"Head Negro in Charge":

Boston Magazine ^ | April 1998 | Cheryl Bentsen

[Matchett-PI]

Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell
http://www.librarything.com/work/86827

Here’s an excerpt of a book review on 4/2/08 by Frederick Glaysher re: the essay in the book entitled:

“Black Education: Achievements, Myths, and Tragedies”

“....In a fine section of this chapter on education, Sowell highlights the views of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, documenting that their attitudes on educational expectations and other matters were much closer than the common politicized opinion today would have it. ....” More: http://www.librarything.com/work/86827

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Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an American educator, orator, author and the dominant leader of the African-American community nationwide from the 1890s to his death. Born to slavery and freed by the Civil War in 1865, as a young man, became head of the new Tuskegee Institute, then a teachers’ college for blacks. ...Washington did much to improve the overall friendship and working relationship between the races in the United States. His autobiography, Up From Slavery, first published in 1901, is still widely read today. ..... The organizers of the new all-black Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute found the energetic leader they sought in 25 year-old Booker T. Washington. Washington believed with a little self help, people may go from poverty to success. The new school opened on July 4, 1881, initially using space in a local church. The next year, Washington purchased a former plantation, which became the permanent site of the campus. Under his direction, his students literally built their own school: constructing classrooms, barns and outbuildings; growing their own crops and raising livestock, and providing for most of their own basic necessities.[6] Both men and women had to learn trades as well as academics. Washington helped raise funds to establish and operate hundreds of small community schools and institutions of higher educations for blacks.[7] The Tuskegee faculty utilized each of these activities to teach the students basic skills to take back to the mostly rural black communities throughout the South. The main goal was not to produce farmers and tradesmen, but teachers of farming and trades who taught in the new high schools and colleges for blacks across the South. The school later grew to become the present-day Tuskegee University.[8]

The institute illustrated Washington’s aspirations for his race. His theory was that by providing needed skills to society, African Americans would play their part, leading to acceptance by white Americans. He believed that blacks would eventually gain full participation in society by showing themselves to be responsible, reliable American citizens. Shortly after the Spanish-American War, President William McKinley and most of his cabinet visited the College President at the University. Washington was head of the school until his death in 1915. By then Tuskegee’s endowment had grown to over $1.5 million, compared to the initial $2,000 annual appropriation.[9]

MORE on him here (shows the “politicized opinion” about Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington

[Albion Wilde]

Many thanks for the links -- I'm aware of the Sowell book and certainly have read Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery; other FReepers should go there!

Booker T. Washington has been one of my culture heroes since the mid-60s. I read his book as a female planning to enter a traditionally male line of work, and received enormous inspiration from it. He was one of the greatest Americans ever; as your link to the Wikipedia article points out, his advice that blacks should gain acceptance through hard work and good citizenship behavior has been pushed aside by radical militants, like Gates' idol W.E.B. Du Bois, since the 60s.