The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1915-11-16
Booker Washington
BenefactOr of His Race

Whenever the need becomes great
enough, leader or savior springs up
among the people 10 answer the neces-
sity. All through history We can trace
this spiritual law though these saviors,
like Jesus himself, ar not always recog-
nized until They L; zen tortured by
revilings and the q ignorance Of the
masses their messages being all but bur
led in the pressure of materialism and
toll, which have come to mean our life.
Such leader and savior of his race
was Booker T. Washington, who died in
his southern home on Sunday, after a
life time spent in the most unselish and
earnest endeavor to bring light out of
darkness to his own people
Happily he was not so misunderstood
and reviled but was able, during his own
life, to see the results of his labors and
receive the gratitude and homage which
were his due.
Born at Hale's Ford Va, in 1853, with
q white father {name unknown) and
black mother. he lived the life of the
average slave, cared for more or less,
working hard, and penniless. AT the end
Of the war, he went with his mother and
step-father to Maiden w. Va, where he
worked in salt furnace and managed
to 60 to night school. He gradually
saved enough money to get to Richmond,
having in view the Hampton Institute.
But when he arrived in Richmond he
was again penniless and slept under a
side walk. Here he got a job unloading
vessels and he saved enough money to
get him to Hampton, even having fifty
cents left in his pocket. He obtained a
position as assistant janitor in the insti-
tute and worked his way through, grad
uating three years later, with honors. He
later became professor in the school
and when the state of Alabama applied
to Hampton for someone to start another
educational center, Booker Washington
was chosen as the most promising per-
son. He arrived at Tuskegee and found
neither land or buildings, only promise
from the state to contribute $4,000 a
year to such an institution when started.
Booker Washington started his school in
m old church with 30 pupils and was the
sole instructor. He managed to borrow
little money from one of his old teach.
ers, bought an old plantation and put up
q rude building. BY his own, unaided
efforts, he paid off this debt, and since
then the history Of the school is well
known. II is now valued at $1,500,0O0
and since 1882 has graduated more than
5000 students.
The financial accomplishments of Mr.
Washington were, under the circum-
stances, tremendous; but what he accom-
.plished along mental and moral lines
was far greater. He was given raw ma
terial to handle; people used to servi-
tude who had but recently attained lib
erty; a people who, for generations back,
had had no mental training and were SUI
perstitious and emotional beyond all 9TH
ers; people for whom civilization had
done nothing but make of them "hewers
of wood and drawers of water" and had
repaid them by selling and bartering
them like cattle. The huge task Of work
ing over this mass AMI making it int
trustworthy, independent, enlightened
manhood and womanhood was his, and
he never faltered-
The progress Of the negro race since
the end of the Civil War, is said, by his
torians, to be the most remarkable ever
achieved by any race in the same length
of time and the concensus of opinion will
probably be that Booker T. Washington
was the most potent factor in this great
mental and spiritual development
May America honor his name with
those of her noblest sons.