Chapter FIVE: Meeting Race Prejudice

Although intensely human and consumingly interested in humanity--both in the mass and as individuals, whether of his own race or any other--Booker Washington thought and acted to an uncommon degree on the impersonal plane. This characteristic was perhaps most strikingly illustrated in his attitude toward race prejudice. When, many years ago, he had charge of the Indian students at Hampton, and had occasion to travel with them, he found they were free to occupy in the hotels any rooms they could pay for, whereas he must either go without or take a room in the servants' quarters. He regarded these experiences as interesting illustrations of the illogical nature of race prejudice. The occupants of these hotels did not resent mingling with members of a backward race whose skin happened to be red, but they did object to mingling on the same terms with members of another backward race whose skin happened to be black. It apparently never entered his head to regard this discrimination with bitterness or as a personal rebuff. One could not, however, make a greater mistake than to assume from this impersonal attitude that he condoned race prejudice, or in any sense stood as an apologist for it. To dispel any such idea one has only to recall his speech at the Peace Jubilee in Chicago after the Spanish War, from which we have already quoted, and in which he characterized racial prejudice as "a cancer gnawing at the heart of the Republic, that shall one day prove as dangerous as an attack from an army without or within."

Very early in his career Washington worked out for himself a perfectly definite line of conduct in the matter of social mingling with white people. In the South he scrupulously observed the local customs and avoided offending the prejudices of the Southerners in so far as was possible without unduly handicapping his work. For instance, in his constant travelling throughout the South he not only violated their customs, but oftentimes their laws, in using sleeping cars, but this he was obliged to do because he could spare neither the time to travel by day nor the strength and energy to sit up all night. This particular Southern prejudice and the laws predicated upon it he was hence forced to violate, but he did so as a physical necessity to the accomplishment of his work and not in any sense as a defiance of custom or law. While in the South he observed Southern customs and bowed to Southern prejudices, but he declined to be bound by such customs, laws, and prejudices when in other parts of this country or the world. Except in the South he allowed himself whatever degree of social intercourse with the whites seemed best calculated to accomplish his immediate object and his ultimate aims. He never accepted purely social invitations from white persons. He always claimed that he could best satisfy his social desires among his own people. He believed that the question of so-called "social equality" between the races was too academic and meaningless to be worthy of serious discussion.

Probably he never made a more well-considered or illuminating statement of his personal attitude toward social intercourse with the dominant race than in a letter to the late Edgar Gardiner Murphy, a Southerner "of light and leading," author of "The Present South," "The Basis of Ascendancy," and other notable books on the relations between the races. Mr. Murphy, as a Southerner, became alarmed at the attacks upon Booker Washington by certain Southern newspapers and public men because of his appearance at so-called social functions in the North. Mr. Murphy, rightly regarding the retention of the favorable opinion of representative Southern whites as essential to the success of Washington's work, very naturally feared any course of action which seemed to threaten the continuance of that favorable opinion. In response to a letter in which Mr. Murphy expressed these fears and asked for an opportunity to discuss the situation with him Mr. Washington replied as follows:

[_Personal_]

MY DEAR SIR: I have received your kind letter, for which I
thank you very much. I was very much disappointed that I did
not have an opportunity of meeting you, as I had planned the
other day, so as not to be so hurried in talking with you as
I usually am. I shall be very glad, however, the very first
time I can find another spare hour when in New York (Mr.
Murphy was then living in New York City) to have you talk
with me fully and frankly about the matters that are in your
mind.

However we may differ in our view regarding certain matters,
there is no man in the country whose frankness, earnestness,
and sincere disinterestedness I respect more than yours, and
whatever you say always has great weight with me.

Your letter emphasizes the tremendous difficulty of the work
at the South. In most cases, and in most countries where a
large section of the people are down, and are to be helped
up, those attempting to do the work have before them a
straight, simple problem of elevating the unfortunate people
without the entanglement of racial prejudice to be grappled
with. I think I do not exaggerate when I say that perhaps a
third or half of the thought and energy of those engaged in
the elevation of the colored people is given in the
direction of trying to do the thing or not doing the thing
which would enhance racial prejudice. This feature of the
situation I believe very few people at the North or at the
South appreciate. What is true of the Negro educator is true
in a smaller degree of the white educator at the South. I am
constantly trying, as best I can, to study the situation as
it is right here on the ground, and I may be mistaken, but
aside from the wild and demagogical talk on the part of a
few I am unable to discover much or any change in the
attitude of the best white people toward the best colored
people. So far as my own individual experience and
observation are concerned, I am treated about the same as I
have always been. I was in Athens, Georgia, a few days ago,
to deliver ah address before the colored people at the State
Fair, and the meeting was attended by the best class of
whites and the best class of colored people, who seemed to
be pleased over what I said.

Mr. Blank, a Southern Congressman, just now is making a good
deal of noise, but you will recall that Mr. Blank spoke just
as bitterly against me before Mr. Roosevelt became President
as he has since. I do not want to permit myself to be
misled, but I repeat that I cannot see or feel that any
great alienation has taken place between the two classes of
people that you refer to.

For the sake of argument I want to grant for the moment a
thing which I have never done before, even in a private
letter, and which is very distasteful to me, and that is,
that I am the leader of the colored people. Do you think it
will ever be possible for one man to be set up as the leader
of ten millions of people, meaning a population nearly twice
as large as that of the Dominion of Canada and nearly equal
to that of the Republic of Mexico, without the actions of
that individual being carefully watched and commented upon,
and what he does being exaggerated either in one direction
or the other? Again, if I am the leader and therefore the
mouthpiece for ten millions of colored people, is it
possible for such a leader to avoid coming into contact with
the representatives of the ruling classes of white people
upon many occasions; and is it not to be expected that when
questions that are racial and national and international in
their character are to be discussed, that such a
representative of the Negro race would be sought out both by
individuals and by conventions? If, as you kindly suggest, I
am the leader, I hardly see how such notoriety and
prominence as will naturally come can be wholly or in any
large degree avoided.

Judging by some of the criticisms that have appeared
recently, mainly from the class of people to whom I have
referred, it seems to me that some of the white people at
the South are making an attempt to control my actions when I
am in the North and in Europe. Heretofore, no man has been
more careful to regard the feelings of the Southern people
in actions and words than I have been, and this policy I
shall continue to pursue, but I have never attempted to hide
or to minimize the fact that when I am out of the South I do
not conform to the same customs and rules that I do in the
South. I say I have not attempted to hide it because
everything that I have done in this respect was published
four years ago in my book, "Up from Slavery," which has been
read widely throughout the South, and I did not hear a word
of adverse criticism passed upon what I had done. For
fifteen years I have been doing at the North just what I
have been doing during the past year. I have never attended
a purely social function given by white people anywhere in
the country. Nearly every week I receive invitations to
weddings of rich people, but these I always refuse. Mrs.
Washington almost never accompanies me on any occasion where
there can be the least sign of purely social intercourse.
Whenever I meet white people in the North at their offices,
in their parlors, or at their dinner tables, or at banquets,
it is with me purely a matter of business, either in the
interest of our institution or in the interest of my race;
no other thought ever enters my mind. For me to say now,
after fifteen years of creating interest in my race and in
this institution in that manner, that I must stop, would
simply mean that I must cease to get money in a large
measure for this institution. In meeting the people in this
way I am simply doing what the head of practically every
school, black and white, in the South is constantly doing.
For purely social pleasure I have always found all my
ambitions satisfied among my own people, and you will find
that in proportion as the colored race becomes educated and
prosperous, in the same proportion is this true of all
colored people.

I said a minute ago that I had tried to be careful in regard
to the feelings of the Southern people. It has been urged
upon me time and time again to employ a number of white
teachers at this institution. I have not done so and do not
intend to do so, largely for the reason that they would be
constantly mingling with each other at the table. For thirty
years and more, in every one of our Southern States, white
and colored people have sat down to the table three times a
day nearly throughout the year, and I have heard very little
criticism passed upon them. This kind of thing, however, at
Tuskegee I have always tried to avoid so far as our regular
teaching force is concerned. But I repeat, if I begin to
yield in the performance of my duty when out of the South in
one respect, I do not know where the end will be. It is very
difficult for you, or any other person who is not in my
place, to understand the difficulty and embarrassment that I
am confronted with. You have no idea how many invitations of
various kinds I am constantly refusing or trying to get away
from because I want to avoid embarrassing situations. For
example, over a year ago Mr. S---- invited me to go to
Stockbridge, Massachusetts, near Lenox, to deliver an
address on General Armstrong's life and work. When I reached
Stockbridge an hour or so before the time of delivering the
address, I found that Mr. S----, who had invited me, had
also invited five or six other gentlemen to meet me at
luncheon. The luncheon I knew nothing about until I reached
the town. Under such circumstances I am at a loss to know
how I could have avoided accepting the invitation. A few
days afterward I filled a long-standing invitation to
lecture at Amherst College. I reached the town a few hours
before dinner and found that a number of people, including
several college presidents, had been invited to meet me at
dinner. Taking still another case: over a year ago I
promised a colored club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that I
would be their guest at a banquet in October. The banquet
was held on the third of the month, and when I reached
Cambridge I found that in addition to the members of the
colored club, the Mayor of the city and a number of Harvard
professors, including President Eliot, had been invited; and
I could go on and state case after case. Of course, if I
wanted to make a martyr of myself and draw especial
attention to me and to the institution, I could easily do so
by simply writing whenever I receive an invitation to a
dinner or banquet that I could not accept on account of the
color of my skin.

Six years ago at the Peace Jubilee in Chicago, where I spoke
at a meeting at which President McKinley was present, I took
both luncheon and dinner in the same dining-room with
President McKinley and was the guest of the same club that
he was a guest of. There were Southern men present, and the
fact that I was present and spoke was widely heralded
throughout the South, and so far as I know not a word of
adverse comment was made. For nearly fifteen years the
addresses which I have been constantly making at dinners and
banquets in the North have been published throughout the
South, and no adverse comment has been made regarding my
presence on these occasions.

Practically all of the invitations to functions that are of
even a semi-social character are urged upon me by Northern
people, and very often after I have refused to accept
invitations pressure is brought to bear on special friends
of mine in order to get me to accept. Notwithstanding all
this, where I accept one invitation I refuse ten; in fact,
you have no idea how many invitations to dinner I refuse
while I am in the North. I not only do so for the reason
that I do not care to excite undue criticism, but for the
further reason that if I were to accept any large proportion
of such invitations I would have little time left for my
legitimate work. In many cases the invitations come from
people who do not give money but simply want to secure a
notoriety or satisfy curiosity.

I have stated the case as I see it, and with a view of
having you think over these matters by the time that we
meet.

[Signed] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

There were two particularly notable occasions upon which Mr. Washington unwittingly stirred the prejudices of the South. The first was when in 1901 he dined with President Roosevelt and his family at the White House; the second, when four years later he dined with Mr. John Wanamaker and his daughter at a hotel in Saratoga, New York.

The truth of his dining at the White House, of which so many imaginary versions have been given, was this: having received so many expressions of approval from all sections of the country on his appointment of ex-Governor Jones to a Federal judgeship in Alabama, which appointment was made, as described in a previous chapter, on the recommendation of Booker Washington and Grover Cleveland, President Roosevelt asked him to come to the White House and discuss with him some further appointments and other matters of mutual interest.

On arriving in Washington he went to the home of his friend, Whitefield McKinlay, a colored man with whom he usually stopped when in the Capital. The next morning he went to the White House by appointment for an interview with the President. Since they did not have time to finish their discussion, the President, in accordance with the course he had often followed with others under similar circumstances, invited Washington to come to dinner so that they might finish their discussion in the evening without loss of time.

In response to this oral invitation he went to the White House at the appointed time, dined with the President and his family and two other guests, and after dinner discussed with the President chiefly the character of individual colored office holders or applicants for office and, as says Colonel Roosevelt, "the desirability in specific cases, notably in all offices having to do with the administration of justice, of getting high-minded and fearless white men into office--men whom we could be sure would affirmatively protect the law-abiding Negro's right to life, liberty, and property just exactly as they protected the rights of law-abiding white men." Also they discussed the public service of the South so far as the representatives of the Federal Administration were concerned--the subject upon which President Roosevelt had wished to consult him. The next day the bare fact that he had dined with the President was obscurely announced by the Washington papers as a routine item of White House news. Some days later, however, an enterprising correspondent for a Southern paper lifted this unpretentious item from oblivion and sent it to his paper to be blazoned forth in a front-page headline. For days and weeks thereafter the Southern press fairly shrieked with the news of this quiet dinner. The very papers which had most loudly praised the President for his appointment of a Southern Democrat to a Federal judgeship now execrated him for inviting to dine with him the man upon whose recommendation he had made this appointment.

Mr. Washington was also roundly abused for his "presumption" in daring to dine at the White House. This was a little illogical in view of the well-known fact that an invitation to the White House is a summons rather than an invitation in the ordinary sense. Neither President Roosevelt nor Mr. Washington issued any statements by way of explanation or apology. While it was, of course, farthest from the wishes of either to offend the sensibilities of the South, neither one--the many statements to the contrary, notwithstanding--ever indicated subsequently any regret or admitted that the incident was a mistake.

During the furore over this incident both the President and Mr. Washington received many threats against their lives. The President had the Secret Service to protect him, while Mr. Washington had no such reliance. His co-workers surrounded him with such precautions as they could, and his secretary accumulated during this period enough threatening letters to fill a desk drawer. It was not discovered until some years after that one of these threats had been followed by the visit to Tuskegee of a hired assassin. A strange Negro was hurt in jumping off the train before it reached the Tuskegee Institute station. There being no hospital for Negroes in the town of Tuskegee he was taken to the hospital of the Institute, where he was cared for and nursed for several weeks before he was able to leave. Mr. Washington was absent in the North during all of this time. Many months later this Negro confessed that he had come to Tuskegee in the pay of a group of white men in Louisiana for the purpose of assassinating Booker Washington. He said that he became so ashamed of himself while being cared for by the doctors and nurses employed by the very man he had come to murder that he left as soon as he was able to do so instead of waiting to carry out his purpose on the return of his victim, as he had originally planned to do.

Booker Washington, with all his philosophy and capacity for rising above the personal, was probably more deeply pained by this affair than any other in his whole career. His pain was, however, almost solely on Mr. Roosevelt's account. He felt keenly hurt and chagrined that Mr. Roosevelt, whom he so intensely admired, and who was doing so much, not only for his own race but for the whole South as he believed, should suffer all this abuse and even vilification on his account. President Roosevelt evidently realized something of how he felt, for in a letter to him written at this time he added this postscript: "By the way, don't worry about _me_; it will all come right in time, and if I have helped by ever so little 'the ascent of man' I am more than satisfied."

Probably no single public event ever gave Booker Washington greater pleasure than Colonel Roosevelt's triumphant election to the Presidency in 1904. The day after the election he wrote the President the following letter:

[_Personal_]

_Tuskegee Institute, Alabama,_
_November 10, 1904_.

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I cannot find words in which to
express my feeling regarding the tremendous outcome of
Tuesday's election. I know that you feel the sacred and
almost divine confidence imposed. In my opinion, no human
being in America since Washington, perhaps, has been so
honored and vindicated. The result shows that the great
heart of the American people beats true and is in the
direction of fair play for all, regardless of race or color.
Nothing has ever occurred which has given me more faith in
all races or shows more plainly that they will respond to
high ideals when properly appealed to.

I know that you will not misunderstand me when I say I share
somewhat the feeling of triumph and added responsibility
that must animate your soul at the present time because of
the personal abuse heaped upon you on account of myself. The
great victory and vindication does not make me feel boastful
or vainglorious, but, on the other hand, very humble, and
gives me more faith in humanity and makes me more determined
to work harder in the interest of all our people of both
races regardless of race or color. I shall urge our people
everywhere to manifest their gratitude by showing a spirit
of meekness and added usefulness. The election shows to
what a great height you have already lifted the character of
American citizenship. Before you leave the White House I am
sure that the whole South will understand you and love you.

God keep you and bless you.

Yours most sincerely,

[Signed] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

_To President Theodore Roosevelt, White House, Washington_

President Roosevelt expressed great appreciation of this letter and said that Mr. Washington had taken the election in just the way he would have wished him to take it.

About two years later Mr. Washington wrote President Roosevelt another letter which throws light upon the relations between the two men as well as upon the incongruous phases of racial prejudice:

_Tuskegee Institute, Alabama,_
_June 19, 1906._

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: It will interest you to know that the
Cox family, over whom such a disturbance was made in
connection with the Indianola, Miss., post-office, have
started a bank in that same town which direct and reliable
information convinces me is in a prosperous condition. The
bank has the confidence of both races. It is a curious
circumstance that while objection was made to this black
family being at the head of the post-office no objection is
made to this black man being president of a bank in the same
town.

A letter just received from a reliable banker in Mississippi
contains the following sentences:

"Now, with reference to Mr. W.W. Cox, of Indianola, Miss., I
beg to advise that no man of color is as highly regarded and
respected by the white people of his town and county as he.
It is true that he organized and is cashier of the Delta
Penny Savings Bank, domiciled there. I visited Indianola
during the spring of 1905 and was very much surprised to
note the esteem in which he was held by the bankers and
business men (white) of that place. He is a good, clean man
and above the average in intelligence, and knows how to
handle the typical Southern white man. In the last statement
furnished by his bank to the State Auditor, his bank showed
total resources of $46,000. He owns and lives in one of the
best resident houses in Indianola, regardless of race, and
located in a part of the town where other colored men seem
to be not desired. The whites adjacent to him seem to be his
friends. He has a large plantation near the town, worth
$35,000 or $40,000. He is a director in Mr. Pettiford's bank
at Birmingham, Ala., and I think is vice-president of the
same. He also owns stock in the bank of Mound Bayou."

Yours very truly,

[Signed] BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

_To President Theodore Roosevelt, Washington, D.C._

In August, 1905, Booker Washington spoke one Sunday morning before a large audience in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. After his address Mr. John Wanamaker and his daughter were among those who came forward to greet him. They also invited him to dine with them at the United States Hotel that afternoon. Mr. Wanamaker had been particularly interested in Booker Washington and his work for many years. Mr. Washington accepted this invitation without the least thought of reawakening the clamor caused by the Roosevelt dinner. The dinner itself passed off quietly, pleasantly, and without particular event. It was not until he took up the papers at his little hotel in New York the next morning that he found that he had again stirred up a hornet's nest similar to that of four years before. The denunciation was if anything more violent; for, as many of his assailants said, he should have profited by the protests of four years before. In an editorial entitled, "Booker Washington's Saratoga Performance" a Southern newspaper said: "Since the fateful day when Booker T. Washington sat down to the dinner table in the White House with President Roosevelt he has done many things to hurt the cause of which he is regarded as the foremost man.... Leaving out of the question the lack of delicacy and self-respect manifested by Wanamaker and his family, blame must rest upon Washington, because he knows how deep and impassable is the gulf between whites and blacks in the South when the social situation is involved. He deliberately flaunts all this in the face of the Southern people among whom he is living and among whom his work has to be carried on. He could have given no harder knock to his institution than he gave when he marched into that Saratoga dinner room with a white woman and her father."

These sentiments were expressed editorially by another Southern paper: "Wanamaker is unworthy to shine the shoes of Booker Washington. He is not in Washington's class. If the truly smart set of Saratoga was shocked that Booker should have been caught in this man's company and as his guest we are not surprised. But still Booker Washington could not eat dinner with the most ordinary white man in this section. He wouldn't dare intimate that he sought such social recognition among whites here"; and in conclusion this editorial said: "The South only pities the daughter that she should have allowed herself to be used by a father whose sensibilities and ideas of the proprieties are so dulled by his asinine qualities that he could not see the harm in it."

This vituperation of Mr. Wanamaker, and the scoring him for his part in the affair even more than Washington, recalls an incident which Mr. Washington himself relates in his book entitled, "My Larger Education." When he was making a trip through Florida, a few weeks after his dinner with President Roosevelt, at a little station near Gainesville, "A white man got aboard the train," he says, "whose dress and manner indicated that he was from the class of small farmers in that part of the country. He shook hands with me very cordially, and said: 'I am mighty glad to see you. I have heard about you and I have been wanting to meet you for a long while.'

"I was naturally pleased at this cordial reception, but I was surprised when, after looking me over, he remarked: 'Say, you are a great man. You are the greatest man in this country.'

"I protested mildly, but he insisted, shaking his head and repeating, 'Yes, sir, the greatest man in this country.' Finally I asked him what he had against President Roosevelt, telling him at the same time that, in my opinion, the President of the United States was the greatest man in the country.

"'Huh! Roosevelt?' he replied, with considerable emphasis in his voice, 'I used to think that Roosevelt was a great man until he ate dinner with you. That settled him for me.'"

Mr. Washington goes on to say: "This remark of a Florida farmer is but one of the many experiences which have taught me something of the curious nature of this thing that we call prejudice--social prejudice, race prejudice, and all the rest. I have come to the conclusion that these prejudices are something that it does not pay to disturb. It is best to 'let sleeping dogs lie.' All sections of the United States, like all other parts of the world, have their own peculiar customs and prejudices. For that reason it is the part of common sense to respect them. When one goes to European countries, or into the Far West, or into India or China, he meets certain customs and certain prejudices which he is bound to respect and, to a certain extent, comply with. The same holds good regarding conditions in the North and in the South. In the South it is not the custom for colored and white people to be entertained at the same hotel; it is not the custom for black and white children to attend the same school. In most parts of the North a different custom prevails. I have never stopped to question or quarrel with the customs of the people in the part of the country in which I found myself."

And so he acted in the case of the Wanamaker dinner. He accepted Mr. Wanamaker's invitation because he was in the North and his host was a Northerner. In so doing he felt that he was not violating any generally accepted custom or universally entertained prejudice of the part of the country in which he found himself. Had the inconceivable occurred, and had a Southerner invited him to dine in the South, under conditions in all other respects identical, he would not have accepted. He would not have been willing to incur the resentment of the South even had his host been willing to defy local prejudices by inviting him. On the other hand, he felt that the attitude of those who would seek to control him in matters of social custom when he was not in the South or among Southerners was unfair and unreasonable.

An incident which occurred while he was stopping at the English Hotel in Indianapolis in 1903 furnished copy for the more or less sensational press of the country. This hotel does not as a rule accept Negroes as guests, but Mr. Washington was always a welcome visitor there just as he was at many other hotels where less-favored members of his race were excluded. He never patronized this hotel or any other for the purpose of asserting his rights, but merely to obtain the comforts and the seclusion so essential to a man who always worked up to the limits of even his great strength and usually a little beyond such limits. It is, indeed, quite possible that he might have lived longer had he been free to stop at hotels in the South instead of undergoing the constant wear and tear of being entertained in the private homes of the all-too-kind hosts of his own race. All public men and lecturers, in a large way of business, learn early in their careers that they must decline practically all proffers of private hospitality if they are to preserve their health.

On this occasion the white chambermaid assigned to care for the room he occupied refused to perform her duties so far as his room was concerned on the ground, as she stated, that she "would not clean up after a nigger." For this refusal to do her work the management discharged her. The Springfield _Republican_ of that date thus describes what followed: "A hotel at Houston, Texas, immediately offered her a place there, which she accepted, but as matters are now going she is more likely to retire from the business as a grand lady living on an independent income. Her name is upon all tongues in the Southland, and the newspapers print long and complimentary accounts of her life and the one great deed that has made her famous. Citizens and communities vie with each other in contributing money.... Captain John W. Johnson of Sheffield, Ala., is organizing a general subscription fund from that and neighboring towns. A meeting at Houston, Texas, raised $500 for her in the name of a 'self-respecting girl.' The Houston _Chronicle_ is conducting another popular subscription. Contributions are coming into it from all parts of Texas. Citizens of New Orleans have raised $1,000. About twoscore Southern towns and a dozen cities so far figure in the contributions. The movement extends to Indianapolis, where a gold watch has been contributed." The hysterical lauding of this "heroine" was subsequently wet blanketed by the discovery that she had cared for Mr. Washington's room for the first day or two of his stay without protest, and by the further discovery that her second or third husband had recently obtained a divorce from her.

It is only fair to add that many of the leading citizens of the South strongly deprecated the sensational magnifying of this trivial incident by a certain section of the Southern press. Mr. Washington declined to make any comment for publication during or after this petty tumult.

In spite of the three events described, and others of a like nature that might be mentioned, no Negro was ever so liked, respected, admired, and eulogized by the Southern whites as Booker Washington. The day following his great speech before the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta in 1895 when he went out upon the streets of the city he was so besieged by white citizens from the highest to the lowest, who wanted to shake his hand and congratulate him, that he was fairly driven in self-defense to remain indoors. Not many years after that it had become a commonplace for him to be an honored guest on important public occasions throughout the South. On occasions too numerous even to note in passing he was welcomed, and introduced to great audiences, by Southern Governors, Mayors, and other high officials, as well as by eminent private citizens. Such recognition came partly as a spontaneous tribute to the great work he was doing and partly because of his constantly reiterated assurance that the Negro was not seeking either political domination over the white man or social intercourse with him. He reasoned that the more Southern whites he could convince that his people were not seeking what is known as social equality or political dominance, the less race friction there would be.

It has already been mentioned that at the opening of the first Negro agricultural fair in Albany, Georgia, in the fall of 1914, the Mayor of the city and several members of the City Council sat on the platform during the exercises and listened to his speech with most spontaneous and obvious approval. In this part of Georgia the Negroes outnumber the whites by at least six to one. The afternoon of the same day the Mayor invited Booker Washington and his party to come to the city hall and confer with himself, the other city officials, and a group of prominent private citizens on the relations between the races in that city and locality. At this conference there was a friendly, easy interchange of ideas interspersed with jokes and laughter, but all the time Mr. Washington was leading them step by step to see that by giving the Negroes proper educational opportunities they were helping themselves as well as the Negroes. Mr. Stowe, who was present at this conference, noticed to his surprise that some of the arguments advanced by Dr. Washington, which seemed to him to be almost worn-out truisms, although freshly and strongly expressed, were seized upon by his auditors as new and original ideas. When he made this observation to Mr. Washington after the meeting he said that several other Northerners had under similar circumstances made the same observation and then he added: "I only wish that it were possible for me to spend several months of each year talking with just such groups of representative Southern men. They are always responsive, eager to understand what we are driving at, and sympathetic when they do understand. The necessity for raising money has forced us to devote the bulk of our time to educating the Northern public to the needs of the situation to the neglect of our Southern white neighbors right here about us."

It was an interesting illustration of the illogical workings of race prejudice that this man to whom the city fathers from the Mayor down gave up practically their entire day--this man to whom the city hall was thrown open and at whose feet sat the leading citizens as well as the officials of the city, could not have found shelter in any hotel in town. This man whom the officials and other leading citizens delighted to honor arrived at night on a Pullman sleeping car in violation of the law of the State; and, after all possible honor had been paid him, save allowing him to enter a hotel, departed the next night by a Pullman sleeper in violation of the law!

This constant "law-breaker" was welcomed and introduced to audiences by Governor Blanchard of Louisiana at Shreveport, La.; by Governor Candler at Atlanta, Ga.; by Governor Donaghey at Little Rock, Ark.; by Governor McCorkle of West Virginia, and successively by Governors Jelks and O'Neil of his own State of Alabama. Still other Southern Governors spoke from the same platform with him at congresses, conventions, and meetings of various descriptions.

Next to South Carolina and Georgia, perhaps no State in the Union has shown as much hostility to the progress of the Negro as Mississippi. In 1908, in response to the urgent appeals of Charles Banks, the Negro banker and dominating force of the Negro town of Mound Bayou, Mr. Washington agreed to make a tour through Mississippi such as he had made three years before through Arkansas and what were then Oklahoma and Indian Territories. At Jackson, Miss., the management of the State Fair Association offered the local committee of Negroes the great Liberal Arts Building for Mr. Washington's address. In the audience were not less than five thousand persons, among them several hundred white citizens. Among the whites who sat on the platform were Governor Noel, Lieutenant-Governor Manship, Bishop Charles B. Galloway of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, Mr. Milsaps, the richest citizen of the State; the postmaster of Jackson, the United States Marshal, Hon. Edgar S. Wilson, and a considerable number of other prominent white citizens.

At Natchez, a few nights later, the audience literally filled every available space in the Grand Opera House and overflowed into the adjoining streets. This audience was in many respects the most remarkable that the city had ever seen. The entire orchestra was given over to the white citizens of Natchez and Adams County, and still there was not room to accommodate them, for they were packed in the rear and stood three and four deep in the aisles. The colored people were crowded into the balcony and the galleries. When Booker Washington arose to speak, he was greeted by a perfect whirlwind of applause and cheering. He was visibly affected by the reception given him by whites as well as blacks.

When he finished speaking a large delegation headed by the Mayor of the city made their way to the platform, welcomed him to the city, thanked him for his address, and stated that his influence for good in the city and county could not be estimated.

Mr. J.T. Harahan, of the Illinois Central Railroad, provided the Pullman tourist car in which Mr. Washington and his party toured the State. It was estimated that from sixty to eighty thousand people saw and heard him during his seven days' trip. On the conclusion of the tour one paper said, "No more popular man ever came into the State, white or black, and no man ever spoke to larger audiences than he did. He is the only speaker who ever filled the Jackson, Miss., Coliseum."

Only six months before his death Booker Washington made a similar tour through Louisiana. Louisiana has always been reputed to be in the same category as Mississippi in opposing Negro progress. To some of his audiences Mr. Washington said that he and his party of twenty-five colored men had felt before they started very much like the little girl who was about to go on a trip to Louisiana with her parents. The night before they started she said her prayer as usual:

"_Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take._"

With a deep sigh she then added, "Good-bye, Lord, for two weeks. We are going down to Louisiana."

In introducing Mr. Washington to a great audience in New Orleans, made up of both races, Mayor Berhman said, turning to Booker Washington:

"The work you are doing for the uplift of your people means untold good to the great State of Louisiana and to the whole country. Nowhere has your race greater opportunities than in Louisiana. If the people of the Negro race will follow your teachings, they will help materially to bring about a condition that will mean much for Louisiana, the South, and the nation."

At Shreveport former Governor N.C. Blanchard, in introducing Dr. Washington to an audience of over 10,000 white and colored citizens, said: "I am glad to see this goodly attendance of white people, representative white people at that, for his Honor, the Mayor, is here, and with him are members and officials of the city government and other prominent citizens of our community. They are here to give encouragement to Mr. Washington, to hold up his hands, for they know that he is leading his people along right lines--lines tending to promote better feeling and better understanding between the two races....

"Our country needs to have white and black people, sober, honest, frugal, and thrifty. Booker T. Washington stands for these things. He advises and counsels and leads toward these goals. Hear him and heed his words."

At the invitation of Superintendent Gwinn the colored school children of New Orleans were given a half-holiday to hear Dr. Washington. He addressed them in an arena seating more than five thousand people, which was given for the occasion by its white owner.

To one of these Louisiana audiences Mr. Washington said: "Both races in the South suffer at the hands of public opinion by reason of the fact that the outside world hears of our difficulties, of crimes, mobs, and lynchings, but it does not hear of or know about the evidences of racial friendship and good-will which exist in the majority of communities in Louisiana and other Southern States where black and white people live together in such large numbers. Lynchings are widely reported by telegraph. The quiet, effective work of devoted white people in the South for Negro uplift is not generally or widely reported. The best white citizenship must take charge of the mob and not have the mob take charge of civilization. There is enough wisdom, patience, forbearance, and common sense in the South for white people and black people to live together in peace for all time."

In short, Booker Washington met race prejudice just as he did all other difficulties, as an obstacle to be surmounted rather than as an injustice to be railed at and denounced regardless of the consequences.