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Booker T. Washington 1856 -1915
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community.
Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.
There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.
No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward.
Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.
We do not want the men of another color for our brothers-in-law, but we do want them for our brothers.
We must reinforce argument with results.
No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.
Character, not circumstances, makes the man.
Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.
There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.
Character is power.
“I am afraid that there is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.
“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs – partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.” (p. 118) from his 1911 book My Larger Education.
A story told me by a coloured man in South Carolina will illustrate how people sometimes get into situations where they do not like to part with their grievances. In a certain community there was a coloured doctor of the old school, who knew little about modern ideas of medicine, but who in some way had gained the confidence of the people and had made considerable money by his own peculiar methods of treatment. In this community there was an old lady who happened to be pretty well provided with this world’s goods and who thought that she had a cancer. For twenty years she had enjoyed the luxury of having this old doctor treat her for that cancer. As the old doctor became — thanks to the cancer and to other practice — pretty well-to-do, he decided to send one of his boys to a medical college. After graduating from the medical school, the young man returned home, and his father took a vacation. During this time the old lady who was afflicted with the “cancer” called in the young man, who treated her; within a few weeks the cancer (or what was supposed to be the cancer) disappeared, and the old lady declared herself well.
When the father of the boy returned and found the patient on her feet and perfectly well, he was outraged. He called the young man before him and said: “My son, I find that you have cured that cancer case of mine. Now, son, let me tell you something. I educated you on that cancer. I put you through high school, through college, and finally through the medical school on that cancer. And now you, with your new ideas of practicing medicine, have come here and cured that cancer. Let me tell you, son, you have started all wrong. How do you expect to make a living practicing medicine in that way?”
I am afraid that there is a certain class of race problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.
[not much changes - does it?]
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community.
Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.
There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.
No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward.
Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.
We do not want the men of another color for our brothers-in-law, but we do want them for our brothers.
We must reinforce argument with results.
No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.
Character, not circumstances, makes the man.
Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.
There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.
Character is power.
“I am afraid that there is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.
“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs – partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.” (p. 118) from his 1911 book My Larger Education.
A story told me by a coloured man in South Carolina will illustrate how people sometimes get into situations where they do not like to part with their grievances. In a certain community there was a coloured doctor of the old school, who knew little about modern ideas of medicine, but who in some way had gained the confidence of the people and had made considerable money by his own peculiar methods of treatment. In this community there was an old lady who happened to be pretty well provided with this world’s goods and who thought that she had a cancer. For twenty years she had enjoyed the luxury of having this old doctor treat her for that cancer. As the old doctor became — thanks to the cancer and to other practice — pretty well-to-do, he decided to send one of his boys to a medical college. After graduating from the medical school, the young man returned home, and his father took a vacation. During this time the old lady who was afflicted with the “cancer” called in the young man, who treated her; within a few weeks the cancer (or what was supposed to be the cancer) disappeared, and the old lady declared herself well.
When the father of the boy returned and found the patient on her feet and perfectly well, he was outraged. He called the young man before him and said: “My son, I find that you have cured that cancer case of mine. Now, son, let me tell you something. I educated you on that cancer. I put you through high school, through college, and finally through the medical school on that cancer. And now you, with your new ideas of practicing medicine, have come here and cured that cancer. Let me tell you, son, you have started all wrong. How do you expect to make a living practicing medicine in that way?”
I am afraid that there is a certain class of race problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.
[not much changes - does it?]
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