Wasn't that delicious? So good.
Your bill, ladies? I got it. No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. Oh, don't be silly.
You don't be silly. People with the Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash back on purchases. Okay, rock, paper, scissors for it. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! No! The Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card.
Visit wellsfargo.com slash active cash. Terms apply. Where'd you get those shoes?
Easy. They're from DSW because DSW has the exact right shoes for whatever you're into right now. You know, like the sneakers that make office hours feel like happy hour, the boots that turn grocery aisles into runways, and all the styles that show off the many sides of you from daydreamer to multitasker and everything in between. Because you do it all in really great shoes.
Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or dsw.com. Pros trust the Home Depot for heavy duty storage solutions for any job site or garage. Right now, get up to 25% off select online storage and organization impact and water resistant totes and shelving built to hold up to 2500 pounds. Storage systems have space for all your tools and protect them in the garage, on the job site and everywhere in between. Save time and maximize efficiency with adjustable shelving customized to your business needs.
Shop and save on pro grade storage at the Home Depot. How pros get more done. Whether you're ordering wings for the game, whipping up a seven layer dip or ordering pizza, there's something about football that makes you want to eat. And this football season, Uber Eats has the best deals on game day food. No matter what you're craving from two for one pizza to buy one, get one wings, Uber Eats will be dropping new deals each week, all season long. Uber Eats official on demand delivery partner of the NFL. Order now. Terms and conditions apply.
See out for details. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. As the great granddaughter of Booker T. Washington, the former slave turned famous educator and founder of Tuskegee University, Sarah Washington O'Neill Rush has been influenced by her great grandfather's rise above slavery, his relentless stand on inner strength and his principles on personal development. Here she is to tell her story as well as her great grandfather.
Let's take a listen. For as long as I can remember, I knew that Booker T. Washington was my great grandfather. I didn't learn about the significance of what it meant to be in his bloodline until I was an adult.
And as a result of that, like so many of our children today, I spent my childhood, my teenage years and a lot of my young adult years looking for myself in all the wrong places. My mother, although she was the granddaughter of Booker T. Washington, she was born and raised across the street from Tuskegee. It was instituted at the time today as Tuskegee University, but she rarely talked about it. And she never knew her grandfather because she was born four years after he died in 1915. She was born in 1919.
But I heard from others that she and her parents and her three younger sisters were all treated like royalty. Growing up there where it all happened. My mother's father was Ernest Davidson Washington, and he was the last born of Booker T. Washington's three children. I actually learned more about what it was like growing up in Tuskegee from hearing Lionel Richie speak about it on an episode of Oprah Winfrey's Masterclass program several years ago. He grew up right next door to my mom. My mother grew up with his mother and they lived right across the street from the campus. And he said on this episode, living there was like being in a protective bubble raised by a community and surrounded by black professionals, away from the discrimination and racism that he would later face and discover outside of Tuskegee. I believe he said it was in Montgomery, Alabama, when he started to travel with the Commodores.
But before that, it was foreign to him. So listening to him speak so proudly about Tuskegee was so moving. Today, my mom is buried on the campus of Tuskegee University, along with Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver and other prominent African-Americans, including her parents and I believe two or maybe three previous Tuskegee University presidents. And because she's passed away, I can only speculate about the reason she didn't talk much about her lineage. And I believe there were actually a combination of reasons that she didn't talk about it. One was that she was overwhelmed as a single parent.
At times, my mom held down two full time jobs just trying to make ends meet. And another reason could have been that when I grew up in the 60s in North Oakland, we were just a stone, literally a stone's throw away from where Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party began. And at that time, there was little tolerance for the reconciliation stand that Booker T. Washington took from the late 1800s until he died in 1915. He believed it was more important to gain what we needed to get ahead in terms of economics and industry. He determined the best way to do that was to get along with white people rather than to fight against them. He was led, always led by his Christian values, and he talked about the Bible and how he read it every single day and how they depended on that as slaves. That's where their hope and their faith came from. And he said it up from slavery, his autobiography that he woke up every morning to the fervent prayers of his mother on her knees, praying for their freedom. And he said once, he said, I will never allow any man to drag me down so low as to make me hate him. That definitely comes from the Christian values that he had in his heart. And he also said, it's important and right that all privileges of law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these rights and privileges.
In other words, what use was it to have privileges if we weren't properly prepared on how to use them? So because of this stance that Booker T. Washington took, he was often referred to as an Uncle Tom or a sellout. And I think that hurt my mother. That was her grandfather. Unfortunately, at the time, those voices overshadowed the voices of those who really knew all that Washington accomplished for black Americans. And I could talk about that for hours of the things that I've learned since learning more about my great grandfather.
And in a book entitled Christian Business Legends, they cite that by 1905, Tuskegee turned out more self-made millionaires than Harvard, Princeton and Yale combined. And one final reason my mom may have been quiet about her lineage was that my mom was just very modest. Like her grandfather, she just believed that people pulled themselves up on their own hard work and through their own merits. So she never dropped names. She never boasted about anything. That was just her nature. And now my father, on the other hand, and we spent my brother and I, James, we spent every weekend with my father.
They were divorced since as young as I can remember, about five years old. But we spent he'd always lived nearby. We spent every weekend with him. And he would, in a loud and proud voice, introduce us to any and everybody as descendants of Booker T. Washington. But he never explained why he was so excited. And you're listening to Sarah Washington O'Neill Rush tell the story of her great grandfather, but also of her own family.
I will never allow a man to drag me so low that I hate him. When we come back, more of the story of Booker T. Washington is told by his great granddaughter here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country.
Stories from our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't do the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to our American stories dot com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.
Go to our American stories dot com and give. Wasn't that delicious? So good. Your bill, ladies. I got it.
No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. Don't be silly. You don't be silly. People with the Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited two percent cash back on purchases. OK, rock, paper, scissors for it. Rock, paper, scissors.
No. The Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card visit Wells Fargo dot com slash active cash terms apply. Ready to prioritize yourself in the new year? Your skin is a great place to start. Dime Beauty, founded by a master esthetician, is more than just a skin care company with four skin conscious categories. Skin care, beauty, body care and fragrance. Dime offers simple spa worthy products that will help you enter 2025 with confidence. Whether you're revitalizing your regimen with nourishing products or building one from scratch, Dime makes it easy. The work system, our all in one best selling routine, includes a cleanser of your choice, toner, serums and moisturizers. Taking the guesswork out of skin care for your healthiest, happiest skin yet. Dime's commitment to clean ingredients and sustainable packaging ensures every product is as gentle on your skin as it is on the planet. With thousands of glowing five star reviews and a loyal community, the results speak for themselves. Revive your skin and give yourself the routine refresh you deserve by visiting Dime Beauty CO dot com. That's Dime Beauty CO dot com. Your best skin awaits. Oh, it's such a clutch off season pick up, Dave.
I was worried we'd bring back the same team. I meant those blackout motorized shades. Blinds dot com made it crazy affordable to replace our old blinds. Hard to install?
No, it's easy. I installed these and then got some from my mom. She talked to a design consultant for free and scheduled a professional measure and install.
Hall of Fame's son. They're the number one online retailer of custom window coverings in the world. Blinds dot com is the GOAT. Go to Blinds dot com for 40 percent off site wide.
Blinds dot com rules and restrictions may apply. Pros trust the Home Depot for heavy duty storage solutions for any job site or garage. Right now, get up to 25 percent off select online storage and organization impact and water resistant totes and shelving built to hold up to twenty five hundred pounds. Storage systems have space for all your tools and protect them in the garage, on the job site and everywhere in between. Save time and maximize efficiency with adjustable shelving customized to your business needs. Shop and save on pro grade storage at the Home Depot. How pros get more done. And we continue with our American stories and the story of Sarah Washington O'Neill Rush, and she's the great granddaughter of Booker T. Washington.
Let's pick up where she last left off. So whenever he introduced me and my brother, we would just get embarrassed. And that was the only thing I didn't adore about my father. Other than that, I just really adored being with my father. My mom was the one who made us do our homework, eat our vegetables. But at my dad's house, it was just free game.
We could do whatever we wanted to do. And I'll talk a little bit about why that was in a second. But when I was nine years old, I remember him introducing us to an elderly stranger who we just happened to be passing by on the sidewalk. And in his usual loud voice, he said, these are Booker T. Washington's great grandchildren. And while I cringed, the man looked down at me and he said in a really kind voice, he said, don't be embarrassed. It's an honor to know you and to know that his descendants still exist.
But still, I didn't understand why. So for a long time in my life, I would just write my family lineage off as just an accident of birth. I didn't know then, but I learned much later in my life that my dad was so loud and boisterous because on the weekends he was usually intoxicated. As I reflect back on my childhood, I my father only seemed happy when he was drinking and when he wasn't drinking, which was during the week because he had to go to work, he was usually distant or angry. And by the time I was 11, he decided to suddenly take off, leave town for a better life that didn't include me or my brother. And after that, not only did I rarely see or hear from him anymore, but I rarely heard about our relationship to Booker T. Washington. I believe my dad's problems started long before I was born.
In fact, I know they did. And it probably was around the time he graduated from Texas Southern University Law School because he was never able to pass the state bar exam. My mother would often joke and say that he would never pass that bar because he could never pass a bar.
But he contended that it was the discrimination that he faced when he graduated in 1938. But as a little girl, none of that mattered to me. All I knew is that my father was gone. And unfortunately, the next time I would see him, I was an adult.
Meanwhile, in my teen years with my mother working two jobs and my father gone, I spent a lot of time unsupervised and again looking for myself in all the wrong places. And the year I turned 16, while my friends were planning sweet 16 parties, I was preparing for the birth of my son. Ironically, my birthday falls on February 16th.
My son was born on September 16th. And so while that number 16 should have represented life for me, it didn't. Instead, it represented huge amounts of shame, guilt, embarrassment. And that came from the harsh stares, the judgment and the criticism that came from friends, family and even strangers who walked by and saw that I was much too young to be pushing a baby around in a stroller.
And so for a long time in my life, every time I heard the number 16, thoughts of guilt, shame and embarrassment will conjure up in my head. By the time I was 17, I was a single mom on welfare with a one year old child. I lived on my own, raising him alone in a dangerous high crime, drug infested housing project on 85th Avenue and way deep in East Oakland. And that was way on the other side of my high school.
I went to high school in North Oakland. But the one thing that I remember and the only thing I remember my parents ever agreeing about was the importance of education. So I would get up early every morning.
I would get me and my son dressed, catch two buses to school, drop him off at daycare, which was across the street from the school. And I'd rush to class and against overwhelming odds in a city that was deemed a dropout factory by a Harvard study citing that 48 percent of the freshmen in the Oakland Public School District end up dropping out. But I'm proud to say I managed to graduate six months ahead of my class, having the grades and more than enough credits to do so. And while I still don't completely understand how I was able to accomplish all that without anyone encouraging me or urging me on without any adult role model, positive role model around. I do know that I was determined to have a better life. And I now know that it probably didn't hurt that God placed me in a lineage where I had Booker T. Washington's blood running through my veins.
And for me, that gives life to Romans eight twenty eight, that all things work together for good to those who love God and are caught according to his purpose. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Booker T. Washington traveled nearly 500 miles, mostly by foot to gain his formal education from Hampton Hampton Institute today, Hampton University. And he was 16 when he went there and he graduated three years later with honors. And just seven years earlier than that, he was a slave and one of his slave duties was carrying the master's children's books as he walked behind them to school. And after he went inside, he would hang around on the outside of the schoolhouse to listen to what the teacher was teaching. But he'd run away before getting caught because at the time, a slave learning to read or write was a crime and it was a crime that could be punished by death.
But he knew then what's still true today, that knowledge was power. And he said it felt like getting into a schoolhouse would be like arriving in paradise. So for me, although today the schools could use lots of improvement, I think the situation is a lot better now than it was when he was able to go to school. And if he was able to use his education to build a school that still stands today and and it produces graduates that come back into our communities as leaders for the next generation.
I think that we can continue to make strides to make them better, but we can make more strides in our own lives as we push to make our schools better. For a long time in my life, I missed it. I was running on fumes.
I was just trying to survive. And it took nearly 20 years from the time that I graduated from high school to realize that there was more to this life. It happened when I went to the South for the first time in my life and I arrived on the campus of Tuskegee University. And that was the school that my grandfather opened on July 4th, 1881, 16 years after the end of slavery. And we went there for our very first Booker T. Washington family reunion. When we first stepped foot on campus, there were students, faculty, community leaders, reporters, there were writers and journalists, and they were all there to welcome us. Some were awestruck that we were still alive and like the older gentleman said, and I was awestruck that they cared so much. They were inspired simply by our presence. And they asked us for autographs and interviews. They asked to take pictures with us.
Some just wanted to rub shoulders and elbows and touch us, and some just wanted a chance to talk and get to know us. My presence was important to them. And up to that point, I believe my life was pretty simple and ordinary or less than ordinary. And it wasn't, it was without much purpose because I grew up not knowing what all of these people who surrounded me knew about my great grandfather and about my history. And you're listening to Sarah Washington O'Neill Rush tell the story of her life, her father's life, and of course, her great grandfather, Booker T. Washington. The book, Rising Up from the Blood, a legacy reclaimed a bridge forward. And what a story Sarah is telling about her own father. Most importantly, who had problems of his own and abandoned his family. And at the age of 16, like so many girls without fathers, she soon found herself a mother. It turns out Booker T. Washington, her great granddad, was 16 when he traveled 500 miles to go to school.
And that, of course, was just years before he was a slave. When we come back, more of the remarkable story of Sarah Washington O'Neill Rush and her great grandfather, Booker T. Washington, here on Our American Stories. Wasn't that delicious? So good. Your bill, ladies. I got it.
No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. Oh, don't be silly.
You don't be silly. People with the Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited 2% cash back on purchases. OK, rock, paper, scissors for it. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!
No! The Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card. Visit wellsfargo.com slash active cash.
Terms apply. Ready to prioritize yourself in the new year? Your skin is a great place to start. Dime Beauty, founded by a master esthetician, is more than just a skin care company. With four skin conscious categories, skin care, beauty, body care and fragrance, Dime offers simple spa worthy products that will help you enter 2025 with confidence. Whether you're revitalizing your regimen with nourishing products or building one from scratch, Dime makes it easy. The work system, our all in one best selling routine, includes a cleanser of your choice, toner, serums and moisturizers, taking the guesswork out of skin care for your healthiest, happiest skin yet. Dime's commitment to clean ingredients and sustainable packaging ensures every product is as gentle on your skin as it is on the planet. With thousands of glowing five star reviews and a loyal community, the results speak for themselves. Revive your skin and give yourself the routine refresh you deserve by visiting DimeBeautyCO.com. That's DimeBeautyCO.com.
Your best skin awaits. Pros trust the Home Depot for heavy duty storage solutions for any job site or garage. Right now, get up to 25 percent off select online storage and organization impact and water resistant totes and shelving built to hold up to twenty five hundred pounds. Storage systems have space for all your tools and protect them in the garage, on the job site and everywhere in between.
Save time and maximize efficiency with adjustable shelving customized to your business needs. Shop and save on pro grade storage at the Home Depot. How pros get more done this new year. I want to spend more time with my family, get healthier and make sure my finances are in order. That includes finally securing life insurance.
My friend recommended select quote. They've helped more than two million people find coverage in the last 40 years. In 15 minutes, a licensed insurance agent found me a five hundred thousand dollar policy for only sixteen dollars a month, and my husband got a five hundred thousand dollar policy for only eighteen dollars a month. Plus, we qualified for same day life insurance, no medical exam required, and we recovered by the time we hung up with select quote. Even if you have a health concern, be it high blood pressure, diabetes, even heart disease, their experienced agents can find you the right life insurance policy at the lowest price. Make life insurance the first resolution you check off your list this year. Go to select quote dot com for your free quote that select quote dot com select quote dot com.
Details on example rate at select quote dot com. And we continue with our American stories and the story of Booker T. Washington and equally important, the story of his great granddaughter, and that would be Sarah Washington O'Neill Rush. We just heard how Sarah was reintroduced to her proud lineage while visiting the university her great grandfather built with his own hands. Tuskegee, the receptions he experienced while it was overwhelming.
Let's return to Sarah. So this experience brought back again, it brought back the memories of walking on the sidewalk that day with my father when the elderly gentleman said, it's an honor to know you. It was all beginning to make sense. And it was at this reunion that I began to understand and my interest and enthusiasm about my great grandfather was ignited. And it was there that I learned how important his work was. I was inspired by so much.
And I hear from people who learned that I'm the great granddaughter. I hear from them about how they may have thought one way about Booker T. Washington and they visited that campus or they read up from slavery and their whole view changed. And that was the experience that I had from that trip. And what I was most struck by, most fascinated by, were the original buildings that some of them still stand today. And these buildings were built by hand, brick by brick by Booker T. Washington and his students, African-American ancestors, all former slaves using bricks that they made. And these bricks were of such superior quality that people came from miles around to purchase them. And there are buildings that are still standing in the South today that are made from these very bricks. And he put the money from the sale of these bricks back into the school, giving his students lessons in business and finance, economics and industry. And that was his plan all along. And there is a story of perseverance that can be found in his autobiography, Up From Slavery, of his determination never to give up and his quest for making these bricks, because it got down to his last watch that he had to pawn because he spent all the money and the kiln wasn't working.
But he, while his students may have been getting frustrated, he refused to give up. So after I returned home from the reunion, I set out to learn everything I could about my history and my great grandfather. And that's when I read Up From Slavery for the first time. And I studied and I did research.
I read biographies about him. And I ask lots of questions. I began looking at my family tree and I discovered that I have 15 cousins who are also the great grandchildren of Booker T. Washington, and in that birth order, I'm the last born.
So I thought about it. I'm like, that makes me the 16th of 16 great grandchildren of Booker T. Washington. And it hit me suddenly that that number 16, which had always been a reminder of shame and guilt and embarrassment, it began to take on a whole new meaning.
And I realized then that this was no accident because God doesn't make mistakes. 16 represents my birthday, my son's birthday, the age of Washington when he traveled to Hampton, the years that passed between the end of slavery and the beginning of Tuskegee Institute. And it represents my place in the birth order and the completion of the fourth generation of Booker T. Washington. My whole life has changed since that time in Tuskegee and making the connection to my lineage.
And that's why I do what I do today in terms of being an inspirational speaker and writer, because I believe these messages of resilience and perseverance can go a long way in cultivating hope and the strength necessary for us to pick up where our ancestors left off. So my great grandfather, Booker T. Washington, he was a former slave turned famous educator and the founder of Tuskegee University, and he was born into slavery. The only parent or for parent that he knew was his mother, Jane. And it was that's the only name that he knew her by.
And he credits her for his determination and his resilience. He didn't know it because slaves were torn apart from their families. He didn't know anybody else.
He didn't know aunts or uncles or grandparents. And so his mom, she was the cook on the plantation and she would sneak food for them. And and they lived in a one room cabin with a dirt floor.
They slept on the floor. And that's when he would wake up to the fervent prayers of his mother every morning, praying for their freedom. He suspects because he never knew his father, that he was a white man who lived on a nearby plantation. He always vowed that because he had no lineage himself or he had no ancestors, that he knew that he would leave a record for his children and his his grandchildren and great grandchildren that he hoped would make them proud, which it absolutely worked for me and for several of my my family members.
So when they were five, he was nine years old when freedom came to them and they immediately moved to West Virginia, where his stepfather was. And he had to work in the salt furnaces and the coal mines in order to help make ends meet for the family. His mom knew his desire to go to school.
And so she bought him a dictionary that helped him teach himself the ABCs. But he also got a job during the day with Viola Ruffner and she was the wife of a Quaker and she was a strict disciplinarian. So she was a white woman and she couldn't keep any of her staff who were also former slaves because she was so strict. But Booker T. Washington, he followed everything she asked to a T. And so she is really impressed with him, with his cleanliness. She taught him cleanliness, how to clean a room, how to clean up himself, how to look straight, how to sit up straight, how to talk, how to speak. And she was really impressed with his desire to follow these instructions. And so she actually encouraged him to get his education from Hampton Institute, which was one of the only schools that was teaching former slaves. But she would also teach him on her, when he was done doing his work, she would teach him how to read. And so when he got to Hampton, he walked nearly the whole way because he got kicked off of trains, he had to sleep under sidewalks.
And it was it was nearly 500 miles. And when he got there, his entrance exam was to clean a recital room. So the teacher left while he did that. And when she came back, she took her handkerchief and she went over the room, the floors, the walls, and she couldn't find a speck of dirt. And she told him, you're accepted. And he credits Viola Ruffner for teaching him how to clean a room in that way. And I think the way Booker T. Washington looked at things a little bit different, like some people would hear that and they would just be appalled.
Like, how dare she? But his mindset was different. And so he would look at more in a positive light that it's because of this that I'm here.
Now, I will be able to do this, which he proved well that he was able to take all of these things, adversity and blessings and turn them over tenfold to his people. And you've been listening to Sarah Washington O'Neill Rush tell her story and also the story of her great grandfather, who she discovers after a family reunion trip to Tuskegee. And that one gentleman who said, it's an honor to know you. And that lit a fire in Sarah to learn more about her great grandfather and in the end herself.
When we come back, more of the remarkable story of Sarah Washington O'Neill Rush and her great grandfather, Booker T. Washington, here on Our American Story. Wasn't that delicious? So good. Your bill, ladies. I got it.
No, I got it. Seriously, I insist. I insisted first. Don't be silly.
You don't be silly. People with the Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card prefer to pay because they earn unlimited two percent cash back on purchases. OK, rock, paper, scissors for it. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!
No! The Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card. Visit wellsfargo.com slash active cash terms apply. Ready to prioritize yourself in the new year? Your skin is a great place to start. Dime Beauty, founded by a master esthetician, is more than just a skin care company. With four skin conscious categories, skin care, beauty, body care and fragrance, Dime offers simple spa worthy products that will help you enter 2025 with confidence. Whether you're revitalizing your regimen with nourishing products or building one from scratch, Dime makes it easy. The work system, our all in one best selling routine, includes a cleanser of your choice, toner, serums and moisturizers, taking the guesswork out of skin care for your healthiest, happiest skin yet. Dime's commitment to clean ingredients and sustainable packaging ensures every product is as gentle on your skin as it is on the planet. With thousands of glowing five star reviews and a loyal community, the results speak for themselves. Revive your skin and give yourself the routine refresh you deserve by visiting DimeBeautyCO.com. That's DimeBeautyCO.com.
Your best skin awaits. Pros trust the Home Depot for heavy duty storage solutions for any job site or garage. Right now, get up to 25 percent off select online storage and organization impact and water resistant totes and shelving built to hold up to twenty five hundred pounds. Storage systems have space for all your tools and protect them in the garage, on the job site and everywhere in between.
Save time and maximize efficiency with adjustable shelving customized to your business needs. Shop and save on pro grade storage at the Home Depot. How pros get more done. This new year, I want to spend more time with my family, get healthier and make sure my finances are in order. That includes finally securing life insurance. My friend recommended select quote. They've helped more than two million people find coverage in the last 40 years. In 15 minutes, a licensed insurance agent found me a five hundred thousand dollar policy for only 16 dollars a month, and my husband got a five hundred thousand dollar policy for only 18 dollars a month. Plus, we qualified for same day life insurance, no medical exam required, and we recovered by the time we hung up with select quote. Even if you have a health concern, be it high blood pressure, diabetes, even heart disease, their experienced agents can find you the right life insurance policy at the lowest price. Make life insurance the first resolution you check off your list this year. Go to select quote dot com for your free quote that select quote dot com select quote dot com.
Details on example rate at select quote dot com. And we continue here with our American stories and with Sarah Washington O'Neill Rush telling the story of her own life, her family's life and the life of her great grandfather, Booker T. Washington. Let's pick up where we last left off. So Booker T. Washington's philosophy was there's a statue actually on the front of the campus is a pretty famous statue. It's called Lifting the Veil of Ignorance, and he's lifting the veil from a slave's eyes.
And so many people come from miles around from all over the world and they take pictures in front of this statue lifting the veil. And what he did in lifting the veil of ignorance, he did that by personal responsibility. Some of the philosophies that Booker T. Washington stood for were character building, self reliance, excellence, economics and wealth, Christianity, determination and education of the head, hand and the heart.
And the head stood for book smarts or academics that the hand was hard work and the heart was giving back and service to others. He some people think that he just wanted blacks to continue to be slaves, which is so far from the truth. He wanted them to take what they learned in slavery and he wanted them to perfect it, which is an example of the bricks and the buildings that still stand on the campus.
So personal responsibility, moral character building. His students had to every morning they had to pray. They prayed morning, noon and night. He took that in. He took it from slavery.
He knew that that's what was going to work. It taught them discipline. He was big on discipline.
When he first got to Tuskegee, he traveled outside of the area where the school was going to open and he went into the rural country districts because he wanted to discover the life of the people and what their needs were. And what he found, it surprised even him. He found people like five people living in one room shacks and he found children outside that were completely naked and and the ones who had on clothing. Some had only one piece and it was so filthy.
He said it didn't even resemble cloth. And so he said he spent the night with many of these families and they always found room for him, even though they didn't have room for themselves because they were anxious to get an education and improve their lives. But one thing he saw was that they would share one fork among them when they ate at the table in the evening.
There'd be one fork among maybe a family of five, but he saw an expensive clock on a mantel or he saw a piano in someone's house and he's like, how can they afford these material items and they can't even take care of themselves? And so he knew that was something that he would have to work on with them. And so when when the school was to open and when he accepted students and students were accepted into the school, they felt like they weren't going to have to do any more hard work, that this was this was their ticket to freedom, to real freedom. But he had different plans. And and so when he told them that they were going to build their own buildings and they were going to grow their own food and they were going to raise farm animals so that they would have food and dairy, they protested loudly.
But when he picked up the first acts and he led the way through the forest of trees, if you can imagine in the south, all the trees and he began to cut down the trees, they willingly began to follow quietly and willingly began to follow. And many times when I tell people that I are when people learned that I'm the great granddaughter of Booker T. Washington, especially if I'm speaking somewhere where there is a question answer period, I can hear from their questions that they're confusing him with either George Washington Carver, maybe even George Washington, sometimes W.E.B. Du Bois, who was his greatest critic. And so I I always realized then that we need to learn our history. We need to know our history.
And I know for me that learning about my history certainly changed my life. So while my my mother and her three sisters, they didn't know Booker T. Washington because he died four years before my mom, the oldest, was born, they did know George Washington Carver, who was actually my aunt Edith's godfather. Booker T. Washington invited him to be the the head of the agricultural department.
And he said, I can't pay you much and but I can give you room and board. And all George Washington Carver wanted to do was make a difference for his people. He was also born a slave. And so many people think that when I they find out I'm the great granddaughter of Booker T. Washington, that it's George Washington Carver. And they'll say, oh, he invented the peanut.
And I tell them, no, I think God invented the peanut, but he found hundreds of uses for the peanut. And so the things that he was able to do, the discoveries he made through science, it was said that George Washington Carver could have been a multimillionaire or a millionaire if he'd done something other than lead the agricultural department at Tuskegee. But it was his choice to stay there. And he he stayed there until his passing.
And he left every penny that he had, which I can't remember how much it was. It was in the tens of thousands, I believe he left all of that to Tuskegee. So Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, something some people don't know is that they were actually friends before they publicly split. There was never really a debate, but they publicly split because his most important project was getting Tuskegee off the ground. And he made friends with white people such as Andrew Carnegie, Teddy Roosevelt. He was the first black invited to dine at the White House. There was George Eastman of Eastman Kodak, Julius Rosenwald, who was the president of Sears Roebuck and Julius Rosenwald in Booker T. Washington actually partnered and Julius Rosenwald funded the Rosenwald schools in the South.
There were over 5000 schools that were built for African-Americans. And so Booker T. Washington, in order to get that those things done, he knew he had to be respectful and he had to look the part and dress the part himself. And he had to respect himself and carry himself in that manner in order to get the attention that he needed for these schools. He figured that all rights and privileges, a law should be ours. But it's more important that we be prepared. He knew that in order to get prepared, that was the first order of the day.
And next, you know, we would gain the respect of the people. The difference between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois was that W.E.B.
Du Bois was more for the talented 10th. I was at a conference or I was speaking on a panel in Buffalo, New York, for the 100th anniversary of the Niagara Movement. And the Niagara Movement was a precursor to the NAACP, and it was started by Du Bois. And it was to combat a lot of Booker T. Washington's ideas. And on this panel, there were professors and it was the first time I was publicly speaking. And we were in Buffalo where Du Bois started the Niagara Movement. So people were on his side and they went, the moderator even sat in on the panel, which was unheard of.
I haven't seen anything like it since. And they were all on the side of Du Bois. And they wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise. And one person who was actually a well-known writer and a movie producer, he said, I'm tired of this talk about Booker T. Washington. All he wanted us to do was be slaves. And so when I walked off the stage, there was a man who the reporters were flocking around the night before the reception. And he looked at me and he said, those people are idiots. And then I later found out that he was a famous poet, Ishmael Reed, and he lived for a time in Buffalo.
And he's a professor, might be a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley here where I am. Yes, Booker T. Washington was more about hard work. We can do this.
We can clean up ourselves. There is work that we need to do in order to get where we need to go to gain the mutual respect and to get ahead. And a terrific job on the production and editing by Greg Hengler and a special thanks to Sarah Washington O'Neill Rush. Her book, Rising Up from the Blood, a legacy reclaimed a bridge forward. And what a story she told about Booker T. Washington.
It is not told enough in our schools. And he wanted to do something simple with Tuskegee, and that was create a great place for young African-Americans, young recently turned free people from slaves into independent and self-reliant people. And of course, that story of Booker T. Washington and Du Bois, Du Bois trying to get to the talented 10th, populate the universities and change mindsets. And here was Booker T. Washington toiling in communities, trying to build up his own people to become independent and free people.
The story of Booker T. Washington, the story of his great granddaughter and his family, and so much more here on Our American Stories. Do you own a business that's ready to thrive? It's time to let Intuit QuickBooks take things like unpaid invoices and tracking expenses off your plate so you can take things to the next level. Intuit QuickBooks is an all-in-one business platform that can help with those day-to-day tasks like invoicing and expenses. Manage and grow your business all in one place. Intuit QuickBooks, your way to money.
Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Inc, licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Cloroxsantiva smells like grapefruit. Cleans like Clorox. And feels like yeahhh.
OK, we could be here all day. Try Cloroxsantiva for a trusted clean with long-lasting freshness. Also available in lavender and coconut. Use as directed. At David's Bridal, love is in every stitch. From the initial sketch to the final details, each style is designed with exquisite craftsmanship.
Every wedding gown, bridesmaid look, prom dress, and special occasion style in between features handcrafted details filled with love. Come see the magic in person. Book an appointment and sign up for diamond loyalty to save 15% on your first purchase. Earn points towards special rewards and more at davidsbridal.com. Famous Smoke has been dominating the cigar game since 1939 with the best prices on the best cigars.
Need a smoke for the big game or a big win? Famous has you covered. Head to Famosmoke.com with promo code Nightcap to score $20 off your order of $99 or more. Million of cigars are in stock and ready to ship, all stored in the massive humidor and guaranteed fresh. Trust the name that's been in the game for 85 years. Go to Famosmoke.com, use code Nightcap, under age self prohibited. Website restricted to age 21 plus tobacco consumers.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-22 04:44:42 / 2025-01-22 05:03:47 / 19