Booker T. Washington to Charles W. Chesnutt, 20 July 1907
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July 20, 1907.
My dear Mr. Chestnutt:
By this mail I am sending you copy of an address1 which I delivered sometime ago at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.2 It is printed substantially as taken down by a reporter. I am sending it to you because it is one of the few times I have had an opportunity to speak directly to Southern white students and I thought you might wish to know just what I had to say.
Yours truly Booker T. W. Principal. Mr. Charles W. Chestnutt, 1004 Williamson Building, Cleveland, Ohio.Correspondent: Booker T. Washington (1856–1913), one of the most well-known Black activists of the early 20th century, was born into slavery in Virginia. In 1881, he became the president of what would become the Tuskegee Institute, advocating widely as a speaker and writer for technical education for Blacks, whose entry into American industry and business leadership he believed to be the road to equality. His political power was significant, but because he frequently argued for compromise with White Southerners, including on voting rights, he was also criticized by other Black activists, especially by W. E. B. Du Bois.
1. Booker T. Washington delivered an address to the students of the Theological Department of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 29, 1907, on the invitation of the dean of the Theology department, Wilbur Fisk Tillett (1854–1936). A stenographer recorded it (with some omissions). Reprinted in the Booker T. Washington Papers, Volume 9 (Urbana, Chicago and London: University of Illinois Press, 1980), 235–255. [back]
2. Vanderbilt University, a private university in Nashville, Tennessee, was founded in 1875 with substantial funding from rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877). It was associated with the Methodist Episcopal Church until 1914. Until it was desegregated in the 1960s, no Black students were admitted to Vanderbilt. [back]
