social settlement, Hull House. Receiving help from Addams and other reformers, Ransom bought the Institutional Church. Work played a prominent role at
Fight against White Supremacy
139
the church, managing its club for boys – The Dearborn Club – whose membership ranged from ten to seventeen and contained a few whites, read on Fridays. ‘‘Mr. Work,’’ Ransom noted in his autobiography in 1946, has been brought to public notice recently by some clever magazine articles pertaining to his own people, but nowhere in life will he ever do more good than among the [Dearborn Club].24 Clearly, Work was dedicated to uplift and manhood development. Upon completing his Masters of Arts thesis in 1903, ‘‘The Negro Real Estate of Chicago,’’ in which he argued African Americans were making progress, insofar as the number of African American real estate owners as well as the value of their holdings were increasing, Work was appointed by the president of Georgia State Industrial College, Richard R. Wright, Sr. (1855–1947), to teach education and history at this institution in Savannah.25 Work would carry his message of self-reliance and gradual progress to uplift African Americans in his native South.
THE MIDDLE PERIOD The South that Work entered was marked by the existence of a wall of containment – a direct product of political and legal factors and extralegal violence. Disfranchisement, which began in Mississippi in 1890 and South Carolina in 1895, had spread to all Southern states by 1910. The Jim Crow principle, legitimized nationally by the Supreme Court’s 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, was established in most Southern states by that same date. In sum, most Southern states had laws requiring segregation in state welfare institutions, street and railway cars, recreational facilities, labor, and housing. Although lynching was declining as more black Southerners left the countryside, migrating to such large Southern cities as Birmingham and Atlanta, they met other forms of urban, white violence that led to urban riots. This was the South that Work returned. He would remain there for the rest of his life. The second phase of Work’s career in research, which lasted only from 1903 until 1908, was marked by his participation with DuBois in the Atlanta Studies. During this crucial juncture, Work became familiar with the publications of Franz ‘‘Uri’’ Boas. Boas was a German-born, Jewish immigrant who had come to the United States in 1887, where he encountered virulent anti-Semitism. Despite his difficulties in securing and holding employment, Boas’s brilliant work resulted in his appointment as professor of anthropology at Columbia University, where he remained until his death in 1942.
140
VERNON J. WILLIAMS, JR.
‘‘His impact on American anthropology was so great,’’ writes Rhett S. Jones, professor of history at Brown University, ‘‘that in the 1950s virtually all anthropologists in the country had studied under Boas or one of his students.’’26 Boas responded to the dominate racist discourse in anthropology; first, by utilizing the tools of anthropometry to generate new facts on which antiracist claims could be based. Second, he used scientific reasoning to question racist explanations of the facts. Third, he drew on both physical and cultural anthropology to remove markers by relabeling supposedly ‘‘peculiar’’ racial traits as universal human traits. Boas, who demonstrated that there was an approximate equality of whites and blacks by showing that the sizes of the cranial cavities of the two so-called races overlapped and by highlighting evidence of the historical and present achievements of the peoples of Western and Central Africa, thereby strengthened Work’s belief that peoples of African descent possessed the innate capabilities to progress. During these years, Work published an article in the Atlanta University series, entitled, ‘‘The Negro Brain,’’ which applied Boas’s arguments on the sizes of the cranial cavities of whites and blacks to the brain weights of the two groups. ‘‘In connection with the well established fact that those characters which are said to be distinctive of particular races are found with more or less frequency in other races,’’ Work argued ‘‘seem to indicate that what has been described as being peculiar in the size, shape and anatomy of the Negro brain is not true of all Negro brains.’’ He concluded in a cogent fashion that, ‘‘these peculiarities can no doubt be found in many white brains and probably have no special connection with the mental capacity of either race.’’27 Work, who was also evincing an interest in Africa, wrote a series of articles for the Southern Workman, which reflected his extensive research in the major contemporary works on African life.28 Entitled ‘‘Some Parallelisms in the Development of Africans and Other Races,’’ Work pointed to the striking similarities between African societies and those of Medieval Europe. To demonstrate that there were no significant innate differences between the so-called races despite recent history, he attacked white supremacists by putting forth an argument that: ‘‘African culture had reached the feudalistic stage when interrupted by European intervention. African feudalism is said to be strikingly similar to that of Europe in the eighteenth century.’’29 For Work, Africans were peoples who had made and were perfectly capable of making, in the present and future, achievements essential to human progress. Work, in short, at this point in his life, told rational scientific tales that reinforced one another and formed the historical element in his attempt to discredit the status quo. He would, in a few years completely
Fight against White Supremacy
141
alter the way which Booker T. Washington conceived of African Americans’ despised ancestors. In doing so, Work would reinforce Washington’s belief in the ability of African Americans to progress, thereby, further distancing Washington’s position from that of the partisan purveyors of white supremacy.
THE INFLUENCE ON WASHINGTON In 1908, Booker T. Washington asked Work to leave Georgia State Industrial College in order ‘‘to establish a Department of Negro history’’ at Tuskegee. Work indicated, ‘‘it would be more important and valuable to have a department specializing in the compiling of current data relating to the Negro.’’ ‘‘My suggestion was accepted and at Tuskegee Institute,’’ he noted with pride, ‘‘was established the first department in a Negro Educational Institution, devoted to compiling from all available sources data relating to every phase of Negro life and history.’’30 Work added that when he came to Tuskegee, many persons who had formerly advocated black uplift were becoming skeptical – primarily because of the noxious conclusions that Frederick L. Hoffman had presented. Work, a person who believed that all generalizations about blacks should be based on concrete, universally verifiable data, began ‘‘compiling a day-by-day record of what was taking place with reference to the Negro’’ from 1908. He published the Negro Yearbook (a biennial), which had a worldwide circulation, and became ‘‘a standard on all matters pertaining to the Race.’’31 Although his works were concise and seemed ‘‘almost devoid of interpretation’’ – as Linda O. McMurray has noted astutely – it should be remembered that in the context of turn-of-thecentury social science, his works were ‘‘scientific’’ attempts to undermine racism. Donald N. Levine, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, has pointed out that: ‘‘The most distinctive feature of the American sociological tradition may be its resolutely empirical character.’’ In other words, for Levine, ‘‘those who sought to enlist emerging social science for the purpose of moral struggles concurred in viewing the hallmark of science as induction from observed facts.’’32 Work believed that morality would manifest itself, once social science shed its ties to moral philosophy; and present an ‘‘objective’’ picture of society and human behavior. Of course, recent students of the sociology of knowledge have shown that values impinge on all aspects of the social scientific enterprise; still Work’s insistence on attempting to write scientific sociology and history was a necessary attack on those written by most white scholars and commentators who
142
VERNON J. WILLIAMS, JR.
approached the study of blacks as if the issues were clear-cut, regardless of the empirical data. What Work did was to reinforce Washington’s conviction that blacks possessed the capacity to become self-reliant and progress by demonstrating the empowering attributes of an accurate portrayal of Africans, and by collecting statistical data on all aspects of African American life. Despite Jim Crow laws, disfranchisement, lynching, and economic oppression, he showed blacks were progressing. Unfortunately, Washington had been influenced by nineteenth-century racist conceptions of Africans throughout his childhood and most of his adult life. Initially he considered his African ancestors as primitive barbarians. Work did much to modify his position; to convince him that Africans had made contributions to world civilization. In a series of articles that appeared in the Southern Workman between 1906 and 1909 and The Story of the Negro – a book for which Work and Robert Ezra Park were Washington’s ghost writers, Work quoted the most heralded authority, Boas, on the art of smelting ores by Africans, the artistic industries of Africa, the agriculture of Africans, native African culture, African law, and the character of African states.33 In the year following Washington’s death, Work revealed why he thought that the knowledge that he had been acquiring since his graduate-school days on Africa and Africans was of paramount importance in the evolution of an African American identity. Indeed, he was optimistic about the creation of this new identity. Work noted anthropologists no longer treated ‘‘the true Negro race as peoples whose physical characteristics indicated their inferiority.’’ No longer would the descriptions which caricaturists seized upon y and popularized y in cartoons, in songs and in other ways, compel the African American ‘‘to believe in his inherent inferiority and that to attain superiority he must become like the white man in color, in achievements and, in fact, along all lines.’’34 Work then linked the egalitarian ethnic pluralism of Social Gospel proponents such as Reverdy Ransom to DuBois’s notion of racial distinctiveness. He asked the following question: ‘‘Why cannot the Negro attain superiority along lines of his own, that is, instead of simply patterning after what the white man has done, why cannot the Negro through music, art, history, and science, make his own special contributions to the progress of the world?’’35 For Work, the negation of the white supremacist argument that innate characteristics prevented blacks from excelling in ‘‘high’’ culture rested on Boas’s empirical data.36 Work resorted to the findings of Boasian anthropology as the basis for the claim that: ‘‘While there are differences of races, there are no characteristics which per se to indicate that one race is inferior
Fight against White Supremacy
143
or superior to another.’’ This said, Work did not invoke the colorblind universalistic doctrine. He followed Boas’s lead and suggested that there were racial hereditary aptitudes. ‘‘The existing differences,’’ he argued, ‘‘are differences in kind not in value.’’ Yet Work also wanted to argue for the potency of the environment in the attainment of racial achievements and conclude that, whatever superiority one race has attained over another has largely been due to environment.’’37 Although Work, like Boas, was caught between the beliefs in ‘‘racial’’ differences and environmentalism, it must be remembered that he viewed his task as enhancing African Americans’ self-esteem. In doing so, Work believed that he could aid the task of African American uplift that Washington had set as his goal. After surveying the achievements of Africans in the years before European colonization, Work wrote: From this brief sketch which I have given of the African in ancient and medieval times it is clear that Negroes should not despise the rock from which they were hewn. As a race they have a past which is full of interest. It is worthy of serious study. From it we can draw inspiration; for it appears that not all black men everywhere throughout the ages have been ‘‘hewers of wood and drawers of water.’’ On the contrary, through long periods of time there were powerful black nations which have left the records of achievements and of which we are just now beginning to learn a little. This little, however, which we have learned teaches us that the Negroes of today should work and strive. Along their own special line and in their own peculiar way they should endeavor to make contributions to civilization.38
Work concluded, in a manner reminiscent of the Ethiopianism of Alexander Crummell (1819–1898) and DuBois.39 Crummell was an idealist; and critical of Washington’s crass, materialistic philosophy.40 Nonetheless, it is necessary, as J. R. Oldfield, a biographer (of Crummell), has correctly pointed out ‘‘not to exaggerate the differences in’’ Washington and Crummell’s position. ‘‘Both men thought that blacks could not leap to greatness or superiority, both men believed that blacks had a special contribution to make to American society, and both men were concerned to instill in blacks a high moral and religious tone,’’ Oldfield writes. It should also be added that both shared the belief in Ethiopianism, which Work adopted. Reflecting Crummell’s pride in ‘‘Ethiopia’s black race,’’ Work was certain that the achievements of African Americans could be of such magnitude that, ‘‘once more black will be dignified and the fame of Ethiopia again spread throughout the world.’’41 In this article, Work had clearly moved from telling rational scientific myths to mysticism. After 1908, white supremacists could take little comfort in Washington’s philosophy. The contribution of Monroe N. Work to the evolution of
144
VERNON J. WILLIAMS, JR.
Washington’s thought was a reconfiguring of Washington’s image of Africa and Africans, which caused all of the myths employed before 1908 to collapse. Work looked back to the myths of nineteenth-century African American nationalism and thus he provided continuity in African American nationalist thought between Alexander Crummell and Marcus M. Garvey.
THE FINAL PERIOD During the years after Washington’s death, Work published several papers that included data that indicated African Americans had made tremendous progress in the fields of economic development, education, health, and politics, since emancipation.42 In particular, in one article, which was published in the Publications of the American Sociological Society in 1924, Work pointed out, as Robert E. Park would also do four years later, that African American progress exacerbated racial tensions between whites and blacks in urban–industrial areas. ‘‘The agitation and friction,’’ he argued cogently, ‘‘now going on as to where Negroes shall live in cities centers about the efforts of progressive intelligent members of the groups to secure better places to live.’’43 Work’s emphasis on the progress that some African Americans had made was a theme that many sociologists would adopt in the 1930s and 1940s.44 For Work, the key to intraracial self-reliance and progress lay in exposing African Americans to the facts. In 1924, he wrote: ‘‘The lines along which we should have race knowledge are three; namely, those relating to racial characteristic; those relating to our past history and those relating to the present conditions and status of the group.’’45 Work believed that through collecting facts along those lines was significant, for ‘‘no sort of propaganda is, in the end, so effective as the facts themselves.’’ As a consequence, Work’s contribution to scholarship and African American uplift were substantial. His The Negro Year Book, A Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and America, and his scholarly and popular articles expressed Work’s valiant attempt to inspire the confidence of African Americans. Furthermore, Work, like Washington, was also an activist. Washington had founded Tuskegee Negro Conference to remedy the problems of African American farmers; fought surreptitiously against disfranchisement and Jim Crow; sponsored legal against peonage; supported the prohibition movement; and founded the National Negro Business League to assist African American businessmen. Like his mentor, Work established a National Negro Health Week, and published the Tuskegee Lynching Report, which contained
Fight against White Supremacy
145
statistics that were distributed to hundreds of newspapers. In addition, he actively sought to increase the number of black registered voters in Macon County, Alabama. To sum up, although Work eschewed the early campaign for civil and political rights, he, in the end, like Booker T. Washington was no ‘‘Uncle Tom.’’ What he did was to take gradual steps – collecting data that contradicted those who argued African Americans were retrogressing and that in the future there would be no place for them in the society, and creating viable myths in reference to Africa – to demonstrate that Washington’s program of self-help was a viable alternative to surrendering to the forces that conspired to renounce the humanity of African Americans.
NOTES 1. George M. Fredrickson, Black Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the United States and South Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 35. 2. Vernon J. Williams, Jr., ‘‘Southern Sociology Defends Jim Crow, 1900–1910,’’ in The Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution: Reflections on the Black Experience, ed. Earl S. Davis (New York: New York University Institute of Afro American Affairs, 1988), 43–60; From a Caste to a Minority: Changing Attitudes of American Sociologists Toward Afro-Americans, 1896–1945 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1989), 7–9, 14–17, 33–56, 83, 97, 102–103, 145, 163–165; ‘‘Booker T. Washington and the Political Mythology of Africa,’’ The Griot: The Journal of Black Heritage 11 (Spring 1992): 10–17; ‘‘The Myths of Africa in the Minds of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois, 1883–1915,’’ The Afrocentric Scholar: The Journal of the National Council for Black Studies 2 (December 1993): 26–55; Rethinking Race: Franz Boas and His Contemporaries (Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996), 54–72; ‘‘Booker T. Washington – Myth Maker,’’ in A Different Vision: African American Economic Thought, 2 vols., ed. Thomas D. Boston, (London: Routledge, 1997), 1: 194–212. 3. Several historians and social scientists have concurred in this argument – namely, E. Franklin Frazier, ‘‘Sociological Theory and Race Relations,’’ American Sociological Review 12 (June 1947): 265–271; Saunders Redding, They Came in Chains (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1951), 196; C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951), 323; Samuel R. Spencer, Jr., Booker T. Washington and the Negro’s Place in American Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 1955); Rayford W. Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro (New York: Collier Books, 1965), 312; George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 292–293, 299–300, 304, 309. 4. Vernon J. Williams, Jr., Rethinking Race, 54–78; ‘‘Booker T. Washington – Myth Maker,’’ 1: 194–212. 5. Ibid., 66–67; 204–206.
146
VERNON J. WILLIAMS, JR.
6. Linda O. McMurray, Recorder of the Black Experience: A Biography of Monroe Nathan Work (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 12–15; Jessie P. Guzman, ‘‘Monroe Nathan Work and His Contributions,’’ Journal of Negro History 34 (1949): 431. 7. Guzman, ‘‘Monroe Nathan Work and His Contributions,’’ 432; McMurray, Recorder of the Black Experience, 16–17. 8. James R. Grossman, Land of Home: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), 32–33. 9. McMurray, Recorder of the Black Experience, 17. 10. Ralph E. Luker, The Social Gospel in Black and White: American Racial Reform (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 173–174. 11. McMurray, Recorder of the Black Experience, 18–19. 12. Ibid., 19; Other contemporaneous works which dealt with the problem of crime among African Americans in order to provide dispassionate knowledge of the phenomenon are: W. E. B. DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899 Rpt. New York: Schocken Books, 1967); John Daniels, In Freedom’s Birthplace: A Study of Boston Negroes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914); George Edmund Haynes, The Negro at Work in New York City: A Study in Economic Progress (New York: Longmans, Green, 1912); Mary White Ovington, Half a Man: The Status of the Negro in New York (New York: Longmans, Green, 1911). 13. Ibid. 14. Vernon J. Williams, Jr., From a Caste to a Minority, 45–46, 72–73. 15. Frederick L. Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro (Philadelphia: American Economic Association, 1896), Preface. 16. Ibid. 17. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind, 255. 18. Joel Williamson, A Rage for Order: Black-White Relations in the American South Since Emancipation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 71–72. 19. Kelly Miller, Review of Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro by Frederick L. Hoffman. Occasional Paper No. 1, American Negro Academy, 1897. 20. W. E. B. DuBois, Review of Race Traits and Tendencies by Frederick L. Hoffman. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 9 (January 1897): 127–133. 21. Monroe N. Work, ‘‘Crime Among the Negroes of Chicago,’’ American Journal of Sociology 6 (September 1900): 222–223. 22. Reverdy C. Ransom, The Pilgrimage of Harriet Ransom’s Son (Nashville: A.M.E. Sunday School Union, ca. 1948); The Spirit of Freedom and Justice (Nashville: A.M.E. Sunday School Union, 1926). 23. Luker, The Social Gospel in Black and White, 173–174. 24. Reverdy C. Ransom, The Pilgrimage of Harriet Ransom’s Son, 107–108. 25. McMurray, Recorder of the Black Experience, 29–30. 26. Rhett S. Jones, ‘‘The More Things Change,’’ Brown Alumni Monthly 97 (November 1996): 18. 27. Monroe N. Work, ‘‘The Negro Brain,’’ in W. E. B. DuBois (ed.), The Health and Physique of the Negro American, Atlanta University Publications, No. 11 (Atlanta: Atlanta University Press), 25–27.
Fight against White Supremacy
147
28. The Southern Workman, founded by General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, head of Hampton Institute, was first published on January 1, 1872. Initially designed to address the practical affairs of the freedmen, it became a propaganda organ for Hampton graduates and an invaluable source of national and world news affecting the freedmen. See: Virginia Lantz Denton, Booker T. Washington and the Adult Education Movement (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 1993), 71–72. 29. Monroe N. Work, ‘‘Some Parallelisms in the Development of Africans and Other Races,’’ Southern Workman XXXVI (January 1907): 39–40. 30. Monroe N. Work, ‘‘Monroe Nathan Work,’’ (Jessie P. Guzman Papers). 31. Monroe N. Work, ‘‘An Autobiographical Sketch,’’ February 7, 1940 (Monroe N. Work Papers). 32. Donald N. Levine, Visions of the Sociological Tradition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995) 251–252. 33. Vernon J. Williams, Jr., Rethinking Race: Franz Boas and His Contemporaries, 67–72. 34. Monroe N. Work, ‘‘The Passing Tradition and African Civilization,’’ Journal of Negro History l (January 1916): 32. 35. Ibid. 36. Like so many social scientists of the period, Work was indebted to Boas’s assessment of the size of the cranial cavities of whites and blacks; yet he did not mention his specific sources. 37. Ibid., 41. 38. Ibid., 42. 39. Alexander Crummell, the first person of African American descent to graduate from the University of Cambridge, was an ardent Pan-African nationalist, an Episcopalian missionary and the founder of the American Negro Academy. 40. For biographical information on Alexander Crummell, see: Gregory U. Rigsby, Alexander Crummell: Pioneer in Nineteenth Century Pan-African Thought (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988); Wilson J. Moses, Alexander Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discontent (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); and J. R. Oldfield, ed. Alexander Crummell on the South (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1995). 41. Monroe N. Work, ‘‘The Passing Tradition and African Civilization,’’ 42. 42. Monroe N. Work, ‘‘A Half Century of Progress: The Negro in America in 1866 and 1922,’’ Missionary of the World Review 45 (June 1922): 431–440; ‘‘Aspects and Tendencies of the Race Problem’’ (1912–1924), Publications of the American Sociological Society 19 (29–31 December 1924): 191–196; ‘‘The Economic Progress of the Negro’’ (Typescript, December 31, 1929, Work Papers); ‘‘Cooperation and the South’s New Economic Conditions’’ (Typescript, n.d., Work Papers); ‘‘Two Generations Since Emancipation,’’ Missionary Review of the World 59 (June 1936). 43. Monroe N. Work, ‘‘Aspects and Tendencies of the Race Problem,’’ 191–196. 44. Vernon J. Williams, Jr., From a Caste to a Minority, 149–176. 45. Monroe N. Work, Untitled (Typescript, n.d., Work Papers).
This page intentionally left blank
148
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, ROBERT EZRA PARK AND SECOND GENERATION AFRICAN-AMERICAN SOCIOLOGISTS Donald Cunnigen The legacy of Booker T. Washington has often been limited to educational and business concerns. Occasionally, a cultural legacy surfaces in discussions of the famous Washington vs. DuBois debate. The debate is most often placed in the context of American education and race relations (Cunnigen, 2002b). The direct and indirect influence of Washington on the intellectual discourse of a group of African-American intellectuals within a particular discipline has received scant attention by scholars. Washington’s impact on social scientists, especially sociologists, may appear as an odd topic for exploration by some readers. However, Washington’s close working relationship with Robert Ezra Park,1 the famed University of Chicago sociologist and race relations expert, suggest otherwise. The unusual connection between Washington and Park has received critical attention from scholars within recent years (Lindner, 1996; Deegan, 1988; Raushenbush, 1979; Matthews, 1977). The extent to which Washington’s accommodationist views and Park’s development and appreciation of
The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 149–180 Copyright r 2006 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13008-1
149
150
DONALD CUNNIGEN
the changing dynamics of American life, especially the arrival of new immigrants and the continuing racial conflicts, have not been examined by many scholars. Most important, their relationship and the subsequent Washington impact on the post-war African-American intellectual community via Park’s work at Chicago have only received scant attention due to limited original resource material on their relationship beyond correspondence and published volumes. Yet, the relationship has been acknowledged as a key aspect of Park’s pre-Chicago socialization. It has been suggested that the beginnings of some of his ideas on marginality and race had their basis in his Tuskegee years. Since Park had a profound impact on an entire generation of AfricanAmerican sociologists, it seems appropriate to attempt to parse out any links between his views, Washington views, and the scholarship produced by sociologists who came into his sphere of intellectual activity. The purpose of the examination would be to explore the depth of Washington’s impact on modern-day social scientific thought and discussions on race, as viewed through the prism of a generation of African-American sociologists. This essay will examine Washington’s influence on second-generation African-American sociologists. It will explore the following: (a) definition and description of second-generation African-American sociologists; (b) the examination of Park’s influence on Washington’s ideas via their collaborative writing; and (c) an examination of select written work by members of the second-generation African-American sociologists to determine Washington’s impact.
STAGES OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL TRADITION: A DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION Four distinct generational stages have existed in the African-American sociological tradition, each influenced by the broader social system: firstgeneration, 1895–1930; second-generation, 1931–1959; third-generation, 1960–1975; and fourth-generation, 1976 to present. These periods were based on the production of Ph.D. recipients (Cunnigen, 2002a, 2003; Washington & Cunnigen, 2002). In recent works, scholars in different disciplines have suggested the Ph.D. production of African-American scholars has significance in the study of African-American scholarship. Within recent years, seven separate attempts have been made by Robert Washington and Donald Cunnigen (2002), Alford Young and Donald
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
151
Deskins (2001), R. Charles Key (1975), James E. Blackwell and Morris Janowitz (1974), Butler A. Jones (1974), Jacqueline Johnson Jackson (1974), Gordon D. Morgan (1973), and John H. Bracey, August Meier, and Elliott Rudwick (1971) to catalog and classify the African-American sociological tradition according to stages of development. Jones (1974) and Morgan (1973) provided imprecise stages for the first and second generations of the African-American sociological tradition. Consequently, Morgan’s firstgeneration list included African-American social scientists from the 1890s through the 1950s. Jones used the time period of 1897–1955 for his discussion, i.e., beginning with early African-American college sociology courses. Key (1978) suggested three distinct ‘‘periods’’ or stages: (1) The Beginning School: Exclusion–Segregation, 1895–1964; (2) The New School: The Accommodation–Assimilationist Orientation, 1931–1964; and (3) The New Black Sociologists: Co-optation and Containment, 1965 to Present. Jacquelyne Johnson Jackson (1974) failed to offer a similar periodization of African-American women. Despite the exhaustive character of these lists, many names were still omitted from the various classificatory schemes (Conyers, 1968; Willie, 1982; Killian, 1994). In the early stages, the sociologists were trained in a variety of disciplines (McMurry, 1985; Himes, 1949; Doyle, 1933). They spanned a wide range of chronological ages throughout the various stages. Yet, their training and research during a specific time period shaped their work. The issues related to discerning a method for identifying participants in periods of scholarly endeavor are not unique to sociologists. In contemporary scholarship, the method of staging used by scholars has often been an area of considerable discussion. Normative categories based on time and specific artistic influences have surfaced in artistic fields. However, Jerry Ward has taken exception to this method in his examination of African-American poetic expression by positing the African-American poet has subverted the nice paradigmatic structuring of works. The subversion in African-American poetry was attributable to their work having features which ‘‘may or may not conform to the dominant ideas of a period’’ (Ward, 1997, p. xxi). Ward’s notion of African-American artists creating an original poetic space provides an interesting approach to understanding the complexity of describing an intellectual group’s generational experiences. It was this complexity that led some historical scholars to debate the legitimacy of methods used to define periods of African-American scholarship in the field of history (Meier & Rudwick, 1986; Meier, 1992). Recently, reviews of African-American historiography have challenged some historians’ arbitrary use of five periods. Their periods were derived
152
DONALD CUNNIGEN
from three main documentation forms, i.e., books, interviews, and monographs. The historians relied upon the ‘‘relations between the evolution of Afro-American historiography and changes within the society in general and historical profession in particular’’ (Harris, 1987, p. 1153) to develop their periods. According to some reviewers, the consequence of this reliance was the exclusion of non-Ph.D. scholars who had not published ‘‘significant’’ or ‘‘recognized’’ works. Similarly, some recent sociological examinations of contributions to an African-American sociological tradition have been plagued by assumptions about scholarly productivity or lack of productivity at historically African-American colleges and universities (Young & Deskins, 2001). Realizing the inefficiency of using a specific period, this essay will use second-generation African-American sociologists as an appropriate descriptor because the sociologists shared many of the common experiences and perspectives of African-American sociologists schooled from 1930s through the 1950s. Their scholarly production and graduate study reflected a generational experience that was unique. In this generation, African-American sociologists were trained in many disciplines; they were employed in academic and social agencies; and they often did interdisciplinary research. As Jonathan Holloway (2002, p. 124) indicated, it is most important to remember that the ‘‘imprimatur of the Ph.D. ought not be considered the litmus test for determining which blacks were practicing sociology.’’ Thus, individuals had degrees in fields such as anthropology, St. Clair Drake. Unlike Ward, we cannot make a claim to a subversive subtext in secondgeneration African-American sociologists’ work. Their acceptance of an assimilationist stance counteracted subversiveness. Yet, the second-generation African-American sociologists maintained a distinct worldview from previous and subsequent generations. The unique qualities of the second-generation African-American sociologists’ worldview and the indirect negative or positive influence of Washington’s accommodationist views on African-American intellectual discourse resulted in interesting aspects in their participation as scholars. Their worldview was formed by a configuration of socio-cultural and historical events that shaped the American intellectual discourse. Important aspects related to the events that shaped the American intellectual discourse and the second-generation African-American sociological worldview include the following: (1) the development of the sociological discipline; (2) the contemporaneous patterns of race relations and the mainstream sociological community’s response; (3) the development of basic sociological assumptions; (4) the relationship of those assumptions to the study of race relations;
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
153
and (5) the unique isolation of the second-generation African-American sociological tradition vis-a`-vis the relationship of African-American sociologists with mainstream sociological research institutions. The Second-Generation African-American Sociological Network This period was an important time for the second-generation African-American sociologists (Banks, 1996; Pettigrew, 1980; Greene, 1946). According to James E. Conyers (1986, pp. 77–93), two of the top four African-American sociologists were produced in this generation, Oliver Cromwell Cox and E. Franklin Frazier.2 During the period, a network of second-generation African-American sociologists provided links between earlier generations as well as cross-racial linkages. The socio-political currents of the AfricanAmerican intellectual community had a profound impact on the secondgeneration. The network was linked by the interaction and influence of older and younger African-American scholars. The Atlanta University (AU, now Clark Atlanta University) scholars, the home of the first African-American sociology department in 1896, played a significant role in the crossfertilization of African-American scholarship, especially W. E. B. DuBois (Wright, 2002a, b, c; Jones, 1974). Butler A. Jones3 was influenced moderately by W. E. B. DuBois4 as an AU student. As a student, he was influenced strongly by Morehouse College (Morehouse) faculty member, Walter Chivers.5 During his own professional life, he interacted with Cox, Mozell C. Hill,6 and other members of the generation (Jones, 1997, 1993a, b). In addition to the AU network, the Chicago School had an important impact on African-American scholars. St. Clair Drake7 was influenced strongly by W. Lloyd Warner, Robert Redfield, Everett C. Hughes, and Louis Wirth.8 Through his Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) years and later Chicago School days, Allison Davis9 became a strong influence on Drake. He was influenced moderately by Gunnar Myrdal10 (Bracey, 1994). He collaborated on research with Horace Cayton11; and interacted with other second-generation scholars. Horace Cayton was influenced strongly by Park and Louis Wirth. The overarching influence of African-American political figures such as Booker T. Washington had a strong influence on their scholarship. The complex network of influences was derivative of an intellectual community, which exhibited four basic characteristics. Within the African-American intellectual community, sociologists had the following characteristics: (1) they were a privileged minority whose high
154
DONALD CUNNIGEN
status occupational membership and racial status gave them advantages and disadvantage; (2) they were a group who suffered ambiguity regarding the confluence of their racial status with their professional/occupational status; (3) they were a group who ‘‘directed all of [their] energies and attention to problems of race relations’’; and (4) they were a group whose training and intellectual views were influenced greatly by the liberal views of scholars such as Park (Hines, 1967, pp. 30–35). In addition, Key (1978, pp. 35–48) identified seven unique characteristics of the second-generation African-American sociologists: (1) their professional careers usually began after 1931; (2) they were not very concerned about professionally refuting the racist assumptions present in the intellectual discourse of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; (3) they focused their research on the conditions which immediately effected the African-American community and larger society; (4) their work more effectively utilized sociological methods and was better documented than the first generation; (5) they attempted to be more objective and scientifically oriented; (6) they were not very much engaged in social action; and (7) they had greater acceptance from some segments of the white sociological community. Key’s suggestion of the generation’s greater acceptance by white scholars reflects the second generation’s acceptance of particular white scholars’ theoretical models.
The Chicago School and Robert Ezra Park’s Influence on the Second-Generation One of the dominant models used by sociologists of the period to explain race relations was the assimilationist model. Since many of the secondgeneration African-American sociologists studied under University of Chicago’s Park, a leading proponent of the assimilationist model, they incorporated the model or elements of the model in their research (Hall, 2002; Jones, 1992; Davidson, 1977). Park’s four stage race-relations cycle (contact, competition, accommodation, and assimilation stages, in which the ultimate end was the assimilation of racial and ethnic minorities) was promoted by many of his former students and was an element of a general approach to race that was accepted by scholars across racial lines. An implicit element of the cycle was the idea that social interaction followed cycles that leaned heavily on a balanced social system. Through reorganization, the social system would eliminate any disorganization. The Park concept of racial balance was perceived as assimilation into the dominant white culture
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
155
(Holloway, 2002, pp. 131–132). Hall (2002, p. 54) suggested a part of this assimilationist perspective was the acceptance of ‘‘natural forces’’ that resulted in his ‘‘lukewarm views about the prospects of planned social change and social protest.’’ The acceptance of the assimilationist perspective by many second-generation African-American sociologists was part of their accommodationist stance in relationship to the discipline. Yet, some secondgeneration African-American sociologists found it increasingly problematic to accept all aspects of the cycle, especially the accommodation stage (Persons, 1987). The Chicago School’s tradition had a significant impact on their perspective. Although Andrew Abbott suggested the Chicago School was ‘‘a body of work produced by students and faculty of the department between the First World War and the mid-1930s,’’ the tradition extended well beyond the 1930s for African-American sociologists (Abbott, 1997, p. 1153). Through their research, many African-American sociologists utilized elements of the Chicago School’s methods. According to Abbott, the Chicago School of thought ‘‘felt that no social fact makes any sense abstracted from its context in social (and often geographic) space and social time’’ (Abbott, 1997, p. 115). This view was shared by many second-generation African-American sociologists as they examined racial issues of the 1930s through the 1950s (Teele, 2002; Holloway, 2002). Thus, many of the second-generation sociologists combined the Park assimilationist model with the Chicago School of thought. By the 1930s and 1940s, the African-American intellectual community’s members shared the following characteristics: (1) it embraced ideologies, theories, and philosophies which were not reflective of the African-American community; (2) it embraced uncritically liberal integrationist ideology and methodology; (3) it was alienated from the African-American community; and (4) it accepted liberal ideology because of ‘‘Jim Crow’s’’ pernicious hold on the popular culture of American society through law and social custom (Davidson, 1977, pp. 45–51). During this period, significant scholarly publications appeared such as E. Franklin Frazier’s, Negro Family in Chicago (1932) and Negro Family in the United States (1939), Allison Davis and John Dollard’s Children of Bondage: The Personality Development of Urban Youth in the Urban South (1940) and Burleigh Gardner, Mary Gardner and Allison Davis’ Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class (1941), Bertram Wilbur Doyle’s The Etiquette of Race Relations in the South, (1937), Charles S. Johnson’s works12 Shadow of the Plantation (1934) and Growing Up in the Black Belt (1941), and Patterns of Negro Segregation (1943), Ira deAugustine Reid’s 13 In A Minor Key, (1940) St. Clair Drake and
156
DONALD CUNNIGEN
Horace R. Cayton’s Dark Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (1945), Oliver C. Cox’s Caste, Class and Race (1948) and Hylan G. Lewis’14 Blackways of Kent (1955). As Alford Young (1993, p. 107) and Anthony Q. Cheeseboro (1999) noted in their studies of Frazier, Johnson, and Cox, the publications of many African-American sociologists of this period were influenced by Park or focused on a critique of Park’s views (Hall, 2002, p. 57). Park’s ‘‘views on the culture of Afro-Americans and Africans as well as his race relations cycle’’ had a strong impact on Johnson and Frazier (Young, 1993, p. 109). In Young’s opinion, Frazier’s body of work represented a methodological and theoretical extension and revision of Park’s ideas. Morgan (1973, pp. 106–119) suggested Park and/or the caste and class school of thought influenced the entire second-generation of African-American sociologists. In both analyses, the scholars support Key’s basic assumption that secondgeneration African-American sociologists operated under an assimilationist–accommodationist model which did not challenge profoundly the domain assumptions of sociology. As marginalized scholars, they viewed their commitment to the discipline’s shibboleths as a mark of being well trained and a requirement for full acceptance by their mainstream peers. Despite their attachment to the discipline’s assumptions, their lives as members of the African-American community created personal tensions. The second-generation African-American sociologists best represented the DuBoisian concept of ‘‘dual consciousness,’’ only as African-American intellectuals. Their dual consciousness was based on the conflictual nature of their commitment to sociology’s domain assumptions, the myth of objectivity by which they were trained in white graduate schools, and their personal commitment to a racially just society. Anthony Platt (1990, pp. 51–52) has suggested Frazier resolved the conflict in his written work by effecting two diverging writing styles, i.e., a scholarly style which was ‘‘a sociological language in his academic publications’’ and an advocacy style which was ‘‘[a] polemical language ... [used] in [popular] journals like the Messenger.’’ The Frazier writing technique for ideological conflict resolution was evident in the written work of other sociologists during the period. One recent reviewer of Frazier’s work has suggested his advocacy style challenged the traditional racial views of his generation, particularly on matters of anticolonialism, nonalignment, and black intellectuals (Gaines, 2005). In examining the second-generation’s approach to Washington’s ideas, one can find a similarity among some scholars who attempted to straddle ideological and scholarly lines of discourse regarding his accommodationist approach.
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
157
PARK AND WASHINGTON: GHOSTWRITING ACROSS EUROPE AND DEVELOPING A VIEW ON RACE The only Washington connection that anyone can make directly to American sociology would be his relationship with Park who served as his amanuensis as one reviewer has described him. An accurate description of his role was press agent and ghostwriter. The unusual cross-racial professional working relationship between the two men provided the basis for an intellectual exchange that had consequences long after each man moved on to other endeavors. Park’s seven-year stay at Tuskegee afforded him more than an opportunity to serve as Washington’s publicist. According to Raushenbush (1979, pp. 42–50), he was a student of southern race relations. As a student, he kept notebooks on aspects of southern AfricanAmerican farm life and church culture. In those institutions, he found elements of what would become a part of his future perspectives on race and ethnic relations. Although Park ghostwrote a number of Washington’s important pieces, one work highlights the potential influence of Park on Washington’s ideas, (1911[1984]) The Man Farthest Down. In The Man Farthest Down (1911[1984]), Washington attempts to interpret the life of the workingman or European peasant. His work suggested parallels may be found between dynamics of American race relations, particularly African-American and white relations, and European workers. As St. Clair Drake noted aptly, the work belied any clear understanding of the complicated economic dimensions of European social classes, the distinctions between class and caste or refinement of the concept of race. It suggested that his interpretation was limited, regarding race. The sociological interpretative limitations of the work have been attributed to the fact that Park’s ‘‘real’’ rigorous sociological training did not develop until his departure from Tuskegee in 1913. However, Park’s lecture on the ‘‘Racial Assimilation in Reference to the Negro’’ and subsequent course in the following year must be acknowledge as the crystallization of some ideas on race. Yet most scholars agree that his famous race relations cycle was not developed fully until later. The work highlighted Park’s journalistic training and previous European study. According to Lindner (1996, pp. 45–46), the work best exemplified Park’s background as a journalist. It was the prism through which a ‘‘sociological’’ explanation of race was filtered for Washington, albeit very circumscribed. Washington attempted to use the work derived from his European travels to England, Scotland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy,
158
DONALD CUNNIGEN
Poland and Denmark as a treatise on how African-Americans, as members of the American lower class fared in comparison with their European counterparts. Interestingly, his ideological nemesis and an important figure among the first-generation African-American sociologists, W. E. B. DuBois followed a very similar European travel route seventeen years earlier with similar observations about European peasants. However, he used them for different political ends (Lewis, 1993, pp. 140–141). Moreover, it highlighted the strong influence of Park as the ghostwriter for this volume. The analysis was clearly one that had the imprint of the journalist/philosopher’s eye. Some writers have speculated that many of the observations presented in the work were actually Park’s rather than Washington’s (Lindner, 1996, p. 47). Most important, it presented some of Park’s ideas that would percolate up into his particular views on race in subsequent years. Lindner (1996, p. 48) has suggested that Park’s concept of the marginal man that became a main heuristic principle in his subsequent race studies was derived from his Tuskegee years. The concept has been documented in a Park notation of 1910, i.e., prior to his departure from Tuskegee Institute. Thus, Washington’s only connection with the secondgeneration sociologists would be the subsequent impact of Park’s ideas that crystallized after spending years at Tuskegee. Thus, Park’s influence on second-generation African-American sociologists may be viewed on an intellectual continuum that began with his service as secretary of the Congo Reform Association of which Washington was a Vice President to his seven-year stint at Tuskegee and on to the University of Chicago. For Washington scholars, the fact that this continuum has two key parts in which Washington’s presence looms greatly should not be dismissed as coincidental or inconsequential to understanding why he believed that assimilation or accommodation was an appropriate path for racial and ethnic groups.
SECOND-GENERATION TUSKEGEE SCHOLARS: LEWIS WADE JONES AND OLIVER CROMWELL COX – SELECTED WORKS If a legacy of Washington’s influence on second-generation AfricanAmerican sociologists can be discerned, it would have to incorporate an examination of the influence that Park’s ideas may have had on AfricanAmerican sociologists, especially the African-American sociologists on the Tuskegee Institute faculty. The Tuskegee scholars would provide the most
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
159
significant clues. As a premier institution within the constellation of historically African-American colleges and universities (HAACU) during the Jim Crow era, Tuskegee Institute attracted some of America’s most talented and scholarly productive African-American intellectuals. Despite its demanding teaching requirements, the institute’s financial support was considerably stronger than many HAACU’s who existed on the margins of sound fiscal operation. Yet, the institute’s resources paled in comparison with white institutions of comparable size and academic focus. Thus, Tuskegee Institute became an influential player in the burgeoning second-generation African-American sociological community. Among the many noted sociologists who served on its faculty were Lewis Wade Jones (1910–1979), Oliver Cromwell Cox (1901–1974), Charles Goode Gomillion (1900–1995),15 Stanley H. Smith16, Ernest E. Neal (1911–1972),17 Horace R. Cayton (1903–1970), and Edgar G. Epps (1929)18 (Nakano, 2005; Washington & Cunnigen, 2002; Jackson, 1995; Driver, 1988; Hunter & Abraham, 1987; Jones, 1974). This examination will focus on two scholars: Lewis Wade Jones and Oliver Cromwell Cox. Although their lives extended beyond the exact time periods of the second-generation as posited above, they had more in common with the second-generation scholars than the subsequent third-generation scholars due to age and time of training. Thus, they are labeled more appropriately as second-generation scholars. In Jones and Cox, one will find elements of the best that second-generation AfricanAmerican sociology produced as well as the lingering elements of Washington’s influence on the campus milieu of Tuskegee Institute.
Robert Ezra Park’s Relationship and Influence on Lewis Wade Jones and Other Second-Generation African-American Sociologists in Alabama Lewis Wade Jones was born in Cuero, Texas on March 13, 1910. He received his A.B. degree from Fisk University in 1931. He did postgraduate study as a Social Science Research Council Fellow at the University of Chicago in 1931–1932. As a Rosenwald Fellow, he received the M.A. degree in sociology from Columbia University in 1939. He took the Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in 1955. He was a professor of sociology and Director of the Tuskegee Institute Rural Development Center from 1932 until 1979 (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005, p. 11). Although Jones’ career included a period of study in Chicago, it appears that the lasting impression of Park on Jones was derived from an experience in service for him. As Park’s chauffeur while he conducted research projects,
160
DONALD CUNNIGEN
Jones acquired an ‘‘insider’s’’ perspective on the man and the sociologist. During those trips, he heard Park’s personal comments regarding various ethnic groups, including many anti-Semitic comments. Park’s harsh comments regarding the Jewish community may have been a result of his complex racial views on cultural hybrids vis-a`-vis his race relations cycle, which Stanfield (1985, p. 49) explained as seeing ‘‘marginal people, like Jews, as adherents to an outmoded cultural past and not quite incorporated into the host society.’’ As Parks had a strong influence on many second-generation African-American sociologists, the ‘‘insider’’ knowledge regarding his personal attitudes on race and ethnicity gave the young group of Alabama African-American sociologists an unusual perspective on the ‘‘white liberal’’ voices within their discipline (Butler A. Jones, 1997).
A Review of Selected Works by Lewis Wade Jones This review of selected works by Lewis Wade Jones will not provide an exhaustive review of his scholarly contributions as a second-generation African-American sociologist (Jones, 1962; Jones & Smith, 1958). It will examine representative works, i.e., several articles in leading sociological journals and a newly discovered manuscript. Unlike many AfricanAmerican sociologists of the period, Jones was one of a small number who published in the American Sociological Review. Each of his published works focused on rural sociology. Although race themes could be gleaned from the discussions, the articles did not focus on race. In an essay that examined southern ecology and the concept of ‘‘rurality,’’ Jones developed new and innovative concepts for the interpretation of rural communities. His concepts were rural hinterland and urban hinterland. He attempted to bring specificity to a concept, i.e., hinterland, that was commonly used in ecological studies. Jones suggested the concept had been used in juxtaposition to an understanding of the relationship between rural communities and urban centers. Jones used his observations of southern rural life as a basis for refining the discussion to incorporate the changing dynamics of the American South. Jones’ work did not offer any direct links to the Washington/Park approach to race relations. As a rural sociologist and education expert in 1940s and 1950s Alabama, his published work examined southern life with a focus on the changing patterns developing during the period. Jones reviewed the leading literature regarding the concept of hinterland. He found seven generalizations made by social scientists. He suggested the generalizations
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
161
led to the following two conclusions: (1) ‘‘there [were] geographic areas in which raw material producing functions of the economy [were] carried on: agricultural, extraction, and collecting enterprises [; and] (2) the ratio of producers to land production units [was] small in this area, which [was] another way of saying that there [was] a low density of population and high land-to-man ratio’’ (Jones, 1955, p. 42). From those conclusions, he presented the following two hypotheses: (1) the forms of organization obtaining for raw-materials-production may be influenced by traditional skills and values of the population as well as by requirements of the raw-materials to be exploited; and (2) the social organization and patterned personal relationships in those areas would be influence by characteristics of population, traditional values of the people, and the kind of associational relationships developed by living and working together in the common area (Jones, 1955, p. 42). Jones examined the hypotheses by using comparative 1920 and 1950 Census data for Alabama. He found the data supported his construction of new definitions of ‘‘rural hinterland’’ and ‘‘urban hinterland.’’ His definition of a ‘‘rural hinterland’’ was ‘‘a raw-materials-producing area characterized by high land-to-man ratio and having a population whose occupations [were] agricultural or extractive’’ (Jones, 1955, p. 44). He stated ‘‘the primary social interests of this population [were] expressed in associations and institutions located within a delimited residential spread of population’’ (Jones, 1955, p. 44). He defined an ‘‘urban hinterland’’ as a ‘‘sub-area within a raw-materials-producing area whose population [had] other economic functions than those of raw-materials-production. The primary social interests of this population [were] expressed in associations and institutions other than those of the surrounding or adjacent rural hinterland population’’ (Jones, 1955, p. 44). He made two observations regarding the patterns of occupancy of the rural hinterland. They were: (1) ‘‘residential concentration of population in neighborhoods or villages [that] serve as the focus of primary service functions while the performance of productive functions [were diffused widely]; and (2) residential dispersion on farmsteads [that were] the focus of productions while service functions [were diffused widely]’’ (Jones, 1955, p. 43). The discussion of ‘‘rurality’’ used percentage data to highlight the social changes occurring in the South. Unlike past studies that relied on a perception of rural life as being farm concentrated, Jones highlighted the shifting patterns of employment and the increase in farm acreage with smaller numbers of farmers. Jones’ article was addressing the major post-Washington changes in the rural South, thirty years after the great man’s death. Those
162
DONALD CUNNIGEN
changes resulted in the diminishing number of farmers, especially AfricanAmerican farmers. The Tuskegee Institute community highlighted the changes. Through mechanization, one of the major planters in the area reduced his hired sharecroppers on his 2,000-acre cotton plantation from 200 to 20 employees. Subsequently, he changed his interests to livestock and eliminated all but five employees (Nakano, 2005, p. 186). The fate of the unemployed sharecroppers and other African-American farmers was to relocate to cities in state and out-of-state. The relocation was not with much success. Those who remained in the area lived on small subsistence farms (Nakano, 2005, pp. 186–187). The only tenuous link that one could suggest that this article may have to any Washingtonian ideas would be the continued interest in rural life as demonstrated by this Tuskegee scholar. Yet, Jones’ work does not posit a political position of accommodation or sustained subjugation under the segregationist political power of the era (Jones, 1955, pp. 40–44). His work with the development of rural social centers could be viewed as an extension of the Washingtonian view of self-help strategies in the South. In fact, his work on the rural social centers suggested that southern communities were finding the centers as a means to adapt to their location and particular social conditions rather than accepting a particular pre-destined existence. His work focused on the development of rural social centers that were often attached to churches. Although the work looked at AfricanAmerican centers, it was not focused exclusively on the group. He examined white, multi-racial, and Hispanic rural social centers located in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. The most famous of the centers cited by Jones was the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, which has been associated with famous modern-day African-American civil rights activists such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. (Jones, 1951). It has been suggested by a reviewer that the rural social centers failed to provide ‘‘self-help’’ in the traditional Washington sense or as stated in Jones’ very optimistic description of the rural social centers. Instead of providing poor subsistence farmers and unemployed coal miners with the methods to eradicate poverty, one reviewer stated the new rural social centers merely helped the poor to adjust to their condition (Nakano, 2005, pp. 186–187). Whether or not one views the rural social centers as a modern-day form of accommodation to class and racial segregation in the South depends entirely on the perspective that one uses to interpret change and adaptation. While the debate does not resonate with the layered sophistication of the Washington vs. DuBois debate, it does relate the influence that Washington’s views had on second-generation African-American sociologists. The rural social centers
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
163
were very much in the tradition of many early activities initiated at Tuskegee such as various institutes to improve farming and family life for rural AfricanAmericans. Thus, the rural social centers could be described as a practicable extension of past accommodation strategies. Although the Jones works on rural social centers and the concept of the hinterland did not highlight the Parkian ideas on race, a recently discovered work by Jones mirrored the major themes of the second-generation AfricanAmerican sociologists. According to Young and Deskins (2001, pp. 463–464), the second-generation African-American sociologists offered five important empirical contributions. They were: (1) recognition of the urban transformation of the African-American population and its impact on AfricanAmerican culture and organizational life; (2) patterns of African-American urban employment; (3) patterns of southern rural life; (4) changes in Jim Crow societal rules; and (5) the future expectations of African-Americans. Some scholars have suggested the second-generation African-American sociologists’ empirical research was based on a theoretical premise that ‘‘asserted notions of culture that focused on shared patterns of adaptation to social contexts’’ (Young & Deskins, 2001, p. 463). This was coupled with a belief that African-American culture was a uniquely American development; and African-American progress would be enhanced by providing options for assimilation and acculturation into American society (Young & Deskins, 2001, p. 463). The work of Jones in the Mississippi Delta combined all of Young and Deskins’ descriptive features of African-American life. Recently, scholars unearthed a long lost manuscript that was produced collaboratively by Jones, John W. Work, and Samuel C. Adams.19 In the manuscript, Jones highlighted the African-American folk culture of the 1930s. Jones’ essay was written as background detail for a study on the blues idiom in the Mississippi Delta. Jones’ brief manuscript examined three aspects of African-American folk life in relationship to the historical development of the region’s economy. He offered general descriptions of African-American folk life. The three aspects of African-American folk life highlighted in the essay were: (1) the Delta; (2) the river and levee; and (3) the pioneers (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005). The manuscript began much as a travelogue in which Jones described the geographical landscape and topography of the Mississippi Delta. He marked the classic Mississippi distinction between ‘‘hill folk’’ and ‘‘Delta folk.’’ From this descriptive detail, he related an interpretation of three generations of African-American Delta residents. Each generation exhibited specific social characteristics of their age and relationship to the economics of the planting system in the Delta. Jones offered a description of the three
164
DONALD CUNNIGEN
generations that showed the impact of changes in the region’s topography and agricultural commerce on African-Americans. He described ‘‘the oldest generation of the Delta folk’’ as consisting of elderly individuals in their seventies, eighties, and beyond. They helped to clear and develop the farmland on which they worked as tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and small farmers. For many of the elders, the changes wrought by the establishment of the levee system and/or draining system created social patterns that were considered ‘‘unusual and unnecessary’’ (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005, p. 33). They felt the changes did not reflect the traditional cultivation patterns for planting cotton planting. Like many second-generation period studies of African-American folk culture, Jones provided commentary regarding subjects who reported happier experiences during earlier historical periods. This time included activities such as playing ring games, dances, and gambling. Jones said their experiences were part of a creative world inhabited by country folk (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005, pp. 32–33). In this section of the manuscript, he explained the ‘‘lay-by season,’’ i.e., the period between the planting and harvesting of cotton, as it related to cotton cultivation. The second generation described in the Jones work was composed of individuals between the ages of fifty and seventy. Their growth occurred as the Delta’s frontiersmen had completed the clearing of land, the river’s influence was in decline, and railways gained greater influence. During this period, some African-American tenant farmers began to purchase land and build family homes. With this independence from the plantation system, Jones discovered the development of new social arrangements and organizations. Out of the chaos of the first generation’s free wheeling ‘‘happier’’ social life, the second generation established ‘‘the first orderly regimes’’ (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005, p. 34). Churches were the primary institutions of the second generation. In addition to religious activities, Jones reported the churches provided locations for political rallies and lodge activities. The third generation was comprised of individuals between 30 and 50 years of age. As children of the orderly second generation, their view of the significance of the church and the primacy of cotton as the main cash crop remained an important part of their cultural experience. Jones found ‘‘a rapidly changing world’’ in the Mississippi Delta (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005, p. 34). Jones described children and youth who were caught in the vortex ‘‘of a disintegrating past and a fascinating present’’ (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005, p. 34). It was this group that he attributed the most originality in the development of a new musical idiom that reflected their folk culture.
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
165
In his discussion of the river and the levee, he provided a thorough description of the building of the levee system, including a detailed picture of the levees. Jones presented the rich African-American life on the levees in excellent detail. Much of the detail was derived from stories related by African-American residents. In his discussion of the pioneers, he provided material collected from African-American Delta inhabitants who were seventy-five to ninety years of age. None of the residents had slave experiences related to the Delta because most of the former slaves left the region after emancipation (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005, p. 42). The pioneers’ memories of slavery were from different sections of the state rather than the Delta. He explored their reasons for coming to the Delta. He discovered their reasons were diverse, including mythical stories of wealth to be earned in the area, railway construction, and relocation with white farm operators’ organizations (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005, pp. 43, 45). According to the stories of African-American pioneers, planters were more benevolent toward early workers in the region during the frontier period, i.e., they made important monetary offers and gave attractive tenant contracts. The tenant system differed from the later sharecropping system because tenants had a degree of independence and some say in ‘‘the management of their business transactions’’ (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005, p. 46). He described a wide range of activities during the lay-by season. Folk activities such as ring play, ‘‘Rock Daniel,’’ quilting, log-rolling, gambling, picnics, the ‘‘break down,’’ and annual organizational celebrations were critical aspects of their lives. Jones devoted attention to describing specific details of some of the folk activities. If Jones’ works lacked any clear connection to Washington’s and Park’s perspectives on race relations,20 Cox’s scholarship challenged directly the Washington political legacy and provided an interpretation of Washington’s political views as illegitimate reads on southern racial reality. A Review of Selected Works by Oliver Cromwell Cox Oliver Cromwell Cox was born August 24, 1901 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad as the son of a prosperous tax collector. He received an associate degree from the Lewis Institute in 1927. He received a Bachelor of Science in Law degree from Northwestern University in 1929. In 1932, he took a M.A. degree in economics from the University of Chicago. He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1938. He served on the Tuskegee Institute faculty from 1942 until 1949 (Cheesboro, 1999; Driver, 1988; Hunter & Abraham, 1987, pp. xiii–xiv).
166
DONALD CUNNIGEN
According to Edwin D. Driver (1988, p. 281), Cox’s highest level of scholarly achievement took place during the 1940s. This period coincided with his Tuskegee years. At that time, he published a book and twenty-one articles, approximately half of the articles were published in three of the four leading sociological journals, i.e., American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces. In so doing, he was one of a select group of American sociologists, especially African-American sociologists, to have such distinction in publication. This review of Cox’s work will feature a discussion of an article, which focused exclusively on Washington’s influence on the African-American community as a political leader and Cox’s seminal work that critiqued the popular caste and class school of race relations. These articles highlighted his divergence from the Washingtonian influence as well as an analytical construction of race that eschewed the simplistic racial themes of his generation of African-American sociologists. Many of those themes were derivative of Washington’s close friend, Robert Ezra Park. The ideas of Washington had an impact on Cox’s life as well as his scholarship. Prior to his departure from the institute, he presented a paper at the all-African-American Association of Social Science Teachers (now the Association of Social and Behavioral Scientists).21 The paper discussed Washington’s negative influence on the leadership styles of African-Americans. Subsequently, he published the paper in Social Forces. The events surrounding the publication were as significant as the publication. He published the paper after moving to Lincoln University of Missouri. The difficulties of Cox’s Tuskegee years provided an excellent example of the administrative vagaries common to African-American institutions of higher learning. Cox received a higher salary at Tuskegee than many of his colleagues in smaller and less prestigious segregated institutions. Despite the claims of Herbert Hunter and Sameer Y. Abraham (1987) that Cox’s political perspective had no impact on his move from Alabama to Missouri, some of his generational colleagues (Jones, 1997) believed privately Cox was released from his Tuskegee position at the height of his career because his neo-Marxist political views were ‘‘a source of concern.’’ Although he was known in intellectual circles as a Marxist by the publication of Caste, Class and Race, Hunter and Abraham claimed his departure from his lucrative Tuskegee position was attributable to the school’s inadequate support for the social sciences and his critical commentary on Washington. In the commentary, he described Washington as an individual who ‘‘was not a leader of the masses y because he was in reality sent [by whites] with a mission to subdue the spirit of protest in the
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
167
masses.’’ His negative Washington commentary resulted in Cox’s defense of his ideas in a public campus forum. Similarly, he felt compelled to write a letter to the institute’s president, Frederick Patterson, regarding his political beliefs. Beyond the internal political machinations of Tuskegee’s administration more than three decades after Washington’s death, the article highlighted the far-reaching impact of the Washingtonian perspective in AfricanAmerican academic circles of the South. This was one of the themes highlighted in Cox’s article. Another critical theme in the article was a definition of leadership. He defined leadership as consisting of three categories: (1) a leader was described as the embodiment of a person(s) who were ‘‘devotedly concerned with what he conceives to be their common cause’’; (2) ‘‘satellite leaders [were] those who, in their concern and interest in that cause, look[ed] to a major figure for original ideas’’; and (3) ‘‘genuine leader [was] the most ardent advocate of [his people’s cause]’’ (Cox, 1951, p. 91). In the article, Cox highlighted eight key positions of Henry Grady, the southern New South proponent and well-known Progressive Era spokesperson, who envisioned a peaceful ‘‘financial alliance’’ between the southern and northern white ruling classes in the aftermath of the Civil War. The positions were: (1) maintenance of racial separation; (2) independence of the white South to determine its patterns of race relations; (3) exclusion of African-Americans from southern political life; (4) the recognition of whites’ ‘‘monopoly’’ of intelligence over African-Americans; (5) understanding the African-Americans’ dependence on whites for their prosperity; (6) the avoidance of ‘‘fictive irritations’’ from outside interference on racial matters; (7) the recognition of the mutual understanding that existed between the superior whites and the inferior African-Americans; and (8) allowing the white southern ruling class to select African-American leadership (Cox, 1951, pp. 92–93). Despite the fact that Cox stated clearly that the term ‘‘Uncle Tom’’ did not describe accurately Washington, he labeled the ‘‘Wizard of Tuskegee’’ as a ‘‘collaborator’’ who helped to promote Grady’s skewed view of racial progress filtered through a white supremacist prism. Cox stated Washington was an articulator of the so-called appropriate response to the dominant group’s power in the region and the nation. Moreover, Cox believed Washington received protection, i.e., support, from the dominant power in society. Cox said Washington played the role of ‘‘intercessor’’ on behalf of African-Americans (Cox, 1951, p. 93). Cox found the following six Washingtonian interpretations of his intercessory role. They were: (1) African-Americans and whites must remain
168
DONALD CUNNIGEN
separate, especially African-Americans should avoid any attempts for social equality; (2) African-Americans should ‘‘cast down their buckets where they are,’’ i.e., accept the southern segregated way of life as a viable option; (3) African-Americans suffer inordinately from ignorance and inexperience; (4) African-Americans should accept the primary role of common laborers; (5) African-Americans should continue to maintain social relationships with whites that resembled the old ‘‘master/servant’’ roles; and (6) he ‘‘pledged’’ submissive allegiance to the white southern ruling class (Cox, 1951, p. 94). Clearly, Grady’s articulation of a New South and Washington’s articulation of the appropriate actions for African-Americans in Grady’s New South were identical in Cox’s view. Cox (1951, p. 95) described Washington as a ‘‘spurious’’ leader. He did not view Washington as a leader of the African-American masses but rather as the consummate collaborator for the white southern ruling class, who served in the capacity of controlling African-Americans. In this role, Cox found Washington’s rhetoric offered a degree of harsh and insulting commentary regarding the African-American masses. Cox challenged the Washington defenders who claimed his harsh rhetoric was appropriate for his times. In Cox’s opinion, it was an unjustified rationalization that resulted in Washington becoming a symbolic figure of acquiescence to the white perspective on segregation. As a symbol across racial lines, Cox believed Washington’s position created a problem of failing to animate the African-American masses. In assessing Washington’s long-term impact as a leader, Cox (1951, p. 96) believed the AfricanAmerican people ‘‘never really followed Washington, for he did not lead but rather sought to divert them.’’ To understand Cox’s critical interpretation of Washington’s failure to lead the African-American masses, one must appreciate the central theme of his theoretical analysis was based on a Marxian perspective. He emphasized the role of the capitalist class in racial discrimination and exploitation. Cox analyzed systematically the economic uniqueness of African-American migration and their oppression, with a particular interest in African-American adjustment patterns. According to Cox, the stratification of African-Americans and whites in America resulted from the expansion and development of European capitalism. In his opinion, the African slave trade was only one element of the expansion of European capitalism, i.e., African slave labor was a great natural resource for the exploitation of cheap laborers. Thus, he felt that the skin color of Africans was not important. He believed the European capitalist class developed a system of race subordination that coincided with its
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
169
profit-oriented exploitation of the African slave. In subsequent years, racial prejudice developed as an ideology to rationalize the African exploitation. With this as a backdrop, Cox’s critique of the caste school of race relations began with the statement that there was no hypothesis in the school. He believed the caste school of race relations was flawed because social scientists had not studied carefully the caste system. Most notably, Cox offered the fact that many of the followers of the caste school of race relations used India as a reference without having examined critically the Indian caste system. He felt their lack of critical focus made much of their work impressionistic. Cox argued with the basic definition of a caste system as presented by scholars such as W. Lloyd Warner. Most important, he said a definition of a caste system did not describe a caste system. He highlighted important differences between the Indian caste system and the American so-called caste system, which included the fact that Indian men were able to marry women of a lower class without disturbing the caste system. In addition, Cox noted life membership in a caste group did not always exist in India. He felt the analogy between American race relations and the Indian caste system was strained, especially when one considered the issue of mixed-blood children. Cox felt Warner’s emphasis on the unchanging physical inheritance of African-Americans made his theoretical views sterile and illogical. In his opinion, it was illogical to conclude that parallelism, i.e., the collective representation of African-American/white relations that stated the American social structure of African-American/white relations was changing and the change would allow African-Americans to find expression in American society, of the African-Americans’ social status in reference to whites would result in their status becoming identical to whites, while maintaining two separate racial castes that were based on inequality. Cox suggested the proponents of the caste school of race relations believed the existence of the caste system was perpetuated by the need of white southerners to remain indefinitely distinctive based on their skin color. Similarly, the AfricanAmericans in the South were kept in the caste system for the same reason. He disagreed with the caste school proponents because he thought white southerners maintained the caste system to ‘‘reserve a calculable cultural advantage’’ (Cox, 1943, p. 221). He took caste school proponents to task on their comments regarding the instability of the African-American upper class. He stated the African-American upper class was not maladjusted, as described by some researchers of the caste school. Although he admitted the biracial system in America created some pathological behavior, he believed
170
DONALD CUNNIGEN
the sensitivity of African-Americans to social injustices that they encountered did not indicate an ‘‘off-balance personality.’’ Most important, he stated the attitudes that were present in the African-American upper class community in the 1940s reflected the changing attitudes of all AfricanAmericans. They were showing a discontentment with an accommodation to the Jim Crow system. Cox believed the relationship between castes and occupations was insignificant because many castes have the same occupation. Using India as his model, Cox conceded every caste had a traditional occupation in India. However, he said every occupation does not have a caste. He described the Indian caste system as being a minutely segmented and assimilated social structure that was highly stable and capable of perpetuating itself indefinitely. He did not think a social status hierarchy had to be a point of reference for two racial groups, such as African-Americans and whites. In his opinion, African-American and whites were more or less isolated from each other due to a continuing conflict or repugnance. He believed this conflictual situation, which may create racial isolation without having a social status hierarchy of racial groups, could be true even if there was an unequal power relations. Thus, Cox suggests antagonism may exist between two groups but did not have to reflect a status hierarchy. He did not believe that African-American and white southerners constituted an assimilated society. He felt they maintained distinct societies. In this society, whites were protected generally from cultural contacts with African-Americans. As one can see from the critique, Cox felt the caste school of race relations lacked originality. This review of Jones’ and Cox’s work highlighted the limitations of applying an interpretive standard of Washington’s influence on secondgeneration scholars. Clearly, Jones’ work on the hinterland concept and rural social centers did not address the race relations themes found in Park’s race studies or the accommodationist political views derivative of Washington’s racial commentary. His community of African-Americans in the Mississippi Delta reflected more of the scholarship emanating from the Chicago School tradition, i.e., the notion of an essential African-American folk culture. By elucidating the folk culture found in the Mississippi Delta, his work reflected the over-arching themes common to the intellectual community in which he was a part during the period. On the other hand, Cox’s work did address Washington’s views from the perspective of one who took a contrary position. He challenged the iconic status of Washington as a political leader of the African-American masses. Although his views were shared by some northern-based African-American
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
171
scholars and a few southern African-American scholars, his challenge did not reflect a political interpretation common in some Deep South AfricanAmerican intellectual circles. His review of Washington’s impact on southern political thought was an important contribution to the placement of African-American conservatism in the intellectual discourse of the AfricanAmerican sociological tradition. His ‘‘oppositional’’ approach was found in other scholarship that he produced on race relations. Most notably, his critique of the major theoretical model used to analyze race during the period of the second-generation i.e., the caste and class school, was totally different from many of the students of Park. By looking at selected work from only two of Tuskegee’s most prominent sociologists, one must offer any speculations with reservations about their significance to an understanding of a connection to Washington’s views. However, one can see that the Washington influence was quite ephemeral. Yet, the legacy of Washington’s ideas was still significant enough that some scholars felt the need to discuss its impact on their generation as scholars and members of the African-American community.
CONCLUSION Although it is problematic to attempt to conduct an analysis of the intellectual influences of a political leader such as Washington on a group by looking at the work of only two scholars who conducted research in the post-War years, their work does provide an understanding of the disconnect between the Washington/Park approach to race relations and the evolving discourse on modern-day race relations. This study has highlighted the marginality of second-generation African-American sociologists. As suggested by Robert K. Merton (1972), second-generation African-American sociologists specialized in race and education. These group variables influenced their approach in responding to Washington’s accommodationist views and incorporating Park’s race relations perspectives into their work as much as segregation. Washington’s racial accommodation philosophy has often been captured in his controversial simile from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition Address, ‘‘We can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.’’ In this statement, he suggested African-Americans could maintain simultaneously social segregation and economic integration. According to David Levering Lewis (1993, pp. 257–264), Washington’s accommodationist philosophy was derived from his personal experiences that he described as
172
DONALD CUNNIGEN
his ‘‘three-ness,’’ i.e., the consciousness of being an American, an AfricanAmerican, and an African-American in the South. Washington’s public discourse of accommodation was moderated overtime but never endorsed the renunciation of the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution. For ‘‘conservative’’ African-American intellectuals, it was considered a nuanced and practical answer to the ‘‘color line’’ during the Nadir period. It included acceptance of disfranchisement and a focus on educational and vocational training. For ‘‘radical’’ African-American intellectuals, the Washington accommodationist approach was anathema to their sense of the requisite necessities for the growth and development of the AfricanAmerican community (Morris, 2001, pp. 48–49; Meier, 1966, pp. 171–189). It was this very controversial approach to race relations that attracted Park to Washington and Tuskegee. In reports of Park’s early encounters with Washington (Lewis, 1993, p. 258), it has been stated that he was most impressed by Washington’s deliberate approach to resolving the problems faced by African-Americans. The fact that Park accepted readily a gradualist approach based on assumptions suggesting that whites should maintain an exploitative advantage bespeaks an interesting racial read on the social reality that he would attempt to study during his Tuskegee years. This racial read would filter down into his conceptualization of his race relations cycle. Within the cycle, there is an understanding of a social order to which minorities must conform. The conformity must include the adherence to a normative structure derivative of those in power. For Washington and his prote´ge´ Park, it was understood intuitively that American social order was based on a white power structure, especially in the early 1900s. The fascinating aspect of their shared racial read is the modification of this basic assumption never occurred throughout Park’s lifetime. Thus, Park transmitted this idea through generations of his Chicago students. Ironically, some of his students took the parts of his ideas that worked the best for their own purposes. As stated above, there were elements of his race relations cycle that were problematic for second-generation AfricanAmerican sociologists. At the heart of his ideas, one can find an indirect acknowledgment of Washington’s accommodation approach through the necessity of maintaining the white power structure in the assimilation process. It was the realization of the failure of Washington’s accommodationist approach that made his approach non-palatable to second-generation African-American sociologists. By the time this group of intellectuals began to take center stage in the African-American social scientific community, Washington’s ideas had diminished in intellectual favor for many scholars.
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
173
Thus, the only mechanism for perpetuating his ideas was his prote´ge´ Park’s construction of a racial discourse that was influenced indirectly by his past close working relationship with Washington. Although Park’s early racial encounters through the Congo Reform Association and Tuskegee were based on a ‘‘close analysis of alleged racial traits’’ as found in his notebooks from the period, Fred H. Matthews (1977, p. 61) stated that Park’s subsequent race studies were influenced more by comparative, historical orientation, and a concern with the identification of processes in race relations through ethnic conflict in different settings. Along with the recognition of the racial power divide, Park and Washington shared their ideas regarding an ‘‘authentic’’ African-American culture. For Park, his studies of rural African-American folk culture confirmed this authenticity. Washington’s ability to traverse through this rural and isolated cultural landscape while maintaining ties to a larger white world of Tuskegee wealthy benefactors was simply a marvel to Park. In addition, it highlighted in his mind the stark contrasts between the two worlds. This aspect of his Tuskegee studies may have been a product of a revelatory adventure into uncharted territory for Park or it may have been the confirmation of preconceived racist assumptions of a white man during his time period.22 Whatever the case may be, he used these ideas in ways that shaped the sociological study of race for generations. Of all the stages of African-American sociological tradition, the secondgeneration African-American sociologists were most influenced by Park’s views. Many of them were his students. Others found the need to respond to his intellectual ideas because of their prevalence in the field of race relations. Even scholars trained in other graduate programs had to deal with his work or integrated into their own work some of the generational themes derived from Park. Of the limited reviews provided in this essay on Jones and Cox’s work, only Jones’ examination of rural African-American folk culture could be placed in the context of the Washington–Park discussion of the authentic cultural aspects found in the African-American community. Much of Jones’ descriptive language regarding Mississippi Delta inhabitants relied on an acceptance of the notion that a separate and distinct African-American culture had evolved in the region after the Civil War. From this culture, he believed the blues idiom developed in its own way. Although their scholarship showed no direct influence of Washington’s ideas, the second-generation African-American sociologists’ careers as scholars in general reflected the accommodationist approach of Washington within the discipline. This conundrum created an odd intellectual disconnect
174
DONALD CUNNIGEN
with their personae as independent intellectuals. They did not challenge the disciplinary assumptions in any profound way. Cox and a few other outsiders presented views in juxtaposition to the mainstream. The consequence of their actions was marginality within a marginalized community of scholars. The tragic legacy of Washington and Park for the secondgeneration African-American sociologists was acquiescence to a discipline’s intractability.
NOTES 1. Robert Ezra Park (1864–1944) was born in Harveyville, Pennsylvania. He received Ph.B. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1887. He received an M.A. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1899. He studied at the University of Berlin, University of Strasbourg, and the University of Heidelberg, where he received his doctorate. 2. Edward Franklin Frazier (1894–1962) was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He received an undergraduate degree from Howard University in 1916. He received a master’s degree from Clark University in 1920. He received Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1931. He held academic posts at Atlanta University, Fisk University, and Howard University. He was the first African-American elected to the presidencies of the District of Columbia Sociological Society in 1943, Eastern Sociological Society in 1945, and the American Sociological Association in 1948. 3. Butler Alfonso Jones (1916–2003) was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He received an undergraduate degree from Morehouse College in 1937, an M.A. in history from Atlanta University in 1938, and Ph.D. in sociology and American Civilization from New York University in 1955. He held academic appointments at Barber Scotia College, Talladega College, Ohio Wesleyan University, and Cleveland State University. 4. William Edward Burghardt DuBois (1868–1963) was the first African-American to receive Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895. He received undergraduate degrees from Fisk University in 1888 and Harvard College in 1889. He studied at the University of Berlin. During his study in Germany, he was one of a few American scholars to study under Max Weber. He served on the faculties of Wilberforce University and Atlanta University. He was the founding editor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s official journal, Crisis magazine. 5. Walter R. Chivers (1896–1969) was born in Montgomery, Alabama. He received an undergraduate degree from Morehouse College in 1919 and an M.S.W. from the New York School of Social Work in 1924. He served on the faculty of Morehouse College where he developed the Institute of Successful Marriage and Family Life and the Visiting Lectureship Program in Sociology. 6. Mozell C. Hill (1911) received Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1946. He taught at Langston University and Atlanta University. 7. J. G. St. Clair Drake (1911–1990) was born in Suffolk, Virginia. He received an undergraduate degree from Hampton Institute in 1931. He did graduate work in anthropology at the University of Chicago. His academic appointments included
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
175
serving on the faculties of Dillard University, Roosevelt University, University of Ghana, and Stanford University. 8. William Lloyd Warner (1898–1970) received an undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in social anthropology from Harvard University in 1935; Robert Redfield (1897–1958) received a B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1920 and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1928; Everett Cherrington Hughes (1897–1983) received Ph.D. from the University of Chicago; and Louis Wirth (1897–1952) received, B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago. Wirth received Ph.D. from Chicago in 1925. 9. William Allison Davis (1902–1983) was born in Virginia but grew up in Washington, D.C. He received an undergraduate degree from Williams College in 1924. He received a master’s degree in English from Harvard University in 1925. He received a master’s degree in anthropology from Harvard University in 1930 and Ph.D. degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1942. He taught at Hampton Institute, Atlanta University, and the University of Chicago. 10. Gunnar Myrdal (1898–1987) was born in Gustaf’s parish, Sweden. He graduated from the Law School of Stockholm University in 1923. He received J.D. degree in economics in 1927. In 1974, he received the Nobel Prize in economics. 11. Horace Revels Cayton (1903–1970) was born in Seattle, Washington. He received an undergraduate degree from the University of Washington and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Chicago. He served on the summer school faculty of Tuskegee Institute. 12. Charles Spurgeon Johnson (1893–1956) was born in Bristol, Virginia. He received A.B. from Virginia Union University in 1916 and Ph.B. from the University of Chicago in 1917. His Chicago degree was in sociology. He served as the first AfricanAmerican president of the Southern Sociological Society. He was the first AfricanAmerican president of Fisk University in 1947 (See Robbins, 1996). 13. Ira De Augustine Reid (1901–1970) was born in Virginia. He received an undergraduate degree from Morehouse College in 1922 and Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in 1939. He taught at Atlanta University and Haverford College (See Robbins, 1996). 14. Hylan Garnet Lewis (1911–2000) was born in Washington, D.C. He received B.A. degree from Virginia Union University in 1932, an M.A. degree in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1936, and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1951. He taught at Talladega College, Howard University, Hampton Institute, and Brooklyn College. 15. Charles Goode Gomillion was born in Johnston, South Carolina. He received B.A. degree from Morehouse College and Ph.D. degree in sociology in 1959 from The Ohio State University. 16. Stanley H. Smith received B.A. and M.A. from Fisk University. He received Ph.D. from Washington State University in 1953. He served as a Dean of Fisk University. In addition to Tuskegee, he served on the faculties of Meharry Medical College and Livingstone College. 17. Ernest E. Neal was born near Chattanooga, Tennessee. He received B.A. degree from Knoxville College. He received an M.A. degree in sociology from Fisk University. In addition to serving as Tuskegee’s Rural Life Council Director, he
176
DONALD CUNNIGEN
taught at Texas College and Wiley College. He also served as Park’s chauffeur. After Tuskegee, he had a career in Foreign Service. 18. Edgar G. Epps received B.A. degree from Talladega College and Ph.D. from Washington State University in 1959. In addition to teaching at Tuskegee, he has taught at the University of Chicago. Presently, he is on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. 19. The recently published volume, Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University – Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941–1942 provides an interesting commentary on the difficulties faced by second-generation AfricanAmerican sociologists regarding the publishing of their research, even with sympathetic white scholars from esteemed American institutions such as the Library of Congress. Researchers, Robert Gordon and Bruce Nemerov recovered the lost manuscript from ‘‘the back of a file cabinet drawer in the Alan Lomax Archives at Hunter College in New York’’ (Work, Jones, & Adams, 2005, pp. 29–30). 20. Although Lewis Wade Jones’ manuscript did not include specific references to Robert Ezra Park’s racial themes, the newly recovered volume by Work, Jones and Adams does contain Samuel C. Adams’ Fisk University master’s thesis in sociology. Within his thesis, one can find direct references to Park’s ideas, including an acknowledgment of Park’s contribution to its production. Samuel C. Adams received B.A. and M.A. from Fisk University, and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1952. He spent a career in Foreign Service that culminated in an appointment as the Ambassador to Niger in 1968–1969. 21. Dr. Theophilus McKinney, Dean of Johnson C. Smith University and a group of African-American social science faculty members from historically AfricanAmerican colleges and universities founded the Association of Colored Social Science Teachers on October 26, 1935. In 1968, it changed its name to the Association of Social and Behavioral Scientists. In 1970, the organization received funding from the Ford Foundation, which resulted in a revitalization of the organization. The new organization was incorporated legally in 1993. The organization continues to hold annual meetings. 22. According to Robert L. Hall (2002, p. 57), Robert Ezra Park’s views on the biologically transmitted cultural capacities of African-Americans as a human population with different endowments was represented in the Horace Mann Bond quote from a course as a Chicago graduate student in which Park stated: ‘‘The Negro is the lady of the races; delicately proportioned, small boned, devoted to the arts of music and dance, with exquisite manners, the utmost in politeness, she cannot bear to hurt anyone’s feelings.’’
REFERENCES Abbott, A. (1997). Of time and space: The contemporary relevance of the Chicago school. Social Forces, 75, 1149–1182. Banks, W. M. (1996). Black intellectuals – race and responsibility in American life. New York: W. W. Norton. Blackwell, J. E., & Janowitz, M. (1974). Black sociologists – historical and contemporary perspectives. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
177
Bracey, J. H. (1994). Informal interview. Los Angeles, CA: Association of Black Sociologists meetings. Bracey, J. H., Meier, A., & Rudwick, E. (1971). The black sociologists: First half of the 20th century. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing. Cheeseboro, A. Q. (1999). Conflict and continuity: E. Franklin Frazier, Oliver C. Cox and the Chicago school of sociology. Journal of Illinois State Historical Society, 92(2), 150–172. Conyers, J. E. (1968). Negro doctorates in sociology: A social portrait. Phylon, 29, 209–223. Conyers, J. E. (1986). Who’s who among black doctorates in sociology. Sociological Focus, 19, 77–93. Cox, O. C. (1943). The modern caste school of race relations. Social Forces, 21, 218–226. Cox, O. C. (1948). Caste, class, and race: A study in social dynamics. New York: Doubleday. Cox, O. C. (1951). The leadership of Booker T. Washington. Social Forces, 30, 91–97. Cunnigen, D. (2002a). Myrdal, Park and second generation African-American sociologists. In: B. R. Hare (Ed.), 2001 race odyssey: African Americans and sociology, a critical analysis. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Cunnigen, D. (2002b). The DuBois-Washington debate in the 21st century: Mulitculturalism and the African-American community. In: M. Durr (Ed.), The new politics of race: From DuBois to the 21st century. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Cunnigen, D. (2003). The legacy of Ernst Borinski: The production of an African American sociological tradition. Teaching Sociology, 31, 397–411. Davidson, D. (1977). Black sociologists: A critical analysis. Contributions to black studies, 1, 44–51. Davis, A., & Dollard, J. (1940). Children of bondage: The personality development of Negro Youth in the Urban South. Washington, DC: American Council on Education. Deegan, M. J. (1988). Jane Addams and the men of the Chicago school, 1892–1918. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Doyle, B. W. (1933). Sociology in Negro schools and colleges, 1924–32. The Quarterly Review of Higher Education Among Negroes, 1, 7–14. Doyle, B. W. (1937). The etiquette of race relations in the South. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Drake, St. C., & Cayton, H. (1945). Dark metropolis: A study of Negro life in a Northern city. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Driver, E. D. (1988). Oliver C. Cox and others: The world system and racial formation. Contemporary Sociology, 17(3), 280–286. Frazier, E. F. (1932). The Negro family in Chicago. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Frazier, E. F. (1939). The Negro family in the United States. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gaines, K. K. (2005). E. Franklin Frazier’s revenge: Anti-colonialism, nonalignment, and black intellectuals’ critiques of Western culture. American Literary History, 17(3), 506–529. Gardner, B., Gardner, M., & Davis, A. (1941). Deep South: A social anthropological study of caste and class. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Greene, H. W. (1946). Holders of doctorates among American Negroes, 1876–1943. Boston, MA: Meador Publishing Company. Hall, R. L. (2002). E. Franklin Frazier and the Chicago school of sociology: A study in the sociology of knowledge. In: J. E. Teele (Ed.), E. Franklin Frazier and Black Bourgeoisie. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. Harris, R. L. (1987). The flowering of Afro-American history. The American Historical Review, 92, 1150–1161.
178
DONALD CUNNIGEN
Himes, J. S. (1949). Development and status of sociology in Negro colleges. Journal of Educational Sociology, 23, 17–32. Hines, R. H. (1967). The Negro scholar’s contribution to pure and applied sociology. Journal of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 8, 30–35. Holloway, J. S. (2002). Confronting the veil: Abram Harris, Jr., E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche, 1919–1941. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Hunter, H. M., & Abraham, S. Y. (1987). Race, class and the world system: The sociology of Oliver C. Cox. New York: Monthly Review Press. Jackson, J. J. (1974). Black female sociologists. In: J. Blackwell & M. Janowitz (Eds), Black sociologists–historical and contemporary perspectives. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Jackson, J. J. (1995). Charles Goode Gomillion, Ph.D.: A Mighty Social Force. A paper presented at the Southern Sociological Society meetings, Atlanta, Georgia, April 8. Johnson, C. S. (1934). Shadow of the plantation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Johnson, C. S. (1941). Growing up in the black belt: Negro youth in the rural South. Washington, DC: American Council on Education. Johnson, C. S. (1943). Patterns of Negro segregation. New York: Harper and Brothers. Jones, B. A. (1974). The tradition of sociology teaching in black colleges: The unheralded professionals. In: J. Blackwell & M. Janowitz (Eds), Black sociologists – historical and contemporary perspectives. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Jones, B. A. (1993a). Telephone interview. March 20. Jones, B. A. (1993b). Informal interview. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: American Sociological Association meetings. Jones, B. A. (1997). Telephone interview. January 25. Jones, L. W. (1951). Social centers in the rural South. Phylon, 12(3), 279–284. Jones, L. W. (1955). The hinterland reconsidered. American Sociological Review, 20(1), 40–44. Jones, L. W. (1962). Cold rebellion. London, England: MacGibbon and Kee. Jones, L. W., & Smith, S. H. (1958). Tuskegee, Alabama: Voting rights and economic pressure. New York: Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Jones, R. S. (1992). Beginning in an-other place: Oppugnancy and the formation of black sociology. The Griot, 1, 15–26. Key, R. C. (1975). A critical analysis of racism and socialization in the sociological enterprise: The sociology of black sociologists. Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation. University of Missouri – Columbia. Key, R. C. (1978). Society and sociology: The dynamics of black sociological negation. Phylon, 39, 35–48. Killian, L. M. (1994). Black and white: Reflections of a white Southern sociologist. Dix Hills, NY: General Hall. Lewis, D. L. (1993). W. E. B. DuBois: Biography of a race, 1868–1919. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Lewis, H. G. (1955). Blackways of kent. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Lindner, R. (1996). In: A. Morris, J. Gaines, & M. Chalmers (Trans.), The reportage of Urban culture: Robert Park and the Chicago School. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Matthews, F. H. (1977). Quest for an American sociology: Robert E. Park and the Chicago school. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Washington, Park and Second Generation African-American Sociologists
179
McMurry, L. O. (1985). Recorder of the black experience – a biography of Monroe Nathan Work. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. Meier, A. (1966). Negro thought in America 1880–1915 – racial ideologies in the age of Booker T. Washington. Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor Paperbacks. Meier, A. (1992). A white scholar and the black community, 1945–1965 – essays and reflections. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Meier, A., & Rudwick, E. (1986). Black history and the historical profession, 1915–1980. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Merton, R. K. (1972). Insiders and outsiders: A chapter in the sociology of knowledge. American Journal of Sociology, 78, 9–47. Morgan, G. (1973). First generation of black sociologists and theories of social change. Journal of Social and Behavioral Scientists, 19, 106–119. Morris, E. (2001). Theodore Rex. New York: Random House. Nakano, S. (2005). South to South across the pacific: Ernest E. Neal and community development efforts in the American South and the Philippines.. The Japanese Journal of American Studies, 16, 181–202. Pettigrew, T. F. (1980). The sociology of race relations – reflection and reform. New York: The Free Press. Platt, A. M. (1990). E. Franklin Frazier reconsidered. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Raushenbush, W. (1979). Robert E. Park: Biography of a sociologist. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Reid, I. de A. (1940). In a minor key: Negro youth in story and fact. Washington, DC: American Council. Robbins, R. (1996). Sidelines activist: Charles S. Johnson and the struggle for civil rights. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. Stanfield, J. H. (1985). Philanthropy and Jim Crow in American social science. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Teele, J. E. (2002). E. Franklin Frazier and black bourgeoisie. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. Ward, J. W. (1997). Trouble the water – 250 years of African-American poetry. New York: Mentor Book. Washington, B. T., & Park, R. E. (1911[1984]). The man farthest down: A record of observation and study in Europe. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Washington, R., & Cunnigen, D. (2002). Confronting the American dilemma of race: The second generation black sociologists. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Willie, C. V. (1982). Walter R. Chivers: An advocate of situational sociology. Phylon, 43, 242–248. Work, J. W., Jones, L. W., & Adams, S. C., Jr. (2005). In: R. Gordon & B. Nemerov (Eds), Lost delta found: Rediscovering the Fisk university – library of congress Coahoma county study, 1941–1942. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Wright II, E. (2002a). The Atlanta sociological laboratory, 1896–1924: A historical account of the first African American school of sociology. Western Journal of Black Studies, 26(3), 165–174. Wright II, E. (2002b). Why black people tend to shout!: An earnest attempt to explain the sociological negation of the Atlanta sociological laboratory despite its possible unpleasantness. Sociological Spectrum, 22(3), 325–361.
180
DONALD CUNNIGEN
Wright II, E. (2002c). Using the master’s tools: Atlanta university and American sociology, 1896–1924. Sociological Spectrum, 22(1), 15–39. Young, A. A. (1993). The ‘Negro problem’ and the character of the black community: Charles S. Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier, and the constitution of a black sociological tradition, 1920–1935. National Journal of Sociology, 7, 95–133. Young, A. A., Jr., & Deskins, D. R., Jr. (2001). Early traditions of African-American sociological thought. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 445–477.
PART IV: WASHINGTON THE INTERNATIONALIST: THE WORLD BEYOND TUSKEGEE
181
This page intentionally left blank
182
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND THE DANISH FOLK HIGH SCHOOL Erik Overgaard Pedersen On his journey to Europe in 1910, Booker T. Washington visited Denmark, mainly in order to study the Danish folk high school and schools related to it. His meeting with this system of education and the people involved in it as educators made an indelible impression on him. Thus, in My Larger Education (1911), he went on to describe and comment on what he learned about non-academic, cultural education for the rural population in Denmark at great length.1 It is worthwhile to take a close look at these Danish schools to see what they had in common with, and how they differed from, the system of education practiced at Tuskegee. In this paper, the author attempts to show how the idea of the folk school impressed Washington – and, to what extent he understood the purpose of these specifically Danish institutions. On the train, returning from Copenhagen to Germany after visiting Denmark, Washington had a conversation with an English traveler. They agreed that the country they were leaving was one of the best developed and most affluent in the world with a high status for the ordinary working farmers. A main reason for this state of affairs, both thought, was to be found in the Danish folk high schools. In the period when Washington visited Denmark, the Danish school system provided free, basic elementary education that was compulsory for all. There was a non-compulsory system of immediate and higher secondary
The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 183–192 r 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd. ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13009-3
183
184
ERIK OVERGAARD PEDERSEN
education, which was almost exclusively the privilege of the upper middle and upper classes. There was no tradition for this kind of education among the lower classes. Thus, the higher secondary education of the Latin schools was only for the select few. It stressed classical learning and traditional pedagogy and prepared the students for study at the University of Copenhagen and at a few other institutions. From about the middle of the 19th century a new system was developed of one semester folk high schools, which were voluntary, private boarding schools in rural areas. Later, the specialized folk schools for agriculture, home economics and craftsmanship were developed in Denmark. It was Washington’s experience with this folk school tradition that came to mean so much for him: It was not however, until I reached Denmark, saw the schools themselves, and talked with some of the teachers – not, in fact, until after I had left Denmark and had an opportunity to look into and study their history and organization – that I began to comprehend the part that the rural high schools were playing in the life of the masses of the Danish people and to understand the manner in which they had influenced and helped to build up the agriculture of the country.2
Washington was particularly struck by the fact that the folk high schools had been established to uplift the general population in rural districts – and by the fact that the schools were successful. During his stay, he visited a traditional folk high school in the vicinity of the city of Roskilde. He found the physical site excellent: a manor-like structure in a rolling landscape, surrounded by farms and villages. Everything about the place was clean and tidy, and it had a wholesome atmosphere. The school had an approximate enrollment of 150 young men, aged 18–25, in winter for 5 months and 150 young women in summer. There were moderate compulsory school fees. There was a great deal of socializing among students and teachers; and they took their meals together. Most instruction consisted of lessons in Danish Language and Literature as well as History and it was scheduled for almost all day. The remaining time was spent on traditional school subjects. Most lessons were given as lectures in a special lecture hall, and there were no exams or other evaluations of students’ performance. The basic purpose of the instruction was not learning by rote, but rather to increase the students’ understanding of problems and their solutions in a social, cultural context. Along with his visit to this traditional folk high school, Washington observed the operations of another folk high school, which specialized in agriculture and home economics. This second school was just 2 miles from the first folk high school he visited. It was beautifully situated in the midst of
Booker T. Washington and the Danish Folk High School
185
well-tended vegetable gardens, which made a positive impression on Washington. The system and schedule of education at this school were similar to those of the one-semester folk high school, except that the subjects taught were almost exclusively related to agriculture for men and home economics for women. Thus, the universal aspect of the folk high school was lacking. The instruction was strongly marked by traditional Danish farm culture in every way, in administration as well as in physical appearance. Washington’s third and final visit was to a rural school that specialized in educating youths from small farms: homesteads of as little as 2–15 acres, which were often established with financial support from the state. At these settings, emphasis was placed on cultivating fruits, vegetables and grain.3 Washington believed that Danish farmers seemed better educated than farmers in other countries. He learned that Danish farmers were very knowledgeable in terms of general cultural outlook, and that it was normal for teachers at the folk high schools to be genuine intellectuals who had chosen to work at this type of institution.4 He also found that there was a strong equalitarian thrust to education at the folk high schools and that all social strata among the farming population were being taught there. He was no doubt over-emphasizing this point, as the folk high school mainly recruited students from the agricultural middle class, whereas cotters and farm laborers only went to them in limited numbers.5 The basic idea of the folk high school ideology of educating from the bottom up and appealing to a broad segment of the population instead of focusing on a small elite seems to have pleased Washington since it was very much in line with his own philosophy. Certainly, it is true that the folk high school approach was much like his own in this respect.6 He had early on, as is well known, been an advocate of educating the common the people and not just ‘‘The Talented Tenth’’ as advocated by W. E. B. DuBois. It seems only natural that Washington would be especially attracted to the folk high school since it had played an important role in winning democracy and political freedom in Denmark. While he did not have the same far-reaching political goals as Danish Liberals, he did – we know – think that excellent vocational education of the general Black population would facilitate gaining political rights for Blacks and the abolition of segregation. These institutions, as well as the farmers’ cooperatives, had been key factors in the process leading to Danish farmers rising from suffering political repression to political dominance in the latter half of the 19th century.7 Of course, Washington must have seen this as a confirmation of his views, and not those of W. E. B. DuBois, regarding the best educational strategy for American Blacks.
186
ERIK OVERGAARD PEDERSEN
In Washington’s view, the folk high school was a truly cultural institution in its pedagogy and in the recruitment of faculty; and, therefore, there was no need for their schools to feel inferior to the purely academic institutions. A system for common people might well serve the purpose of raising their awareness of their culture and self-worth. y It has steadily sought to stimulate the ambitions and the intellectual life of the peasant people. y the schools have brought the learning of the colleges and the advantages of the city to the country.8
The schools had been successful in transferring understanding of the subjects with which an educated person ought to be familiar. The courses that were being taught actually appealed to the students who were, for the most part, young people who frequently had a very limited educational background. The schools were residential, one-semester institutions, winter semesters being for young men, which reflected the work cycle on the farms. They were quite separate from the formal system of education. There were no entrance examinations during the period of study. In the early states, most of the schools were proprietary, i.e., often owned by the head of the school. The emphasis was on character-building, developing the students’ whole personalities to become valuable persons and citizens. In this context, it should be remembered that it was in the days when an increasing number of citizens were gaining political rights in society. A great share of lessons were not ordinary classroom lessons, but lectures given in special lecture halls. Enlightenment ideas were spread mainly by the spoken word, ‘‘the living word’’, and books were hardly used. The emphasis was on Nordic Mythology, History, Danish Literature and Religion – those subjects were also taught. Upon completion of his or her training, the young person would go back to become a member of his home community as a truly enlightened person, for whom cultural and religious heritage had a new and existential meaning. The emphasis, thus, was placed primarily on spiritual matters and character and less on didactic learning. For many generations to come, these schools were to leave their stamp on thousands of young people.9 The interesting evidence of the success of these institutions is that, upon emigrating to the United States, Danish immigrants built many DanishAmerican folk high schools, which primarily blossomed in the time before World War I. They were a short-lived transitional phenomenon in American education that served primarily as institutions which facilitated the acculturation of young Danish immigrants. It is quite interesting that while other
Booker T. Washington and the Danish Folk High School
187
immigrant groups established formal colleges, the Danes in America built folk high schools.10 Thus, Washington’s allover judgment of the accomplishments of the Danish folk high school movement was extremely positive. He was attracted, of course, to their democratic outlook and to the quality and seriousness with which Danish farm youths studied and lived their cultural heritage. The schools Washington visited were Danish institutions of a unique origin and history. The theologian, writer and educator Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872) wrote about the idea of a folk high school in his publications in the 1830s and 1840s. In 1844, the first school of this kind opened its doors in Roedding, South Jutland. The era of the folk high school was identical with the period when political Liberalism and, subsequently, Socialism became crucial factors in determining social development in Denmark. In the 1830s and 1840s, Danish Liberalism was mainly an upper-class bourgeois movement, which demanded civil rights and constitutional monarchy. Significantly, it later evolved into a movement for democratic reform, headed by middle-class farmers. Roedding was founded five years before the enlightened monarchy was abolished and a Liberal constitution adopted which provided for the constitutional monarchy and civil rights. During this period, there were religious revivals among the common people, which gave them a new awareness of their worth and identity. From early on, there was strong religious tenet in the ideology of the folk high schools. In general, the folk high school was a child of Liberalism and the Grundtvigian non-pietistic Christian revivalism within the framework of the Danish National Lutheran Church. It was intrinsically connected with the Liberal influence – as in the case of Roedding. Roedding was founded as a buffer against German influence in North Schleswig.11 Bishop N. F. S. Grundtvig and Christen Kold (1816–1872) were the two most influential thinkers and educators behind the folk high school. After having gone through several existential crises as a Christian and a human being, Grundtvig presented his ideas on folk high schools. He believed that Christianity was for this life, not for some uncertain life after death. According to Grundtvig, life in one’s given surroundings was to be the spiritual reality of life. He believed that living one’s life within one’s nation and people was central. For many of his fellow Lutherans, however, it was heresy to think that Christianity was for life here and now, rather than after death. What was new in Grundtvig’s educational philosophy was the emphasis he placed on ‘‘folkelig’’, or ‘‘people’s’’ education. The idea of educating the
188
ERIK OVERGAARD PEDERSEN
ordinary citizens of the nation, i.e., the Danish people, was special to him. Core ideas of his were ‘‘education for life’’ and ‘‘life of the nation at the moment’’. Here, there certainly is a parallel to Washington’s ideas of meeting American Blacks where they actually stood and encouraging them to ‘‘cast down their buckets where they were’’. It is evident that Grundtvig’s ideas emanated from an idea of the nation and the nation state with all its traditions as the central, determining cultural factor. His philosophical views were clearly based on the 19th century National, Liberal and Romantic ideas. What set him apart from Lutheran educators and theologians throughout the Western World was that he operated with the concept of a human, cultural life in its own right that did not necessarily have a primarily Christian inspiration. This, of course, meant that he would inevitable clash with the emotional Christianity of pietistic Lutheranism. It was during the growth of Grundtvigianism that the folk high school movement expanded. The idea was exported to Norway and Sweden. In the same years, political parties were founded. Groups within the Liberal farmers’ party ‘‘Venstre’’ held views close to those of Grundtvig’s. However, he did not endorse the party because he was more concerned with the common good than with party issues. Christen Kold was the other influential pedagogue in the founding state. He had a rural and teacher’s college background and held many of the same views as Grundtvig but he was more of a practicing pedagogue. In his teaching, Kold stressed Lutheranism more than Grundtvig. He was truly an innovative, inspirational teacher, who was forced to leave the public school system because of his unorthodox views.12 With the establishment of the Socialdemocratic Party in 1871, the Christian folk high school ideology that dominated society while the folk high schools were expanding had to compete with the Socialism and Atheism of leading Social Democrats and the Radical Liberals’ views on culture and politics. In recent times, the plans of the folk high school has increasingly become narrower in scope to focus almost exclusively on the rural population, an increasing part of the population was urbanized. In doing so, it has become less of an institution for the whole population as it was unable or unwilling to conquer the city. Still, the few schools that managed to survive were established in cities, e.g., Johan Borup’s school in Copenhagen (1891) and the Workers’ Folk High School in Esbjerg (1910). The pietistic movement within the Danish Church, stressing the individual’s inner spiritual life and conversion, (the Inner Mission movement) also founded a great number of schools, taking their inspiration from the folk high schools founded by
Booker T. Washington and the Danish Folk High School
189
Grundtvigian movement. Years later, in the wake of the 1970s youth revolt, a number of decidedly Socialist folk high schools also came into being.13 The Danish folk high school and the Tuskegee system of education were quite similar. Both schools sought to educate the ordinary or common people and they emphasized a non-academic curriculum. Washington was impressed with the high standard of the Danish schools. He also understood Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute differed from these particular Danish schools. Like Tuskegee Institute, the Danish folk high schools were rural in character. They specialized in agricultural studies in a way that was similar to Tuskegee Institute, with its farms, its agricultural experimental station, its conferences for black farmers and its Jesup Wagon. As to agricultural education, both systems were based on the belief that general social advances would follow from material progress. In retrospect, we realize that the Danish folk high school and the Tuskegee system were parts of large popular movements. Their rural ‘‘common folk’’ origins and goals were similar. They differed in terms of their democratic aspirations in society. Both systems attempted to educate common people in private boarding schools and both saw themselves as alternatives to a more academic educational tradition. Whereas the Danish peasants gained a high degree of political and social recognition, the idea of the Tuskegee system was to gain this by means of the recognition that would evolve from a programme of excellent vocational training. In 1910, Danish society would soon see the last remnants of a feudal society disappear with the adoption of a revised constitution. On the other hand, American society would remain racially segregated for a long time to come. The Danish folk high schools stressed the enlightenment of young people, who would soon have the right to vote in a parliamentary system. At Tuskegee, Washington worked with students for whom he saw no realistic opportunity for them to gain equal political rights in the near future. Therefore, his emphasis was different. He believed that the best strategy was to concentrate on improving his people’s living conditions, and postpone the attainment of equal political rights in the short term. Washington primarily stressed economic progress for blacks, i.e., the improvement of their material conditions, and the Tuskegee Institute curriculum was focused on accomplishing this purpose. It should, however, be kept in mind that he did play a significant political role. He acted as a political boss and secretly supported black legal causes.14 There also was a striking similarity between the Tuskegee system and the folk high schools tradition. Both educational systems distanced themselves
190
ERIK OVERGAARD PEDERSEN
from traditional, formal classic education that stressed Latin and Greek. The folk high school saw itself in absolute opposition to the classical training of the Latin Schools, just as Tuskegee Institute regarded itself as a distinct alternative to the Liberal Arts tradition of American colleges. Both systems were against only educating an elite. They strongly stressed the purpose of education. Academic subjects were taught at Tuskegee as well as the folk high schools. However, both systems stressed the crucial connection between acquiring academic knowledge, character-formation, and preparing for a life as a valuable member of society. It should be noted that the particular ‘‘folk’’ element, which had its origin in Enlightenment philosophy as well as in Romanticism, were not a part of Washington’s ideas.15 The Danish folk high school movement was part of the Grundtvigian, Lutheran revival, which was specifically Danish in character and of a theological nature, which was quite foreign to the setting of Washington’s educational efforts in America. Still, it is and remains a remarkable fact that the folk high schools and Washington’s school with so many shared traits were at their height on two continents at about the same time, without any common source of inspiration. There are no signs that the transitional phenomenon of the Danish immigrant folk high schools, which flourished in the Midwest of the United States in the period, were known to Washington. This was no doubt due to the fact that the Danish-American folk high schools were specifically directed towards Danish immigrants. There is no evidence of particular interest in African-American culture among DanishAmericans. The Danish immigrant institutions were located in regions with few Blacks and subsequently merged with institutions that hardly had any tradition for Black membership. In addition, Danish-American immigrant sources are generally permeated with the idea of the compatibility of Danish culture and the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Danish-American folk high schools did not become a source of inspiration for Washington. The Danish-American schools usually closed after a few years of operation, serving exclusively young Danish immigrants’ needs. These institutions had no general ‘‘missionary’’ purpose in American society. Some Danish intellectuals and pedagogues, in particular, were aware of Washington’s educational ideas and influenced by them to some extent. In 1912 a book on Washington’s life and work appeared in Kristiania, Norway, and his activities were mentioned in the press.16 It is difficult to determine the impact of Washington’s ideas in Denmark but his visit to the country certainly exposed his ideas and work to the public and many had the chance to study his ideas. The Danish folk schools impressed Washington so
Booker T. Washington and the Danish Folk High School
191
profoundly because he saw that Danish farmers, who dominated Danish politics through the political parties ‘‘Venstre’’ and ‘‘Det radikale Venstre’’ at the time, successfully emphasized vocational training without giving up individual cultural and spiritual development. Indeed, the Danish folk high schools were set up to make better citizens of the rural people. Through an education stressing cultural heritage, the youth from farms were to be better participants in the democratic processes in society. Though the Tuskegee system accepted a second-class status for Blacks in society, it was encouraging for the Black educator to witness a system of instruction for common, ordinary people, which did not necessarily see itself as inferior to the classic education of Latin schools and universities. The unique core idea of the folk school ideology left its clear positive print on Washington’s mind. Cultural education has normally been associated in my mind with the learning of some foreign language, with learning the history and tradition of some other people. I found in Denmark y that a cultural education could be and should be a kind of education that helps to awake, enlighten, and inspire interest, enthusiasm, and faith in one’s self, in one’s race and in mankind; that it need not be as it sometimes has been in Denmark and elsewhere, a kind of education that robs its pupils of their natural independence, makes them feel that something distant, foreign and mysterious is better and higher than what is familiar and close at hand.17
Washington’s contact with the Danish folk high school strengthened his belief in the Tuskegee system. His experience in Denmark served to strengthen his belief in the value of the type of vocational training given at Tuskegee Institute compared with the value of more formal, academic training. He realized the cultural aspects and potential of his own type of education more fully as he recognized that culture in its fullest sense is the culture of the people. In this way, it was actually the democratic, Liberal element of the folk high school ideology that left its mark on the celebrated, black American visitor though he himself never openly advocated the type of political democracy for American Blacks that the folk high school people took for granted.
NOTES 1. Booker T. Washington (1911) My Larger Education (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), ch. X. 2. Ibid., 265. 3. Ibid., 279–282. 4. Ibid., 270–271. 5. Ibid., 267.
192
ERIK OVERGAARD PEDERSEN
6. Ibid., 266. 7. Ibid., 264. 8. Ibid., 269. 9. E. Mortensen (1977) Schools for Life (Askov, MN: Danish-American Heritage Society, 1977), 10–20. 10. Th. Hansen (1972) We Laid Foundations Here (Des Moines: Grand View College, 1972), 14–15. 11. E. M. Boyhus, Midt i hoejskolen (Kbh: Gyldeldal, 1991), 31–34. 12. Ibid., 34–42. 13. G. Nissen, Udfordringer til Hoejskolen (Odense: Foreningen for Folkehoejskolers Forlag, 1991), 17–43; E. Mortensen (1977) (Askov, MN: DanishAmerican Heritage Society, 1977), 10–20; Th. Hansen (1972) We Laid Foundations Here (Des Moines: Grand View College, 1972), 15–17. 14. Cf. L. R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington – The Making of a Leader, 1856–1901 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), ix. 15. L. R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington – The Making of a Leader, 1856–1901 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 275–280; L. R. Harlan (1983) Booker T. Washington – The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 140, 207. 16. Booker T. Washington, Op fra Slavestand (Kristiania: Aschehoug, 1903). 17. Washington, 284–285.
REFERENCES Boyhus, E.-M. (1991). Midt i hoejskolen. Kbh: Gylendal. Hansen, T. (1972). We laid foundation here. Des Moines, IA: Grand View College. Harlan, L. R. (1971). Booker T. Washington: The making of a black leader, 1856–1901. New York: Oxford University Press. Harlan, L. R. (1983). Booker T. Washington: The wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915. New York: Oxford University Press. Mortensen, E. (1977). Schools for life: A Danish-American experiment in adult education. Askov, MN: Danish-American Heritage Society. Nissen, G. (1994). Udfordringer til Hoejskolen: Danske Folkehoejskoler, 1844–1994. Odense: Foreningen for Folkehoejskolers Forlag. Washington, B. T. (1911). My larger education. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON’S EUROPEAN ENCOUNTER vivian greene-gantzbergy ‘‘I had always regarded Europe, and London, and Paris, much as I regard heaven’’ (Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, 1901).
Summing up his reflections on his first European tour, Booker Taliaferro Washington expressed how remote the possibility of foreign travel seemed. The dichotomy which separated the enlightened European from the impoverished slave and powerless slaves was not one which could be ignored. And now, before the background of renewed lynchings in the United States, Washington believed that his personal attention to the atrocities could be imminent. The advantages to be gained from first-hand observations of life abroad convinced him that he should travel. He went, however, on the condition he might spend time studying the life of those Europeans whose conditions paralleled that of the American Negro. Before leaving, however, Washington resolved not to visit a single museum, gallery, or cathedral. The past did not interest him. He preferred the ‘‘new, the unfinished and the problematic.’’1 Washington’s European encounter falls into two periods: before and after the turn of the century. The motivations for each trip were as different as the results of each trip would ultimately demonstrate. The first journey in 1899, is recorded in Washington’s autobiography, Up from Slavery (1901). Now in his third marriage, Washington departed for Europe on the tenth of May The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 193–209 Copyright r 2006 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13010-X
193
194
VIVIAN GREENE-GANTZBERG
with his wife Margaret James Murray. The couple would remain abroad for the next three months. The circumstances of this first tour were impromptu; at the behest of a gathering of Boston philanthropists, Washington began a voyage which he had neither initiated nor charted in any way. He had no great desire and therefore had few preconceptions. Tuskegee had occupied his time and, by dint of his presence, he always felt personally responsible for its future. But there were also other inhibitions which made the possibility of embarking on a European tour less attractive. On the one hand, he feared the black response to such an extraordinary undertaking. On the other hand, he not know how he would or could ‘‘spend three or four months doing nothing.’’2 Armed with a barrage of letters of introduction to be presented in England and France, the couple sailed aboard the S. S. Friesland from New York to Antwerpen in Belgium. Among his first impressions of Europe, he recalls the animation on the public square, the fragrance of fresh flowers, and everywhere the sense of anticipation and vigor. The ensuing canal trip through Holland gave Washington the chance to observe rural life in this region and to see how efficiently farmers made use of their agricultural land. In the Hague, the Washingtons were graciously received by the American representatives at the Peace Conference. From city to city, Washington was afforded a statesman-like reception. His arrivals were announced in advance, so as to ensure an enthusiastic welcome and the seamless execution of a diplomatic-type setting. It was evident during these months that Washington had the perfect opportunity to report his activities and the people he met and places seen, directly to the American press. He saw this as a superb time to both inform the public and to create positive reactions to his trip. By playing the role of journalist, he mastered the art of the feuilleton and used his trip to represent himself to Europeans as the preeminent Negro American leader as Frederick Douglass had done earlier. He also used the trip to apprise the Negro and the South of their place in the world and how they were viewed by Europeans. Even at this stage of his travels, Washington was eager to discern how the ‘‘colored’’ farmers could learn from the farmers in Holland. It was said many times, he remarked, that ‘‘God made the world but the Dutch made Holland.’’ In a piece which appeared in the Indianapolis Freeman (17 June, 1899a) Washington recalled, that what impressed him about the Dutch was their intelligent cultivation of the soil as a means toward prosperity, their science of dairying, their use of windmills, and most of all, the fact that their farmers were educated. Many had become farmers after they had attained a formal academic education. Washington was, however, not
Booker T. Washington’s European Encounter
195
hesitant to note that the American Negro was much ahead of the Hollander in terms of personal demeanor and grace. His own people did not suffer at all by comparison, and, he added, he had not seen a single beautiful woman in Holland! Paris was reached by way of Brussels. Barely in the French capital, the couple was invited to the American University Club, where Washington delivered a speech along with ex-US President Benjamin Harrison and Archbishop John Ireland. Washington addressed the guests who congratulated him on his many innovations at Tuskegee. During the six weeks in Paris, Booker T. Washington was introduced to an array of public dignitaries, including the American ambassador General Horace Porter and Justices Fuller and Harlan of the United States Supreme Court. He would also be called upon to serve as an advisor on education to the Negro Exhibit at the upcoming Paris Exhibition. The exhibit was intended to dissuade the prevailing negative European image of the American Negro. Washington soon put his impressions in writing. ‘‘On the Paris Boulevards’’ appeared in The New York Age. Afro-American Journal of News and Opinion on 13 July, 1899b. Amused by their apparent penchant for gaiety and superficiality, he caricatured the price of vanity in France by noting how great a roˆle fashion played there: On a beautiful sunny day, compare the whirl of fashion and gayety of New York city, Boston and Chicago on a prominent avenue, and one then has some idea of what it is to be seen here in Paris upon one of her popular boulevards. Fashion seems to sway everything here in this great city; y when I went into a shoe store a few days ago to purchase a pair of shoes, I could not find a pair sufficiently large to be comfortable. I was gently told that it is not the fashion to wear large shoes here (Washington, 1899b).3
In the same article, Washington reported on the number of educated and cultured Haitians who prospered in Paris. Nonetheless, he expressed his regrets that they did not dedicate their endeavors to scientific training and that Haiti would never be what it should be until a sufficient number of its citizens were educated in the sciences. Washington saw nothing but failure and despair for Haiti unless its citizens took it upon themselves, not rely upon Europeans, to save their nation. The highlight of the six weeks in Paris was, ironically, the museum exhibition of the works of the Negro painter Henry C. Tanner at the Luxembourg Palace. Washington’s stipulation had been that he would make his observations in the markets rather than in the museums was suddenly no longer tenable. He was visibly proud of Tanner’s reception and began to compare his own race with that of the French. Washington concluded that in terms of moral earnestness, he had more faith in the future of the black
196
VIVIAN GREENE-GANTZBERG
man in America than he had ever possessed before. He was convinced that, ‘‘no man who continues to add something of material, intellectual, and moral well-being in the place in which he lives, is long left without proper reward.’’4 Uplifting remarks such as these were expressly intended as an admonishment to Washington’s black compatriots. The European encounter with Tanner’s painting ‘‘The Raising of Lazarus’’ unexpectedly inspired Washington to turn away from his usual pragmatic concerns to the arts. In an article submitted to the Washington (22 July, 1899c) Colored American, he seized again, however mildly, the opportunity to reprimand his fellow Blacks in America for failing to support the artistic endeavors of their own and leaving it for ‘‘others’’ to do. His passion for racial pride would, notwithstanding his dubious ways of expressing it, become more and more evident as he mingled among the Europeans and saw more of their life, customs, and habits. In early July, Washington and his wife, Margaret, reached London. There he spoke at a public meeting in Essex-Hall and later met Mark Twain at the Ambassador Joseph Choate’s reception. A news item in the London Times on 4 July, 1899, reiterated Mr. Washington’s belief that as an enterprise seeking material, civil, and moral welfare. White America could not afford to discount the Negro population. As for Blacks, their charge was to strive to attain material prosperity by making themselves capable of pursuing the trades and occupations learned in slavery. Characteristically, Washington played the interlocutor whenever black and white issues were discussed, and he was always careful to maintain the moral high ground in such discussions. It was Washington’s conversation with the African explorer, Sir Henry M. Stanley (1841–1904) which turned his attention to the relationship of the American Negro and Africa. Heretofore, Washington had shared little interest in or shown little sympathy for the conditions of blacks other than the American Negro. Conversations with Stanley, however, convinced him that the American Negro could not find a solution to his problems by immigrating to Africa. Washington now considered the conditions of Blacks in Europe more discriminatingly. He corresponded with London’s longestablished African Association concerning the cruelties and crudities exercised upon persons of African descent. In Birmingham, England, he made the acquaintance of many English abolitionists. This meeting, in turn, heightened his awareness of the welfare of colonized and subjugated people in various parts of the world. Gradually, he became more adept in addressing political questions in an international framework. Following his return to the United States, Washington would encourage participation in
Booker T. Washington’s European Encounter
197
the upcoming Pan-African Conference in London (Freeman, 12 August, 1899d). The summary of his observations was printed in the Colored American on 19 August, 1899. In this piece, Booker T. Washington asserts that the absence of opportunities for self-development and self-government in Africa presented insurmountable obstacles for a return of the American Negro. This attitude led Washington to believe that the American Negro prospered better than Africans and in some cases better than some peasants in Europe. Such deliberations presaged his intensive study of the peasant class during his second European tour. While Washington delivered various political addresses, Mrs. Washington continued her social activism for women’s rights. She spoke before organizations in London and was responsible for the couple’s attending the International Congress of Women at Windsor Castle, where Queen Victoria and Susan B. Anthony were present. On the same occasion, Washington would have tea with the Queen. As he continued his European trip, Washington began to realize that he, too, could become an activist in Europe. Consequently, what he had envisioned as a long period in ‘‘doing nothing’’ soon turned into a period of intense political involvement. He was occasionally called upon to discuss the ‘‘Lynching Question,’’ that had peaked in 1892 and exacerbated by a rash of lynchings, which occurred while he was in Europe. Coming to grips with race conditions in America, Washington took the opportunity to analyze how concepts such as servitude, class, and law manifested themselves abroad. The English servant, he noted, sees the position of servant as a noble profession and many see no reason to move beyond the role of servant or moving outside his class.5 The implication was, of course, that the American Negro, too, could find virtue in accepting his assigned inferior position. Such an implication was clearly contrary to Washington’s insistence upon the economic improvement of Blacks and simultaneously increased the threat of criticism from Washington’s critics among American Negroes. Contrary to his fears, Washington received a warm welcome in the United States when he returned in early August. Many citizens of both races in the West Virginia town where he grew up expressed their admiration for his endeavors and invited him to speak about his European experiences. The festivities in West Virginia were followed by celebrations in Atlanta and New Orleans. Despite the naivite´ with which Washington had begun his tour, he had learned much and now felt himself a changed man. The subsequent tour to Europe in 1910, would confirm how Washington had changed. In England and France, Washington has been regarded on
198
VIVIAN GREENE-GANTZBERG
equal footing with prominent Europeans and Americans. His opinions were well respected, and he was thought to possess a well-balanced view of the coexistence of Blacks and Whites. In Paris, and particularly in London, was very conscious of how his remarks would be greeted, both in Europe and the United States. For this reason, he was very diplomatic in what he said and how he said it. He was especially careful not to make well-meaning, yet, derogatory statements about the Negro Americans. He, in fact, stressed the potential and promise of Blacks and sought to drive home to them their responsibility to make use of that potential. In Denmark, where there were few Blacks, Washington’s message would assume a different tone. In this more removed and politically less powerful environment, he would become markedly forthright and be increasingly critical of Blacks; and he would appear to drop his acquired diplomacy when speaking of the Negro in public. In turn, Danish journalists would provide immediate coverage of his appearances and never fail to replicate whatever sentiments were expressed. In Denmark, Booker T. Washington would grow keenly aware of the interest in his opinions and conversely would make every effort to understand how this small country would be instrumental in altering his perception of Europe. There, he would transform himself from being merely a distant observer and would become the student of European culture. Washington’s second journey would be more practical than perfunctory, and little by little, Washington’s views of Europe as almost heaven – like, would fade.
NEGRO DINED WITH KING6 The second European tour began not unlike the first, with distinguished introductions. On 29 August, 1910, the London Standard published an article which announced the arrival of Mr. Washington. The headline read: ‘‘Famous Negro Leader.’’ Special note was made of Washington’s honorary degree from Harvard University in 1896, and the controversy which surrounded his reception by President Roosevelt in 1901. While in London, Washington commented on the improved state of the Negro and of the relations between blacks and whites. He was particularly adamant about the European’s eagerness to always report the negative regarding the American Negro, and to ignore the positive. Contrary to the opinion of his black contemporaries, Washington maintained that ‘‘the racial bar was fast disappearing in business in the South,’’ and he went on to say, that although there was no social mingling between the races, laws regarding
Booker T. Washington’s European Encounter
199
such were being less stringently imposed. As for the Negro’s ability to exercise the right of franchise, Washington devoted himself to the importance of education and the improvement of material wealth. In an interview with the London Daily Chronicle on 29 August, 1910a, Washington spoke specifically to the racial problems in South Africa. Although he admitted that he was not sufficiently informed to speak in detail, he was willing to offer generalizations about solutions based on the experiences of the American Negro. Several days later, on 2 September, Washington visited Andrew Carnegie at his summer residence in Dornoch Sutherland, Scotland. Shortly thereafter, Washington would leave England for the Continent. An item in the Tuskegee Student (27 August, 1910) also notes Washington’s plans to visit England Scotland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, the Turkish Empire, as well as Denmark. This tour was taken for the expressed purpose of gaining information regarding inadequate agricultural and labor conditions, particularly in the Turkish Empire and lower Italy. A notebook of Washington’s second tour of Europe reveals that he charted his observations in minute detail and compared and contrasted what he observed in day to day life of the European poor with the life and manner of the American Negro. From the information culled from this tour he hoped to produce five or six articles for the journal Outlook, edited by Theodore Roosevelt. During his travels, Washington noted similarities and differences in the temperaments of the Austro-Hungarian and the Negro. He noted provisions for the economic protections of Hungarians, farm wages, and levels of industrial and technical education in Bohemia. To his surprise, Washington found the civil rights of women in Austro-Hungary deplorable: wives were purchased and assigned hard labor. In the larger community, there existed competition among the racial, ethnic, and religious groups. Farming conditions were poor, and the condition of children went unheeded. Conditions in Sicily were little better and, hence, confirmed Washington’s general opinion regarding the European poor. He became especially aware of the extent of child labor and the poor working conditions of the miners. (This part of his travels is summarized in an enlightening article which appeared in Outlook [17 June, 1911].) Thereafter, he visited the salt mines of Austria. Frequently, Washington notes how in this region of Europe various races with various languages co-existed, although not without prejudice. In Hungary, for example, Booker T. Washington studied the oppression of slaves and peasants. Up to now, Washington’s journey had brought few surprises. It was not until Washington reached Denmark, that he realized the possibilities of the
200
VIVIAN GREENE-GANTZBERG
peasant class. There, he witnessed the opposite of everything he had seen thus far. One must bear in mind that Booker T. Washington used the term ‘peasant’ indiscriminately. In actuality, Booker T. Washington had ‘‘but the vaguest idea’’ of what a peasant was. He pictured, to use his words, ‘‘a heavy, half-human looking creature, standing in the midst of a desolate field. The mud and the clay were clinging to him and he was leaning on a great, heavy, wrought-iron hoe, such as formerly used by the Negro slaves.’’ The description suggests a remarkable composite of ‘‘American Gothic’’ and Ludvig Holberg’s comic figure ‘‘Jeppe of the Hill.’’ And indeed, he had found such ‘‘creatures’’ in Italy and in Austro-Hungary. To his astonishment, he saw ‘‘peasant’’ women sleeping like animals in the street, persons living in the same quarters as the cattle, and several individuals eating out of a single bowl. Notwithstanding, Washington found everywhere kindly ‘‘peasants’’ who were in possession of practical wisdom. In the context of Denmark, Washington was actually referring to landowning farmers. The Danish ‘‘peasant’’ was not only free, but he had a hand in controlling everything – from pigs to Parliament. In Denmark, ‘‘peasants’’ owned most of the land and three-fourths of the farms. Moreover, they comprised one-half of the members of Parliament and the cabinet. It was clear to Washington that their acquired political power could be ascribed only to Denmark’s leadership in industrial development. Concordant with his ambition to be more than a casual observer, Washington took note of the ‘‘peasant’s’’ natural and domestic environment – the seemingly flat yet subtly undulating Danish landscape and the long, low farm buildings. He learned to distinguish husmænd (cotters) from gaardmænd (more substantial land-owning farmers). Washington, who had always insisted on economic improvement as the key to the future of the American Negro, now traced the steps used by the Danish ‘‘peasant’’ to become a scientific farmer and a businessman. And of the Danes, he marveled, ‘‘they sell manufactured goods directly to the consumer,’’ referring to Denmark’s conservative system of cooperatives, which enabled ‘‘peasants,’’ that is, farmers, to control the markets. The cooperatives, he noted were supported by rural savings banks, as well as by farming societies and schools dedicated to the commercial and methodical advancement of agriculture. Washington, moreover, emphasized the ideas of the Danish educator and reformer N. F. S. Grundtvig for providing ‘‘schools close to the land and to the people they were designed to help’’ and he epitomized the general importance of education in Denmark by saying: ‘‘if you see a large building in Germany, you know that it is a military barracks, in England it is a factory, and in Denmark a school.’’ Washington took special note of the goals of the
Booker T. Washington’s European Encounter
201
Danish folk high-schools, of their older clientele, and of their establishment and furtherance through private initiative. Washington was caught off guard in Denmark; he, in fact, envisaged a country no different than Italy. As it turned out, Danes were rather prejudiced toward the Negro. For turn-of-the-century Danes, a Negro was a vehicle of economic expediency as well as a symbol for an obscure, exotic primitivism. In their minds, he was not far removed from the slaves acquired through early European expansionism. Denmark had been a colonial power since its settlement of Saint Thomas in 1671, currently, along with Saint Croix, a part of the American Virgin Islands, the American, and later of Saint John and Saint Croix in 1717 and 1733, respectively. Although Denmark abolished transatlantic slave trade in 1792, the legal institution of servitude on the islands continued until 1848. It was before this political background the Black American educator and ‘‘philanthropist’’ Booker Taliaferro Washington was received by the Danish King Frederik VIII (1843–1912) in 1910. The King and the Queen Louise had fostered the hope that Washington would be able to enlighten them and the Danish people about the character of their West Indian subjects. It was, moreover, the royal couple’s intent to implement within the Danish West Indies educational reforms as practiced at Tuskegee Institute. Being the distinguished guest of distinguished hosts was not new to Washington. Upon his arrival in Copenhagen, Washington was greeted by a committee headed by Viggo Cavling, editor of the then ‘‘radical’’ Danish daily Politiken. Among other important Danish personalities, were journalists and educators, the folk high-school director Thomas Bredsdorff, the politician Carl Theodor Zahle and his wife, Natalie Zahle, director of Copenhagen’s prestigious school for girls, and Professor (and author) Karl Larsen to name but a few. The welcoming committee escorted the American guest to Copenhagen’s exclusive Hotel D’Angleterre and to the popular pavilion along the harbor front at Langelinie. Special invitations and requests for speeches poured in. Washington spoke before Copenhagen’s philanthropic society of Odd-Fellows as well as at several industrial and agricultural schools and folk high-schools, including those at Ringsted and Roskilde. The unexpected highlight of Washington’s visit to Denmark was, however, his private audience with the King. The American minister Maurice Francis Egan (1910) wrote to Washington on 2 October: My Dear Sir: His Majesty, the King of Denmark, has through his master of ceremonies, commanded you to be at the Amalienborg palace at 10 o’clock on Monday (tomorrow). You will be received on your giving your name to the marshal of the court y (Egan, 1910).
202
VIVIAN GREENE-GANTZBERG
On the same evening, the royal family invited Washington to dine at their summer residence, where he partook of ‘‘food out of gold dishes.’’ In his journal, Washington (1910b) recorded the details of his audience at Amalienborg and how he took careful note of his instructions. Not without his quintessential modesty and humbleness, he recalled: Soon after I entered, the chamberlain went in and presently returned to tell me the king would be ready to see me in about five minutes. At the end of the five minutes exactly, the door was opened and I found myself in the king’s chamber. I had expected to see a gorgeously fitted apartment, something to compare with what I had seen elsewhere in the palace. Imagine my surprise when I found practically nothing in the room except the king himself. There was not a chair, a sofa, or so far as I can recall, a single thing in the way of furniture – nothing except the king and his sword. I was surprised again, considering the formality by which the king received me, and by his excellent English. Both of us remained standing during the whole interview, which must have lasted 20 minutes y . Among other things in regard to which I had been carefully instructed by the American minister was I must never turn my back upon the king, that I must not lead off in any conversation, that I must let the king suggest the subjects to be discussed and not take the initiative in raising any question for discussion (Washington, 1910b).
All went reasonably well. On leaving the palace, Washington was asked to inscribe his name in the autograph books of Alexandra (1844–1925), the widow of England’s King Edward VII and the daughter of Christian IX of Denmark and that of her sister Maria Fe¨derovna (1847–1928), widow of Alexander III of Russia, who at the time were mourning the death of Edward. As for the matter of leaving the room, Washington later confessed that he in all likelihood broke the rules of etiquette; that is to say, he left the room as he always did y ‘‘when [he had] had audience with President Taft.’’ The King’s interest in Washington reflected as much his curiosity about the conditions of Blacks in America’s southern states as much as it did his commitment to democratic ideals in Denmark. Hardly a half century before, Denmark had abandoned the imposition of its absolute monarchy and under the new sign of political enlightenment sought to bring about guarantees for human rights. In keeping with the democratic spirit, King Frederik VIII was curious to learn rather than to make pronouncements. Washington appeared to have little interest in pursuing issues related to the democratic process, and was rather unconversant regarding the plight of black Danish subjects. However, he was interested in the conditions of Denmark’s lowest social classes and set out to find the ‘‘man farthest down.’’ The Man Farthest Down (Washington, 1911a) eventually became the title of the work which recounts the details of Washington’s second European tour. This particular work was written in collaboration with the man
Booker T. Washington’s European Encounter
203
who accompanied him in Europe in 1910, the German-educated journalist and sociologist Robert Ezra Park. Washington came to realize that the ‘‘man farthest down’’ was, in fact, the woman; he substantiated his thoughts in an article entitled ‘‘The Women Who Work in Europe,’’ which appeared in Outlook (Washington, 1911a) on July, 1911. The experience in Denmark brought home to Washington the substantive differences between the lot of the free peasant and the former slave, however, Washington seems not to have learned of conditions of the Danish peasant under the laws of the absolute monarchy. Some of his knowledge about Denmark derived from an exchange of letters with his Danish biographer Johannes Knudsen (1872–1929). Knudsen conferred with Washington from April 1904 to July of 1906 primarily with regard to the composition of a biography of the American. Washington’s Up from Slavery was to be published soon by the Danish ‘‘Committee for the Furtherance of Popular Enlightenment.’’ The work had already appeared in Norwegian translation. For his own work entitled Booker T. Washington. Folkeopdrager og Menneskeven i de Nordamerikanske Fristater (Booker T. Washington, Educator and Philanthropist in the United States of America, 1905), Knudsen requested illustrations and occasional clarifications of names and terms peculiar to the history of the South. The most interesting detail of the correspondence between the two men deals with the prospect of educating young Danish West Indian men and women at Tuskegee Institute. There, in an ambiguous fashion, Washington had endeavored to instill moral values through increased material gains. His method for enacting change was to lure rather than force. Furthermore, he sought to increase his pupils’ appetite for material wants. When the sale of the Danish Virgin Islands was not ratified by the Danish government in 1905, Knudsen looked to Tuskegee’s form of education as a means of making the Islands a more prosperous area. Early attempts to educate the West Indians were undertaken largely by Moravian and Danish Lutheran religious groups. While on the one hand, the Moravians’ concentration on literacy rather than moral upbringing, resulted in their being responsible for sustained progress in education on the islands, the Danish missionaries’ pietistic undertakings, on the other hand, brought only occasional success. The Danes’ shortcomings convinced the King to make it possible for the Black West Indians to educate their own. To this end, Danish West Indian children such as Victor Cornelins (born 1898) were sent to Denmark; it was hoped that they would return to the islands to impart what they had learned under the Danish system. In spite of the painful mockery to which Cornelins as a child had been subjected (he was exhibited an attraction in Tivoli), he
204
VIVIAN GREENE-GANTZBERG
regarded himself ‘‘successfully transplanted,’’ and remained there, eventually to become deputy school inspector in the town of Nakskov. Washington, thus, found himself in a country which had vested interests in the welfare of Blacks, but which at the same time signaled contradictory attitudes toward their well being. Washington, it seemed, would be a victim of the same kind of ambivalence, as his reputation oscillated between the genuine respect and the uninformed fascination of the Danes. While the history of students from the Danish West Indies at Tuskegee remains vague, we do know that students from the West Indies were regularly enrolled there. There is little evidence, however, to establish that Booker T. Washington’s educational methods were employed in the Danish West Indies. Even before the King’s inquiry, Knudsen had sought in 1905, to send Danish Negro boys and girls to the Tuskegee. His intention was to help the islands to a more prosperous state. Washington went along with the plan and used his experiences with Puerto Rico as a model. In his letters to Washington, Knudsen wanted, in addition, to learn about the disenfranchisement of the Negro in the southern states, but here Washington remained conspicuously silent. Claiming to be unable to provide literature on the subject seems to have been Washington’s basic excuse. This reminds the reader of a conflict which arose between Washington and his Black counterparts. Unlike his chief rival William E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), Washington was an optimist. He believed that the Negro should forfeit temporary political power for long-range economic selfadvancement. Despite the fact that Washington had recognized the political advantages gained for Danish farmers, he did not change his conservative stance on the question of political power for Blacks. He was on the surface modest and self-effacing – something which was comically underscored by his refusal to wear a top hat as did his peers and its replacement by a simple bowler – and yet, he was a man able to exert great influence and power. While Du Bois was the intellectual – one who regularly changed and tested his views, Washington was the politician; he was fixed in his views and often aimed to manipulate his opponents and force them to change theirs. Unlike Du Bois, Washington, moreover, could not boast of having enjoyed advanced education. This deficiency was noted and felt throughout his life, as he occasionally suffered the disdain of some Black leaders. For all of his simplistic ways, Booker Washington was, nonetheless, a uniquely complex individual. Even today, he is frequently likened to a wizard, who according to the occasion, changes his mask and readily produces the attendant personality. In an otherwise demeaning article on the American Negro, the Danish author Johannes V. Jensen described Washington as
Booker T. Washington’s European Encounter
205
the ‘‘Wunderneger.’’ A Danish journalist referred to him as a ‘‘high nobleman of the mind and a gentleman.’’ Accusations from America and England about Washington’s patronage of the white man bore themselves out in Denmark. Washington (1911b) sought to justify his position to Outlook: With these articles, I want among other things to prove to my fellow Blacks in America, that the conditions under which a large part of Europe’s white population lives are worse than than the conditions of Blacks in America. y There are a total of 10 million Blacks in America. In 50 years, that number will have grown to 20 million. There can be no talk of exporting them, so there is, therefore, nothing else to do than make them equal to the Whites through educating them to become good citizens. It is not an easy task. It cannot be denied that Whites by nature are mentally better equipped than Blacks. But time will change that (Washington, 1911b).7
Advertently or inadvertently, Washington left himself open to damaging criticism. He went on to say that he held no bitterness toward the white man and pointed out that when Tuskegee Institute enjoys original capital of 12 million crowns, that success can be attributed only to be attributed to Whites. What is more, he tried to allay the misunderstandings held by Europeans about Blacks by pointing to the favorable treatment of Blacks in the American press.8 Not surprisingly, the trip to Denmark proved destructive to Booker T. Washington’s relationship with Black leaders. Although he continued to emphasize the Negro’s political significance, he was, in large part responsible for provoking dissension at home among those who believed that he was compromising. Washington had long become the black man’s prophet and the white man’s hope. He could be both at once – ‘‘charming some and bargaining with others,’’ as his principal biographer Louis R. Harlan puts it. As a result, neither Blacks nor Whites totally accepted or trusted Washington. Proof of the ambivalence toward him came in response to his invitation to a dinner at the White House at the invitation of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901. Washington served as Roosevelt’s advisor on matters concerning both the appointment of Blacks and Southern Whites to public office. In hindsight, the President always felt that he had given occasion for a loss of political power through what he called ‘‘the Booker T. Washington affair.’’ While Washington was enjoying fame and notoriety in Denmark, a campaign against him was emerging in England. On 6 October 1910, John Elmer Milholland, an American citizen living in Kensington, London, distributed a circular letter in which he rejected an invitation to attend a reception in honor of Washington, attacked Washington’s industrial
206
VIVIAN GREENE-GANTZBERG
education propaganda, and regarded it as nothing short of ‘‘a scheme of education of education based upon private charity.’’ Milholland felt that the insistence upon industrial education for all Blacks would deny talented individuals the opportunity to cultivate their intellectual faculties. Washington was accused of tacitly accepting the violation of constitutional rights of the American Negro. While Washington journeyed through Europe to prove the superiority of the conditions of the American Negro, Englishmen, such as the British playwright William Archer, traveled to the Southern United States and found the conditions ‘‘deplorable under any circumstances.’’ Milholland argued vehemently, that education as embodied by Tuskegee should not be bestowed as charity. What Milholland objected to was Washington’s attempt to make the British believe that industrial education was a panacea for the ills of the black population. Moreover, his critics attacked Washington’s constant attempts to place the disenfranchisement of the Negro on the back burner until the time was more feasible. Washington, the pragmatist, listened to the criticisms but held his grounds.
WASHINGTON’S ‘‘LARGER EDUCATION’’ To the end, Washington emphasized what he had always emphasized: that the moral and the material were mutually significant and would re-enforce each other. In Denmark, he had seen how education can be molded to ensure that reinforcement, and he left Denmark having learned the history and organizations of her schools and how they affected the life of the vast majority. In his book, My Larger Education (Washington, 1911c), he recounted his impressions of the European visit, and would only venture to say that ‘‘in no part of the world [was] the general intelligence of the farming class higher than it was in Denmark.’’ He found the antithesis of the Danish movement in Hungary, where efforts had been made ‘‘to improve agriculture by starting at the top, creating a body of teachers and experts who are expected in turn to influence and direct the classes below them. ‘‘Denmark,’’ he noted, ‘‘[had] begun at the bottom.’’ The most striking aspect Washington discovered of the so-called agricultural schools in Denmark was that ‘‘the subject of agriculture was almost never mentioned.’’ And agricultural journals were described as both technical and literary. The real distinction of Danish schools was one of spirit and not of form. Courses at the Danish schools were taught historically, so that the purpose of teaching was always geared toward imparting the ways in which science had contributed to man’s understanding of the world.
Booker T. Washington’s European Encounter
207
Washington was particularly impressed by the efforts of Danes to impart culture in an inspirational way. Washington visited the folk high school at Roskilde, where he was greeted by its director Thomas Bredsdorff, as well at the Kærehave’s cotters’ school near Køge. At Kærehave, the director created a green triumphal arch decorated with Danish and American flags at the school’s entry. After viewing the school’s buildings and grounds, Washington gave a brief speech and in a sincere expression of patriotism to the country in which he himself had been a slave, thanked his hosts for displaying the American flag. The visit to the Danish schools wrought in Washington fundamental changes in his attitude about the nature of education. He observed how the students at the schools were exposed to history, literature, religion, and music, and there were also various kinds of entertainment. Washington wrote of his insights about education prior to his visit to Denmark, ‘‘I do not think that I clearly understood until I went to Denmark what a ‘cultural’ education was.’’ It would be amiss to assume that Washington had not included the humanistic subjects in the curriculum at Tuskegee, for these were indeed represented. Washington had always urged his teachers of the humanities to incorporate into their teaching of poetry, fiction, and philosophy references to the land and to nature. He discovered, however, in Denmark how the humanities also informed principles of technical education. In addition, Danish educators sought to inspire interest in one’s self and in one’s race. Admittedly, the essence of cultural education, as practiced in Denmark, had never really concerned Washington before. At Tuskegee, he had primarily been interested in teaching certain obtainable skills and in reaching certain material goals. He placed little emphasis on promoting in the students a sense of who they were. Washington (1911c) summed up the revelations about cultural education in Denmark in this way: My study of the Danish rural schools [i.e. folk high-schools] has not only taught me what may be done to inspire and foster a national and racial spirit, but it has shown how closely interwoven are the moral and material conditions of the people, so that each man responds to and reflects the progress of every other man in a way to bring about a healthful, wholesome condition of national and racial life (Washington, 1911c).9
Even while Washington was in the Danish capital, a series of articles about his visit appeared in the leading Danish dailies. From the day before his arrival (on 2 October 1910) to the date of his departure on 5 October, no fewer than eight articles were published. Journalists covered everything from ‘‘Negerfilantropen’s’’ and ‘‘Negertaleren’s’’ histrionic gestures, to the conditions of the Blacks in America, to the roˆle of religion in the United States.
208
VIVIAN GREENE-GANTZBERG
The last topic, in particular, brought a host of negative sentiments about Washington’s acceptability as a spokesman for religion. Some alleged that his unorthodox views as a freethinker and Unitarian were in conflict with the ideals of Denmark’s national church and that Washington willingly let himself be exploited by fanatic Danes.10 On the whole, however, Washington had acquired many supporters in Denmark. When he returned home, he continued to correspond with his Danish acquaintances. Viggo Cavling assured him of the King’s pleasure in meeting him.11 Washington had already sent a copy of Up from Slavery (1901) to His Majesty. Cavling indicated that he would be happy to publish in Politiken articles by Washington from the cultural periodical World’s Work. After the visit had ended, Danes were somewhat more sensitive to the circumstances of Blacks in America’s southern states, but they were still uncertain how they might better the situation of their own West Indian Blacks. Although the experiences in Denmark shattered Washington’s belief that the Negro in America unequivocally enjoyed better conditions than the lowest stratum of society in Europe, he found consolation in confirming in Denmark what he already knew: that it pays to educate from the bottom up. Last but not least, Washington could now return to the United States with the tools for implementing cultural education. Booker T. Washington’s biographer Louis R. Harlan, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland at College Park, has generously provided me with insights into Booker T. Washington’s personality and referred me to his manuscript collection of Booker T. Washington Papers (Washington, 1981), where I discovered hitherto unpublished correspondence between Washington and King Frederik VIII, Johannes Knudsen, and Viggo Cavling.
NOTES 1. Samuel Spencer, Jr., Booker Taliaferro Washington and the Negro’s Place in American Life, Boston, 1955, p. 175. 2. Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, Toronto, 1922, p. 273. 3. Booker T. Washington, The Booker T. Washington Papers, Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock, eds.), V, p. 130. 4. Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, p. 282. 5. Ibid., p. 286. 6. Springfield Republican, 31 December 1911, p. 22. 7. Politken, 3 October 1996. 8. Ibid. 9. The Booker T. Washington Papers, XI, 1981, pp. 247–248.
Booker T. Washington’s European Encounter
209
10. Politiken, 8 October 1910. 11. Viggo Cavling to Booker T. Washington, 10 November 1910, in Manus. ‘‘The Booker T. Washington Papers,’’ University of Maryland.
REFERENCES Egan, M. F. (1910). Letter to Washington, October 2. London Standard. (1910). Famous Negro Leader, August. London Times. (1899). Quotes by B. T. Washington, July 4. Tuskegee Student. (1910). Notes on Washington’s European Trip, August 27. Washington, B. T. (1899a). Quotes by B. T. Washington, June 17. Washington, B. T. (1899b). On the Paris boulevard. The New York Age, July 13. Washington, B. T. (1899c). News of Washington’s European Trip. The Washington Colored American, July 13. Washington, B. T. (1899d). Article in The Freeman, August 12. Washington, B. T. (1901). Up from slavery. New York: Doubleday. Washington, B. T. (1910a). Washington Interview. London Daily Chronicle, August 29. Washington, B. T. (1910b). Washington’s journal’s account of his travels. Washington, B. T. (1911a). The man farthest down: A record of observation and study in Europe. New Brunswick, NJ: Transactions [1984]. Washington, B. T. (1911b). Washington’s travels. Outlook, June 11. Washington, B. T. (1911c). My larger education. New York: Doubleday. Washington, B. T. (1981). Booker T. Washington papers (14 Vols.). In: L. Harlan & R. Smock (Eds), Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1972–1989.
This page intentionally left blank
210
EPILOGUE Rutledge M. Dennis We cannot avoid our history. It lurks in the crevices and shadows of our minds and is indelibly imprinted and stored in our vast memory vault. For many, there is a history to be remembered and one to be forgotten. For Black Americans there is much, many of us would like to forget and transcend, i.e., slavery and racism and discrimination, past and present. Just as there is history many wish to forget, there are also individuals who have played such a controversial role in black life, many wish to forget, avoid, and ignore. One such person is Booker T. Washington. But, Washington was such a powerful force in American life, especially Black American life, that he cannot be ignored, avoided, or forgotten. Ignoring him was, and is, impossible because almost every authentic leader who followed him had to address the central themes he promulgated and advanced. Many rejected him outright (Monroe Trotter and the early Du Bois), others embraced him wholeheartedly (Marcus Garvey, The Nation of Islam, the early Malcolm X), while others chose some features of his ideas and rejected others (Du Bois in the 1930s). As the articles in this volume illustrate, Washington was not the simple man he pretended to be, nor was he the complete villain as many characterized him. As is true of many great men, we must ultimately partial and peel away their personalities, character, and assorted idiosyncratic behavior from their actual deeds and contributions. The writers in this volume were careful to note his contributions to black life, but did not refrain from documenting Washington’s many blind spots.
The Racial Politics of Booker T. Washington Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 13, 211–218 Copyright r 2006 by Elsevier Ltd. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0195-7449/doi:10.1016/S0195-7449(06)13014-7
211
212
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
Though the articles have different themes and foci they converge in their view of Washington as a great political and social tactician. The tactician in Washington kept him well-grounded on the practicalities of black life: the basic needs of a struggling population, their collective strengths and weaknesses, and what were the limits of their ability to make sacrifices for their freedom. His world was the world of ‘‘the possible’’ and the ‘‘here and now.’’ As a tactician his speeches were calibrated to elicit a particular reaction from the audience he was then currently addressing. Thus, every word was spoken with care, because before each audience Washington would be the ‘‘word wizard.’’ His folksy down-home manner appealed to blacks and whites alike. To both groups this behavior represented a connection to the ‘‘common man’’: to blacks, that he was still a part of them; to whites, that he would not make status claims on their status territory. The articles in this volume show Washington at the center of the various connecting circles within which he operated. In Washington’s world nothing was left to mere chance, and when he had the power to do so, sought to move events in the directions he so desired. The chief architect of his position as tactician was his superb ‘‘self will’’ an inner urge to master himself so as to control events and people around him. This disposition appears to have emerged early in his life. One does not know which emerges first, but the combination of this strong inner ‘‘self will’’ and his monumental selfconfidence united to forge an orientation to the world and his immediate setting that resulted in an inescapable trajectory of his life and work. For Washington it would be a two-step progression: after becoming the master of his life through discipline, hard work, and developing a keen insight into human behavior, he would then attempt to master and control people and events around him. An additional value which aided him in his personal reconstruction and remolding into the person he wanted to be, and would become, was a deeply rooted optimism – of people and life in general. As our authors recount Washington’s life, we marvel, even if we disagree on many of his social, political, and economic positions, as we read of him single-minded devotion to his educational self-development: working in the mines at 5 am, then afterwards leaving for school; his walk from West Virginia to Richmond and the journey from Richmond to Hampton Institute where he eventually matriculates. This single mindedness and patience are also evident in his drive to establish Tuskegee Institute and the National Negro Business League. Another important feature of Washington’s life that is integral to his Theory of Practicality, which connected to his role as tactician, was his use of the past to forge new approaches to the future. Unlike Du Bois whose
Epilogue
213
books and articles on slavery highlight the outrages and the oppressiveness of the system in which his anger is always close to the surface, Washington uses slavery and racial oppression as lessons of the past, not to be repeated. In fact, his addresses to black audiences remind them of that degrading past, and how he seeks through his educational programs to ensure that blacks be prepared to take control of their lives. For Washington, the past was gone, and there was no point of being angry, for anger might cloud the vision and prevent clarity of future directions and objectives of the black population. Looked at another way, Washington reasoned that whites were less likely to give in on the issues he wanted if they were approached in anger. It is doubtful that on certain levels he was really afraid of whites, but in his mind, anger and conflict meant that those with power, and whites had overwhelming power, would be less willing to listen and to give in. What he wanted from whites required their cooperation, and the three strategic needs of Washington were (1) projecting a view of black Southerners as politically non-threatening; (2) support for the development and extension of Tuskegee; and (3) providing avenues for black laborers to become intricately linked to the larger white economic network. Washington viewed his role as one of guiding the black population through those times of stress and repression. He used his personal life to demonstrate the importance of a strong individual ‘‘self-will’’ in order for millions of these individual wills to combine to form a strong ‘‘collective will.’’ Without this strong and persistent collective will the task of moving blacks forward would be slow or non-existent. Washington died in 1915. We’ve had a series of events, nationally and internationally, since his death: The New Negro Movement; World Wars I and II, the Russian, Chinese, and Cuban Revolutions, the Korean and Viet Nam conflicts and the rise of international communism, the de-colonization of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean Islands; Mrs. Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott; Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement; the Brown v. Board of Education Decision; The Black Power Movement; the Pan-African Movement; the Civil Rights Act; and the Voting Rights Act. Given all various angles from which writers in this volume have analyzed Washington, a question must be raised: What can this generation learn from Washington’s life, works and ideas? First, we can learn from Washington, as well as from Frederick Douglass and DU Bois, the central role education should have in our lives and how impoverished we individually and collectively will be. Washington himself would no doubt question how it is that the black education attainment is so low despite all available opportunities.
214
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
If the response to this inquiry is that white racism prevents it, he no doubt would reply that a groups’ progress cannot wait, unless doing times of slavery, until another group changes its position toward it. This is why Washington that attention should be paid to the inner dynamics of black collective life. By doing so, blacks would be more attentive to the educational needs of the black population and propose educational techniques more conducive to its population. Despite their differences in focus, primarily vocational education for Washington and higher liberal education for Du Bois, both agreed that any education for the black population should be tailored to the cultural, sociological, and educational needs of black communities. If Washington were alive he would also question why an almost 40 million black population with a highly developed professional and educated class cannot, or have not, found ways to facilitate the education of its youth. We can learn from Washington that much can be done with a well-structured plan and patience. Washington might even say, ‘‘one of the reasons our children’s education is in shambles is because we’ve become like whites: impatient and unwilling to commit ourselves to longterm planning and action,’’ a criticism he made in one of his speeches. Washington’s devotion to his educational mission and his ability to follow through on a designated course of action are stellar traits he demonstrated throughout his life. We can also learn from Washington the value of a disciplined, orderly life, accompanied by religious and spiritual values. It may be difficult to ascertain the depth of Washington’s religious or spiritual claims, and doing so may not be important. What is important is his belief and understanding that moral precepts are important in setting a framework for human attitudes and behavior, even if individuals often fail to live up to many of the principles they profess to believe. Washington saw the church as an important, the only important, organization and institution within the community, and given the movement from slavery, the churches had formalized a code of ethics and behavior that would assist the development of a serious and disciplined life. The church was seen as a functional unit to enhance community unity and cooperation. Without this unity and social network the community opens itself to social chaos and a degree of disintegration. The destructive black-on-black crime point to the breakdown of social order and a civil code of ethics within many communities. Again, if the response to the crime rates within our communities is racism, Washington would refute such an answer. His reply would be based on his belief that the evolution of blacks from slavery has to entail a strengthening the bonds within our communities. As he often said, one of the key reasons for education and
Epilogue
215
social and religious development is to help each other so that the larger community prospers. Washington’s interest in the creation and development of professional and occupational institutions directed toward the interests of Black Americans became one of his life long goals. In addition to the Business League and farmers’ associations, he encouraged blacks to form other professional groups better to tend to the special needs of the black population. He did not, however, discourage blacks from joining predominately white groups. He simply understood that the needs of blacks and whites were different, given their differing histories, economies, education, and opportunities. The growth and proliferation of black caucuses and black organizations, which operate either within larger white organizations or as separate organizations can be traced back to Washington, though many members of such groups would loudly proclaim their opposition to Washington and some of his ideas. The articles in this volume, though not always very complementary to him, concur in emphasizing his steadiness and patience regarding his overall objectives. They also illustrate his life-long ability to remain focus, to allow neither the individuals nor events to seriously sidetrack from keeping his eyes on the prize. Washington knew how to keep his hands on the plow and his eyes on the prize. He was a steady long-distance runner who knew the job would not be easy, but he had to play the hand he was dealt, under the conditions he inherited, and did not create. He knew if he were going to be of service it would to entail working to transform the newly freed into a ‘‘New People’’ with new aspirations, hopes, determination, and values. In other words, he knew he would have to have the patience of Job in order to help destroy many of the ideas and values produced under slavery. When placed against the backdrop of the immediate pre-Washington leadership era, and the national and world events immediately after his death in 1915, the Washington leadership era can, at best, be seen as ‘‘interim’’ and ‘‘transitional.’’ The Civil War and its immediate aftermath had set in motion a series of events to which blacks had to react and address, but which they lacked the power to prevent: the destruction of the Reconstruction; the Compromise of 1877; the inactivity and callousness of the U.S. government in addressing anti-black sentiments and behavior in the South; the rise of terrorism; and the pervasiveness of Jim Crow laws (From Washington and points north, Douglass sought to reassure Northern and Southern blacks, but in the South his voice would be an echo, and the ideas and programs he envisioned for blacks and the nation were anathema to Southern whites still smarting from their defeat by Union soldiers). These
216
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
events were occurring simultaneously with other major social, political, cultural, and economic issues such as increasing urbanization, industrialism, and the immigration of millions of Europeans. When Washington died in 1915 the nation had entered the First World War the previous Year. Marcus Garvey, who came to the United States from Jamaica to join Washington’s Tuskegee program (he did not know of Washington’s death), but stayed in America to organize the largest massbased black organization in U.S. history, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Though the UNIA was largely Northern-based, there were chapters in a few Southern states. The war and Garvey’s movement contributed to the slow but changing metamorphosis of the black population. That change was further accelerated in the 1920s by the ‘‘New Negro Movement’’ associated with the Harlem Renaissance and led by creative artists and intellectuals such as Alain Locke, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, James Weldon Johnson, and Zora Neal Hurston. Again, this was largely a Northern-based movement, and with rare exceptions, made no inroads into the South. The deprivations of the Great Depression ended such cultural movements, and by the 1930s Garvey had been arrested, incarcerated, and later upon his release, deported. At the tail-end of the depression saw the birth of aggressive nationalism in Germany which was largely directed toward Jews, and eventually culminated in the deaths of six million Jews and millions of others. Following Washington’s death Du Bois would become the voice of the NAACP through his role as editor of the organization’s house organ, The Crisis, but it was largely a Northern voice. The Southern voice was muted, and if a few voices were heard, such as the voice of Mary Macleod Bethune, they would never gain the power and prestige held by Washington. In the North during the 1940s A. Phillip Randolph, Founder and President of the powerful Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union became a force. It was Randolph, along with the NAACP, who threatened, during the war, to lead a massive march on Washington if the United States government did not abolish discrimination in the defense industry and in the military. Participation and support of the war changed Black America as did Truman’s elimination of segregation in the nation’s armed forces. Black Americans were having a hand in changing America, but America was also changing Black Americans. With each national and international event the sociology and psychology of a people would be transformed. The Korean Conflict, Brown versus the Board of Education, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott would, in tandem, usher even more changes and present new challenges to a people ready to rid itself of the humiliations and
Epilogue
217
oppressions of the past and to move ahead in the society. Martin Luther King, Jr., would be the leader to take blacks to yet another level of consciousness and organizational astuteness. However, by this time there was truly a ‘‘New Negro’’ on the horizon. By the middle and late 1950s, even with the threat of lynchings and beatings in many communities, many blacks chose to take a stand, first with bus boycotts, then with lunch counter sit-ins and a variety of other non-violent confrontations. Washington would have been out of place in the 1940s and 1950s. His role was that of keeping Southern terrorists and those who actively and visibly hated blacks at bay. In this hostile environment he cautioned the population to be careful and do nothing to anger whites in power. He played a crucial, and transitional, role in the transformation of Black America. We hope the article printed here will inspire scholars to dig deeply into these neglected areas of Washington’s life and thought: his religion, his economics, culture, and politics. Finally, any discussion of Washington is sure to culminate in the question of possibilities for blacks had his economic strategies succeed. We can never know what would have happened had events and the selection of key individuals taken a different course. However, we can speculate, and based on the development of ethnic economic enclaves already being carved out by immigrant Jews, Italians, and the Irish in the East and mid-West, and by the Chinese and Japanese in the West, the economics of black life nationally might have taken a very different course. That, such an ethnic economic enterprise advocated by Washington never got off the ground cannot be blamed totally on Du Bois, Du Boisians, and liberal whites who demonized Washington as a racial traitor, an arch segregationist and separatist, and a capitalist par excellence. Thus, they were attacking Washington for proposing economic programs already in motion by other ethnic groups, which would eventually prove to explain one of the reasons for their rapid mobility in the country. A close reading of the history of many economically successful immigrant groups will illustrate that with rare exceptions, they were less likely to be in the front and center of political activities. Rather, their energies were focused on building and strengthening their ethnic economies, which rendered them less dependent on the prejudicial and discriminatory practices of the larger dominant Anglo-Saxon society. Despite the compromises of Washington and the obvious authoritarian rule he exercised, one is more inclined to side with him on the economic front. Strangely enough, through all the years the dominant black political and social life, Washington was very much the non-Marxist economic determinist. The irony is that Du Bois, the scholar, from the 1950s on, becomes, and ends up as a Marxist economic determinist, having officially
218
RUTLEDGE M. DENNIS
joining the Communist Party USA in 1961, later renounces his American citizenship, and becomes a Ghanaian citizen where he eventually dies in 1963, on the eve of the March on Washington. Of the two men, Washington was the more consistent. However, this fact does not indict Du Bois, for he rightly believed that blacks had no control over the politics and economics of their lives, thus, must be able and willing to improvise whenever necessary. Unfortunately, he did not use that logic in viewing Washington’s situational strategies and the circumstances around which he, Washington, had to adopt the plans he did. We can only speculate that Du Bois was blinded by ideology and his scholarly and academic logic that he knew best. It was only in the 1930s, during the worse years of the Great Depression that he was forced to admit that one of the weaknesses in the black collective life was its non-existent economic base. It was this realization during the height of black deprivation, which prompted him to propose a Black Economic Commonwealth. This idea was straight from the pages of Booker T. Washington, and so offended were his colleagues in the NAACP by Du Bois’ Washingtonian strategy that he was forced to resign from the editorship of The Crisis and from the NAACP Board. Had Du Bois accurately and objectively understood the plight of blacks in the South, while Washington sought to create such an economic strategy, it is more likely that the shape and evolution of black life may have taken a remarkably different course. Du Bois was simply unwilling to listen to another voice because he was locked into one way of looking at the world and became wedded to a political and economic ideology. Whenever I use the books of Washington and Du Bois in my courses, I always note a certain degree of sadness on the part of students after we’ve summarized the positions of each thinker and looked at the eras in which they lived and the obstacles they faced. Though many students will side with one or the other, eventually they conclude: if only these two bright minds could have been able to cooperate, to compromise, and to find a workable solution to the desperate plight of an impoverished people. Unfortunately, ideology often trumps reason. Luckily, Du Bois eventually saw, though it was too late that the solution to a starving people cannot be held hostage by the label and stigma of separatism or segregation. Nor should it be held hostage to the ideals and hopes of integration. The reality is that when people suffer, leaders must throw ideology out of the window and solve the problems and tend to the people’s needs irrespective of ideological positions on the left, right, or center. That lesson is as important for our generation today as it was during the era of Washington and Du Bois.
