Although born into slavery in April 1856, Booker T. Washington is celebrated as one of the most influential Black leaders of his time, whose life and legacy continues to inspire Americans nationwide.
While his perspectives were criticized during his life, until his death in 1915, Washington, the first leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, is known for his views on African Americans and their role as workers.
“Booker T. Washington, the conservative head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, championed ‘industrial education,’ hard work, and an avoidance of electoral politics,” wrote Eric Arnesen of George Washington University in “Civil Rights and the Labor Movement: A Historical Overview,” published by International Brotherhood of Teamsters in February 2021. “He lectured Black workers to avoid unions, ally with white industrialists, and even break strikes to secure jobs otherwise closed to them.”
Washington’s famous address at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta on September 18, 1895 articulated the view that Black people should become proficient in agriculture, mechanics, commerce and domestic service. In it, he urged African Americans to “dignify and glorify common labor.”
In addition, he used the speech to emphasize to white laborers that African Americans were loyal and wanted to prove themselves as hard workers.
Further, Washington dismissed Black agitation for social equality as “folly,” a view that was contradicted by noted African American scholar W.E.B. DuBois. DuBois believed that Blacks should work to obtain their full civil and political rights as American citizens and that intellectual subjects should be studied, not just vocational pursuits.
“It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges,” Washington noted in the speech. “The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.”