Booker T. Washington is one of those historical figures whose legacy has suffered somewhat because of the political inclinations of those who hold the responsibility of preserving it. Some of his thoughts about black advancement, namely that at the time, black folks should have accepted racist white hegemony, abdicating their rights while pursuing smaller, more economically based goals, might seem absurd in an age where we have come to take many of those rights for granted.
At the same time, as Kelefah Sanneh reminds us in his piece for The New Yorker this week (subscribers only at the moment), Washington's philosophy of economic self-sufficiency, personal responsibility and to a certain extent, disengagement from white society, provides the intellectual underpinning for some of the most radical black political groups, including Marcus Garvey's UNIA, (still the largest black organization ever created) and the Nation of Islam. As Sanneh points out, much of what we remember of Washington comes from W.E.B DuBois scathing critique of him as an accomodator of white racism, in part because DuBois was a better writer and he came into his own at a different time. It's probably also true that DuBois' dream of a black elite appeals more to the elite who are often the caretakers of history. But even DuBois came around eventually, Sanneh writes, admonishing a student never to forget that Washington "unlike you, bears the mark of the lash on his back."
It's easy to see Washington's goals as modest now, Sanneh points out, while at the time the idea of even vocational education for black folks was seen as quite radical by many, and was managed by Washington's careful skill as an orator and advocate. Southerners were scandalized by his dinner with President Theodore Roosevelt, by the president's decision to allow his wife and daughter to sit at a table with a black man. His radicalism was quiet, and carefully obscured by things like his willingness to make "darky" jokes. Still, while it's impossible to put oneself in Washington's shoes, I can't help but wonder if he would have seen Barack Obama's campaign in its early stages as something frivolous and indulgent, an anathema to the kind of slow, sure progress he felt was inevitable as long as black folks played their position. Certainly, he wouldn't have been the only one. I suppose the lesson here is that while there's a time for casting down your bucket where you are, there's also a time for deciding that where you are just ain't good enough, no matter what people tell you.
-- A. Serwer
