As a rule, there was food for whites and blacks, but inside the house, and on the diningroom table, there was wanting that delicacy and refinement of touch and finish which can make a home the most convenient, comfortable, and attractive place in the world. Withal there was a waste of food and other materials which was sad.
Washington 18)
Washington was also frequently asked by people he came into contact with, how he could remain so up-beat about the future for himself, his school and his race, given the conditions they had endured.
When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the wilderness through which and out of which, a good Providence has already led us.
Washington 17)
Washington, unlike many before him and unlike most of his contemporaries believed that the whole of the institution of slavery was at fault for the current conditions and the leveling blame at whites was futile, as it had certainly not been begun by those living today and they had lost much in the system as well. "I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done."
Washington 201)
Above all else Washington believed that the mark of success for any man was to create in himself such skill in industry, depending on his calling that he was indispensable to the community in which he lived. To him this was the most important aspect of success, as from this indispensable position, the individual would always earn and receive respect.
A the whole future of the Negro rested largely upon the question as to whether or not he should make himself, through his...
I said that any individual who learned to do something better than anybody else -- learned to do a common thing in an uncommon manner -- had solved his problem, regardless of the colour of his skin, and that in proportion as the Negro learned to produce what other people wanted and must have, in the same proportion would he be respected.
Washington 202)
Though some have said that the ever cheery manner in which Washington addressed the world, through his orations was a pacification of sorts, that was intended to glean support for his school, rather than tell the nature of his real standing on the issue of the education of blacks. Regardless the development of Tuskegee as a cornerstone for the development of other educational offerings for blacks in the south was of significant impact to nation, as more and more people began to appreciate the need to elevate former slaves and their children and grandchildren to a level of opportunity that would have higher forms later. Washington was clearly a pacifist by nature, and he had a sense of the need to take short steady strides toward opportunity, as those who still held the power and the resources would be guided, little to his side if he insulted and cajoled them for an institution, that many had fought to eradicate.
Works Cited
Denton, Virginia Lantz. Booker T. Washington and the Adult Education Movement. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1993.
Harlan, Louis R. Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee 1901-1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Sehat, David. "The Civilizing Mission of Booker T. Washington." Journal of Southern History 73.2 (2007): 323.
Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. New York: A.L. Burt, 1901.
