HONORED BY HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
One of the most helpful things accomplished during the year 1896 was an
exhibit of the industrial products of the Tuskegee Institute made in New
York City, Boston and Philadelphia, in connection with a similar exhibit
from the Hampton Institute. The Armstrong Association in New York City
was instrumental in bringing about this exhibit. A large number of
people who had no idea of the extent of our industrial work had an
opportunity at these exhibits to see for themselves just what was being
done by Hampton and Tuskegee. Our industrial exhibit included wagons,
carriages and wearing apparel of all kinds, manufactured by the
students. The exhibit, however, was not confined to industrial products,
but a thorough exhibit of academic work was also made.
Some people have an idea that because industrial education is emphasized
at Tuskegee and Hampton very little attention is given to the academic
training. This is an error. A close examination will prove that both at
Hampton and Tuskegee the academic training is very thorough and
far-reaching; in fact, I for some
[Illustration: PRESIDENT ELIOT CONFERRING HONORARY DEGREE UPON MR.
WASHINGTON AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY, JUNE 24, 1896.]
time have been conscious of the fact that if we had only called this
institution “University” or “College” and had given the same course of
training that we now give, we would have met with no criticism on
account of not giving more academic training. We are thoroughly imbued
with the idea that a little training thoroughly given goes farther than
to attempt to cover a great deal of ground poorly. Education after all
is only valuable in giving mental grasp and culture.
Several times I have been asked what was the most surprising incident in
my life. I have no hesitation in saying that it was the following letter
from Harvard University, asking me to be present at the commencement at
Harvard in June, 1896, for the purpose of having an honorary degree
conferred upon me.
“HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
“CAMBRIDGE, May 28, 1896.
“MY DEAR SIR: Harvard University desires to confer on you at the
approaching commencement an honorary degree; but it is our custom
to confer degrees only on gentlemen who are present. Our
commencement occurs this year on June 24th, and your presence would
be desirable from about noon till about five o’clock in the
afternoon. Would it be possible for you to be in Cambridge on that
day?
“Believe me, with great regard,
“Very truly yours,
“CHARLES W. ELIOT.
“PRESIDENT BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.”
Up to the time of receiving this letter I had not the faintest idea that
any college, much less the oldest and highest educational institution in
the country, was about to or would ever confer upon me any honorary
degree. It took me, of course, greatly by surprise.
Commencement day at Harvard, June 24, 1896, was a memorable one,
certainly one that I shall never forget. At the appointed hour I met
President Eliot and the overseers of the College at the designated place
on the grounds for the purpose of being escorted in company with others
to Sander’s Theatre, where the commencement exercises were to take place
and the degrees to be conferred. In addition to the degree to be
conferred on me, among others Major-Gen. Nelson A. Miles, the Commander
of the United States Army, Dr. Bell, the inventor of the Bell telephone
system, Dr. M. J. Savage of Boston, and others, were invited to be
present at commencement for the purpose of receiving degrees. We were
assigned places in the line of march immediately behind the President
and Overseers. As soon as we were placed in the line the Governor of
Massachusetts, escorted by the Lancers, arrived, and was assigned to the
head of the line of march by the side of President Eliot. In this order,
accompanied by the various officers clad in caps and gowns, we marched
to Sander’s Theatre. After the usual commencement exercises the time for
the conferring of honorary degrees came. This at Harvard is always the
most interesting and exciting feature of commencement, owing largely to
the fact that no one knows until commencement day on whom honorary
degrees are to be conferred, and as each name is called for an honorary
degree the expectation rises to the highest pitch and the individuals
receive cheers and applause in proportion as they are popular at the
college. When it came my turn I arose and President Eliot conferred
upon me the degree of Master of Arts in appropriate language. The whole
ceremony for the first time at Harvard was performed in English.
At the close of the commencement exercises I was invited with Gen. Miles
and others receiving honorary degrees to lunch with President Eliot.
After the lunch at the residence of the President we were formed into
line again and were escorted under the guidance of the Marshal of the
Day, who in this case happened to be Bishop Lawrence of Massachusetts,
through the grounds, in which at different points we were met and
cheered by the students, each individual who had received an honorary
degree receiving the Harvard yell. The most interesting feature of that
day was the Alumni Dinner, which occurred at the close of our march
through the grounds. This dinner was served in Memorial Hall, and, I
think, was attended by at least a thousand graduates of Harvard from all
sections of the country, many of them eminent in affairs of state,
religion and the field of letters. Among the speakers at the Alumni
Dinner were Governor Roger A. Wolcott, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Gen.
Nelson A. Miles, Dr. Savage and others. When I was called upon to speak
at the Alumni Dinner I delivered the following address:
“_Mr. President and Gentlemen:_--
“It would in some measure relieve my embarrassment if I could, even in a
slight degree, feel myself worthy of the great honor which you do me
to-day. Why you have called me from the Black Belt of the South, from
among my humble people, to share in the honors of this occasion, is not
for me to explain; and yet it may not be inappropriate for me to suggest
that it seems to me that one of the most vital questions that touch our
American life, is how to bring the strong, wealthy and learned into
helpful touch with the poorest, most ignorant and humblest, and at the
same time make the one appreciate the vitalizing, strengthening
influence of the other. How shall we make the mansions on yon Beacon
street feel and see the need of the spirits in the lowliest cabin in
Alabama cotton fields or Louisiana sugar bottoms? This problem Harvard
University is solving, not by bringing itself down, but by bringing the
masses up.
“If through me, an humble representative, seven millions of my people in
the South might be permitted to send a message to Harvard--Harvard that
offered up on death’s altar young Shaw, and Russell, and Lowell, and
scores of others, that we might have a free and united country--that
message would be, ‘Tell them that the sacrifice was not in vain. Tell
them that by habits of thrift and economy, by way of the industrial
school and college, we are coming. We are crawling up, working up, yea,
bursting up. Often through oppression, unjust discrimination and
prejudice, but through them all we are coming up, and with proper
habits, intelligence and property, there is no power on earth that can
permanently stay our progress.’
“If my life in the past has meant anything in the lifting up of my
people and the bringing about of better relations between your race and
mine, I assure you from this day it will mean doubly more. In the
economy of God there is but one standard by which an individual can
succeed--there is but one for a race. This country demands that every
race shall measure itself by the American standard. By it a race must
rise or fall, succeed or fail, and in the last analysis mere sentiment
counts for little. During the next half century and more, my race must
continue passing through the severe American crucible. We are to be
tested in our patience, our forbearance, our perseverence, our power to
endure wrong, to withstand temptations, to economize, to acquire and use
skill; in our ability to compete, to succeed in commerce, to disregard
the superficial for the real, the appearance for the substance, to be
great and yet small, learned and yet simple, high and yet the servant of
all. This, this is the passport to all that is best in the life of our
republic, and the Negro must possess it, or be debarred.
“While we are thus being tested, I beg of you to remember that wherever
our life touches yours, we help or hinder. Wherever your life touches
ours, you make us stronger or weaker. No member of your race in any part
of our country can harm the meanest member of mine without the proudest
and bluest blood in Massachusetts being degraded. When Mississippi
commits crime, New England commits crime, and in so much, lowers the
standard of your civilization. There is no escape--man drags man down,
or man lifts man up.
“In working out our destiny, while the main burden and center of
activity must be with us, we shall need, in a large measure in the years
that are to come as we have in the past, the help, the encouragement,
the guidance that the strong can give the weak. Thus helped, we of both
races in the South, soon shall throw off the shackles of racial and
sectional prejudice and rise, as Harvard University has risen and as we
all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness and
selfishness, into that atmosphere, that pure sunshine, where it will be
our highest ambition to serve man, our brother, regardless of race or
previous condition.”
As this was the first time that an honorary degree had ever been
conferred upon a Negro by any university in New England, of course it
occasioned a great deal of newspaper comment throughout the country. I
think I shall not speak further of the occurrence, but will insert a few
newspaper clippings that will tell the story perhaps better than I feel
like doing it.
Mr. Thos. J. Calloway, who was present on this occasion, wrote as
follows to the Colored American:
“First in the history of America a leading American university confers
an honorary degree upon a colored man. Harvard has been always to the
front in ideas of liberty, freedom and equality. When other colleges of
the North are accepting the Negro as a tolerance, Harvard has been
awarding him honors, as in the case of Clement G. Morgan of recent date.
Her present action, therefore, in placing an honorary crown upon the
worthy head of Mr. Washington is but a step further in her magnanimity
in recognizing merit under whatever color of skin.
“The mere announcement of this event is a great testimony to the
standing of Mr. Washington, but to any black person who, as I did, saw
and heard the enthusiasm and applause with which the audience cheered
the announcement by President Eliot, the degree itself was
insignificant. The Boston Lancers had conducted Gov. Wolcott to
Cambridge, and 500 Harvard graduates had double filed the march to
Sander’s Theatre. It was a great day. Latin orations, disquisitions,
dissertations and essays in English were delivered by selected
graduates, clad in stately and classic cap and gown. Bishops, generals,
commodores, statesmen, authors, poets, explorers, millionaires and noted
men of every calling, sat as earnest listeners. President Eliot had
issued 500 diplomas by handing them to representatives of the graduates
in bundles of twenty to twenty-five. Then came the awarding of honorary
degrees. Thirteen were issued, Bishop Vincent and General Nelson A.
Miles, commander of the United States Army, being among the recipients.
When the name of Booker T. Washington was called, and he arose to
acknowledge and accept, there was such an outburst of applause as
greeted no other name except that of the popular soldier patriot,
General Miles. The applause was not studied and stiff, sympathetic and
condoling; it was enthusiasm and admiration. Every part of the audience
from pit to gallery joined in, and a glow covered the cheeks of those
around me, proving that sincere appreciation of the rising struggle of
an ex-slave and the work he has accomplished for his race.
“But the event of the day was the Alumni Dinner, when speeches formed
the most enjoyable bill of fare. Two hundred Harvard alumni and their
invited guests partook of their annual dinner. Four or five speeches
were made, among them one from Mr. Washington.
“At the close of the speaking, notwithstanding Senator Henry Cabot
Lodge, Dr. Minot J. Savage and others had spoken, President Eliot warmly
grasped Mr. Washington by the hand and told him that his was the best
speech of the day.”
Anent the conferring of the degree and the toast, the papers were
unusual in favorable comment. Says the Boston Post:
“In conferring the honorary degree of Master of Arts upon the principal
of Tuskegee Institute, Harvard University has honored itself as well as
the object of this distinction. The work which Prof. Booker T.
Washington has accomplished for the education, good citizenship and
popular enlightenment in his chosen field of labor in the South,
entitles him to rank with our national benefactors. The university which
can claim him on its list of sons, whether in regular course or _honoris
causa_, may be proud.
“It has been mentioned that Mr. Washington is the first of his race to
receive an honorary degree from a New England University. This, in
itself, is a distinction. But the degree was not conferred because Mr.
Washington is a colored man, or because he was born in slavery, but
because he has shown, by his work for the elevation of the people of
the Black Belt of the South, a genius and a broad humanity which count
for greatness in any man, whether his skin be white or black.”
The Boston Globe said: “It is Harvard which, first among New England
colleges, confers an honorary degree upon a black man. No one who has
followed the history of Tuskegee and its work, can fail to admire the
courage, persistence and splendid common sense of Booker T. Washington.
Well may Harvard honor the ex-slave, the value of whose services, alike
to his race and country, only the future can estimate.”
The correspondent of the New York Times wrote: “All the speeches were
enthusiastically received, but the colored man carried off the
oratorical honors, and the applause which broke out when he had
finished, was vociferous and long continued.”
In July of the same year I delivered one of the addresses before the
National Christian Endeavor Convention which met in Washington. This
meeting of the Christian Endeavor Society was attended by thousands of
people from all sections of the country and some from foreign countries.
I remember that in order to be present in time to speak at this meeting,
I had to make a long and tiresome trip from Spirit Lake, Iowa, to
Washington, and reached Washington rather late in the evening. In fact,
when I got to the church where I was to speak, I found President F. E.
Clark and the audience rather nervous about my appearance. I found it a
difficult matter to get into the room, owing to the fact that every seat
was taken and the aisles were full and the people on the outside of the
church were clamoring for entrance. My address was finished about 10
o’clock that evening. At 11 o’clock I took a train for Buffalo, New
York, where I was to speak the next night before the National
Educational Association, where 20,000 teachers were present. As I now
recall the incident, I think these two meetings caused me perhaps as
great mental strain and anxiety as I have ever experienced. I had to
prepare special and set addresses for each meeting, and coming, as they
did, so near together, any one who has had experience in public speaking
can easily imagine the difficulty with which I had to contend. I will
give one or two short newspaper extracts that may convey an idea of the
effect of these two addresses.
The Buffalo Express gave expression in part as follows:
“It was a great close. It began with music and it ended with music. Not
a false note was struck. Every tone rang true, and when the gavel rose
for the final fall, the audience rose with it, and with one mighty voice
sang ‘America.’ All credit is due to Booker T. Washington for the keying
up of the spirit that dominated the vast audience. His address was
magnificent. There was nothing of speculation, nothing of theory,
nothing of supposition in his speech. It was a truthful, convincing
statement of the condition of the Negro and the remedy for his wrongs.
It teemed with humor and was arrayed in a splendid cloak of eloquence.
The audience was larger than at any of the other sessions. An overflow
meeting was held in Concert Hall, at which the addresses of the closing
session were repeated. The overflow meeting overflowed, and over 2,000
people were turned away. A thousand lingered outside until the
convention ended.”
On July 12th the Buffalo Courier contained the following:
“Booker T. Washington, the foremost educator among the colored people of
the world, was a very busy man from the time he arrived in the city the
other night from the West, and registered at the Iroquois. He had hardly
removed the stains of travel when it was time to partake of supper. Then
he held a public levee in the parlors of the Iroquois until 8 o’clock.
During that time he was greeted by over 200 eminent teachers and
educators from all parts of the
[Illustration: SENIOR CLASS IN PSYCHOLOGY, TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND
INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE.]
[Illustration: BRICKMAKING AT THE TUSKEGEE BRICKYARD.]
United States. Shortly after 8 o’clock, he was driven in a carriage to
Music Hall, and in one hour and a half he made two ringing addresses, to
as many as 5,000 people, on Negro education. Then Mr. Washington was
taken in charge by a delegation of colored citizens, headed by the Rev.
Mr. Watkins, and hustled off to a small, informal reception, arranged in
honor of the visitor, by the people of his race.”
Both in Washington at the Christian Endeavor meeting and in Buffalo at
the National Educational Association meeting I was surprised as well as
gratified at the large number of Southern gentlemen and ladies belonging
to the white race who pressed forward to shake my hand at the close of
these addresses. I have rarely spoken anywhere in the North that a
number of Southern white people did not come forward and most earnestly
thank me for my position and words.
A Southern man writing to the Charleston News and Courier concerning my
address at Buffalo expressed himself as follows:
“Notwithstanding the fact that the gentlemen speaking were of great
ability, the audience showed signs of impatience; they wanted Mr.
Washington, and no one else would do. At last he came. He is quiet
looking, a little nervous but determined. His face indicates that he
has above all qualities, patience and self-control. His address to the
second audience was very much the same as that delivered before the
first. He was a little freer; told several amusing instances and from
the start carried the crowd as no one else has done during this
meeting.”
It has been my privilege to be invited to address the national gathering
of both the Christian Endeavor Society and the National Educational
Association at almost every session that these organizations have held,
and I have been very glad to accept the invitation as often as I could
find time to do so.
The following September I delivered the opening address before the
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in Brooklyn, N. Y., and in
October of the same year while in Durham, N. C., for the purpose of
speaking at the Agricultural and Mechanical Fair held at that place by
the colored people, I was invited by the President of Trinity College,
located in Durham, to deliver an address before the students of that
college. This was the first time that I had ever received an invitation
to address a white college in the South. I accepted the invitation and
was treated with every possible courtesy both by the officers and
students of the college. After my address, as I was preparing to leave
the grounds in company with a number of colored friends who had been
kind enough to call with me, the students assembled in the front yard
and gave me their usual college yell in a hearty manner.
I have often wondered if there is a white institution in this country
whose students would have welcomed the incoming of more than a hundred
companions of another race in the cordial way that the black students at
Hampton welcomed the red ones. How often have I wanted to say to white
students that they lift themselves up in proportion as they help to lift
others, and that the more unfortunate the race and the lower in the
scale of civilization, the more does one raise one’s self by giving the
assistance.
This reminds me of a conversation which I once had with the Hon.
Frederick Douglass. At one time Mr. Douglass was traveling in the state
of Pennsylvania, and was forced, on account of his color, to ride in the
baggage-car, in spite of the fact that he had paid the same fare as the
other passengers. When some of the white passengers went to the
baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and one of them said to him, “I am
sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been degraded in this manner,” Mr.
Douglass straightened himself up on the box upon which he was sitting,
and replied: “They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is
within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on
account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me.”
My experience has been, that the time to test a true gentleman is to
observe him when he is in contact with individuals of a race that is
less fortunate than his own. This is illustrated in no better way than
by observing the conduct of the old-school type of Southern gentleman
when he is in contact with his former slaves or their descendants.
An example of what I mean is shown in a story told of George Washington,
who, meeting a colored man in the road once, who politely lifted his
hat, lifted his own in return. Some of his white friends who saw the
incident, criticised Washington for his action. In reply to their
criticism, George Washington said: “Do you suppose that I am going to
permit a poor, ignorant colored man to be more polite than I am?”
[Illustration: A CORNER IN MILLINERY ROOM, TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND
INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE.]
[Illustration: GIRLS AT TUSKEGEE LEARNING DAIRYING.]