_The Life and Times of Booker T. Washington_. By B. F. RILEY, D.D.,
LL.D. Introduction by EDGAR Y. MULLINS, D.D., LL.D., President of the
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Fleming H. Revell Company, New
York, 1916. Pp. 301.
_Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization_. By EMMETT J. SCOTT
and LYMAN BEECHER STOWE. Doubleday, Page & Company, 1916. Pp. 331.
Since the death of Dr. Booker T. Washington, the press has been loud
in singing his praises and writers have hurriedly published sketches
of his career. These first biographies unfortunately have been
inadequate to furnish the public a proper review of the record of the
distinguished man. In these two volumes before us, however, this
requirement has certainly been met.
The first is a valuable work which must find its way into every
up-to-date library in this country. It is an excellent estimate of the
services of a distinguished Negro, written by a white man who is
unselfishly laboring for the uplift of the black race. "Though of
another race," says Dr. Riley, "the present biographer is not affected
by the consciousness that he is writing of a Negro." Throughout this
work the writer is true to this principle. He has endeavored to be
absolutely frank in noting here and there the difficulties and
handicaps by which white men of the South have endeavored to keep the
Negro down. The aim of the author is so to direct attention to the
needs of the Negro and so to show how this Negro demonstrated the
capacity of the blacks that a larger number of white men may lend
these struggling people a helping hand.
Primarily interested in the bearing of the educator's career on the
conditions now obtaining in this country, the author has little to say
about his private life, choosing rather to present him as a man of the
world. Tracing his career, the author mentions his antecedent, his
poverty, his training at Hampton, his first ventures and the
establishment of Tuskegee. He then treats with more detail Dr.
Washington's national prominence, widening influence, ability to
organize, and increasing power. He carefully notes, too, the great
educator's chief characteristics, his sane and balanced views, his
belief in the cooperation of the two races, and his power to
interpret one race to the other. It is mainly this portion of the book
that makes this biography a work of incalculable value in the study of
the Negro during the last quarter of the century.
The other biography of Booker T. Washington is a somewhat more
intensive study of his life than that of Dr. Riley. The authors are
Mr. Washington's confidential associate and a trained and experienced
writer, sympathetically interested in the Negro because of the career
of his grandmother, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of "Uncle Tom's
Cabin." It contains a fitting foreword by Major R. R. Moton, Dr.
Washington's successor, and a forceful preface by Ex-President
Theodore Roosevelt. The book is well written and well illustrated.
These authors were chosen by Mr. Washington himself with the hope that
they would produce "a record of his struggles and achievements at once
accurate and reliable." Coming from persons so closely associated with
the distinguished educator, the reader naturally expects some such
treatment as the "Life and Letters of Booker T. Washington." A work of
such scope, however, the authors themselves maintain is yet to be
written. Passing over his childhood, early training and education,
which they consider adequately narrated in "Up From Slavery," the
authors have directed their attention toward making an estimate of the
services of the educator during the last fifteen years of his life.
Written with this purpose in view the work serves as a complement of
Dr. Riley's book which is more concerned with the earlier period.
Each chapter is complete in itself, setting forth a distinct
achievement or the manifestation of some special ability. Here we get
an excellent account of the making of Tuskegee, the leadership of its
founder, his attitude on the rights of the Negro, how he met race
prejudice, the way in which he taught Negroes to cooperate, how he
encouraged the Negro in business, what he did for the Negro farmer,
his method of raising large sums of money, his skill in managing a
large institution, and finally an appropriate estimate of the man.
* * * * *
_In Spite of Handicap. An Autobiography._ By JAMES D. CORROTHERS. With
an Introduction by RAY STANNARD BAKER. George H. Doran Co., New York,
1916. Pp. 238.
This book is a study of Negro race prejudice, chiefly in the North.
One can not read the life of this member of the Negro race without
becoming much more vividly informed of the terrible power race
prejudice plays in retarding the progress of undeniably capable
persons when they are known to have some Negro blood. It is a sadly
true picture not only of the handicaps to Mr. Corrothers, but of
practically all Negroes of talent who essay to come out of the caste
to which barbaric prejudice assigns his group. For this reason we
could substitute for this individual as subject of this story most of
his race in the North.
The student of history will be more interested in his description of
his boyhood home, a Negro settlement in Cass County, Michigan. This
place was first an Under-Ground Railroad Station established in 1838
by some Southern Quakers whose conscience no longer allowed them to
hold their black brethren in slavery. They brought their slaves into
this far Northern region and soon protected other fugitive slaves from
the South. It became such a place of security for these runaway slaves
that in a few years they became sufficiently numerous to constitute a
large settlement. In 1847 a number of slave owners raided the place in
an effort to capture some of their Negroes. They had little success,
however. Manumitted slaves, free persons of color, and fugitives
continued to come and at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War the
community had been well established. Since the Civil War many of the
descendants of these pioneers have risen in various walks of life and
have left an impress on the world. The author of this volume is a
representative of this class.
The writer describes how that early in his career in this Cass County
atmosphere he met with the awful handicap of race prejudice which
forced upon him the conviction as to the difficulty of a colored man
to rise. In running from the conditions in the South his people did
not find a paradise in the North. Just as the author began by fighting
his way among the white boys who objected to him because of his
manifestation of superior talent for one of his color so he has had to
struggle throughout life. He has, however, become a writer of some
note, contributing verse and stories to such leading publications as
the _Century Magazine_, _Harper's_, _The Dial_, _The Crisis_, _The
Southern Workman_, _The Boston Transcript_, and _The Chicago Tribune_.
The author makes no pretence of writing a scientific historical or
sociological treatise. He relates such anecdotes of his own life as
will throw light on the influence of race prejudice in impeding the
progress of capable Negroes. His style is easy and clear, at times
beautiful. The book is well worth the reading of any person seriously
interested in our race problems.