Of my ancestry I know almost nothing. In the slave
quarters, and even later, I heard
whispered conversations among the coloured people
of the tortures which the slaves,
including, no doubt, my ancestors on my mother's
side, suffered in the middle passage
of the slave ship while being conveyed from Africa
to America. I have been unsuccessful
in securing any information that would throw any
accurate light upon the history of my
family beyond my mother. She, I remember, had a
half-brother and a half-sister. In the days
of slavery not very much attention was given to
family history and family records - that is,
black family records. My mother, I suppose, attracted
the attention of a purchaser who was
afterward my owner and hers. Her addition to the
slave family attracted about as much
attention as the purchase of a new horse or cow.
Of my father I know even less than of my
mother. I do not even know his name. I have heard
reports to the effect that he was a white man
who lived on one of the near-by plantations. Whoever
he was, I never heard of his taking the least
interest in me or providing in any way for my rearing.
But I do not find especial fault with him.
He was simply another unfortunate victim of the
institution which the Nation unhappily had
engrafted upon it at that time.
-Booker T. Washington,
Up
From Slavery
One would like to think that it is impossible to read the above paragraph
without being ashamed of White America. Booker T. Washington was
a man of such expansive good will and generous spirit, that he could write,
on the one hand, about his mother being purchased like a barnyard animal
and, on the other hand, could forgive the purchaser as one of slavery's
victims too. This great man rose from a slave childhood to become
one of the nation's leading educators and the recognized spokesman for
his race at the turn of the Century. Up From Slavery, which
along with Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and Henry Adam's Education
makes up the great triumvirate of American autobiographies, tells
his story and provides his vision of America's racial future, a future
that was tragically and inexcusably deferred for 60 years.
Washington pulls no punches in describing his life as a slave:
I was asked not long ago to tell something about
the sports and pastimes that I engaged in
during my youth. Until that question was asked it
had never occurred to me that there was no
period of my life that was devoted to play. From
the time that I can remember anything, almost
every day of my life has been occupied in some kind
of labour; though I think I would now be a
more useful man if I had had time for sports.
I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave,
though I remember on several occasions I
went as far as the schoolhouse door with one
of my young mistresses to carry her books.
The picture of several dozen boys and girls in a
schoolroom engaged in study made a deep
impression upon me, and I had the feeling that to
get into a schoolhouse and study in this way
would be about the same as getting into paradise.
I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood
or early boyhood when our entire
family sat down to the table together, and God's
blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in a
civilized manner. On the plantation in Virginia,
and even later, meals were gotten by the children
very much as dumb animals get theirs. It was a piece
of bread here and a scrap of meat there. It
was a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes
at another. Sometimes a portion of our family
would eat out of the skillet or pot, while some
one else would eat from a tin plate held on the knees,
and often using nothing but the hands with which
to hold the food. When I had grown to sufficient
size, I was required to go to the "big house" at
meal-times to fan the flies from the table by means
of a large set of paper fans operated by a pulley.
The first pair of shoes that I recall wearing were
wooden ones. They had rough leather on the
top, but the bottoms, which were about an inch thick,
were of wood. When I walked they made a
fearful noise, and besides this they were very inconvenient
since there was no yielding to the natural
pressure of the foot. In wearing them one presented
an exceedingly awkward appearance. The most
trying ordeal that I was forced to endure as a slave
boy, however, was the wearing of a flax shirt.
In the portion of Virginia where I lived it was
common to use flax as part of the clothing for the
slaves. That part of the flax from which our clothing
was made was largely the refuse, which of
course was the cheapest and roughest part. I can
scarcely imagine any torture, except, perhaps, the
pulling of a tooth, that is equal to that caused
by putting on a new flax shirt for the first time. It is
almost equal to the feeling that one would experience
if he had a dozen or more chestnut burrs, or a
hundred small pin-points, in contact with his flesh.
Even to this day I can recall accurately the
tortures that I underwent when putting on one of
these garments. The fact that my flesh was soft
and tender added to the pain. But I had no choice.
I had to wear the flax shirt or none; and had it
been left to me to choose, I should have chosen
to wear no covering.
This litany of degradations is truly chilling and should serve to silence
the fools who pretend that slavery was by and large a benevolent system.
But even after recounting these hardships Washington tells us:
I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or
body of people that is so unfortunate as to get
entangled in the net of slavery. I have long since
ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against
the Southern white people on account of the enslavement
of my race. No one section of our
country was wholly responsible for its introduction,
and, besides, it was recognized and protected
for years by the General Government. Having once
got its tentacles fastened on to the economic
and social life of the Republic, it was no easy
matter for the country to relieve itself of the
institution. Then, when we rid ourselves of prejudice,
or racial feeling, and look facts in the face,
we must acknowledge that, notwithstanding the cruelty
and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million
Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves
or whose ancestors went through the school of
American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful
condition, materially, intellectually, morally,
and religiously, than is true of an equal number
of black people in any other portion of the globe.
This is so to such an extent that Negroes in this
country, who themselves or whose forefathers
went through the school of slavery, are constantly
returning to Africa as missionaries to enlighten
those who remained in the fatherland. This
I say, not to justify slavery - on the other hand, I
condemn it as an institution, as we all know that
in America it was established for selfish and
financial reasons, and not from a missionary motive
- but to call attention to a fact, and to show
how Providence so often uses men and institutions
to accomplish a purpose. When persons ask me
in these days how, in the midst of what sometimes
seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can
have such faith in the future of my race in this
country, I remind them of the wilderness through
which and out of which, a good Providence has already
led us.
Washington envisioned a future for Black America wherein their hard
work would earn them the respect of whites and pave the way for equality
between the races. His Atlanta Compromise Address, delivered before
the Cotton States Exposition in 1895, called for an unwritten pact between
the races. Blacks would remain separate and abjure political power,
while whites would encourage educational and economic opportunity for blacks.
He was certain that, given a chance, blacks would earn full rights as citizens
from a willing white populous. Unfortunately Washington's optimism
and greatness of spirit were about to be repaid with a viscious period
of repression (see C. Vann Woodward's The
Strange Career of Jim Crow). The possibilities that Washington
saw glimmering on the horizon were much further away than he could possibly
have realized, as America descended into a soul stifling period of racial
segregation and animus that would last until the 1960's.
Washington's reputation has suffered as a result of several factors.
First, is the tragic historical coincidence that he was speaking at the
very time that external events were conspiring to bring down the iron curtain
of Jim Crow after a period of relative racial harmony (see Woodward).
Second, is the manner in which his views were later misrepresented.
He was easily caricatured as an Uncle Tom or a self-loathing collaborator
with the white oppressors. But the man who wrote the following:
From any point of view, I had rather be what I am,
a member of the Negro race, than be able
to claim membership with the most favoured of any
other race. I have always been made sad when
I have heard members of any race claiming rights
and privileges, or certain badges of distinction, on
the ground simply that they were members of this
or that race, regardless of their own individual
worth or attainments. I have been made to feel sad
for such persons because I am conscious of the
fact that mere connection with what is known as
a race will not permanently carry an individual
forward unless he has individual worth, and mere
connection with what is regarded as an inferior
race will not finally hold an individual back if
he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. Every
persecuted individual and race should get much consolation
out of the great human law, which is
universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under
what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized
and rewarded. This I have said here, not to call
attention to myself as an individual, but to the race
to which I am proud to belong.
must be said to have been proud of his race and proud of humankind.
The fact that his vision exceeded that of the rest of his country men should
not be reason to judge him harshly. Rather, his fellow Americans
should be judged harshly and he should be celebrated as a great American
visionary in the spirit of Jefferson and Lincoln and the Roosevelts and
Reagan.
