Booker T. Washington Part 8

[Signed] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

_To President Theodore Roosevelt, White House, Washington_

President Roosevelt expressed great appreciation of this letter and said that Mr. Washington had taken the election in just the way he would have wished him to take it.

About two years later Mr. Washington wrote President Roosevelt another letter which throws light upon the relations between the two men as well as upon the incongruous phases of racial prejudice:

_Tuskegee Inst.i.tute, Alabama,_ _June 19, 1906._

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: It will interest you to know that the c.o.x family, over whom such a disturbance was made in connection with the Indianola, Miss., post-office, have started a bank in that same town which direct and reliable information convinces me is in a prosperous condition. The bank has the confidence of both races. It is a curious circ.u.mstance that while objection was made to this black family being at the head of the post-office no objection is made to this black man being president of a bank in the same town.

A letter just received from a reliable banker in Mississippi contains the following sentences:

"Now, with reference to Mr. W.W. c.o.x, of Indianola, Miss., I beg to advise that no man of color is as highly regarded and respected by the white people of his town and county as he.

It is true that he organized and is cashier of the Delta Penny Savings Bank, domiciled there. I visited Indianola during the spring of 1905 and was very much surprised to note the esteem in which he was held by the bankers and business men (white) of that place. He is a good, clean man and above the average in intelligence, and knows how to handle the typical Southern white man. In the last statement furnished by his bank to the State Auditor, his bank showed total resources of $46,000. He owns and lives in one of the best resident houses in Indianola, regardless of race, and located in a part of the town where other colored men seem to be not desired. The whites adjacent to him seem to be his friends. He has a large plantation near the town, worth $35,000 or $40,000. He is a director in Mr. Pettiford's bank at Birmingham, Ala., and I think is vice-president of the same. He also owns stock in the bank of Mound Bayou."

Yours very truly,

[Signed] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

_To President Theodore Roosevelt, Washington, D.C._

In August, 1905, Booker Washington spoke one Sunday morning before a large audience in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. After his address Mr. John Wanamaker and his daughter were among those who came forward to greet him. They also invited him to dine with them at the United States Hotel that afternoon. Mr. Wanamaker had been particularly interested in Booker Washington and his work for many years. Mr. Washington accepted this invitation without the least thought of reawakening the clamor caused by the Roosevelt dinner. The dinner itself pa.s.sed off quietly, pleasantly, and without particular event. It was not until he took up the papers at his little hotel in New York the next morning that he found that he had again stirred up a hornet's nest similar to that of four years before. The denunciation was if anything more violent; for, as many of his a.s.sailants said, he should have profited by the protests of four years before. In an editorial ent.i.tled, "Booker Washington's Saratoga Performance" a Southern newspaper said: "Since the fateful day when Booker T. Washington sat down to the dinner table in the White House with President Roosevelt he has done many things to hurt the cause of which he is regarded as the foremost man.... Leaving out of the question the lack of delicacy and self-respect manifested by Wanamaker and his family, blame must rest upon Washington, because he knows how deep and impa.s.sable is the gulf between whites and blacks in the South when the social situation is involved. He deliberately flaunts all this in the face of the Southern people among whom he is living and among whom his work has to be carried on. He could have given no harder knock to his inst.i.tution than he gave when he marched into that Saratoga dinner room with a white woman and her father."

These sentiments were expressed editorially by another Southern paper: "Wanamaker is unworthy to shine the shoes of Booker Washington. He is not in Washington's cla.s.s. If the truly smart set of Saratoga was shocked that Booker should have been caught in this man's company and as his guest we are not surprised. But still Booker Washington could not eat dinner with the most ordinary white man in this section. He wouldn't dare intimate that he sought such social recognition among whites here"; and in conclusion this editorial said: "The South only pities the daughter that she should have allowed herself to be used by a father whose sensibilities and ideas of the proprieties are so dulled by his asinine qualities that he could not see the harm in it."

This vituperation of Mr. Wanamaker, and the scoring him for his part in the affair even more than Washington, recalls an incident which Mr.

Washington himself relates in his book ent.i.tled, "My Larger Education." When he was making a trip through Florida, a few weeks after his dinner with President Roosevelt, at a little station near Gainesville, "A white man got aboard the train," he says, "whose dress and manner indicated that he was from the cla.s.s of small farmers in that part of the country. He shook hands with me very cordially, and said: 'I am mighty glad to see you. I have heard about you and I have been wanting to meet you for a long while.'

"I was naturally pleased at this cordial reception, but I was surprised when, after looking me over, he remarked: 'Say, you are a great man. You are the greatest man in this country.'

"I protested mildly, but he insisted, shaking his head and repeating, 'Yes, sir, the greatest man in this country.' Finally I asked him what he had against President Roosevelt, telling him at the same time that, in my opinion, the President of the United States was the greatest man in the country.

"'Huh! Roosevelt?' he replied, with considerable emphasis in his voice, 'I used to think that Roosevelt was a great man until he ate dinner with you. That settled him for me.'"

Mr. Washington goes on to say: "This remark of a Florida farmer is but one of the many experiences which have taught me something of the curious nature of this thing that we call prejudice--social prejudice, race prejudice, and all the rest. I have come to the conclusion that these prejudices are something that it does not pay to disturb. It is best to 'let sleeping dogs lie.' All sections of the United States, like all other parts of the world, have their own peculiar customs and prejudices. For that reason it is the part of common sense to respect them. When one goes to European countries, or into the Far West, or into India or China, he meets certain customs and certain prejudices which he is bound to respect and, to a certain extent, comply with.

The same holds good regarding conditions in the North and in the South. In the South it is not the custom for colored and white people to be entertained at the same hotel; it is not the custom for black and white children to attend the same school. In most parts of the North a different custom prevails. I have never stopped to question or quarrel with the customs of the people in the part of the country in which I found myself."

And so he acted in the case of the Wanamaker dinner. He accepted Mr.

Wanamaker's invitation because he was in the North and his host was a Northerner. In so doing he felt that he was not violating any generally accepted custom or universally entertained prejudice of the part of the country in which he found himself. Had the inconceivable occurred, and had a Southerner invited him to dine in the South, under conditions in all other respects identical, he would not have accepted. He would not have been willing to incur the resentment of the South even had his host been willing to defy local prejudices by inviting him. On the other hand, he felt that the att.i.tude of those who would seek to control him in matters of social custom when he was not in the South or among Southerners was unfair and unreasonable.

An incident which occurred while he was stopping at the English Hotel in Indianapolis in 1903 furnished copy for the more or less sensational press of the country. This hotel does not as a rule accept Negroes as guests, but Mr. Washington was always a welcome visitor there just as he was at many other hotels where less-favored members of his race were excluded. He never patronized this hotel or any other for the purpose of a.s.serting his rights, but merely to obtain the comforts and the seclusion so essential to a man who always worked up to the limits of even his great strength and usually a little beyond such limits. It is, indeed, quite possible that he might have lived longer had he been free to stop at hotels in the South instead of undergoing the constant wear and tear of being entertained in the private homes of the all-too-kind hosts of his own race. All public men and lecturers, in a large way of business, learn early in their careers that they must decline practically all proffers of private hospitality if they are to preserve their health.

On this occasion the white chambermaid a.s.signed to care for the room he occupied refused to perform her duties so far as his room was concerned on the ground, as she stated, that she "would not clean up after a n.i.g.g.e.r." For this refusal to do her work the management discharged her. The Springfield _Republican_ of that date thus describes what followed: "A hotel at Houston, Texas, immediately offered her a place there, which she accepted, but as matters are now going she is more likely to retire from the business as a grand lady living on an independent income. Her name is upon all tongues in the Southland, and the newspapers print long and complimentary accounts of her life and the one great deed that has made her famous. Citizens and communities vie with each other in contributing money.... Captain John W. Johnson of Sheffield, Ala., is organizing a general subscription fund from that and neighboring towns. A meeting at Houston, Texas, raised $500 for her in the name of a 'self-respecting girl.' The Houston _Chronicle_ is conducting another popular subscription.

Contributions are coming into it from all parts of Texas. Citizens of New Orleans have raised $1,000. About twoscore Southern towns and a dozen cities so far figure in the contributions. The movement extends to Indianapolis, where a gold watch has been contributed." The hysterical lauding of this "heroine" was subsequently wet blanketed by the discovery that she had cared for Mr. Washington's room for the first day or two of his stay without protest, and by the further discovery that her second or third husband had recently obtained a divorce from her.

It is only fair to add that many of the leading citizens of the South strongly deprecated the sensational magnifying of this trivial incident by a certain section of the Southern press. Mr. Washington declined to make any comment for publication during or after this petty tumult.

In spite of the three events described, and others of a like nature that might be mentioned, no Negro was ever so liked, respected, admired, and eulogized by the Southern whites as Booker Washington.

The day following his great speech before the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta in 1895 when he went out upon the streets of the city he was so besieged by white citizens from the highest to the lowest, who wanted to shake his hand and congratulate him, that he was fairly driven in self-defense to remain indoors. Not many years after that it had become a commonplace for him to be an honored guest on important public occasions throughout the South. On occasions too numerous even to note in pa.s.sing he was welcomed, and introduced to great audiences, by Southern Governors, Mayors, and other high officials, as well as by eminent private citizens. Such recognition came partly as a spontaneous tribute to the great work he was doing and partly because of his constantly reiterated a.s.surance that the Negro was not seeking either political domination over the white man or social intercourse with him. He reasoned that the more Southern whites he could convince that his people were not seeking what is known as social equality or political dominance, the less race friction there would be.

It has already been mentioned that at the opening of the first Negro agricultural fair in Albany, Georgia, in the fall of 1914, the Mayor of the city and several members of the City Council sat on the platform during the exercises and listened to his speech with most spontaneous and obvious approval. In this part of Georgia the Negroes outnumber the whites by at least six to one. The afternoon of the same day the Mayor invited Booker Washington and his party to come to the city hall and confer with himself, the other city officials, and a group of prominent private citizens on the relations between the races in that city and locality. At this conference there was a friendly, easy interchange of ideas interspersed with jokes and laughter, but all the time Mr. Washington was leading them step by step to see that by giving the Negroes proper educational opportunities they were helping themselves as well as the Negroes. Mr. Stowe, who was present at this conference, noticed to his surprise that some of the arguments advanced by Dr. Washington, which seemed to him to be almost worn-out truisms, although freshly and strongly expressed, were seized upon by his auditors as new and original ideas. When he made this observation to Mr. Washington after the meeting he said that several other Northerners had under similar circ.u.mstances made the same observation and then he added: "I only wish that it were possible for me to spend several months of each year talking with just such groups of representative Southern men. They are always responsive, eager to understand what we are driving at, and sympathetic when they do understand. The necessity for raising money has forced us to devote the bulk of our time to educating the Northern public to the needs of the situation to the neglect of our Southern white neighbors right here about us."

It was an interesting ill.u.s.tration of the illogical workings of race prejudice that this man to whom the city fathers from the Mayor down gave up practically their entire day--this man to whom the city hall was thrown open and at whose feet sat the leading citizens as well as the officials of the city, could not have found shelter in any hotel in town. This man whom the officials and other leading citizens delighted to honor arrived at night on a Pullman sleeping car in violation of the law of the State; and, after all possible honor had been paid him, save allowing him to enter a hotel, departed the next night by a Pullman sleeper in violation of the law!

This constant "law-breaker" was welcomed and introduced to audiences by Governor Blanchard of Louisiana at Shreveport, La.; by Governor Candler at Atlanta, Ga.; by Governor Donaghey at Little Rock, Ark.; by Governor McCorkle of West Virginia, and successively by Governors Jelks and O'Neil of his own State of Alabama. Still other Southern Governors spoke from the same platform with him at congresses, conventions, and meetings of various descriptions.

Next to South Carolina and Georgia, perhaps no State in the Union has shown as much hostility to the progress of the Negro as Mississippi.

In 1908, in response to the urgent appeals of Charles Banks, the Negro banker and dominating force of the Negro town of Mound Bayou, Mr.

Washington agreed to make a tour through Mississippi such as he had made three years before through Arkansas and what were then Oklahoma and Indian Territories. At Jackson, Miss., the management of the State Fair a.s.sociation offered the local committee of Negroes the great Liberal Arts Building for Mr. Washington's address. In the audience were not less than five thousand persons, among them several hundred white citizens. Among the whites who sat on the platform were Governor Noel, Lieutenant-Governor Manship, Bishop Charles B. Galloway of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, Mr. Milsaps, the richest citizen of the State; the postmaster of Jackson, the United States Marshal, Hon.

Edgar S. Wilson, and a considerable number of other prominent white citizens.

At Natchez, a few nights later, the audience literally filled every available s.p.a.ce in the Grand Opera House and overflowed into the adjoining streets. This audience was in many respects the most remarkable that the city had ever seen. The entire orchestra was given over to the white citizens of Natchez and Adams County, and still there was not room to accommodate them, for they were packed in the rear and stood three and four deep in the aisles. The colored people were crowded into the balcony and the galleries. When Booker Washington arose to speak, he was greeted by a perfect whirlwind of applause and cheering. He was visibly affected by the reception given him by whites as well as blacks.

When he finished speaking a large delegation headed by the Mayor of the city made their way to the platform, welcomed him to the city, thanked him for his address, and stated that his influence for good in the city and county could not be estimated.

Mr. J.T. Harahan, of the Illinois Central Railroad, provided the Pullman tourist car in which Mr. Washington and his party toured the State. It was estimated that from sixty to eighty thousand people saw and heard him during his seven days' trip. On the conclusion of the tour one paper said, "No more popular man ever came into the State, white or black, and no man ever spoke to larger audiences than he did.

He is the only speaker who ever filled the Jackson, Miss., Coliseum."

Only six months before his death Booker Washington made a similar tour through Louisiana. Louisiana has always been reputed to be in the same category as Mississippi in opposing Negro progress. To some of his audiences Mr. Washington said that he and his party of twenty-five colored men had felt before they started very much like the little girl who was about to go on a trip to Louisiana with her parents. The night before they started she said her prayer as usual:

"_Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take._"

With a deep sigh she then added, "Good-bye, Lord, for two weeks. We are going down to Louisiana."

In introducing Mr. Washington to a great audience in New Orleans, made up of both races, Mayor Berhman said, turning to Booker Washington:

"The work you are doing for the uplift of your people means untold good to the great State of Louisiana and to the whole country. Nowhere has your race greater opportunities than in Louisiana. If the people of the Negro race will follow your teachings, they will help materially to bring about a condition that will mean much for Louisiana, the South, and the nation."

At Shreveport former Governor N.C. Blanchard, in introducing Dr.

Washington to an audience of over 10,000 white and colored citizens, said: "I am glad to see this goodly attendance of white people, representative white people at that, for his Honor, the Mayor, is here, and with him are members and officials of the city government and other prominent citizens of our community. They are here to give encouragement to Mr. Washington, to hold up his hands, for they know that he is leading his people along right lines--lines tending to promote better feeling and better understanding between the two races....

"Our country needs to have white and black people, sober, honest, frugal, and thrifty. Booker T. Washington stands for these things. He advises and counsels and leads toward these goals. Hear him and heed his words."

At the invitation of Superintendent Gwinn the colored school children of New Orleans were given a half-holiday to hear Dr. Washington. He addressed them in an arena seating more than five thousand people, which was given for the occasion by its white owner.

To one of these Louisiana audiences Mr. Washington said: "Both races in the South suffer at the hands of public opinion by reason of the fact that the outside world hears of our difficulties, of crimes, mobs, and lynchings, but it does not hear of or know about the evidences of racial friendship and good-will which exist in the majority of communities in Louisiana and other Southern States where black and white people live together in such large numbers. Lynchings are widely reported by telegraph. The quiet, effective work of devoted white people in the South for Negro uplift is not generally or widely reported. The best white citizenship must take charge of the mob and not have the mob take charge of civilization. There is enough wisdom, patience, forbearance, and common sense in the South for white people and black people to live together in peace for all time."

In short, Booker Washington met race prejudice just as he did all other difficulties, as an obstacle to be surmounted rather than as an injustice to be railed at and denounced regardless of the consequences.

CHAPTER SIX

GETTING CLOSE TO THE PEOPLE