Booker T. Washington (April 5, 1856–November 15, 1915)
emerged as a black leader in the 1890s when he advocated
controversially that blacks should accept an accommodationist role in society. For the remainder of his life, this provoked a national, heated discussion. He played up his stance
by working closely with the black press, including owning
several newspapers, and dealt almost ruthlessly with those
who did not support him.
He was born a slave on April 5, 1856, in Franklin County,
Virginia, and graduated in 1875 from Hampton Normal and
Agricultural Institute, where he worked as a janitor to pay
his room and board. After teaching in Virginia and attending a seminary in Washington, he returned to Hampton
in 1879 as a teacher and then two years later became the
principal and organizer of a new black school at Tuskegee,
Alabama. By the time he died in 1915, Tuskegee Institute,
which he started from scratch without buildings, students,
or faculty, had an endowment of $2 million.
Washington embraced vocational education because he
felt it made it possible for blacks to earn a good living by
being proficient at a skill or trade. In a speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895,
he firmly established himself as the country’s major black
leader, at least according to whites, when he encouraged
blacks to become good friends with white southerners, take
jobs they could get, and work hard to succeed. “The wisest
among my race understand that the agitation of questions of
social equality is the extremist folly and that progress in the
enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be
the result of severe constant struggle rather than of artificial
folly,” he continued.
He played up this accommodationist master plan for
blacks, which quickly brought opposition from those who
wanted to continue fighting vigorously for equality, with
what became known as the “Tuskegee Machine.” Operating somewhat secretly, it went about trying to prevail over
those who opposed Washington’s views. It did this by sending out a torrent of public relations releases and editorials
to the press; paying a black syndicated columnist to play up
Washington’s views; and placing or withholding advertising to black editors, depending on whether they supported
Washington’s compromise program. It also surreptitiously
purchased several newspapers and controlled them firmly
while secretly giving subsidies to others.
One of Washington’s main supporters was Thomas Fortune, who founded the New York Age in 1883 and made it
into the country’s leading black newspaper by the end of
the century with its protests against lynchings, discrimination, mob violence, and disenfranchisement. It regularly ran
material supplied by Washington until 1907 when Fortune,
faced with financial difficulties, sold the paper, not realizing the buyer was one of Washington’s agents, which made
the black leader a main stockholder. Washington sold the
paper several years later in order to avoid disclosing his
ownership. Washington and his “Tuskegee Machine” continued vigorously fighting his enemies, both in and out of
the press, until he died of arteriosclerosis in 1915.
Further Reading
Harlan, Louis R. Booker T. Washington: The Making of a Black
Leader, 1856–1901. New York: Oxford University Press,
1972.
Harlan, Louis R. Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee,
1901–1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Logan, Rayford W. The Betrayal of the Negro from Rutherford
B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson, 5th ed. New York: Collier
Books, 1970.
Pride, Armistead S., and Clint C. Wilson II. A History of the Black
Press. Washington: D.C.: Howard University Press, 1997.
Smock, Raymond W., ed. Booker T. Washington in Perspective.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988.
Spencer, Samuel R. Jr. Booker T. Washington and the Negro’s
Place in American Life. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.,
1955.
Patrick S. Washburn