Commentary: Remembering, honoring Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in Virginia in the 1850s. When he was about 9 years old, U.S. troops came into the area to read the Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that the slaves were now free!

His mother cried tears of joy, as she gathered her children and prepared them for the journey to West Virginia to join her husband, who had escaped North earlier during the Civil War.

Washington immediately set about to teach himself to read because he knew it was his path to a better future. Educating slaves in the South had been forbidden after a series of uprisings in which the families of slave owners had been murdered. Southerners feared it would happen again, so slaves faced more restrictions on their lives, and learning to read and write was prohibited.

Washington found work that was tough in the coal mines of West Virginia. When he had saved enough money, he traveled to Hampton Institute to expand his education. Many schools were opened by whites and blacks to teach reading and other skills to the former slaves after the Civil War. Washington continued to work at the school to help pay for his studies.

When a new normal school (teachers’ college) was opened in Alabama, Washington’s mentor recommended that he become the first leader of this school, the Tuskegee Institute. Today, Tuskegee is a famous African American college and is especially famous for the black airmen who trained there during World War II.

This is where Washington lived as the president of the school and worked to spread his vision for uplifting the former slaves. This became a training school for teachers and for industrial education. Washington’s goal was to help the former slaves gain full participation in society as responsible citizens who slowly gained more economic self-reliance on their way to becoming honorable citizens in their communities.

He encouraged “industry, thrift, intelligence and property.” Washington believed these were the keys for improving the condition of the former slaves, many of whom worked as sharecroppers after the Civil War in the cash-poor society. In this system, a farmer would pay his workers with part of the harvested crops instead of cash. Because they were not independent, sharecroppers were economically trapped in this system.

Washington called for progress through education and entrepreneurship. He focused on self-help and schooling.

W.E.B. DuBois, an activist leader of the time, thought that a more radical and demanding approach for the equal treatment of the black community was necessary. He was scornful of Washington’s more accommodating approach.

But Washington was firm in his beliefs. He raised money for education and for the right to vote. He became friends with President Theodore Roosevelt and was invited to the White House to share his ideas with the president and with the nation.

Washington died in 1915. He was mourned by all. A postage stamp was issued in his honor in 1940. A U.S. half dollar was minted from 1951 to 1954 with his likeness.

A monument to his fame and greatness stands at Tuskegee Institute bearing the inscription:

“He lifted the veil of ignorance from his people and pointed the way to progress through education and industry.”

Newport Beach resident SHERRY NORD MARRON taught History at Orange Coast College and the University of Connecticut.