When I say he has been forgotten, that is surely true with him as sure as it is with nearly everything.
There is a quote from Michener's "Tales of The South Pacific" that I love. It makes me feel sad and small every time when I read it but the absolute truth, beauty, and sentimentality makes me love it all the more:
"They will live a long time, these men of the South Pacific. They had an American quality. They, like their victories, will be remembered as long as our generation lives. After that, like the men of the Confederacy, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them, until their Guadalcanal sounds distant on the ear like Shiloh and Valley Forge."
I don't know why, but I find comfort in that.
And so it is with us, each of us, and all we have known. And so it is with the remarkable Booker T. Washington.
He deserves better, but someone like W.E.B. Dubois (a dishonorable man who appealed to the weak side and lazy side of human nature in my eyes) in today's woke society supplants an honorable, true, and hardworking man like Booker T. Washington who appealed to hard work, discipline, self-betterment, and self-control, and it is to our detriment that Dubois eclipses Washington in many influential circles.
THanks.
Strangely, not only have I read more than half of Michener (mostly in my youth) I was leant two books by him about three years ago, finished one (forget the title—it was about Palestine) and still have Sayonara on my shelf, half finished.
I would be a better person if I were half-way through Up from Slavery instead (or played less internet chess, or Freeped Less).
What is Tales of The South Pacific about?
Back to class prep.