Up from Slavery: An AutobiographyWashington, Booker T.
History
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
Washington, Booker T.
African Americans -- Biography; Educators -- United States -- Biography; Tuskegee Institute; Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915
In the summer of 1900, with the assistance of such prominent coloured
men as Mr. T. Thomas Fortune, who has always upheld my hands in every
effort, I organized the National Negro Business League, which held its
first meeting in Boston, and brought together for the first time a
large number of the coloured men who are engaged in various lines of
trade or business in different parts of the United States. Thirty
states were represented at our first meeting. Out of this national
meeting grew state and local business leagues.
In addition to looking after the executive side of the work at
Tuskegee, and raising the greater part of the money for the support of
the school, I cannot seem to escape the duty of answering at least a
part of the calls which come to me unsought to address Southern white
audiences and audiences of my own race, as well as frequent gatherings
in the North. As to how much of my time is spent in this way, the
following clipping from a Buffalo (N.Y.) paper will tell. This has
reference to an occasion when I spoke before the National Educational
Association in that city.
Booker T. Washington, the foremost educator among the coloured people
of the world, was a very busy man from the time he arrived in the city
the other night from the West and registered at the Iroquois. He had
hardly removed the stains of travel when it was time to partake of
supper. Then he held a public levee in the parlours of the Iroquois
until eight o’clock. During that time he was greeted by over two
hundred eminent teachers and educators from all parts of the United
States. Shortly after eight o’clock he was driven in a carriage to
Music Hall, and in one hour and a half he made two ringing addresses,
to as many as five thousand people, on Negro education. Then Mr.
Washington was taken in charge by a delegation of coloured citizens,
headed by the Rev. Mr. Watkins, and hustled off to a small informal
reception, arranged in honour of the visitor by the people of his race.
Nor can I, in addition to making these addresses, escape the duty of
calling the attention of the South and of the country in general,
through the medium of the press, to matters that pertain to the
interests of both races. This, for example, I have done in regard to
the evil habit of lynching. When the Louisiana State Constitutional
Convention was in session, I wrote an open letter to that body pleading
for justice for the race. In all such efforts I have received warm and
hearty support from the Southern newspapers, as well as from those in
all other parts of the country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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