Booker T. Washington did not call for a revolution. Instead, he called for the simplest of building blocks in American society: helping your neighbor.
I reread an undergraduate paper comparing the educational methods of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois and realized the comparison was horribly incomplete. I cited only Of the Training of Black Men and The Atlanta Compromise. I still believe Of the Training of Black Men is one of the most important essays on liberal education, but I did not read Up from Slavery and failed to give Washington the respect he deserved. Now that I have read it, I must make amends. The virtues of Washington drew many young boys to build good and decent lives and become honorable men and citizens, and here below may I rightly identify and praise those virtues.
Beginning with hard work and excellence, an excerpt from Washington’s autobiography, Up from Slavery, reads, “I was determined from the first to make my work as janitor so valuable that my services would be indispensable.” His job paid for his education at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. He was proud of his work. He set high standards for himself. He did not complain. He turned an otherwise menial job into an opportunity to demonstrate his work ethic and attention to detail.
He believed manual labor was noble. This was a lesson he taught his students at the Tuskegee Institute. He says, “I have had no patience with any school for my race in the South which did not teach its students the dignity of labor.” Additionally, “The students themselves would be taught to see not only utility in labor, but beauty and dignity; would be taught, in fact, how to lift labor up from mere drudgery and toil and would learn to love work for its own sake.” Washington showed his students that a tradesman is magnanimous although their work is monotonous. Laboring day-by-day to earn an honest living and care for your family is noble. A tradesman, by no means, was uneducated. On the contrary, Washington’s students provided valuable services to their communities. Through integrity, hard work, and the means to support yourself financially, so-called book learning may follow suit. Washington proved it. But in the meantime, the carpenter, bricklayer, and janitor should hold their heads high.
Among his other virtues, he believed merit was awarded regardless of race or prestige. He writes, “Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized, and rewarded.” He insisted trials and tribulations strengthened character and enhanced merit. He praised perseverance and tenacity. His opinion, feasibly, is rooted in the words of St. Paul, “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (Romans 5:3-4). Washington did not give in to despair or decry the situation he found himself in. Forces outside his control were the reason he was born into slavery. By the grace of God, he was freed, and the daunting task of citizenship lay ahead. He did not falter. The strength of his character later provided economic opportunities for millions of southern black men.
More on merit, he laments: “I have always been made sad when I have heard members of any race claiming rights and privileges, or certain badges of distinction, on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race, regardless of their own individual worth or attainments.” The diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) regime and Black Lives Matter movement of the modern era would have appalled Washington. The color of a person’s skin, alone, does not make them great. It is insulting to their intelligence to have their own accomplishments overlooked by race. Contrary to the likes of Ibram X. Kendi, Washington is not racist. He did not want black men to be the new masters of white men. He explains, “There was an element in the North which wanted to punish the Southern white men by forcing the Negro into positions over the heads of the Southern whites. I felt that the Negro would be the one to suffer for this in the end.” He did not believe black men were better than white men on account of their race. He knew black men were ill-prepared to serve in public office without proper skills and an education. Appointing unqualified black public servants would only reinforce the remaining prejudice white men had in the South.
Washington believed in God’s almighty justice. He continues: “Negroes in this country, who themselves or whose forefathers went through the school of slavery, are constantly returning to Africa as missionaries to enlighten those who remained in the fatherland. This I say, not to justify slavery – on the other hand, I condemn it as an institution, as we all know that in America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not from a missionary motive – but to call attention to a fact, and to show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose.” He did not blame God for slavery. He did not blame the white race. He refers to white men as the “unfortunate victims of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time.” He did not blame the Founding Fathers or the ideals within the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. He insists slavery was thrust upon the new nation as a product of the era. If any blame is to be dispersed, it would be the flawed nature of mankind, a result of original sin. It is through God’s grace that all wrongs will be made right.
Washington had a true, personal faith in God. He said the most valuable thing he read his second year at Hampton was the Bible. Every day, he “made it a rule to read a chapter or a portion of a chapter in the morning, before beginning the work of the day.” He was disciplined, dutiful, and honor bound to the wisdom within the Bible’s pages. He was, perhaps, inspired by the Christian maxim to love thy neighbor as thyself. Neighborliness is difficult, yet Washington insisted it was necessary and good. The Tuskegee Institute had a fine reputation in Alabama and throughout the South because Washington told the members of his race “to make friends in every straightforward, manly way with your next-door neighbor, whether he be a black man or a white man.” Washington was not calling for a revolution. He did not want to see black men lie, cheat, and steal. He was calling for the simplest of building blocks in American society: helping your neighbor. Here we see the spirit of calloused hands, sheer grit, friendship, and pride ran deep in Tuskegee. Let us imaginative conservatives remember that neighborliness, hard work, excellence, honesty, merit, responsibility, duty, and faith are the virtues of one of our great American statesmen and lead our people closer to that bold promise: truly, all men are created equal under God.
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The featured image is a portrait of Booker T. Washington (circa 1895), by Frances Benjamin Johnston, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikipedia.