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Easily 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 freedmen’s sons,—then it was that his leading
began. Mr. Washington came, with a simple 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 war-time 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 his 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. Washington’s 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: “In
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.” This
“Atlanta Compromise” is by all odds the most notable thing in Mr.
Washington’s 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 to-day
its author is certainly the most distinguished Southerner since
Jefferson Davis, and the one with the largest personal following.
Next to this achievement comes Mr. Washington’s work in gaining place
and consideration in the North. Others less shrewd and tactful had
formerly essayed to sit on these two stools and had fallen between
them; but as Mr. Washington knew the heart of the South from birth and
training, so by singular insight he intuitively grasped the spirit of
the age which was dominating the North. And so thoroughly did he learn
the speech and thought of triumphant commercialism, and the ideals of
material prosperity, that the picture of a lone black boy poring over a
French grammar amid the weeds and dirt of a neglected home soon seemed
to him the acme of absurdities. One wonders what Socrates and St.
Francis of Assisi would say to this.
And 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. Washington’s 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. Washington’s 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 world.
The criticism that has hitherto met Mr. Washington has not always been
of this broad character. In the South especially has he had to walk
warily to avoid the harshest judgments,—and naturally so, for he is
dealing with the one subject of deepest sensitiveness to that section.
Twice—once when at the Chicago celebration of the Spanish-American War
he alluded to the color-prejudice that is “eating away the vitals of
the South,” and once when he dined with President Roosevelt—has the
resulting Southern criticism been violent enough to threaten seriously
his popularity. In the North the feeling has several times forced
itself into words, that Mr. Washington’s counsels of submission
overlooked certain elements of true manhood, and that his educational
programme was unnecessarily narrow. Usually, however, such criticism
has not found open expression, although, too, the spiritual sons of the
Abolitionists have not been prepared to acknowledge that the schools
founded before Tuskegee, by men of broad ideals and self-sacrificing
spirit, were wholly failures or worthy of ridicule. While, then,
criticism has not failed to follow Mr. Washington, yet the prevailing
public opinion of the land has been but too willing to deliver the
solution of a wearisome problem into his hands, and say, “If that is
all you and your race ask, take it.”
Among his own people, however, Mr. Washington has encountered the
strongest and most lasting opposition, amounting at times to
bitterness, and even today 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.
Washington’s theories have gained. These same men admire his sincerity
of purpose, and are willing to forgive much to honest endeavor which is
doing something worth the doing. They cooperate with Mr. Washington as
far as they conscientiously can; and, indeed, it is no ordinary tribute
to this man’s tact and power that, steering as he must between so many
diverse interests and opinions, he so largely retains the respect of
all.
But the hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous
thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence
and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so
passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. Honest and earnest
criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,—criticism
of writers by readers,—this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard
of modern society. If the best of the American Negroes receive by outer
pressure a leader whom they had not recognized before, manifestly there
is here a certain palpable gain. Yet there is also irreparable loss,—a
loss of that peculiarly valuable education which a group receives when
by search and criticism it finds and commissions its own leaders. The
way in which this is done is at once the most elementary and the nicest
problem of social growth. History is but the record of such
group-leadership; and yet how infinitely changeful is its type and
character! And of all types and kinds, what can be more instructive
than the leadership of a group within a group?—that curious double
movement where real progress may be negative and actual advance be
relative retrogression. All this is the social student’s inspiration
and despair.
Now in the past the American Negro has had instructive experience in
the choosing of group leaders, founding thus a peculiar dynasty which
in the light of present conditions is worth while studying. When sticks
and stones and beasts form the sole environment of a people, their
attitude is largely one of determined opposition to and conquest of
natural forces. But when to earth and brute is added an environment of
men and ideas, then the attitude of the imprisoned group may take three
main forms,—a feeling of revolt and revenge; an attempt to adjust all
thought and action to the will of the greater group; or, finally, a
determined effort at self-realization and self-development despite
environing opinion. The influence of all of these attitudes at various
times can be traced in the history of the American Negro, and in the
evolution of his successive leaders.
Before 1750, while the fire of African freedom still burned in the
veins of the slaves, there was in all leadership or attempted
leadership but the one motive of revolt and revenge,—typified in the
terrible Maroons, the Danish blacks, and Cato of Stono, and veiling all
the Americas in fear of insurrection. The liberalizing tendencies of
the latter half of the eighteenth century brought, along with kindlier
relations between black and white, thoughts of ultimate adjustment and
assimilation. Such aspiration was especially voiced in the earnest
songs of Phyllis, in the martyrdom of Attucks, the fighting of Salem
and Poor, the intellectual accomplishments of Banneker and Derham, and
the political demands of the Cuffes.
Stern financial and social stress after the war cooled much of the
previous humanitarian ardor. The disappointment and impatience of the
Negroes at the persistence of slavery and serfdom voiced itself in two
movements. The slaves in the South, aroused undoubtedly by vague rumors
of the Haytian revolt, made three fierce attempts at insurrection,—in
1800 under Gabriel in Virginia, in 1822 under Vesey in Carolina, and in
1831 again in Virginia under the terrible Nat Turner. In the Free
States, on the other hand, a new and curious attempt at
self-development was made. In Philadelphia and New York
color-prescription led to a withdrawal of Negro communicants from white
churches and the formation of a peculiar socio-religious institution
among the Negroes known as the African Church,—an organization still
living and controlling in its various branches over a million of men.
Walker’s wild appeal against the trend of the times showed how the
world was changing after the coming of the cotton-gin. By 1830 slavery
seemed hopelessly fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly
cowed into submission. The free Negroes of the North, inspired by the
mulatto immigrants from the West Indies, began to change the basis of
their demands; they recognized the slavery of slaves, but insisted that
they themselves were freemen, and sought assimilation and amalgamation
with the nation on the same terms with other men. Thus, Forten and
Purvis of Philadelphia, Shad of Wilmington, Du Bois of New Haven,
Barbadoes of Boston, and others, strove singly and together as men,
they said, not as slaves; as “people of color,” not as “Negroes.” The
trend of the times, however, refused them recognition save in
individual and exceptional cases, considered them as one with all the
despised blacks, and they soon found themselves striving to keep even
the rights they formerly had of voting and working and moving as
freemen. Schemes of migration and colonization arose among them; but
these they refused to entertain, and they eventually turned to the
Abolition movement as a final refuge.
Here, led by Remond, Nell, Wells-Brown, and Douglass, a new period of
self-assertion and self-development dawned. To be sure, ultimate
freedom and assimilation was the ideal before the leaders, but the
assertion of the manhood rights of the Negro by himself was the main
reliance, and John Brown’s raid was the extreme of its logic. After the
war and emancipation, the great form of Frederick Douglass, the
greatest of American Negro leaders, still led the host. Self-assertion,
especially in political lines, was the main programme, and behind
Douglass came Elliot, Bruce, and Langston, and the Reconstruction
politicians, and, less conspicuous but of greater social significance,
Alexander Crummell and Bishop Daniel Payne.
Then came the Revolution of 1876, the suppression of the Negro votes,
the changing and shifting of ideals, and the seeking of new lights in
the great night. Douglass, in his old age, still bravely stood for the
ideals of his early manhood,—ultimate assimilation _through_
self-assertion, and on no other terms. For a time Price arose as a new
leader, destined, it seemed, not to give up, but to re-state the old
ideals in a form less repugnant to the white South. But he passed away
in his prime. Then came the new leader. Nearly all the former ones had
become leaders by the silent suffrage of their fellows, had sought to
lead their own people alone, and were usually, save Douglass, little
known outside their race. But Booker T. Washington arose as essentially
the leader not of one race but of two,—a compromiser between the South,
the North, and the Negro. Naturally the Negroes resented, at first
bitterly, signs of compromise which surrendered their civil and
political rights, even though this was to be exchanged for larger
chances of economic development. The rich and dominating North,
however, was not only weary of the race problem, but was investing
largely in Southern enterprises, and welcomed any method of peaceful
cooperation. Thus, by national opinion, the Negroes began to recognize
Mr. Washington’s leadership; and the voice of criticism was hushed.
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. Washington’s 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. Washington’s 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 Negro’s 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, and 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: