Transcription
Now it's one thing to point out wrongs and injustices so the problems could be addressed and they could be solved. But it's an entirely different thing to want those problems to stay as problems so people can continue to make money from those problems. This happens today and it happened in the days of Booker T. Washington, as we'll read in his 1911 account called "My Larger Education." Here we go.
So starting on page 102, in the section called "The Intellectuals and the Boston Mob," it says this: "It makes a great deal of difference in the life of a race, as it does in the life of an individual, whether the world expects much or little of that individual or of that race." I suppose that every boy and every girl born in poverty have felt at some time in their lives the weight of the world against them. What the people in the communities did not expect them to do, it was hard for them to convince themselves that they could do. And this is another reason why why a strong community is super important, uh, for the children to have. To have a community where people create an environment with high expectations. That's what they need so they can ride the energy current to reach their high potential. Right? When they're in a community that's filled with people who have low expectations, then they have to work two, three, four times harder to reach that same potential as if they were in a community with high expectations because they have to use much more energy to fight against that low countercurrent, right? That low countercurrent of expectation, opposed to being able to ride the high current of expectations to the top, right? And so we're dealing in terms of energy, right? And that's what people have to learn to see things in.
Let's keep going. "After I got so that I could read a little, I used to take a great deal of satisfaction in the lives of men who had risen by their own efforts from poverty to success. It is a great thing for a to be able to read books of that kind. It not only inspires him with the desire to do something and make something of his life, but it teaches him that success depends upon his ability to do something useful, to perform some kind of service that the world wants." The trouble in my case, as in that of other colored boys of any age, was that the stories we read in school were all concerned with the success and achievements of white boys and men. Occasionally, I spoke to some of my schoolmates in regards to the characters of whom I had read, but they invariably reminded me that the stories I had been reading had to do with the members of another race. Sometimes I tried to argue the matter with them, saying that what others had done, some of us might be able to do, and that the lack of a past in our race was no reason why it should not have a future. They replied that our case was entirely different. They said, in effect, that because our color and because we carried in in our faces the brand of a race that had been in slavery, white people did not want us to succeed.
So we see here that the narrative of white people holding them back, that was already on the scene at this time. And Booker T. Washington was trying to get them to see things from a a different perspective. But many of their minds were way too filled with doubt, right? And to some extent, I could see how they could believe this at that time, right? But there were others like Booker T. Washington who did not believe that, right? And he was was trying to shed some light, um, to the other people so they can see things in a different way. And so he continues with this: "In the end, I usually wound up the discussion by recalling the life of Frederick Douglass, reminding them of the high position which he had reached and of the great service which he had performed for his own race and for the cause of human freedom in the long anti-slavery struggle." Even before I had learned to read books or newspapers, I remember hearing my mother and other colored people in our part of the country speak about Frederick Douglas's wonderful life and achievements. I heard so much about Douglas when I was a boy that one of the reasons why I wanted to go to school and learn to read was that I might read for myself what he had written and said. In fact, one of the first books that I remember reading was his own story of his life, which Mr. Douglas published under the title "My Life and Times." This book made a deep impression upon me, and I read it many times. After I became a student of Hampton under General Samuel C. Armstrong, I heard a great deal more about Frederick Douglas, and I followed all his movements with intense interest. At the same time, I began to learn something about other prominent and successful colored men who were at the time the leaders of my race in the United States. These were such men as Congressman J.M. Langston of Virginia, United States Senator Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi, Lieutenant Governor P.B.S. Pinchback of Louisiana, Congressman John R. Lynch of Mississippi, and others whose names were household words amongst the masses of colored people at that time. I read with the greatest eagerness everything I could get hold of regarding the prominent Negro characters of that period and was a faithful student of their lives and deeds.
So he was filling his mind with all the information that allowed him to have a "yes we can" approach. He had the same opportunity to take the "white man was holding him back" approach like the others did, but he decided not to go that route. And he decided not to grow his mental thoughts with those type of seeds. Instead, he focused on filling his mind with all the ways that he could make life work, right? And so when he looked out into the world, he was able to see as many opportunities necessary to turn those ideas into a reality. But when a person only thinks about why they can't improve their lives, they blind themselves to see any of the opportunities that are out there, even if it's right in front of their face.
So let's keep going. "Later on, I had the privilege of meeting and knowing all of these men, but at that time, I little thought that it would ever be my fortune to meet and know any of them." On one occasion, when I happened to be in Washington, I heard that Frederick Douglas was going to make a speech in a nearby town. I had never seen him nor heard him speak, so I took advantage of the opportunity. I was profoundly impressed both by the man and by the address, but I did not dare approach even to shake hands with him. Some three or four years after I had organized the Tuskegee Institute, I invited Mr. Douglas to make a visit to the school and to speak at the commencement exercises of the school. He came and spoke to the great audience, many of whom had driven 30 or 40 miles to hear the great orator and leader of the race. In the course of time, I invited all the prominent colored men whose names I have mentioned, as well as others, to come to Tuskegee and speak to our students and to the colored people in our community. As a matter of course, the speeches, as well as the writings of most of these men, were concerned for the most part with the past history or with the present and future political problems of the Negro race. Mr. Douglas's great life and work had been in political agitation that led to the destruction of slavery. He had been the great defender of the race, and in the struggles to win from Congress and from the country at large the recognition of the Negro's rights as a man and a citizen, he played an important part. But the long and bitter political struggle in which he had engaged against slavery had not prepared Mr. Douglas to take up the equally difficult task of fitting the Negro for the opportunities and responsibilities of freedom. The same was true to a large extent of other Negro leaders. At the time when I met these men and heard them speak, I was invariably impressed, though young and inexperienced, that there was something lacking in their public utterance. I felt that the millions of Negroes needed something more than to be reminded of their suffering and of their political rights. That they needed to do something more than merely defend themselves.
So Booker T. wanted the millions of Negroes to learn more than just about political rights and learn more than just having a past of of suffering, right? And there were others like him too. But there were also this other group, which is what we want to talk about, right now, who had other plans in mind for the Negro. Watch this. "There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardship of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they were able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs, partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays." Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances because they do not want to lose their jobs.
A story told me by a colored man in South Carolina will illustrate how people sometimes get into situations where they do not like to part with their grievances. In a certain community, there was a colored doctor of the old school who knew little about modern ideas of medicine, but who, in some way, had gained the confidence of the people and had made considerable money by his own peculiar methods of treatment. In this community, there was an old lady who happened to be pretty well provided with this world's goods, and who thought that she had a cancer. Now, notice that it said she thought she had a cancer. Let's keep going. For 20 years, she enjoyed the luxury of having this doctor treat her for that cancer. As the old doctor became, thanks to the cancer and to other practice, pretty well to do, he decided to send one of his boys to a Medical College. After graduating from the medical school, the young man returned home, and his father took a vacation. During this time, the old lady, who was affiliated with the cancer, called in the young man, who treated her. Within a few weeks, the cancer, or what was supposed to be the cancer, disappeared, and the old lady declared herself well. When the father of the boy returned and found the patient on her feet and perfectly well, he was outraged. He called the young man before him and said, "My son, I found that you have cured that cancer case of mine. Now, son, let me tell you something. I educated you on that cancer. I put you through high school, through college, and finally through medical school on that cancer. And now you, with your new ideas of practicing medicine, have come here and cured that cancer. Let me tell you, son, you have started all wrong. How do you expect to make a living practicing medicine in that way?"
You see that this doctor here never intended to heal that woman. He wanted her to stay sick so he can continue making money off of her. Now, watch what Booker T. says next: "I am afraid that there is a certain class of race problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well because as long as the disease holds out, they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public."
And so I want you to think about this as you continue going on your journey of becoming a free person in this final phase of freedom, right? And don't let anyone out there hustle you into thinking that it's out of your control and is out of your hands to develop your own character and to impact and improve your own life. All they're doing is sucking all the power out of you and keeping you down in the pit where the light is dim and the way of escape is largely unknown. And so I want to thank you for watching all the way until the end. My name is Brooklyn St. Michael, and I'll see you in the free world.