W.E.B. DuBois
Critiques Booker T. Washington
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Of Mr. Booker T.
Washington and Others
ÉEasily the most
striking thing in the history of the American Negro since 1876 is the
ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. It began at the time when war memories
and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of astonishing commercial development
was dawning; a sense of doubt and hesitation overtook the freedmenÕs sons,—then
it was that his leading began. Mr. Washington came, with a single definite
programme, at the psychological moment when the nation was a little ashamed of
having bestowed so much sentiment on Negroes, and was concentrating its
energies on Dollars. His programme of industrial education, conciliation of the
South, and submission and silence as to civil and political rights, was not
wholly original; the Free Negroes from 1830 up to wartime had striven to build
industrial schools, and the American Missionary Association had from the first
taught various trades; and Price and others had sought a way of honorable
alliance with the best of the Southerners. But Mr. Washington first
indissolubly linked these things; he put enthusiasm, unlimited energy, and
perfect faith into this programme, and changed it from a by-path into a
veritable Way of Life. And the tale of the methods by which he did this is a
fascinating study of human life.
It startled the
nation to hear a Negro advocating such a programme after many decades of bitter
complaint; it startled and won the applause of the South, it interested and won
the admiration of the North; and after a confused murmur of protest, it
silenced if it did not convert the Negroes themselves.
To gain the
sympathy and cooperation of the various elements comprising the white South was
Mr. WashingtonÕs first task; and this, at the time Tuskegee was founded,
seemed, for a black man, well-nigh impossible. And yet ten years later it was
done in the word spoken at Atlanta:ÒIn all things purely social we can be as
separate as the five fingers, and yet one as the hand in all things essential
to mutual progress.Ó ThisÒAtlanta CompromiseÓ is by all odds the most notable
thing in Mr. WashingtonÕs career. The South interpreted it in different ways:
the radicals received it as a complete surrender of the demand for civil and
political equality; the conservatives, as a generously conceived working basis
for mutual understanding. So both approved it, and today its author is
certainly the most distinguished Southerner since Jefferson Davis, and the one
with the largest personal followingÉ.
ÉAnd yet this
very singleness of vision and thorough oneness with his age is a mark of the
successful man. It is as though Nature must needs make men narrow in order to
give them force. So Mr. WashingtonÕs cult has gained unquestioning followers,
his work has wonderfully prospered, his friends are legion, and his enemies are
confounded. To-day he stands as the one recognized spokesman of his ten million
fellows, and one of the most notable figures in a nation of seventy millions.
One hesitates, therefore, to criticise a life which, beginning with so little
has done so much. And yet the time is come when one may speak in all sincerity
and utter courtesy of the mistakes and shortcomings of Mr. WashingtonÕs career,
as well as of his triumphs, without being thought captious or envious, and
without forgetting that it is easier to do ill than well in the worldÉ.
ÉAmong his own
people, however, Mr. Washington has encountered the strongest and most lasting
opposition, amounting at times to bitterness, and even to-day continuing strong
and insistent even though largely silenced in outward expression by the public
opinion of the nation. Some of this opposition is, of course, mere envy; the
disappointment of displaced demagogues and the spite of narrow minds. But aside
from this, there is among educated and thoughtful colored men in all parts of
the land a feeling of deep regret, sorrow, and apprehension at the wide
currency and ascendancy which some of Mr. WashingtonÕs theories have gainedÉ
....Mr.
Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and
submission; but adjustment at such a peculiar time as to make his programme
unique. This is an age of unusual economic development, and Mr. WashingtonÕs
programme naturally takes an economic cast, becoming a gospel of Work and Money
to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the higher aims
of life. Moreover, this is an age when the more advanced races are coming in
closer contact with the less developed races, and the race-feeling is therefore
intensified; and Mr. WashingtonÕs programme practically accepts the alleged
inferiority of the Negro races. Again, in our own land, the reaction from the
sentiment of war time has given impetus to race-prejudice against Negroes, and
Mr. Washington withdraws many of the high demands of Negroes as men and
American citizens. In other periods of intensified prejudice all the NegroÕs
tendency to self-assertion has been called forth; at this period a policy of
submission is advocated. In the history of nearly all other races and peoples
the doctrine preached at such crises has been that manly self-respect is worth
more than lands and houses, and that a people who voluntarily surrender such
respect, or cease striving for it, are not worth civilizing.
In answer to
this, it has been claimed that the Negro can survive only through submission.
Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the
present, three things, —
First, political
power,
Second,
insistence on civil rights,
Third, higher
education of Negro youth,
— and concentrate
all their energies on industrial education, the accumulation of wealth, and the
conciliation of the South. This policy has been courageously and insistently
advocated for over fifteen years, and has been triumphant for perhaps ten
years. As a result of this tender of the palm-branch, what has been the return?
In these years there have occurred:
1. The
disfranchisement of the Negro.
2. The legal
creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro.
3. The steady
withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the Negro.
These movements
are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr. WashingtonÕs teachings; but his
propaganda has, without a shadow of doubt, helped their speedier accomplishment.
The question then comes: Is it possible, and probable, that nine millions of
men can make effective progress in economic lines if they are deprived of
political rights, made a servile caste, and allowed only the most meagre chance
for developing their exceptional men? If history and reason give any distinct
answer to these questions, it is an emphatic No. And Mr. Washington thus faces
the triple paradox of his career:
1. He is striving
nobly to make Negro artisans business men and property-owners; but it is
utterly impossible, under modern competitive methods, for workingmen and
property-owners to defend their rights and exist without the right of suffrage
.
2. He insists on
thrift and self-respect, but at the same time counsels a silent submission to
civic inferiority such as is bound to sap the manhood of any race in the long
run.
3. He advocates
common-school and industrial training, and depreciates institutions of higher
learning; but neither the Negro common-schools, nor Tuskegee itself, could remain
open a day were it not for teachers trained in Negro colleges, or trained by
their graduates.
This triple
paradox in Mr. WashingtonÕs position is the object of criticism by two classes
of colored Americans. One class is spiritually descended from Toussaint the
Savior, through Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner, and they represent the attitude of
revolt and revenge; they hate the white South blindly and distrust the white
race generally, and so far as they agree on definite action, think that the
NegroÕs only hope lies in emigration beyond the borders of the United States.
And yet, by the irony of fate, nothing has more effectually made this programme
seem hopeless than the recent course of the United States toward weaker and
darker peoples in the West Indies, Hawaii, and the Philippines,—for where
in the world may we go and be safe from lying and brute Force?
The other class
of Negroes who cannot agree with Mr. Washington has hitherto said little aloud.
They deprecate the sight of scattered counsels, of internal disagreement; and
especially they dislike making their just criticism of a useful and earnest man
an excuse for a general discharge of venom from small-minded opponents.
Nevertheless, the questions involved are so fundamental and serious that it is
difficult to see how men like the Grimkes, Kelly Miller, J.W.E. Bowen, and
other representatives of this group, can much longer be silent. Such men feel
in conscience bound to ask of this nation three things.
1. The right to
vote.
2 Civic equality.
3 The education
of youth according to ability.
They acknowledge
Mr. WashingtonÕs invaluable service in counselling patience and courtesy in
such demands; they do not ask that ignorant black men vote when ignorant whites
are debarred, or that any reasonable restrictions in the suffrage should not be
applied; they know that the low social level or the mass of the race is
responsible for much discrimination against it, but they also know, and the
nation knows, that relentless color-prejudice is more often a cause than a
result of the NegroÕs degradation; they seek the abatement of this relic or
barbarism, and not its systematic encouragement and pampering by all agencies
of social power from the Associated Press to the Church of Christ. They
advocate, with Mr. Washington, a broad system of Negro common schools
supplemented by thorough industrial training; but they are surprised that a man
of Mr. WashingtonÕs insight cannot see that no such educational system ever has
rested or can rest on any other basis than that of the well-equipped college
and university, and they insist that there is a demand for a few such
institutions throughout the South to train the best of the Negro youth as
teachers, professional men, and leaders.
This group of men
honor Mr. Washington for his attitude of conciliation toward the white South;
they accept the ÒAtlanta CompromiseÓ in its broadest interpretation; they
recognize, with him, many signs of promise, many men of high purpose and fair
judgment, in this section; they know that no easy task has been laid upon a
region already tottering under heavy burdens. But, nevertheless, they insist
that the way to truth and right lies in straightforward honesty, not in
indiscriminate flattery; in praising those of the South who do well and
criticising uncompromisingly those who do ill; in taking advantage of the
opportunities at hand and urging their fellows to do the same, but at the same
time in remembering that only a firm adherence to their higher ideals and
aspirations will ever keep those ideals within the realm of possibility. They
do not expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civic rights, and to be
educated, will come in a moment; they do not expect to see the bias and
prejudices of years disappear at the blast of a trumpet; but they are absolutely
certain that the way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by
voluntarily throwing them away and insisting that they do not want them; that
the way for a people to gain respect is not by continually belittling and
ridiculing themselves; that, on the contrary, Negroes must insist continually,
in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that
color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need education as well
as white boys.
In failing thus
to state plainly and unequivocally the legitimate demands of their people, even
at the cost of opposing an honored leader, the thinking classes of American
Negroes would shirk a heavy responsibility,—a responsibility to
themselves, a responsibility to the struggling masses, a responsibility to the
darker races of men whose future depends so largely on this American
experiment, but especially a responsibility to this nation,—this common
Fatherland. It is wrong to encourage a man or a people in evil-doing; it is wrong
to aid and abet a national crime simply because it is unpopular not to do so.
The growing spirit of kindliness and reconciliation between the North and South
after the frightful difference of a generation ago ought to be a source of deep
congratulation to all, and especially to those whose mistreatment caused the
war; but if that reconciliation is to be marked by the industrial slavery and
civic death of those same black men, with permanent legislation into a position
of inferiority, then those black men, if they are really men, are called upon
by every consideration of patriotism and loyalty to oppose such a course by all
civilized methods, even though such opposition involves disagreement with Mr.
Booker T. Washington. We have no right to sit silently by while the inevitable
seeds are sown for a harvest of disaster to our children, black and whiteÉ.
ÉIt would be
unjust to Mr. Washington not to acknowledge that in several instances he has
opposed movements in the South which were unjust to the Negro; he sent
memorials to the Louisiana and Alabama constitutional conventions, he has
spoken against lynching, and in other ways has openly or silently set his influence
against sinister schemes and unfortunate happenings. Notwithstanding this, it
is equally true to assert that on the whole the distinct impression left by Mr.
WashingtonÕs propaganda is, first, that the South is justified in its present
attitude toward the Negro because of the NegroÕs degradation; secondly, that
the prime cause of the NegroÕs failure to rise more quickly is his wrong
education in the past; and, thirdly, that his future rise depends primarily on
his own efforts. Each of these propositions is a dangerous half-truth. The
supplementary truths must never be lost sight of: first, slavery and
race-prejudice are potent if not sufficient causes of the NegroÕs position;
second, industrial and common-school training were necessarily slow in planting
because they had to await the black teachers trained by higher institutions,—it
being extremely doubtful if any essentially different development was possible,
and certainly a Tuskegee was unthinkable before 1880; and, third, while it is a
great truth to say that the Negro must strive and strive mightily to help
himself, it is equally true that unless his striving be not simply seconded,
but rather aroused and encouraged, by the initiative of the richer and wiser
environing group, he cannot hope for great success.
In his failure to
realize and impress this last point, Mr. Washington is especially to be
criticised. His doctrine has tended to make the whites, North and South, shift
the burden of the Negro problem to the NegroÕs shoulders and stand aside as
critical and rather pessimistic spectators; when in fact the burden belongs to
the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies
to righting these great wrongsÉ
ÉThe black men of
America have a duty to perform, a duty stern and delicate,—a forward
movement to oppose a part of the work of their greatest leader. So far as Mr.
Washington preaches Thrift, Patience, and Industrial Training for the masses,
we must hold up his hands and strive with him, rejoicing in his honors and
glorying in the strength of this Joshua called of God and of man to lead the
headless host. But so far as Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, North or
South, does not rightly value the privilege and duty of voting, belittles the
emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and
ambition of our brighter minds,—so far as he, the South, or the Nation,
does this,—we must unceasingly and firmly oppose them. By every civilized
and peaceful method we must strive for the rights which the world accords to
men, clinging unwaveringly to those great words which the sons of the Fathers
would fain forget: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creater with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness."
Source: W. E.
Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (Chicago, 1903).