The Booker Taliaferro Washington Society

Principle not Race

In the human experience we see people governed by abstract ideas that are manifested and identified by actions. In other words what they believe is shown by their works (Jam.2:18). In ancient times the gods were identified with certain of these forces governing human actions and will. But the true ideals are derived from the source of all righteousness and mercy, Jesus Christ, the ideals by which we properly orient ourselves and gauge ourselves and others. A person is good or evil relative to these abstract ideals. (Rom.2:13-16, Heb.5:14) Certain people seem to embody these ideals in a higher way than their fellows and peers and come to serve as an example or a symbol of those qualities.

Booker T. Washington was a man who understood his time (1 Chr.12:32, Est.1:13) who embodied the principle of Christ to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt.10:16); a gift for America at the right time. He seems to me to clearly be a symbol of integrity, determination and steadfastness. Because these ideals are universal they will be respected by anyone who is logical and honest; by anyone who is righteous. Who then cannot respect such a man? Those with deviant and aberrant views of truth and reality. Those whose mind and conscience is defiled (Tit.1:15).

Booker Taliaferro was born a slave in Hardy, Virginia. He was either born in April 1856 or as he recounts “As nearly as I have been able to learn, I was born near across-roads post-office called Hale’s Ford, and the year was 1858 or 1859. I do not know the month or the day.” (Up From Slavery- Ch.1 1st paragraph- read the book here.) His story is one worth hearing- and you can literally hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rml0J0dSD-g

He gave himself the name Washington, a liberty he boasted in. Pg.20 “The T. in Booker T. Washington stands for Taliaferro (locally pronounced “Tolliver”), a relatively common surname in Maryland and Virginia. The Taliaferro name itself can be traced to one Bartholomew Taliaferro, who immigrated to London from Venice in the 1560s. Its meaning in Italian is “iron-cutter.” An appropriate name for the man who demonstrated how to cut the iron of racial discrimination through a strong and patient spirit.

His indefatigable determination to get educated (chapter 2), embodies the principle we see in Proverbs 2:3-6- “Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.” And he did come to love the word of God in his quest for understanding. He notes “Perhaps the most valuable thing that I got out of my second year was an understanding of the use and value of the Bible. Miss Nathalie Lord, one of the teachers, from Portland, Me., taught me how to use and love the Bible. Before this I had never cared a great deal about it, but now I learned to love to read the Bible, not only for the spiritual help which it gives, but on account of it as literature. The lessons taught me in this respect took such a hold upon me that at the present time, when I am at home, no matter how busy I am, I always make it a rule to read a chapter or a portion of a chapter in the morning, before beginning the work of the day.” Pg.35-6 But he didn’t view an education as a road to avoid hard work, and idea many former slaves (and people in general) were delighting themselves with. “The ambition to secure an education was most praiseworthy and encouraging. The idea, however, was too prevalent that, as soon as one secured a little education, in some unexplainable way he would be free from most of the hardships of the world, and, at any rate, could live without manual labour.” Pg.42 He continued “…in many cases immoral men who claimed that they were “called to preach.” In the earlier days of freedom almost every coloured man who learned to read would receive “a call to preach” within a few days after he began reading.” Pg. 43 Would to God this astute discernment were operating in churches today (2 Pt.2:2). But Booker had not only realized the importance of an education in general but in the wisdom and humility that comes with self-discipline and practical skills and labor.

And the lessons he learned at the vocational school in Hampton from General Armstrong as a person and his teaching of practical skills prove invaluable to him. (pg.39) “At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labour, but learned to love labour, not alone for its financial value, but for labour’s own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.” (pg.39) Without wording these principles in economic terms he realized there the importance of the free market as a path out of poverty and destitution for the black community. Those successful are those who develop their skills (self-governance and independence) provide goods and services (division of labor) that are valuable to others (mutual benefit of market exchange) and thereby enriching oneself (private property). Washington lived and proved the truth of the free market economy. Even in a Jim Crow society not sufficiently just in upholding the equal legal representation to liberty and property and the pursuit of happiness. Not equality of outcome, but equality of access to operate in God given rights. The purpose of government being to insure these rights are protected. Unfortunately in many ways the government hampers free market exchange of private property as it did then for racial discriminatory reasons and as it does today for reasons of political favor.
 

Before Honour is Humility (Prv.15:33, 18:12)

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” Jam.1:2-4 Coming from a perspective of hard work and disadvantage one can grasp deep insights missed by privilege and laziness. We can learn these things from these types of men or walk into darkness blindly led astray as our narcissistic, greedy and lazy culture today.

“In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reach the conclusion that often the Negro boy’s birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his task even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race. From any point of view, I had rather be what I am, a member of the Negro race, than be able to claim membership with the most favoured of any other race… I have been made to feel sad for such persons because I am conscious of the fact that mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. 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.” Pg.23 Later in his Madison address he affirmed “I said that the whole future of the Negro rested largely upon the question as to whether or not he should make himself, through his skill, intelligence, and character, of such undeniable value to the community in which he lived that the community could not dispense with his presence. 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.” pg.103”

The lack of difficulties and self-reliance dwarfs peoples abilities and development. The old saying is true ‘religion gives birth to prosperity and the daughter destroys the mother’. When people have privilege and no trouble they do not develop character and independence. (Mk.4:19) This is rooted in the destructive nature of sin and pride in man. Booker noted even in his early years the negative impact of slavery upon the slave owners. “The slave system on our place, in a large measure, took the spirit of self-reliance and self-help out of the white people. My old master had many boys and girls, but not one, so far as I know, ever mastered a single trade or special line of productive industry. The girls were not taught to cook, sew, or to take care of the house. All of this was left to the slaves.” “Ever since I have been old enough to think for myself, I have entertained the idea that, notwithstanding the cruel wrongs inflicted upon us, the black man got nearly as much out of slavery as the white man did. The hurtful influences of the institution were not by any means confined to the Negro. This was fully illustrated by the life upon our own plantation. The whole machinery of slavery was so constructed as to cause labour, as a rule, to be looked upon as a badge of degradation, of inferiority. Hence labour was something that both races on the slave plantation sought to escape.” “The slave owner and his sons had mastered no special industry. They unconsciously had imbibed the feeling that manual labour was not the proper thing for them. On the other hand, the slaves, in many cases, had mastered some handicraft, and none were ashamed, and few unwilling, to labour”Pg.11-12. Washington observed again “If one goes to-day into any Southern town, and asks for the leading and most reliable coloured man in the community, I believe that in five cases out of ten he will be directed to a Negro who learned a trade during the days of slavery.”Pg.62 And when the Southern slaves were emancipated the inability and lack of skill or desire for hard work of white slave owners caused many of them great suffering and shame. Booker T. observed this first hand and concluded it a positive advantage for the underprivileged blacks. He saw opportunity where the proud and resentful saw oppression. This is the wisdom humility affords.

A Way Which Seemeth Right (Prv.14:12)

The temptation in such difficulties and trials is to look for the easiest way out but not always the wisest and most prudent path. The Apostle Paul looking to escape the increasing distress and turmoil mounting upon him prayed three times for this Satanic affliction to be removed from him to which Christ responded: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” Paul’s response demonstrates the degree of power working in him: “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” 2 Cor.12:7-10

The temptation to become dependent upon government was there and is here today to be exploited by demagogues and opportunists.

W.E.B. DuBois a notable black leader and educator (and accomplished academician) eventually joined the criticism of Washington’s approach to elevating the black people of his country. DuBois did not have the vision and wisdom of Booker T., perhaps not having his same arduous rise from slavery but instead a less discriminated upbringing and access to higher education; even becoming the first black person to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. We will discuss this criticism further (coming post); but Washington did not want his people to fall dependent upon the government but rather to forge their own destiny through self-cultivation and character building through Christianity. Note his survey at the time: “During the whole of the Reconstruction period our people throughout the South looked to the Federal Government for everything, very much as a child looks to its mother.” Pg.43 This was to be expected from newly freed illiterate slaves subject to discrimination in the form of Jim Crow laws as he notes following this quote. But this should not be a garb of victimization that should stop a man of integrity and determination as Washington, who clearly blazed that trail for his people in particular and all people generally. Don’t look elsewhere and far off when crying for water but ‘cast down your bucket where you are’, as he noted in his renowned Atlanta speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition. “To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are”— cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.” Pg.111-2

Washington not only spoke these things but lived and breathed them. Without a dollar and a leaky shack of a building he was expected to build a school like the vocational school in Hampton Virginia; and now he was up to such a daunting task. As Joseph (Gen.37) was at his stage of development in the prison (39:22-3) not yet ruler over Egypt, so Washington was beginning his prosperous effort in Tuskegee Alabama.

“I confess that what I saw during my month of travel and investigation left me with a very heavy heart. The work to be done in order to lift these people up seemed almost beyond accomplishing. I was only one person, and it seemed to me that the little effort which I could put forth could go such a short distance toward bringing about results. I wondered if I could accomplish anything, and if it were worth while for me to try. Of one thing I felt more strongly convinced than ever, after spending this month in seeing the actual life of the coloured people, and that was that, in order to lift them up, something must be done more than merely to imitate New England education as it then existed. I saw more clearly than ever the wisdom of the system which General Armstrong had inaugurated at Hampton. To take the children of such people as I had been among for a month, and each day give them a few hours of mere book education, I felt would be almost a waste of time. After consultation with the citizens of Tuskegee, I set July 4, 1881, as the day for the opening of the school in the little shanty and church which had been secured for its accommodation.” Pg.61 “In the midst of all the difficulties which I encountered in getting the little school started, and since then through a period of nineteen years, there are two men among all the many friends of the school in Tuskegee upon whom I have depended constantly for advice and guidance; and the success of the undertaking is largely due to these men, from whom I have never sought anything in vain. I mention them simply as types. One is a white man and an ex-slaveholder, Mr. George W. Campbell; the other is a black man and an ex-slave, Mr. Lewis Adams.” Pg.62 Almost in metaphoric representation Booker stood between the former white aristocratic South and the former slave as a mediator and unifying figure to lead out of the labyrinth of discrimination, chaos and ruin the South lay in. They saw what he was trying to do and they assisted every way they could, proving his observation that merit would be recognized by decent people.

The Sluggard and the Diligent (Prv.13:4)

Washington repeatedly battled the idea that an education would make you above menial labor- which in a word is to say “Knowledge puffeth up”. (1 Cor.8:1) This pride that comes from education is destructive if not coupled with labor and humility that comes from the realization of our limitations. It was critical to instill this into his students and into the newly freed black community. He recalls “one of the saddest things I saw during the month of travel which I have described was a young man, who had attended some high school, sitting down in a one-room cabin, with grease on his clothing, filth all around him, and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in studying a French grammar. The students who came first seemed to be fond of memorizing long and complicated “rules” in grammar and mathematics, but had little thought or knowledge of applying these rules to the everyday affairs of their life.” Pg.63 “The students had come from homes where they had had no opportunities for lessons which would teach them how to care for their bodies. With few exceptions, the homes in Tuskegee in which the students boarded were but little improvement upon those from which they had come. We wanted to teach the students how to bathe; how to care for their teeth and clothing. We wanted to teach them what to eat, and how to eat it properly, and how to care for their rooms. Aside from this, we wanted to give them such a practical knowledge of some one industry, together with the spirit of industry, thrift, and economy, that they would be sure of knowing how to make a living after they had left us. We wanted to teach them to study actual things instead of mere books alone.” “The more we talked with the students, who were then coming to us from several parts of the state, the more we found that the chief ambition among a large proportion of them was to get an education so that they would not have to work any longer with their hands.” Pg.65 He humorously adds this illustration of “a story told of a coloured man in Alabama, who, one hot day in July, while he was at work in a cotton-field, suddenly stopped, and, looking toward the skies, said: “O Lawd, de cotton am so grassy, de work am so hard, and the sun am so hot dat I b’lieve dis darky am called to preach!” Pg.66 Sadly this is the mindset of so many filling the pulpits of American churches today. Jesus labeled them as hirelings who do not care for the sheep. (Jn.10:12-13) Becoming a pastor or minister is all for money and ease of life for all to many in our day.

Booker was not an abstract ivory tower instructor but a real man. He demonstrated in word and deed to the students and to us right now what it means to “Cast down your bucket where you are”. “As soon as we got the cabins in condition to be used, I determined to clear up some land so that we could plant a crop. When I explained my plan to the young men, I noticed that they did not seem to take to it very kindly. It was hard for them to see the connection between clearing land and an education. Besides, many of them had been school-teachers, and they questioned whether or not clearing land would be in keeping with their dignity. In order to relieve them from any embarrassment, each afternoon after school I took my axe and led the way to the woods. When they saw that I was not afraid or ashamed to work, they began to assist with more enthusiasm. We kept at the work each afternoon, until we had cleared about twenty acres and had planted a crop.”Pg. 67 Chapter 10 recounts how they constructed the school buildings themselves. When not having a brickyard in the town they dug the clay and burned their own bricks, a notably difficult task going through 3 kiln attempts before success. Bricks then became profitable to the school and on the market were sought after even among whites not particularly interested in the school. This reinforced his understanding of how the free market would help eliminate discrimination. “The making of these bricks taught me an important lesson in regard to the relations of the two races in the South. Many white people who had had no contact with the school, and perhaps no sympathy with it, came to us to buy bricks because they found out that ours were good bricks. They discovered that we were supplying a real want in the community. The making of these bricks caused many of the white residents of the neighbourhood to begin to feel that the education of the Negro was not making him worthless, but that in educating our students we were adding something to the wealth and comfort of the community. As the people of the neighbourhood came to us to buy bricks, we got acquainted with them; they traded with us and we with them. Our business interests became intermingled. We had something which they wanted; they had something which we wanted.” “In this way pleasant relations between the races have been stimulated.” “My experience is that there is something in human nature which always makes an individual recognize and reward merit, no matter under what colour of skin merit is found. I have found, too, that it is the visible, the tangible, that goes a long ways in softening prejudices. The actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could build.” Pg 78-79 These empirical observations strengthen his outlook: "I have had no patience with any school for my race in the South which did not teach its students the dignity of labour."- pg 38

Booker T. came away with the same spirit of grace that the Apostle did. Note his words here: “But gradually, by patience and hard work, we brought order out of chaos, just as will be true of any problem if we stick to it with patience and wisdom and earnest effort.

As I look back now over that part of our struggle, I am glad that we had it. I am glad that we endured all those discomforts and inconveniences. I am glad that our students had to dig out the place for their kitchen and dining room. I am glad that our first boarding-place was in that dismal, ill-lighted, and damp basement. Had we started in a fine, attractive, convenient room, I fear we would have “lost our heads” and become “stuck up.” It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for one’s self.”Pg.82 And he succeeded in making the school self sufficient and profitable. (Reaching $1,700,000 upon writing- pg.159)

Unfortunately this firsthand observational experience of the diminishing of discrimination and cultivating character by free market operations was not to be accepted by other leading black educators imbibed with new progressive ideas of socialism and its anti-capitalist view of the world. Notably Marxism, conceived in theoretical and privileged places where conjecture had no consequences and opinion was formed without evidence and indeed continues in face of contrary evidence. This utopian socialist philosophy swept the world during the progressive era in that day and is still alive and well today dismantling our own country before our eyes.

The Spirit of Christ

Booker T. approached the race problem with an enlightened spirit of one who respects the word of God. He observed the influence of Christianity and the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5:22-3) upon the civilized, drawing a quote from 1 Cor.9:27 “After considerable experience in coming into contact with wealthy and noted men, I have observed that those who have accomplished the greatest results are those who “keep under the body”; are those who never grow excited or lose self-control, but are always calm, self-possessed, patient, and polite.” Pg.93 Again with Robert C. Bedford the “white man from Wisconsin, who was then pastor of a little coloured Congregational church in Montgomery,” he recounts “In all my relations with him he has seemed to me to approach as nearly to the spirit of the Master as almost any man I ever met.”pg.81 And seeing the good effects of Christianity upon society he notes “If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christlike work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last thirty five years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian.”Pg.98 Observing the assistance the churches were providing his endeavors he states that they “have helped to elevate the Negro at so rapid a rate.” Pg.98 Tuskegee was an example of the operation of the spirit of God working in the hearts of men in elevating society. “The school is strictly undenominational, but it is thoroughly Christian, and the spiritual training of the students is not neglected. Our preaching service, prayer-meetings, Sunday school, Christian Endeavour Society, Young Men’s Christian Association, and various missionary organizations, testify to this.”Pg.102 When a person cultivates their own character and spirit in the graces of Christian truth they become productive and valuable members of the community respected on universal principles of “intrinsic, individual merit”. “I have spoken of my admiration for General Armstrong, and yet he was but a type of that Christlike body of men and women who went into the Negro schools at the close of the war by the hundreds to assist in lifting up my race.”Pg.31 Christianity was and is the solution for race relations and any other social issue as it changes the individual from within.

“In all my acquaintance with General Armstrong I never heard him speak, in public or in private, a single bitter word against the white man in the South. From his example in this respect I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak. It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Armstrong, and resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. With God’s help, I believe that I have completely rid myself of any ill feeling toward the Southern white man for any wrong that he may have inflicted upon my race. I am made to feel just as happy now when I am rendering service to Southern white men as when the service is rendered to a member of my own race. I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice.”Pg.84-5 This internal development that Christianity produces is necessary to change civilization. Booker noted “a conversation which I once had with the Hon. Frederick Douglass. At one time Mr. Douglass was travelling in the state of Pennsylvania, and was forced, on account of his colour, to ride in the baggage-car, in spite of the fact that he had paid the same price for his passage that the other passengers had paid. When some of the white passengers went into the baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and one of them said to him: “I am sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been degraded in this manner,” Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on the box upon which he was sitting, and replied: “They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me.” Pg.51 Solzhenitsyn acquired this insight under similar slave conditions in the Soviet Gulags. He recounted “maturing to similar thoughts” to those final words of Boris Kornfeld a convert to Christianity himself, before his murder in the camps that same early morning, when questioning why their torturers prosper. He concluded “the meaning of earthy existence lies not, as we have grown to thinking, in prospering, but … in the development of the soul. From that point of view our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: they are turning into swine, they are departing downward from humanity.” (The Gulag Archipelago- pg.310-311) Without the preserving influence of real Christianity upon society it will degenerate into the corrosive self-absorbed narcissism that we see manifesting itself today.

Contrast the incoherent and inarticulate looters and clueless protestors of our current hour with the integrity and acumen of a man like Booker T. Washington. In desperate need to 16 dollars to return home and working at a restaurant to earn it, he finds on the floor “a crisp, new ten-dollar bill.” “As it was not my place of business I felt it to be the proper thing to show the money to the proprietor. This I did. He seemed as glad as I was, but he coolly explained to me that, as it was his place of business, he had a right to keep the money, and he proceeded to do so. This, I confess, was another pretty hard blow to me.” Pg.35 This speaks to his integrity, but a greater example of integrity comes from an ex-slave who contracted with his owner to buy his own freedom. He was permitted to find work where ever he could and so he left VA for better wages in OH, “permitted to buy himself, by paying so much per year for his body” (let that sink in). “When freedom came, he was still in debt to his master some three hundred dollars. Notwithstanding that the Emancipation Proclamation freed him from any obligation to his master, this black man walked the greater portion of the distance back to where his old master lived in Virginia, and placed the last dollar, with interest, in his hands. In talking to me about this, the man told me that he knew that he did not have to pay the debt, but that he had given his word to his master, and his word he had never broken. He felt that he could not enjoy his freedom till he had fulfilled this promise.”Pg.10 I wish the story had concluded with the owner refusing the money, but it didn’t. Perhaps he later came to realize what a better man his slave was than he.

How did we get so far from this kind of integrity produced by the influence of Christianity? It would appear by the distorting and corrupting of the true gospel of Christ into a mongrel “social gospel” or abandoning the bible altogether for Marxist and Darwinian worldviews. Socialism has come to wreck not just most of the Black community, but possibly the hope of freedom in this county as we watch politicians shamelessly promising to give away what they didn’t earn. They can no longer even blush with the level of plunder they propose. Some have characterized this destructive synergism of suffrage as an advanced auction on stolen property.

We will explore next how we got here. Stay tuned.