In a time when African-Americans were struggling to gain a foothold in american society, a few outstanding figures rose to the surface. One of these figures was Booker T. Washington. He was the leading African- American civil right figure during the late 19th century, and early 20th century. His work as a civil rights activist furthered thousands and thousands of black’s education, and status in the American society. His work provided schools and funding for the African-Americans. He also founded the National Negro Business League, an association whose goal was to “promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro.” However, his memory wasn’t just as a civil rights activist and educator, he was also disregarded by many blacks, including Civil Rights Activist W.E.B. Du Bois. Even though he was dismissed by some of the African-American community, he may not be as controversial as many think.
Booker Taliaferro Washington was born c. 1856 (the exact date of his birth is unknown) to Jane, a slave on the plantation of James Burroughs in South-West Virginia near Hale’s Ford. Booker’s biological father is unknown, but was said to be a white man who lived on another plantation. When he was born, he was known solely as Booker, as surnames were not given to slaves. Booker’s mother, relatives, and siblings struggled greatly under the grueling hardships of slavery until 1865 when U.S. troops occupied his area, and he, his family, and fellow slaves were read the Emancipation Proclamation. Soon after they were freed, Jane, Booker’s mother, took her family to West Virginia to meet up with her husband Washington Fergusson who had escaped from the chains of slavery, and settled there during the civil war. Once his family had relocated to West Virginia, he began to meticulously teach himself to read, and started school for the first time. When booker began school, the need for a last name arose, so he chose the Washington after his stepfather. Booker later found out that from his mother that he was given the name Booker Taliaferro at birth, but the surname fell into disuse immediately. Once he learned of it, he took it on as his own, becoming Booker Taliaferro Washington. Booker T. labored at salt furnaces and coal mines in West Virginia for several months in order to save money. After a time, he switched to working as a personal servant for a wealthy local white woman. There he learned to properly cook, clean, and housekeep, and after a year and a half, he believed that he had saved enough to set off for the Hampton Institute, a college established to educate free African-Americans and their offspring. Then, a few days later, he departed on the 500 mile journey to Hampton.
Washington learnt of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute from local adults at a salt mine, where negroes could go and get a college education when he was a teenager. He then worked a year and a half for a wealthy white woman. His family, friends, and fellow African-Americans donated whatever they could. A couple cents here, a handkerchief there, a few more cents from another. With barely any money, a precious few amount of belongings, and a passion for knowledge, a set off on a journey of more than 500 miles, which he planned to do on foot. Booker walked through the mountains, freezing cold, with the wind biting into his frame, on dirt roads for hundreds of miles. Every so often he was able to beg his way onto a wagon or stagecoach for a few miles. Prior to his journey, Washington hadn’t really realised what came along with being black, he learned it all through a single experience. One day he was cold and weary, and he had been able to get a ride with a stagecoach. When the stagecoach stopped, all of the white folks disembarked and when to a hotel on the top of the mountain. When he went inside to get a room, the manager wouldn’t even let Booker speak, he promptly kicked him out. After weeks of travel, he finally arrived in Richmond South Carolina, 82 miles from Hampton. When he arrived, he was completely broke. Unable to find a place to sleep, he ended up under a particularly elevated clapboard sidewalk. The next day he woke up starving, having not eaten in several days. He eventually found work unloading pig iron from a trading vessel under a sympathetic captain. He was able to earn enough for breakfast, and finally ate. The captain of the trader so much liked the help Bokker had given, that he invited him to come and work for him until the rest of the cargo was unloaded for a small wage each day. After saving a meager amount, he set off for Hampton once again. Booker arrived at Hampton without incident, and immediately reported to the head teacher for enrollment. The head teacher was reluctant to accept Booker because of his ragtag appearance from his travelling. She asked if he could clean and he replied yes. She tasked him with sweeping and dusting a particularly dirty room, and he did it so much to her liking, that she accepted him on the spot. After he graduated in 1875, Booker was even put in charge of educating a group of Native Americans at Hampton’s night school.
Before learning of Tuskegee Institute, Booker had several teaching jobs at the Hampton Institute, including teaching a night school for Native Americans. One day at Hampton Institute, Colonel Armstrong was sent a telegram asking if he knew of any competent men who could come and be the head of a new school in Tuskegee, Alabama for negroes. When they asked, they had asked specifically for a white man because they knew of no black man who could do the job. Colonel Armstrong immediately replied back recommending booker after having spoken to him about it, and Booker agreeing. Several days later they received word back saying “Booker T. Washington will suit us, send him at once.” Booker was shocked and elated, and prepared to leave right away. Upon arrival at Tuskegee, he was dismayed to find no buildings in which to teach, but did find hundreds of African-Americans who were eager to get a good education. Later on, he found a grant of 2,000 dollars from the state, but also soon found that it was solely to be used to cover the salaries of any other teaching staff he might need; not for the use of buying land, or supplies necessary to teaching. Booker did however, find a dilapidated shack and an old methodist church on a small plot land, which he was able to secure. During the early days of the school Booker remembered several times when one of his older students had to leave the lesson and come hold an umbrella over him while he was giving a lecture. During his first month after moving to Tuskegee, Booker secured more land, fixed up the buildings, and then travelled throughout Alabama to get a sense of the culture. While travelling he encountered many sheds meant for teaching, that were in such a morbid state, they were barely adequate in keeping water from cascading down upon its inhabitants. After returning, he found his first students waiting for him. Initially all of his students were older, in their 30’s and 40’s. Over the span of a month, his student body gradually increased from 20 to 50. Besides teaching, booker taught important life skills like personal hygiene; how to bathe, care for one’s teeth, how to properly launder clothes, how to set a table, how to eat civilly etc. About three months after Tuskegee Institute opened, Booker found a large plantation for sale about a mile from the town of Tuskegee. It was up for $500, which Booker did not have so he managed to convince the seller to give it to him for $250, and $250 more later, which he also didn’t have. Booker contacted the treasurer of Hampton Institute to see what he could do about the $250 dollars he needed, the treasurer told him that he couldn’t give him Hampton money, and instead provided the $250 dollars out of his own pocket. $250 dollars in 1892 is about equivalent to $650,000 today, so you can see how generous that was. Booker purchased the land, and soon after lessons started in an old stable, and henhouse. Booker also cleared land in order to plant crops. After three more months, he was able to fully repay his loan to the treasurer of $250, and then two months after that paid the rest of the $250 to the original seller of the plantation. A white man who operated a sawmill nearby gave Booker all of the wood necessary to construct a series of new buildings without any assurance that he would be paid, except Booker’s word. The entirety of the original buildings at Tuskegee Institute were built by students and Booker himself; there was no professional labor involved. There once was a time when the school ran out of funds for the construction of new buildings, so Booker contacted Col. Armstrong and within a week, the entirety of the colonels most recent paycheck arrived in the mail at Tuskegee.
One achievement that Booker was particularly famous for was his “Atlanta Compromise”. The “Atlanta Compromise” was a deal stuck with white leaders in the south after his speech given at the Atlanta Exposition, in 1895. Booker’s speech was an attempt to prove that African-Americans are equal to their white brethren. He said the only for the blacks to achieve total equality was through education and the gain of economic stability. Booker promoted this “go slow” approach to avoid a massive white strike out against a more straightforward approach on civil rights. At the time, W.E.B. Du Bois backed Booker T. Washington, but they grew apart because Du Bois supported a more active approach through reversing the disenfranchisement of blacks and gaining better education. W.E.B. Du Bois Later coined Booker’s agreement the “Atlanta Compromise” because he thought Booker was being too accommodating to white interests. Booker’s successful agreement stated that the black community of the south would submit to political rule, but they would all receive free basic education, and be given all of their natural, god given rights. African-Americans would also not receive the right to vote, and would not not retaliate to racist behavior. In the early 1900’s W.E.B. Du Bois discredited Booker’s agreement, and instead promoted Civil Rights activism. After booker died in 1915, most of the supporters of the Atlanta Compromise gradually switched to activism and action, which led led to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s. Du Bois even later blamed the Atlanta Race Riots of 1906 on Booker’s Atlanta Compromise.
There was controversy surrounding Booker T. Washington, but it isn’t as bad as one might think. Even though Booker’s Atlanta Compromise did little to give black’s voting rights, or end racism in the south, it did great things for black’s education in the south, providing education for hundreds of thousands. Unknown to much of the public, Booker had strong ties to some of the most powerful whites of his time, and they did much to support African-Americans. Booker was even a valued consultant to several white Presidents. He spent many summers along the wealthy in Bar Harbor, Maine, and Saratoga Springs, New York. He counted many of the rich an famous to be his friends and acquaintances. They ranged from Mark Twain to William Howard Taft. He also gathered many generous personal donations to support blacks in the south. These benefactors included J.P. Morgan, Collis P. Huntington, and John D. Rockefeller. One of Washington’s close friendships was with Henry Huttleston Rogers, who was a principal officer at Standard Oil, and one of the richest men in the country. Henry had been privately funding 65 black schools Alabama until his death in 1909. Another close friend of Booker’s was Philadelphia quaker Anna T. Jeanes.
