If America is looking for an antidote to the modern politics of victimhood and racial pessimism, it should rediscover Booker T. Washington.
Washington was born into slavery in Virginia in 1856. He never knew his father. After emancipation, he worked in salt furnaces and coal mines as a young boy while teaching himself to read.
Desperate for an education, he traveled hundreds of miles — much of it on foot — to attend the Hampton Institute in Virginia. He cleaned classrooms and performed manual labor to pay his tuition. From those humble beginnings, Washington would go on to become the most influential black leader in America.
In 1881, Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. What began as a few dilapidated buildings grew into one of the nation's premier educational institutions.
By the time of his death, Tuskegee sat on thousands of acres, educated more than a thousand students, and produced generations of teachers, businessmen, and many more categories of successful Americans. Washington chose not to harbor racial hatred despite growing up as a slave.
What made him such a formidable and towering figure was his belief that true freedom demanded education, self-discipline, economic independence, and strong moral character. Washington exemplified all of these, leading to a drastic increase in his fame and prominence in both America and Europe.
In fact, his rise was so extraordinary that he truly became one of the most famous Americans of the era. During his nationwide speaking tours, Washington regularly traveled by train across the country and encountered huge numbers of his supporters.
In his autobiography, Up From Slavery, he recounts how white Americans would frequently approach him at stations and on trains simply to shake his hand, thank him for his work, and express their admiration. Industrial titans like Andrew Carnegie sought his counsel. President Theodore Roosevelt famously hosted him for dinner, provoking outrage from Southern segregationists who could not tolerate a black man receiving such public respect.
Washington's life is a direct repudiation of many of the modern Left’s — and indeed many of all Americans’ — assumptions about race in America. Only by American meritocracy was Washington able to rise, a man who was born into the worst possible circumstances but ascended through sheer perseverance and a refusal to cling to resentment and hate.
Though some tried, Washington was not beaten down by white Americans. Indeed, it was only with the support and admiration of many white Americans that he succeeded so enormously.
While he faced hostility from segregationists and racial absolutists, he also earned the respect of millions who recognized his intellect and achievements. Washington refused to answer hatred with hatred, choosing instead to appeal to the better angels of the American character.
More than a century after his death, America could benefit greatly from once again embodying this message.
