The negro American; The Downturn

If there's been one theme that has gone through Negro history it has been this theme of freedom are the quality of America standing up and living up to the bright promise of the Declaration of Independence. This is the essential American thing there is no theme in MeeGo life that is not a female or mark in life because the Negro is a marketeer he is completely Benjamin the world's distinguished not just a Tory and that Negro history that is not the two groups that the public schools in a series of talks like that in America. Now we can get down to Booker T Washington Undoubtedly this is one of the great greatest influence you perhaps the greatest. The negro the great the greatest one who had an influence of either say Negro life or back the age from 1895 to 1015 when he died is sometimes called the Age of Booker T Washington. So we turn our attention just be to look at the Washington. He had been born in slavery of course his great book

is up from Slate that he was born in slavery just a few years before of course a mancipation again and then of course because he was young and wanted to get an education he went to Hampton Institute which was started by a Civil War general named Armstrong who believe greatly in industrial education and Booker T when he went to Hampton. Of course he had no money just walked there. He was asked to clean a room and he took out his son he went to clean this room very carefully and the woman came around and she went over the room with her handkerchief and she couldn't find a speck of dirt anyplace in the room with her handkerchief clean white handkerchief. And from there our Booker T. Yes he took it from there. He was made. It's a delightful story that he towers about sheets she took out a handkerchief and she couldn't find a speck of dirt. And therefore he was permitted to stay there without a penny. His career he was gone he took it from there. Yes wonderful story and true across.

Now we meet Booker T. He has education at Hampton vocational. Tuskegee is looking for somebody in Alabama or Alabama to start a small school there. Booker T is highly recommended although a very young man who goes to Hampton even goes to Tusky in 1881 he becomes the principal and 1884. His philosophy His begin begins to a marriage. Now in 1895. He was invited to deliver a speech at the Atlanta exposition on Negro day they generally set aside one day for Negroes and Booker T once we got it it's quite safe to cross try this time so he was invited to give the speech and the governor was there and it probably was the single most notable speech in American history because of the influence that it had in the speech of course Booker T Washington gave his props basic philosophy. And the famous Atlanta exposition speech in which he opens up by saying that a bestseller was needed some water and it didn't have any water and didn't want to

get salt water which is obvious but lower it in the Telegraph to somebody in the choir came back cast down your bucket where you are meaning of course that they were in a place where there was some fresh water it wasn't thought so the cast on your back you. See Booker T talked in parables is not a beautiful paradox. Now you should cast down your bucket in the south. Stay south. Look at the Russian one of the things he said the subtlest like this of course everything because he said something like very much so he said stay some cast down your buckets where you are among these friendly people and among these people that we've worked with and that understand us and we understand them. So this was the great speech where he opens up cast down your bucket. He also said in the speech there is as much dignity in telling a feel as there is in writing a poem. Nobody believes that then and now but it was part of a statement of bodies his philosophy of national people like this you know to be to work in and get to work on time and there's a dignity to Labor. This is what he enunciated in this great speech.

He also indicated that the matter of social equality should not enter into the picture. And there's where the speech he made his famous. Analogy in which he held up his hand and he said in all things that are purely social we can be as separate is the fingers. The thing is I separate on the hand. But in our things pertaining to mutual progress we could be one like the hand as one. Or was that beautiful. He held up his hand by the tangos social separation but by the hand there are things that I knew to be helpful. We have the one ark. Oh yes the government rushed up. Yes. Really. But this was the whole speech of look at the Russian on this which yanks the negro to make the most of his opportunities and not to speak about his grievances. We want to beautify the section of the city in which we live rather than talk about the section of the city into which we can come. This is basically look at the washings for us.

Now the Atlanta exposition speech was a great speech he received on a merry degree's afterward he was launched. This isn't about the white south because here was an accommodating philosophy. Book at the Russian therefore spoke and acted out the strategy of accommodation. You must get along with the existing are. Now the existing press in the style. This man has the money the prestige you have to adjust to them. He was about the star's car and accommodating leader one who would get along with. The pattern of the times now we must see bucketing of cross against a paddle when he did this is a low point. It was not the great militant period this is the period of dispatches when Frederick Douglass the great militant negro. Died in 1895 the very year in which Booker T Washington marriages is a is a is an outstanding leader. So the book at the Russian and we notice here his thing that he always preach was the improvement in

race relations. He never spoke in betterness publicly ever. He could address a white and Negro audience jointly and say something that would appeal to each one of them is a very masterful speaker but he generally talked about the improvement he said that our opportunities should not make us or should not be should not that our difficulties and discrimination overshadow our opportunities this is basically his message so that he was always in a preacher preaching the improvement of race relations. Now a cardinal point in his doctrine of course which he enunciated in Atlanta and subsequently was this whole matter of education should hew to the environment. If you're in rural Alabama. What kind of education such as Tuskegee was what kind of education would best fit you for rural Alabama. So he barked and preached that education should hew to the environment. One of the things that is

sometimes disturbing to Negroes and we've got Booker T Washington going Tom. There's a book at the Russian was revealed all over the world because vocational education of the 20th century has become quite a thing. And look at the Washington is really one of the great educational pioneers but of course negroes and his critics didn't like it because it looked like a separate kind of education of the different conference Negroes which of course basically was their. White Southerners would gladly support the kind of education which would make a person a better worker. A more productive labor. A skilled person who was on time it was clean and who appeared on Monday morning after payday Saturday night. And this is the thing that book at the Russian creek just saw that look at the Russian industrial education when you were graduated from Tuskegee undertook a team you weren't given a diploma and give a little speech with a lack of brains. You mean something. I mean yes you see you made a point still here so you put the window up. Are you made of the brick here on the stage it was a demonstration and what you would do now is a look at the Washington as a great

advocate of industrial vocational education and therefore what we would call a classical or liberal arts education. He did not feel that this was at this stage of the game. Well of course when he had his own children that they're going to get that guidance they used to but nevertheless for the rank and file of the rank and file colleagues will talk about the Reagan he had a great industrial education you see. So this is a thing which he stressed greatly. How do you make that a farmer. How do you make better workers are. So the Tusky embody this whole idea of the idea that vocational education and such owes a great deal to Booker T Of course he had taken this from have where Samuel Chapman Armstrong had this and we can see the thing we notice about Booker T How do you thrive so in the sun. President McKinley visits Tusky you see this kind of thing. Teddy Roosevelt has him you know for lunch on time but contrary as a non Ameri-Do

agree on pocketing the great foundations turned to look at the Russian because he seems to advocate a kind of education which the South will accept and which white man to be would support and support the slate of fund of a million dollars of what the genes Fund and other funds which went through the channel through book at the wash. So the book at the Russian was very influential in education in race relations and of course book at the Russian was very influential as a political figure. Now of course Booker T Washington could not hope to go on stage because when we don't turn a negro live like American why there is nobody that speaks even know how influential but what you don't have the critics and the persons who take a different point of view. When we come down to do Booker T s chief critic we need to do we need to Boris. Now he emerged at the same time that the Booker T did because in 1895 he received a Ph.D. from

Harvard and he wrote a great book The suppression of the African slave trade which was monograph number one. In the Harvard historical study. First monograph Harvard ever published in his Ph.D. program was Dubois and the suppression of the African slave trade. A piece of tremendous scholarship Dubois Francis was a scholar. Say he was he had a Ph.D. from Harvard he had studied abroad. Now he emerges in 1895 but it looks as though Booker T has preempted the field. You see he's a Harvard man and here is a man who's up from slavery and Dubois you see is on the scene and the only 993 he comes out sharply in opposition to Booker T Washington and therefore he writes a famous essay of Mr. Booker T Washington others in which he criticizes greatly the Booker T Washington point of view basically of course a soft. Pedaling of

the whole matter of civil rights political rights this was a very transient a very great criticism. He also criticized the philosophy a book at the washing of a reference to education. He said the true object of education is not to make men carpenters but to make carpenters man he was also a phrase maker of some of them in the world. Yes wonderful phrase. So he said yes. Now he also said that he himself of course was educated when he had come up in Cartagena had Greek and Latin so that he said that education should be in the classical liberal arts and therefore the Negro race like all races are saved by the exceptional man. Therefore what you needed to do was to develop. Not a lot of capitalism stomping all over the book and yet nothing instead. But he said you have to educate the talented tenth and give them the kind of education they will move in a wide world. Basically the liberal

education such as he and South had and such as he gently advocated the talented 10 during the period when the book of the washing was still high. We meet w e B Dubois in every criticism that you could think about the accommodating philosophy the abrogation of the civil rights agitation the kind of education which he said was look at me as just giving for Negroes alone and not not for the whole world in general. These are the things that Dubois stood for and Dubois was an eloquent man and he wrote a great many great number of books 15 books a great number of articles so that he expressed himself very well and his famous body and the souls of black people. Published in 93 which people read again and again and again. Some of the most moving literature of American history is the soldier back home. He spearheaded the movement in 95 called the Niagara

Movement in which all the militants and radicals came out and shot opposition to Booker T Washington. And then of course we're going to meet the boys again with the formation of the NAACP. But the accommodating philosophy the philosophy of getting along are actually not playing out grievances. This is the philosophy of course that the boys from the beginning to be in is going to take a stand again. We have been listening to Professor Benjamin Quarles speaking on the Negro American. The series of broadcast was produced for station WDTN by the Department of Educational broadcasting for the Detroit public schools. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.