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A popular way of determining the worth of a life is to imagine that the person never existed to begin with. One individual who cannot be denied a place in history is Booker T. Washington. Washington made a significant difference in the lives of thousands of former slaves just following emancipation and, through his own life examples as well as the lives he touched, ensured that the black race would not be subsumed under the white for all of time.
Washington’s life itself served as an example to blacks and whites of what these people were capable of doing when not held under the yoke of white oppression. He was born as a slave, so there was nothing about his birth or his position that would single him out as being an exceptional example of the race. Neither his plantation life with his mother as a slave nor his life at the salt mines with his father after he was freed provided him with the easy opportunity for education that the rare slave had access to, but he learned to read anyway and attended night school to further his education (Beck, 1996).
He continued to work hard and study harder, consistently working to encourage his fellow black men and women to learn the education of the white man so that they might find better employment, earn higher wages and become less dependent on the white man for support.
Toward that end, Washington was instrumental in making the Tuskagee Institute, an experimental school for black people, a tremendous success (Wright, 1992). He encouraged students to participate in the building of the school as well as encouraged them to learn more about the industrial trades so that they could find quick and well-paying employment. It was Washington’s belief that the best way for the black man to escape bondage to the white man was through economic independence. Because the only jobs really open to black people were industrial positions, this was what he encouraged his students to learn.
At the same time, though, he also encouraged his students to learn more academic education so that they could go out and begin teaching the rest of the race, even establishing rolling schools that would travel back to where some black people lived who could not otherwise make it to the schools (Wright, 1992). As a result of his efforts, black people were encouraged to help each other learn and gain freedom through obtaining good jobs.
Perhaps what brought the most attention to the black situation by white people, though, was the long-held battle between Washington and another prominent educated black man, WEB Dubois. While Washington advocated a life of industrial work which required little to no educational training and focused on freeing the black man by providing him with an economic base independent of the white man’s rules, Dubois insisted on civil rights and equal opportunity (Bauerlein, 2004).
Although the two men held similar views of the eventual success and freedom for the black man, their approach to the subject was radically different and sparked a debate regarding the capabilities and abilities of the black man that extended into the white world. It is perhaps because of this debate that white people, particularly in the north, were ready to join in the fight for civil rights that sparked in the 1960s and eventually won black people the kind of freedom and equality both Washington and Dubois had hoped for.
Works Cited
Bauerlein, Mark. “Washington, DuBois, and the Black Future.” The Wilson Quarterly. 2004.
Beck, Sanderson. “Booker T. Washington and Character Education at Tuskegee Institute 1881-1915.” Beck Index. 1996.
Wright, Elizabeth. “Booker T. Washington: Legacy Lost.” Issues and Views. 1992.
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