“The first book I knew was the Bible, and it is the book from which I have received the greatest amount of instruction and information. The part of the Bible which interested me perhaps more than any other was that which told the story of the way in which Moses led the people out of the House of Bondage.
For many years the Bible was the only book the colored people knew. Even in slavery, when very few could read or write, the older people managed some how or other to gain a pretty good acquaintance with the Bible, and the younger generation have not yet forgotten what they learned on their mother’s knees.”-Booker T. Washington to J.S. Dickerson, managing editor of The Standard, November 10, 1911
To understand Booker T. Washington’s life and vocation one would do well to understand the Bible. Similarly, when discerning the lived lives of men and women—and the opinions many arrive at concerning them—one would do well to understand the Bible. And here Booker T. Washington’s ‘Statement on the Bible’ published in The Standard discloses the central tenet of his vocational life: “…it is the book from which I have received the greatest amount of instruction and information.” As his letters, writings, speeches and biographies—Up From Slavery, The Story of My Life and Work and My Larger Education—intimate, Mr. Washington’s vocational life was rooted in a profound regard for biblical principles that for him was not a mere late 19th century and early 20th century notion that would be forgotten, forsaken or considered fanatical and fundamentalist. For he believed that through observing it he would provide sufficient historical record concerning it and his life hence his adage: “Let examples answer.”
For at times his profound sense of calling—prophetic in formation and demonstration, including both his flaws and foibles until the time of his passing in 1915—found itself at odds at times with members of his own race and against the system of American racism which had enslaved him. All of which is quite telling when one considers his explicit reference to the biblical telling of the personage of Moses. And one need not be a seminarian or theologian to consider what Washington was doing here with this statement referencing Moses leading the people out of the ‘House of Bondage’. For the life of Mr. Washington and the life of the personage of Moses contains many striking parallels that would not have escaped his screwed perception.
Discover more from Brian Johnson, Ph.D.
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