Agency: Booker T. Washington
Most people’s encounter with the word “agency” probably is in the context of an organization, like an insurance agency or security agency. However, in this essay I would like to share a secondary meaning of the word “agency” that is used often in the discipline of the social sciences, where the word “agency” can be defined as “the capacity for an individual to have the power and resources to accomplish a goal or to fulfill a potential.” (from the Latin agere: “to do, to perform, to drive forward or to set in motion.”)
That is not to say that a person, in pursuit of a goal, does not experience assistance from other individuals or resources. However, “agency” focuses on the individual’s own capacity to accomplish a desired result. It involves the use of one’s intelligence, physical and emotional abilities, one’s motivations, aspirations, and vision. To highlight the meaning of “agency,” I would like to examine the life of a particular individual, who I believe demonstrates this concept of “agency” more than most. A person from whom each one of us can learn a great deal, if we would care to apply those same principles to our own lives.
His life, and moreover, his character, is one to be admired by all; and one which would be wise for each of us to emulate, regardless of race. His name was Booker T. Washington. And, if I had my way, I would encourage every junior high school student in every school to study his autobiography, Up from Slavery, for it is a work of insight, wisdom, and strong convictions. Those convictions center around three major principles. In a word, he was a builder…a builder of character. His was a character built upon the principles of an unwavering hope, a strong work ethic, and a love of learning…from which he constructed avenues of understanding, purpose, commitment, and service…all of which that were upheld by a strong personal faith that was manifested in every aspect of his daily life. Perhaps his life’s philosophy is best expressed in his following quote:
I believe that any man’s life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life – that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high watermark of pure, unselfish, useful living. I pity the man, black or white, who has never experienced the joy and satisfaction that come to one by reason of an effort to assist in making someone else more useful and more happy.
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On June 24th, 1896, Booker T. Washington was awarded an honorary degree of Master of the Arts from Harvard University. It was the first time that a New England university had conferred an honorary degree upon a black American. It was the culmination of a remarkable life of personal achievement despite being born into a childhood of slavery and poverty. He had used the resources that he had, and could obtain, to their greatest benefit.
It is to be noted that Booker had the advantage of several positive influences in early childhood that others of his race did not experience. First of all, though he grew up in a drafty log cabin on a slave plantation in Virginia, his mother, who was the plantation cook, was a woman of faith and her children benefited by her attentive and compassionate nurturing. Here, even in the midst of suffering and oppression, Booker was to experience the goodness of unconditional love.
Secondly, even as a child, he worked hard on the plantation. But he describes the plantation owners as relatively understanding, and he did not experience the harsh reality of whippings, beatings, and terrible abuse others experienced on different plantations. Consequently, he developed a perspective of work, not as one of punishment, but as a form of agency, the capacity to accomplish a task, however menial, by one’s own effort.
Furthermore, being born in 1858 or 1859, his early childhood was lived out during the peak of the Civil War. The war created the sense of hopeful expectancy for black slaves of eventual freedom from their bondage. And Booker tells the story of finding his mother kneeling beside his mat one morning praying to God that Lincoln and his soldiers would be victorious.
Perhaps it is because of these conditions and others that Booker somehow escaped the bitterness and hatred so often expressed by other slaves under more oppressive conditions. His attitude of earnest humility would be a powerful force in reaching across racial barriers later in life. Instead of siring antagonism, he would use this attitude of earnest humility to build the bridges of understanding between the communities of black and white that provided the avenues of raising up his race from the bondages of poverty and racial oppression.
Following the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves, Booker’s mother, his stepfather, his brother John, and Booker moved to Kanawha Valley, West Virginia. Here his stepfather, his brother John, and he found work in the salt mines near the little village of Malden. There they lived in a decrepit cabin in filthy and unsanitary conditions, amidst immoral behavior of all kinds, little better than that which they had left on the old plantation in Virginia. But at least here, they were paid, little as it was, for the efforts of their labor. It was a beginning.
Already, even at this young age, Booker had begun to establish the pillars of character that would form the agency that would enable him to be so successful. His earnest humility, and his strong work ethic were the first two. The third of the three-legged stool was that of his appetite for learning.
Booker’s appetite for learning was first stirred when a free school for blacks was established in Kanawha Valley. It was enormously popular and was flooded with attendees, as were Sunday school classes and night schools. Because Booker worked in the mines all day long, he was only able to arrange night classes, but he writes that he feels that he learned more in those night classes than the other students did throughout their all-day classes.
Upon entering the school, he was asked what his name was. He responded “Booker,” because that’s the only name he ever knew. When asked what his surname was, he responded “Washington” because that was what came to his mind first, although that had nothing to do with his family. So he became “Booker Washington.” It wasn’t until later that he discovered that his mother had given him the surname, Taliaferro. By that time he was well known as Booker Washington so he became Booker Taliaferro Washington in respect for his mother’s naming or simply, Booker T. Washington.
He tells the story of when he first attended school all the other children wore hats or caps on their heads, but he did not have any. He asked his mother if he could get one, but she told him that she didn’t have any money with which to buy a “store hat.” But she got two pieces of old jeans material and sewed them together and Booker was soon the proud possessor of his first cap. He describes this memory with touching insight:
The lesson that my mother taught me in this has always remained with me, and I have tried as best I could to teach it to others. I have always been proud, whenever I think of the incident, that my mother had strength of character enough not to be led into temptation of seeming to be that which she was not – of trying to impress my schoolmates and others with the fact that she was able to buy me a store hat when she was not. I have always been proud that she refused to go into debt for that she did not have the money to pay for. Since that time I have owned many kinds of caps and hats, but never one of which I have felt so proud as of the cap made of the two pieces of cloth sewn together by my mother.
Even within those brief words, one can sense Booker’s humility and gratitude for the simplest of things.
Young Booker loved learning. He pursued it with a passion unrivaled by most, as he describes his desire for an education:
There was never a time in my youth no matter how dark and discouraging the days might be, when one resolve did not continually remain with me and that was a determination to secure an education at any cost…. I used to picture the way I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.
And he further describes the powerful influence of his mother and his quest for learning.
In all my efforts to learn to read my mother shared fully my ambition, and sympathized with me and aided me in every way that she could. Though she was totally ignorant, so far as mere book knowledge was concerned, she had high ambitions for her children, and a large fund of good, hard, common sense, which seemed to enable her to meet and master every situation. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.
Booker T, Washington clearly recognized the disadvantages that black youth and black folks had in their striving for a meaningful livelihood and happiness, as they struggled with the harsh realities of facing the challenges of their newfound freedoms: the poverty, the lack of heritage, the fractured families, the challenges of lack of education or property, and the ever-present hatred and oppression of the white man. He certainly was not one to sugarcoat the realities of the black condition.
Yet, he faced forward with a conviction forged in the fires of poverty and oppression. It was the conviction that the means out of their impoverished and subjugated condition would be through a strong work ethic. His belief was that by means of honest effort and accomplishment, one could develop a strength of character, a personal identity, and the value of self-worth. He defined his philosophy of work in this way,
… the negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.
Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of their great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded. This I have said here, not to call attention to myself as an individual, but to the race to which I am proud to belong.
By this time, we can see the three pillars of agency already forming in the young life of Booker T. Washington. His hopeful and agreeable attitude, his strong work ethic, and his desire for an education. Undergirding these three pillars would prove to be his strong Christian faith and the benevolence shown by others. Of those people, foremost would be his mother. The second would be encountered as he later strived to obtain an education at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. There he met a person who would have a profound and lifelong impact upon young Booker, General Samuel C. Armstrong. But we’re not there quite yet.
The previous years in Malden, Booker had worked in the salt mines and subsequently in the coal mines, but then found a better opportunity working as a servant for $5 per month for Viola Ruffner, who was the wife of General Lewis Ruffner. She had the reputation of being very strict but not harsh. She demanded his tasks to be done promptly and thoroughly and expected their relationship to be that of “absolute honesty and frankness.” From that practical experience, Booker would later describe it “as valuable to me as any education I have ever gotten anywhere else.”
This experience served him in good stead when he interviewed for admission in 1872 to Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. After a long and difficult journey where he found himself sleeping under sidewalks and working any job he could find in order to purchase food, he finally arrived at Hampton with 50 cents in his pocket. Though impoverished, he possessed an abundance of excitement and enthusiasm for learning.
Upon interviewing with the head teacher for admission to Hampton, he was first instructed by her to clean the adjoining recitation room. He swept the recitation room three times, dusted all the furniture, desks, and benches four times, including the closet and corners of the room After the teacher’s pleased examination, she stated, “I guess you could do to enter this institution.” And Booker writes, “I was one of the happiest souls on earth.”
To earn his education at Hampton, which was not a free school, he was offered a job as a janitor. This required him to be up at 4:00 in the morning in order to build the fires and prepare for the day. After attending school throughout the day and studying, he then had to work late at night to finish his janitorial responsibilities before finally going to bed. But despite all that, he continued to pursue both his education and work with an unrivaled enthusiasm and appreciation.
Hampton was where Booker T. Washington first met General Samuel C. Armstrong. Born of missionary parents in Hawaii, General Armstrong served in the Union army where he led a unit of African American soldiers. After the war, he devoted his life to the education of the poor colored of the South. Booker writes of his respect and affection for him, as well as how impactful his whole experience at Hampton was to him:
The greatest benefits that I got out of my life at the Hampton Institute, perhaps may be classified under two heads – First was contact with a great man, General Samuel C. Armstrong, who, I repeat, was, in my opinion, the rarest, strongest, and most beautiful character that it has ever been my privilege to meet.
Second, at Hampton, for the first time, I learned what education was expected to do for an individual…at Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labor, but learned to love labor, not alone for its financial value, but for labor’s own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something which the world wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy.
After Hampton Institute, Booker went on to begin teaching classes in his hometown of Malden, West Virginia. During this time, while doing so, true to his unselfish character, he assisted in helping his brother John and others to enroll and graduate from Hampton as well, before he later returned to Hampton to teach there.
In June of 1881, Booker T. Washington was called from his teaching position at Hampton and given the charge to begin a new school for black Americans at Tuskegee, Alabama, which he later referred to as his “life’s work.” He started with nothing.
On July 4th, 1881, the school at Tuskegee opened in a little shanty of a church. General Armstrong from Hampton connected him with wealthy benefactors in the northern cities of Chicago and Boston to help begin some modest support for this school. This began Booker’s additional responsibilities of fundraising, which would require many trips to various individuals and groups to speak and share his vision of Tuskegee Institute but also the black race in general. As he worked tirelessly to support the Institute. Booker T. Washington says this about fundraising attempts:
In order to be successful in any kind of undertaking, I think the main thing is for one to grow to the point where he completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses himself in the way, in the same degree does he get the highest happiness out of his work.
The white folk of Tuskegee were generally supportive of the school as Booker reached out to them by presenting the school as part of the life of the community and the desire to be of some service to the community. Eventually he was able to acquire 100 acres of land by means of a loan, which he gradually paid off to its completion.
Students attended classes during the day and learned practical skills as they implemented their means of self-sufficiency. They raised their own livestock and food, sold their crops, repaired their own buildings, dug their own foundations for buildings, made their own bricks, and furniture…all, in addition to their textbook classes during the day. Their days were long, and the nights were short.
Booker wrote in rebuttal of receiving a large financial contribution for Tuskegee:
Some people may say that it was Tuskegee’s good luck that brought us this gift… No, it was not luck. It was hard work. Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.
Today, Tuskegee University’s enrollment is over 3000 students and offers undergraduate degrees in architecture, arts, and science; and numerous graduate degrees, as well as online learning degrees.
The powerful influence of General Armstrong’s example even carried into his work at Tuskegee. He shares of General Armstrong’s character:
In this respect I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.
It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Armstrong, and I resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
His work and success at Tuskegee Institute brought Booker national acclaim resulting in his being invited, as the first Black person to do so, to speak at the Atlanta Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. He describes his earnest hopes in building amicable relationships between the races:
As I remember it now, the thing that was uppermost in my mind was the desire to say something that would cement the friendship of the races and bring about hearty cooperation between them.
The concluding remarks of Booker T. Washington of the address read as follows:
…yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, this, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.
We still have work to do in America, to fully accomplish Booker T. Washington’s vision, but let us do it with a spirit of his character…earnest and humble hopefulness, a strong work ethic, and a love of learning…living unselfishly for others regardless of race.
Agency. Could a person do more with less than what Booker T. Washington did? I don’t think so.