Why Booker T. Washington Remains a Model for the Ages by Lawrence Reed

Very recommendable! Such foolish ideologies like "Black Lives Matter" or "Critical Race Theory" or "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" would probably never have come to his great mind! Likewise those who were educated in the tradition of the Tuskegee Institute! That is one reason why he is not a favorite of the leftists!

"A truly remarkable black American, Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) believed that the way to build up and improve a country is for each person to build up and improve himself [or herself]. That may sound revolutionary in an age of entitlement, victimology and cancel culture, but it’s still as true as truth gets. He was an enemy of what tears people and countries down: envy, hatred, idleness, arrogance, and disrespect for life and property. ..."

Why Booker T. Washington Remains a Model for the Ages - Foundation for Economic Education More than a century after his death, Booker T. Washington’s eloquence still speaks to men and women of conscience.

Who Is Booker T. Washington?

Very recommendable! However, much more could have been said about the great Booker T. Washington!

Who Is Booker T. Washington?

Recommendable, but the video is way too short to do justice to this great Booker T. Washington!

Booker T. Washington: The Life and the Legacy

Very recommendable!

I think, Booker T. Washington was spot on to offer industrial training for recently freed slaves!

On Julius Rosenwald

Posted: 12/27/2015

Trigger

Recently read An Unsung Hero of Black Education Businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald helped build thousands of quality elementary schools in the segregated South. This is another extraordinary, little known story about how American Jews and Black Americans collaborated. I do not remember having ever heard or read about Julius Rosenberg before. I have not yet seen the eponymous documentary yet.

I have written a number of critical posts here on the so called Civil Rights movement, which, in my opinion, was more like a second Civil War waged on the South. The story of Julius Rosenberg is another proof that massive Big Government intervention was not necessary at all to improve the lives of Black Americans.

Notes

1. Julius Rosenberg was one of the exceptional entrepreneurs of the U.S. See e.g. his story here. “After World War I, Sears was in dire financial shape and Rosenwald brought Sears back from the brink of bankruptcy by pledging some $21 million of his personal fortune, in cash, stock and other assets to rescue the company.”
   “Rosenwald insisted that the company's primary goal must be responsibility to the customer. He established the "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back" pledge and conducted his business dealings by the creed "Sell honest merchandise for less money and more people will buy."”
2. “Of all his philanthropic efforts, Rosenwald was most famous for the more than 5,000 "Rosenwald schools" he established throughout the South for poor, rural black youth, and the 4,000 libraries he added to existing schools. The network of new public schools subsequently employed more than 14,000 teachers.”. “The buildings had modern lighting and sanitation. Classrooms had adequate supplies of books and desks and blackboards. The teachers were better trained and better paid.”
3. Reportedly, it was Paul J. Sachs (of Goldman Sachs fame) who introduced Julius Rosenberg to e.g. Booker T. Washington.
4. Julius Rosenberg served on the board of the Tuskegee Institute from 1912 until his death 1932
5. “He established his Rosenwald Fund in 1917 for "the well-being of mankind." Unlike other endowed foundations, which were designed to fund themselves in perpetuity, the Rosenwald Fund was intended to use all of its funds for philanthropic purposes. As a result, the fund was completely spent by 1948.” Did Rosenberg anticipate so early the thorny issue of original donor intent or followed the idea of giving while living and sunsetting?
6. “Julius Rosenwald supported the Wabash Avenue YMCA (Chicago), opened in 1914, which would later become an historic landmark. The Wabash "Y" greatly aided blacks' integration into Chicago during the Great Migration. It is still operating today.”
7. The argument that Julius Rosenberg promoted racially segregated schooling is phony at best in my opinion. “In reality, Rosenwald and Washington did both. Throughout his career, Washington funded legal challenges to racial discrimination. And Rosenwald financed a third of the litigation costs in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court case that declared public-school segregation unconstitutional. But the larger point is that both men realized that poor blacks at the time needed good teachers and quality schools, not white classmates.”
8. “The Rosenwald Fund also made fellowship grants directly to African-American artists, writers, researchers and intellectuals between 1928 and 1948. Civil rights leader Julian Bond, ... Hundreds of grants were disbursed to artists, writers and other cultural figures, many of whom became prominent or already were, including photographer Gordon Parks Jr., Elizabeth Catlett, poet Claude McKay, Dr. Charles Drew, Augusta Savage, anthropologist and dancer Katherine Dunham, singer Marian Anderson, writer Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, and poets Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou and Rita Dove. Fellowships of around $1,000 to $2,000 were given out yearly to applicants and were usually designed to be open-ended; the Foundation requested but did not require grantees to report back on what they accomplished with the support.”
9. “Black communities raised more than $4.7 million to aid in construction, plus often donating land and labor. These schools became known as "Rosenwald Schools." By 1932, the facilities could accommodate one- third of all African-American children in Southern schools. Research has found that the Rosenwald program accounts for a sizable portion of the educational gains of rural Southern blacks in this period. This research also found significant effects on school attendance, literacy, years of schooling, cognitive test scores, and Northern migration, with gains highest in the most disadvantaged counties.”
   This is probably one of the most overlooked and underreported facts that Black Americans themselves did so much to improve their situation without Big Government!

Ideology Of Racism In The U.S.: Octavius Catto

Posted: 1/18/2014

Trigger

The Mann Center in Philadelphia is having a special event on Octavius Catto titled “Octavius Catto Story: A Philadelphia Freedom Fighter” in February - April, 2014.

Some Remarks

Sources:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavius_Catto

2. http://ojs.libraries.psu.edu/index.php/phj/article/view/23956/23725 (“Nineteenth Century Philadelphia Black Militant: Octavius V. Catto (1839-1871)” by Harry C. Silcox published by  Pennsylvania History vol. 44, no. 1, January 1977)

I do not intend to discuss here Catto’s involvement with equal rights or why he is celebrated today as a “civil rights pioneer”.

Octavius is quite a classical Roman name. Wonder how he got it and what it meant?

His father was a slave, but was freed.

His mother is said to be a “a member of Charleston's prominent free mixed-race DeReef family” (1). Here it becomes interesting. If you search for her family will come across a letter to the editor of the New York Times dating from 1907 discussing people of color owning slaves like the DeReef. Or read more about this on this blog post.

He was a student at the Institute for Colored Youth, which was founded by a Quaker philanthropist (most likely a white man, although there appears to be no picture of this man or any hint as to his skin color), who was born on a plantation in the West Indies. Quakers (a predominantly white society) ran the institute.

“In 1853 his family moved to Allentown, New Jersey where, by the influence of

ex-Governor William A. Newell, Octavius gained admission to that

city's white academy.” (2).

“Following the 1867 season, Catto, with support by players from the white Athletic Base Ball Club, applied for the Pythians' [Pythian Base Ball Club] admission into the newly formed Pennsylvania Base Ball Association.” (2). Is it not surprising to learn that as early as 1867, white athletes tried to promote black athletes.

About his murder in 1871 on election day we learn in (1) that he was owning or even carrying a gun. “On Chestnut Street [Philadelphia, PA] he was again accosted by some white ruffians, who pointed a pistol at him, threatening his life if he went to vote. Catto went to a near-by store and purchased a pistol. When a friend reminded him that he had no cartridges, he replied that he had some at home.” (2) Thanks to the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This is another example that black Americans used guns to defend themselves.

We also learn in (1) that in those days, black Americans voted for Republicans. “Catto's military experience made him an ardent and confirmed Republican.” (2).

“Possessor of a combative and aggressive nature, Catto was linked with every important black movement of the day.” (2) How combative and aggressive was this guy? He did not fight in the Civil War, but he recruited other black man for the Union army.

Was Catto possibly a racist himself? “Catto "did not wish to turn his back on the fact that the colored man was the best teacher for colored children [since] he had long been of the belief that no white man could so well instruct colored children as could a colored teacher." He credited the latter's success to a clear recognition by

all blacks that black teachers "had the welfare of the race more at heart, knowing that they rose or fell together... ."" … ether... ."" Catto's amendment

read: "In the appointment of teachers for these schools, colored persons, their literary qualifications being sufficient, should receive the preference, not by reason of their complection, but because they are better qualified by conventional circumstances outside of the school-house."' … Complaints in the black newspaper The Christian Recorder also advanced Catto's position and illustrated his ability to speak for his people in racial matters. It constrains us more than ever to adhere to our motto of "Colored teachers for colored schools," and further that those white teachers take no real interest in their work nor of the scholars but teach and tolerate them only in order to enable them to draw the money they receive at the end of each month.35” (2)

Source (2) concludes: “Could the mentality of submission, as symbolized by Booker T. Washington, have had its beginnings in the violence and suppression of the urban North and not in the rural South? Catto's life and death give credence to just

such a hypothesis.” Wow! Was Booker T. Washington indeed submissive or is this not a very condescending remark? The author of source (2) seems to be a fan of W. E. B. DuBois about whom could be said a lot too.

Previous, Related Blog Posts

Here, here, here, and here.