TWO LINES OF WORK

“I realize fully, and have always said so on every proper occasion, that there are two lines of work to be accomplished. One is in the direction of agitation, calling attention to wrongs and the condemnation of these wrongs. Along with this there should go efforts in the direction of education, moral and religious teaching and helping of the race to strengthen itself in material and financial directions. There is a wide field in all this for every man of the race who wants to give service.”-Booker T. Washington, “To Nicholas Chiles,” November 17, 1906 [Tuskegee, Alabama]

Unlike his very public disagreements with men such as W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter—often through public speeches, competing editorials or tacit subterfuge—Booker T. Washington felt comfortable enough to maintain correspondence with Nicholas Chiles. Though he possessed views, in some cases, similar to both Du Bois and Trotter, Washington writes about Chiles: “I always enjoy writing you because I find you are a man with whom one can discuss matters, and even disagree, without personalities and abuse entering in.” (To be able to disagree with one’s opponents without slander or attempt to harm and injure reputation is something contemporary leaders and followers alike would do well to remember in our age of social media and internet access.)

All the same, in the aforementioned passage, Washington outlines two lines of work that might be defined in more contemporary nomenclature as “protest” and “reform/uplift”.  While the work of Du Bois, Trotter and many contemporary and historical African Americans community leaders exist in the tradition of “agitation,” “calling attention,” and “condemnation,” (and their efforts more heralded, celebrated and popularized) Washington here describes that there are others who are deeply invested in a different work: “education, moral, and religious teaching.” It is clear that work of those who exist in the tradition of a W.E.B. Du Bois is a viable one, but make no mistake, in this letter, he invokes his own work at Tuskegee and others such as Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of Bethune Cookman University, who viewed theirs as equally valuable (and perhaps even moreso.) 

First, the work of both Washington and Bethune remain visible to this very day owing to the institutions they founded. (Though valuable, often the work of protest and agitation has not fashioned long standing institution building in a vein similar to these universities or the economic development African American citizens in Tuskegee, AL , Tulsa, OK or the city of Durham, NC-the latter two affectionately referred to as “Black Wall Street” in their heyday.) Moreso, though this aspect of their religious and faith convictions are often wittingly or unwittingly muted and ignored, Washington and Bethune were persons of deep and abiding faith, and though this has often been dismissed as mere “heavenly preoccupation” and they did their best to walk wisely concerning their views, Washington and Bethune also believed it to have a very pragmatic quality for both here and now (not simply the time to come): the moral and ethical development of the African American community. (Like Washington and Bethune, there have always been African American leaders with deep and abiding faith, which went above and beyond political expediency and when one views their words and works comparatively and historically there would be much to ascertain concerning the reasons for their triumphs.) Cornel West’s (1994) _Race Matters_ alludes to this historical dynamic thusly: “THERE has not been a time in the history of black people in this country when the quantity of politicians and intellectuals was so great, yet the quality of both groups has been so low.” Whatsoever gains that are to ever be had through the efforts of both of these “lines of work,” the latter had most certainly be involved if it is to be kept, harnessed and continued.

Brian L. Johnson, Ph.D.