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Whereas Frederick Douglass spent the bulk of his non-slavery life trying to help free the slaves, upon his death in 1895 he passed the baton of Black leadership to a new leader, Booker T. Washington (1856?-1915). Washington's focus, directed toward the situation of the Black masses, had "hard work" as its central theme. By means of work and the proper use of money, Blacks could gain a strong economic position and thereby cause other rights and privileges to come naturally. Blacks should get their rights, not by gifts of the White man, but by earning them. Washington's preparation for this desperate era of Jim Crow, White vigilante terrorism, and lynchings was being born a slave in the South, knowing intimately the common struggling life of his people, and the attitude of the White people toward them. He worked hard to get an education and was graduated at Hampton Institute in Virginiaâ€"a story he wrote in "Up From Slavery" so as to show what achievements were possible for an ambitious and talented Black person.
The publishing of another book: "The Story of My Life and Work" (1900) brought the genre of printed slave narratives to a formal close. These narratives (the best of which were written between 1830 and 1865) had given first-hand views of historical events that had been either distorted or seldomed considered by historians. In their place of prominence arose those Black songs which emphasized the Black individual and his/her self-expression. This shift corresponded to Washington's philosophy taking hold among Black intellectuals and the Black middle class. What he offered was not a new set of goals but a new order of priority in the existing goals.
The political and disfranchisement struggles consuming the minds of many Black elites seemed to him to be an exercise in futility because they and the masses of Blacks were vulnerable to terrorism.
Washington's top priority was to meet "the real needs and conditions of our people" with basic skills and disciplineâ€"not only job skills, but "how to bathe, how to care for their teeth and clothing". Hence, at his Tuskegee Institute he concentrated on the most basic, pragmatic concernsâ€"work habits, hygiene, and character. Washington publicly said an academic education for Blacks meant almost by definition to be non-productive. Indeed, the word "school" comes from the Egyptian term for "leisure" (needed to do the study leading to salvation). Furthermore, a college education for Blacks would leave students unprepared for "fundamental wealth-producing occupations".
Despite this "Washington era" being the time of intense competition for Negro leadership and despite Washington's famous remark that the White man could not hold the Negro in the gutter without getting in there himself, Washington had a total monopoly on Negro leadership for almost a third of a century. No White philanthropist made a grant to a Negro cause and no public official appointed a Negro to office or took a position affecting Negroes without consulting first with Dr. Washington. His status was gained in part by the force of his own personality; in greater part by his skill in cutting possible rivals down to size, usually because of his power to determine which Black schools would receive money; and in greatest part because he had the support of White Southerners and Northerners by telling them what they wanted to hear. Secretly, he was mapping a way out of total academic oppression for Blacks in a way most Blacks could understand and relate to at their stage of development.
Still, Washington had opposition from those Blacks who associated physical work with slavery and, instead, favored the academic type of school. Then there was a militant minority of Blacksâ€"led by DuBoisâ€"who refused to accept Washington's leadership and forged their own "talented tenth" Negro Renaissance (which led to the founding of the NAACP in 1909-10). Simultaneously, another competitor-- the seed for Marcus Garvey's later "Black Nationalist" back-to-Africa movement-- was beginning to sprout. Nevertheless, Dr. Washington was an advocate for even-handed fairness between the races. For example, with respect to the Atlanta riot (instituted by Whites) he condemned White rioters, was pleased when there were offers to fire some police officers and arrest some mob leaders, and praised the interracial council for its conciliatory efforts.
Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.
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