****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
This is a fanstastically well-written biography of Booker Washington, at times, reading like big-selling biographies like John Adams. While it is a biography, Robert Norrell's objective (hence the title) seems to be a redeeming of Booker Washington from the very one-sided treatment he often gets (as a sell-out, a conservative, or naive). Unlike these depictions, Norrell depicts Washington as a man skillfullly attempting to move a 'race' forward in a South that didn't take kindly to black success.We go form Washington's early years (covered well by Washington's TWO memoirs) to the building of Tuskegee to Washington's attempts to 'lead' the black race in public consciousness. Washington was a tireless fundraiser, enlisting the aid of many rich white industrialists, for his Tuskegee Institute, as he would later be a tireless champion of black uplift. Washington travelled across the country giving speeches extolling the virtues of hard work, economic self-determination, and racial harmony. He worked tirelessly to promote black (industrial and academic, contra popular belief) education and crusade against various Southern attempts at black disenfranchisement. He was the first black man to dine with the President (Theodore Roosevelt) and family (for which he paid dearly by arousing deep ire among white Southerners). Washington acquired enough political respect to aid in making several recommendations on political appointments (leading to a very public death threat made against Washington by a then-sitting US Senator).Perhaps because of Washington's success, he managed to anger both Southern white,s who saw Washington as a threat, and Northern blacks, who often saw Washington as too meek. Norrell, in fact, spends a lot of time discussing the relationship between Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, which went from quite friendly and collegial to highly tense. Norrell dissects carefully the (what one must call) smear campaign waged by Du Bois and others (like Monroe Trotter) to depict Washington as a kind of sell-out who quested for personal power but did little for 'real' black progress. In truth, Norrell shows, Washington quite frequently took the same positions as Du Bois and other Northern blacks; he just did it in a very cautious and often behind-the-scenes way so as not to counterproductively alienate or demonize whites.To tell the truth, while I've always been a fan of Washington, this book caused me to rethink my comfort with Washington, perhaps not in the way Norrell intended. In the end, as Norrell admits, Washington's almost-singular focus on agitating for black economic rights failed as much as it succeeded. Washington, it seems, took for granted that the American capitalism he believed blacks could use to gain economic freedom would be enough - that blacks who could prove their ability would not be discriminated against in hiring, that whites would not use law to make it exceedingly difficult for blacks to have a 'fair shake' in the market. But whites, time and again, did push back using law and market pressures to maintain their 'supremacy' in the market. And while Washington did not neglect the political, he time and again focused on economic freedoms as if the same tactics already used by whites to keep blacks out of the market would be used in the future. (Ironically, this also proved Washington's scepticism toward government solutions right, as whites invariably used POLITICAL power whenever blacks WERE gaining economic footholds by their own merits.)Long and short: this is an outstanding biography, both well-written and very thoughtful. It is easily one of the best books I've read this year, and one which helps give some nuance to a true American hero who deserves a rehearing.
