“My Dear Dr. Washington,
I am writing you this letter in fear & trembling because of the fact that I am u certain as to the out-come of it, but deep down in my heart I hope that it will not have been written in vain.
I closed you will find 2 clippings from a recent letter that I received from Mr. T. Thos. Fortune of the Age [newspaper] which will give you an inkling of the mission of this letter. Also my authority for writing it.
I am a friend of Mr. Fortune’s and have been for a number of years. I am also a great & staunch admirer of you, not because of your great work alone, but because of your friendship to me when I could not help myself. This being the case it occurred to me that it was a national calamity for the greatest Negro Educator living, or dead and the greatest living Negro Editor to be estranged from each other when the union of two such great forces meant and means so much to our people.
Being constantly in touch with Mr. Fortune’s I have finally gotten his consent in touch with Mr. Fortune I have finally gotten his consent to approach you in this delicate subject and I now feel he is ready to smoke the pipe of peace and make any amends for his part in the enstrangement…” “Thomas B. Patterson to Booker T. Washington, July 2, 1913“
Besides his voluminous correspondence with his modern-day chief of staff, Mr. Emmett J. Scott, T. Thomas Fortune was the next most voluminous correspondent with Booker T. Washington for nearly 20 years of his 34-year presidency of Tuskegee Institute. Their letters date from as early as 1887 to roughly 1907. In fact, in their earliest correspondence they were to discuss a national periodical and intellectual clearinghouse coming out of none of thee than Tuskegee Institute. See ‘He stood between Giants’: https://intersectionoffaithandlearning.com/2026/02/02/he-stood-between-giants-t-thomas-fortune-booker-t-washington-and-w-e-b-du-bois/
T. Thomas Fortune had not only help edit Booker T. Washington’s first attempt at autobiography, the 1900 The Story of My Life and Work, he was his most fierce ally in the periodical press with his editorship of The New York Age, which at the time was the largest African American periodical with national circulation. Their published correspondence reveals a steady-stream of political intrigue, professional gossip, disagreements, commendations, counsel, encouragements, stratagems and also personal admonitions from Mr. Washington to Mr. Fortune about his personal affairs. Sadly, these affairs in part—and Mr. Washington’s own part in the dissolution of their relationship—led to their eventual estrangement in 1907. And in this 1913 letter from one Mr. Thomas Patterson to Booker T. Washington—if not at the behest of T. Thomas Fortune, he notably agreed to it —sought to reconcile ‘the greatest Negro educator and the greatest Negro editor.’
Though professional in nature, the correspondence between Fortune and Washington reveals a sort of sibling bond with Mr. Washington. Due to his positioning as Principal of Tuskegee and his own personal wealth, Mr. Washington would likely be considered the elder sibling. (A forthcoming commentary on Washington’s personal wealth would be intriguing. A 1903 gift from Andrew Carnegie in the amount of $600,00 would be the largest gift to Tuskegee in history with a present-day value of $22 million, $150,000 of which, was to go to Booker T. Washington directly.) All the same, Washington’s remonstrations directed towards Fortune covered a wide array of matters which most notably involved Fortune’s financial handling of his personal and business affairs. (No less intriguing were Fortune’s appeals and petitions to Washington for financial assistance beyond payments received for his work.)
Notwithstanding, although they worked very successfully on a number of matters in Tuskegee’s interests against public opposition, Fortune had long been conflicted about his service to Booker T. Washington when his own reputation was one of a firebrand and agitator for the rights of African Americans which must have made it extremely troubling for him to oppose men like W.E.B. Du Bois on behalf of Mr. Washington. Furthermore, Fortune’s financial dependency upon the ‘Wizard’ and the ‘Tuskegee Machine’ coupled with his own management of his financial affairs all came to a head in 1907.
While it is well-established that in 1907 Booker T. Washington secretly financed the purchase of Fortune’s paper to Fred Moore during a time when Mr. Fortune was suffering from mental and health breakdowns, the circumstances are no so clear. First, none of Booker T. Washington’s reveal clear evidence of his involvement nor with his attempts to influence other African American news periodicals. (The overwhelming weight of circumstantial evidence and careful readings of what he has written to others reveal otherwise.) Second, Mr. Fortune finances had been in disarray throughout his life owing to what appears to be alcoholism and Mr. Washington was privy to this and sought to assist him in several ways. Lastly, Fortune himself was seeking to sell his interest in the paper. All the same, the matter of this newspaper’s sale was the principal incident which led to the dissolution of their relationship.
All the same, Mr. Patterson’s letter likely did not lead to any reconciliation owing to Mr. Washington’s death two years later and his health being in a steady decline for many years due to his strenuous workload. Mr. Washington’s reply as usual was straightforward, astute and it did not betray any abuse to Mr. Fortune or Mr. Patterson: “I do not regard myself as being estranged from Mr. Fortune, and I do not know as he regards himself as being estranged from me in any manner of mutual interest. I am sure we will be able in the future as in the past to work together.”
At the time of Booker T. Washington’s passing in 1915, there is no record that this commentator has seen to suggest that this powerful working relationship resumed. However, the extraordinary amount of good that Fortune did for Mr. Washington and Tuskegee is still so magnificently present in articles, speeches, writings and books that a future forensic historian might be able to see Fortune’s fingerprints—literally and figuratively—littered all upon both Washington and Tuskegee’s legacy.
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