Booker T Washington

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For every exalted leader it is often said, "he was not without flaws." Perhaps when referring to Booker T Washington, it would be more accurate to say, "he was not without virtues." Through his autobiography, we see a man raise himself Up From Slavery to succeed in a white man's world. At first glance, it's easy to assume Booker T Washington was an adequate, if not impressive leader for the black race. Yet upon a closer examination, it is easy to find his thinly veiled motives - completely selfish in nature. His ambitions, and the ambition of the black race in the late 19th century, do not fully coincide. An assessment of Washington's leadership skills shows him to be a surprisingly adept bureaucrat, although a divergent force as a representative for his race.

On a surface level, Booker T Washington indeed did make progress for African Americans. We cannot fault him for his great strides in educating an almost completely uneducated race. Washington claims that there were over six thousand men and women from Tuskegee alone that were working all over the South at the time of the books publish (202). The success of these students was due in great part to the realistic outlook of Booker T Washington. By insisting that each and every student perform manual labor, he prepared them for life much more thoroughly than could ever be accomplished in the classroom alone (135). By becoming a skilled in tasks manual labor, Washington believed you were perfectly in line for a comfortable life. In his words, "any man, regardless of colour, will be recognized and rewarded just in proportion as he learns to do something well" (181). As an educational role model, Booker T Washington was a tremendous success.

In addition to his contri...

... middle of paper ...

...he was, but he did not toil land. Instead, he built himself into a wealthy sophisticate - the father of a university with an inordinate amount of influential friends. And how did he do it? He cast down his bucket. As a black man, and a former slave, rising into fortune was a difficult task that could be accomplished only with great consideration. By founding Tuskegee, he gained notoriety. Then, by befriending whites, by being an "uncle tom", he gained power. He thus rose to prominence not as a great leader, but instead as a great manipulator of the system. Due to his uncanny ability to work within the bureaucracy of American government and culture, he was able to attain all he had ever wanted - wealth, power, and white acceptance.

Works Cited

Washington, Booker. Up From Slavery: The Autobiography Of Booker T. Washington: Aun Autobiography. Citadel, 2001.

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