Suchergebnisse

The University of Illinois Press offers online access to "The Booker T. Washington Papers," a 14-volume set published by the press. Users can search the papers, view images, and purchase the print version of the volumes. Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856-1915) was an African-American educator who was born a slave in Franklin County, Virginia

The Washington papers continue to garner critical acclaim as a major publishing enterprise in Black and American historiography. Throughout their corpus, they reveal the private world of black Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and provide vivid personal perspectives on interracial relations during the "age of accommodation." Between 1909 and 191, Booker T. Washington remained the most powerful figure in black America. His dominance, however, did not go unchallenged. Both the newly inaugurated President William Howard Taft and the newly founded National Association for the Advancement of Colored People were at odds with Washington. In addition, his influence was further strained by the spread of race riots, lynchings, and laws discriminatory toward blacks. Still, Washington continued his efforts to promote better race relations and improve black educational and economic opportunity. On speaking tours in the South, he drew large enthusiastic crowds of both races who were captivated by his charismatic intelligence and style. He also remained very much involved with the daily life and administration of Tuskegee - among other things, redefining George Washington Carver's duties at the institute. This period also saw his continued work on My Larger Education (1911), a sequel to Up from Slaver, and The Man Farthest Down (1912), a study of the working classes in Europe

Probably nothing in Booker T. Washington' life had as much symbolic significance for the blacks for whom he claimed to speak as the day he dined with President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House, October 16, 1901. Not even the publication of his autobiography earlier that year had indicated so clearly just how far "up from slavery" Washington had traveled. Though criticized by many, the dinner was a sign, especially to his black supporters, of Washington's arrival at the heart of power in America. Even as Washington expanded his political influence to become a counselor of presidents, the racial climate was worsening and black political rights in the South were plummeting. Volume 6 documents the events of this somber period, including Washington's secret challenge to the Alabama grandfather clause. It also includes evidence of T. Thomas Fortune's diminishing influence with Washington and the extension of the Tuskegee Machine's web of influence into the North

When Booker T. Washington died in November 1915, he was mourned by blacks and whites alike as a national hero. Such prominent figures as W.E.B. Du Bois, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Julius Rosenwald publicity paid him high tribute. Distinguished journals and newspapers published editorials praising his work and lamenting his passing. The present volume includes much of this response to Washington's death and, in covering the final two years of his life, brings to a close one of the most critically acclaimed documentary projects of the past two decades