“There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. ... Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs ... There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well.”
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington,
My Larger Education, Garden CITY New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1911, pg. 118, Booker T. Washington. My Larger Education; Being Chapters from My Experience
In the history of black leadership in America, this comment by Washington is perhaps the dumbest of all time. Now I'm sure the usual suspects are going to jump in and try to teach me from their perspective of being white just how great these comments were for black people and how blacks like me should think just like Washington.
These words were written in 1910 or 1911. Jim Crow was the law of the land. Lynching was going on, blacks could get killed and the killer go free. Washington watched various black towns and neighborhoods burn to the ground. Sharecropping was going on with blacks basically returning to slavery. Black codes made it possible for blacks to be arrested for nothing and end up as part of convict leasing. I don't think Washington could vote without a poll tax since he lived in the south. With all that going on, Washington made his comment.
It was the dumbest comment a black leader has ever made.