This statement is no different then today's democrats with affirmative action. The Duke had the guts enough to say what is meant by affirmative action.
Booker T. Washington set out to educate blacks just out of slavery in practical skills, personal comportment and hygiene, as well as book-learning and religion. He’s reviled now, I think because of something he said in 1896 about civil rights being secondary in priority to education, and because of the Tuskegee experiments carried out decades after his death.