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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

From September 1912 through March 1914, Washington continued his heavy schedule of speaking, fund-raising, race leadership, and close supervision of Tuskegee Institute. Although the election of Woodrow Wilson to the presidency led to the dismantling of the Tuskegee Machine's political arm, Washington remained a prominent figure in the political arena. During this period, however, freed from the constraints he had felt as presidential adviser, he became more openly critical of racial injustice. His most sweeping and direct attack appeared in "Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance?" published in The Century a few days after Wilson's election. In this article he criticized the continuing existence of job discrimination in the North, and of Jim Crow transportation and poor education opportunities in the South. Washington continued to advocate economic and educational means for black advancement, persuading the Phelps-Stokes Fund to finance a study of black secondary and higher education and creating in 1912 the Tuskegee Five Year Fund. Despite the changing times and gradual decline in his personal vigor, Washington's actions hardly suggested the little time he had left to live

In 1911 and 1912 Washington continued to travel, lecture, and write in America and abroad. In England and Europe he studied working-class conditions and included his observations in The Man Farthest Down (1912). During this same time period, however, he and his Tuskegee Machine suffered systematic shocks from which they only partially recovered. Washington's political role as presidential adviser declined steadily during Taft's administration. The decline itself was overshadowed, if not hastened, by Washington's involvement in a highly sensationalized incident - his brutal beating at the hands of Henry Albert Ulrich in early 1911. While this act stimulated a wave of sympathy from Washington's supporters, the circumstances surrounding the incident provided added fuel for his detractors

The contrast between Booker T. Washington's private actions and public utterances continues to be revealed in this latest volume in the much-acclaimed series. Although very little changes at Tuskegee Institute during this period, Washington's leadership was faltering in the face of a virulent white racism that appeared in the North as well as the South. Still, he continued his public pursuit of and optimism for moderate solutions to racial dissension. At the same time, however, he privately redoubled his efforts to silence his black opponents, build his personal political machine, influence the black press, and maintain his autocratic rile over Tuskegee Institute

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

This volume turns from emphasizing Washington's institution-building (Tuskegee Institute) to examine those writings which reveal more about the black leader's growing role as a national public figure. Volume 5 covers a period during which Washington's fortunes continued to rise even as those of the black masses, for whom he claimed to speak, declined. Though forced to adhere narrowly to the racial philosophy he had espoused in the Atlanta Compromise address of 1895, Washington nonetheless was able to involve himself covertly in matters of civil rights and politics. He used the National Negro Business League as a front for political activity. He successfully lobbied against disenfranchisement of black voters in Georgia during November, 1899. During these years Washington began behind-the-scenes civil rights activities that foreshadowed a much more elaborate "secret life" after the turn of the century. He worked with lawyers of the Afro-American Council to test in the courts the grandfather clause of the Louisiana constitution of 1898, raising money to pay the legal costs and swearing the other participants to secrecy. T. Thomas Fortune, the leading black journalist of the day, was Washington's close personal advisor as he sought to spread his sphere of influence from his southern base to northern cities. Also included are writings on the first convention of the National Negro Business League, Washington's address before the Southern Industrial Convention in Huntsville, Ala., and the full text of Washington's first book, The Future of the American Negro, published in December, 1899

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Tables -- Foreword -- Credits -- Introduction: Rediscovering the "Masters of the House -- 1 The Start of Something New: Clay, Stevenson, Polk, and the Development of the Speakership, 1789–1869 -- 2 Thomas Brackett Reed and the Rise of Party Government -- 3 Uncle Joe Cannon: The Brakeman of the House of Representatives, 1903–1911 -- 4 Oscar W. Underwood: The First Modern House Leader, 1911–1915 -- 5 Nicholas Longworth: The Genial Czar -- 6 John Nance Garner -- 7 The Speaker and the Presidents: Sam Rayburn, the White House, and the Legislative Process, 1941–1961 -- 8 Hale Boggs: The Southerner as National Democrat -- 9 Gerald R. Ford, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, 1965–1973 -- 10 Tip O'Neill and Contemporary House Leadership -- Epilogue: Leaders Talk about Leadership -- About the Editors and Contributors -- Index

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

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