Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization

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Emmett J. Scott. Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization

Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

AUTHORS’ PREFACE

PREFACE

ILLUSTRATIONS

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

BUILDER OF A CIVILIZATION

THE MAN AND HIS SCHOOL IN THE MAKING

LEADER OF HIS RACE

WASHINGTON: THE EDUCATOR

THE RIGHTS OF THE NEGRO

MEETING RACE PREJUDICE

GETTING CLOSE TO THE PEOPLE

BOOKER WASHINGTON AND THE NEGRO FARMER

FARMERS ATTENTION!

BOOKER WASHINGTON AND THE NEGRO. BUSINESS MAN

BOOKER WASHINGTON AMONG HIS STUDENTS

RAISING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS A YEAR

MANAGING A GREAT INSTITUTION

WASHINGTON: THE MAN

FOOTNOTES

Отрывок из книги

Lyman Beecher Stowe, Emmett J. Scott

Published by Good Press, 2019

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And just because Booker Washington did look "upon his task as an economic one instead of a theological one" he was at first regarded with suspicion by most of the preachers of his race and by some openly denounced as irreligious and the founder of an irreligious school. Like so many men of greater opportunity in all ages and places, many of these Negro ministers confounded theology and religion. Finding no theology about Booker Washington or his school, they assumed there was no religion. Some of them even went so far as to warn their congregations from the pulpit to keep away from this Godless man and his Godless school. To this formidable and at first almost universal opposition from the leaders among his own people was added the more natural opposition of the neighboring white men who assumed that he was "spoiling the niggers" by education. A youth with a high collar, loud necktie, checked suit, and patent-leather shoes, dangling a cane, smoking a cigarette, and loitering impudently on a street corner was their mental picture of an educated Negro.

Among the original group of thirty students with whom Mr. Washington started Tuskegee Institute on an old plantation equipped with a kitchen, a stable, and a hen-house, was a now elderly man who to-day has charge of the spacious and beautiful grounds of the Institute. He was approaching middle age when he entered this original Tuskegee class. The following is a paraphrase of his account of the early days of the school: "After we'd been out on the plantation three or four weeks Mr. Washington came into the schoolroom and said: 'To-morrow we're going to have a chopping bee. All of you that have an axe, or can borrow one, must bring it. I will try and provide those of you who cannot furnish an axe. We will dismiss school early to-morrow afternoon and start for the chopping bee.' So we came to school next day with the axes, all of us that could get them; we were all excited and eager for that chopping bee, and we were all discussing what it would be like, because we had never been to one before. So in the afternoon Mr. Washington said it was time for that chopping bee, so he put his axe over his shoulder and led us to the woods and put us to work cutting the trees and clearing the land. He went right in and worked harder and faster and handled his axe better than any of us. After a while we found that a chopping bee, as he called it, was no different from just plain cutting down trees and clearing the land. There wasn't anything new about that—we all had had all we wanted of it. Some of the boys said they didn't come to school to cut down trees and clear land, but they couldn't say they were too good for that kind of work when Mr. Washington himself was at it harder than any of them. So he kept with us for some days till everybody had his idea. Then he went off to do something more important.

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