by Allen West
Booker Taliaferro Washington’s life was a profile in courage. Born into slavery in rural Virginia, Washington rose to great prominence and respect, received honorary degrees from Harvard University and Dartmouth College, and took tea with the queen of England. He was the first black American to appear on a US postage stamp, and a battleship was even named after him. After graduating from and later teaching at Hampton University in Virginia, he went on to found Tuskegee University in Alabama in 1881. Washington was catapulted to prominence with his powerful address delivered in 1895—the year of Frederick Douglass’s death—at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition.
In his address Washington entreated his fellow freed men never to permit their grievances to overshadow their opportunities. Like Douglass, he believed strongly in the resilience, strength, and potential of black Americans based on a conservative policy of three pillars familiar to all conservatives: education, self-reliance, and entrepreneurship. Washington was a guiding light not just for black conservatism but for American conservatism.
One of my favorite personal quotes is Horace Mann’s oft-paraphrased statement “Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men.” Washington agreed, but he also believed education was most valuable as a means of achieving practical ends, as he wrote in Up from Slavery in 1901: “The actual sight of a first-class house that a Negro has built is ten times more potent than pages of discussion about a house that he ought to build, or perhaps could build.”
What if our nation in general and the black community specifically had had that mind-set when President Jimmy Carter came up with the Community Reinvestment Act in the late 1970s? What if we had stressed Booker T. Washington’s principle of self-reliance and economic independence instead of Washington, DC’s reliance on government solutions? Perhaps the United States might have avoided the subprime mortgage crisis that brought about the financial collapse in 2008.
As a true conservative, Booker T. Washington believed power for the black community would come from building an economic foundation, not by focusing on a political remedy.
Washington’s greatest criticism came not from the white establishment, however, but from a fellow black man, W. E. B. Du Bois.
In contrast to Washington and his rural southern upbringing, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois grew up in the relatively integrated north, in Massachusetts. Du Bois was the first black American to earn a doctorate from Harvard and was one of the cofounders of the NAACP.
At first the two men corresponded and sought each other’s counsel frequently. The younger Du Bois endeavored to gain prominence among the black intelligentsia, and Washington was considered its leader. But by the time Du Bois’s book The Souls of Black Folk was published in 1903, battle lines were drawn. Du Bois openly criticized Washington, rejected his three-pillar philosophy, and challenged him for the leadership of American blacks. Du Bois retracted his earlier praise of Washington’s speech at the Atlanta Exposition, renaming it the “Atlanta Compromise”—a pejorative label used by liberal progressives to this day.
Du Bois, in opposition to Washington, contended that full political rights—not economic independence—would better assist blacks in winning equality. He claimed Washington was against higher education, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. Washington simply recognized that a greater percentage of the black community would benefit from receiving a practical education first.
By the time of Washington’s early death at age fifty-nine from hypertension, the rift between the two men was irreparable. The die would be forever cast in the black community, dividing it into two camps that still exist today. Du Bois advocated black protest, militancy, and pride, a position heavily supported then by white liberal philanthropists and today by progressive socialists. Washington advocated assimilation, practical education, and thrift—for which he was viciously attacked. He was called an “Uncle Tom,” the horrible epithet used even today by those in the black community against anyone who speaks out against status quo policies.
If you visit the Library of Congress and read Booker T. Washington’s papers, you’ll discover an incredibly accomplished man who, without grandstanding, developed a practical plan to implement his policies. Washington wanted to build institutions to promote his three-pronged philosophy of education, self-reliance, and entrepreneurship. At the time his ideas were opposed by leftist ideologues who, although loud and vocal, produced nothing but rhetoric. Not much in the debate has changed since then.
Compare Booker T. Washington, the consummate conservative, with W. E. B. Du Bois, the radical leftist, and you can see the origins of the current conflict in our community. The soul of our souls is searching and wavering between two choices: to go back to our roots as believers in an opportunity society or to stay mired in a belief in the dependency society.
In 1908 Kelly Miller explained the conflict this way: “Radical and conservative Negroes agree as to the end in view, but differ as to the most effective means of attaining it.” Despite great steps forward in desegregation and civil rights legislation over the last hundred years—including electing a black president not once but twice—we are no closer to finding agreement.
Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. Why then does the black community continue to invest all its political capital in one type of policy approach, hoping for a different result?
Would you put all your money in one type of security—or, even worse, tell your broker that is what you planned to do? Over time you’d surely be taken for granted or you’d risk losing everything—or both.
The path of W. E. B. Du Bois has not yielded profitable returns for the black community. So I say, let’s go back to a practical plan of execution, with conservatism based on a useful education, self-reliance, and entrepreneurship. Let’s put our faith in economic freedom, moral strength, and God. Voting rights, protests, and marches were the beginning not the end to our struggle for equality.
Some may say I’m old-fashioned or out of touch, that my view is too old-school. Well, let me tell you what “old school” means to me.
For anyone growing up in the home of Buck and Snooks at 651 Kennesaw Avenue Northeast in Atlanta, Georgia, education was a top priority. Mom went to college at Fort Valley State. Although Dad never received more than a high school degree, he was nevertheless a fierce advocate of schooling. Education wasn’t a priority for just Buck and Snooks’s sons but for the entire extended family. My Aunt Brendalyn attended Morris Brown College and became an esteemed high school educator in Knoxville. My Uncle Jerome went to Tennessee State University and became a top engineer. Cousins graduated from East Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech. Yep, my folks were all about getting an education. If you didn’t attend college, you’d better develop a solid skill through a trade. Education was the key that allowed you to lead a productive life rather than a dependent one. I never wanted to come home with bad grades.
My wife, Angela, and I continue Buck and Snooks’s legacy. Our daughters are being brought up in a home where Dad has a bachelor’s degree and two master’s and Mom, the genius, has a bachelor’s, an MBA, and a PhD. I received an honorary doctorate degree from Northwood University, but Angela says it still doesn’t top hers. Damn! But academic achievement certainly runs in her family. Angela’s brothers include a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a computer engineer, and a finance manager for a petroleum company.
There is no question that education—whether formal academics or practical skill-set development—unlocks the potential for greater opportunities. But I am witnessing a complete lack of appreciation for either in the black community. It’s clear that schools in the inner city are failing black children, but throwing more money at the problem is not exactly the answer. I believe we need competition in the education industry, and I support school choice. I was very fortunate that both my parents invested in my education by sending me to Catholi
c school.
But even given my access to excellent schools, I would not have been pushed and prodded toward academic excellence were it not for my parents and my strong, supportive family. Sadly, today Angela and I are part of only about 28 percent of black households with children that have both a mother and father in the home. The black out-of-wedlock birth rate hovers around 72 percent—that’s a cultural death blow. Widespread unwed motherhood was unheard of in the black community when I grew up, and it is antithetical to who we are as a people. I place much of the blame for this crisis on the “Great Society” programs of President Johnson, which I’ll talk about in the next chapter, but I must offer a few more thoughts on the issue of unwed motherhood here.
It was a Democratic senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who advised against providing checks to women having children out of wedlock. He warned of the breakdown of the family, especially the black family, and of all the unintended consequences that would arise. Well, as Jim Nabors’s Gomer Pyle character would say, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” Moynihan’s predictions came true, with devastating consequences for education and opportunities in the black community.
Marriage isn’t simply important. It’s fundamental. Children from traditional married households simply do better. That’s not to say single parents and their children cannot succeed, but the odds are stacked against them. And nowhere is this more evident than in our black community.
Does anyone else find it hypocritical that progressive socialists promote choice in killing children but reject saving them through educational choice?
Why do current black elected officials turn their backs on school choice and strong families? Why do they support the progressive socialist agenda, the exact opposite of what’s needed at a fundamental level to begin the restoration of the inner-city black communities? Hello, Detroit? The violence in Chicago has almost nothing to do with gun control and nearly everything to do with the rise of gangs, because we’ve failed to provide quality education in the inner city and destroyed the black family.
Education and family can exist only when there is respect for personal and financial responsibility and self-reliance. Mom’s thrifty shopping habits, her fondness for layaway plans and the cash-only approach, were ingrained in me from a very young age. I’m still not a fancy department-store shopper and no one would ever accuse me of being fashion-conscious either! Ol’ Buck conveyed other financial lessons that serve me well today. He encouraged me to read the box scores from baseball games so I could analyze numbers and understand percentages. That emphasis seemed odd at first, but it all made sense when he subsequently taught me about different numbers on the business pages. Dad had been preparing me to study and analyze stock investments. I clearly remember the first time he took me to his stockbroker. Perhaps that’s why I ended up marrying Angela, who, after she was a consultant on Wall Street, became a business school professor at Kansas State University and is now a financial broker. Yeehaw, Dad!
My old-school upbringing mirrored Booker T. Washington’s conservatism, with its emphasis on education (a useful education, not studies in “ebonics”) and a strong two-parent family with male and female role models to provide a proper social education, instill confidence, and encourage self-reliance.
These qualities provide the foundation for entrepreneurship, small business development, and prosperity. I remember “Sweet Auburn” Avenue and its vibrant black economy made up of businesses, law offices, and medical practices. We all aspired to be part of that. The Marine Corps HQ where Mom worked was located in the Citizens Trust Bank building—a black-owned bank. We listened to WIGO and WAOK, two black-owned radio stations (and in case you were wondering, Mom was a high-pitched soprano whose warbling made my dad stick cotton balls in his ears). I grew up seeing successful black-owned businesses. Today my Cousin Naomi’s husband, Bill Carroll, runs one of the biggest funeral homes in South Georgia, Jester’s Funeral Home.
Through entrepreneurship you develop economic freedom, not economic dependency. Most important you develop a legacy to pass down through the family and across generations. Through economic freedom it is possible to break the bonds of disenfranchisement and gain greater influence, especially for the black community. The importance of entrepreneurship and economic freedom is what Washington understood more than a hundred years ago, and it’s a legacy we must regain for our community today.
However, small businesses are being crushed under onerous regulations, higher and higher taxes, and limited access to capital. Self-reliance makes you politically important, but dependency makes you nothing but a pawn to be used in the chess match of political expediency. Auburn Avenue’s vibrancy is lost, and its crumbling houses and boarded-up businesses reflect the condition of so many inner-city black communities.
The current black unemployment rate is double that of whites, and the black youth unemployment rate is much higher. How dire will these figures become when the market is flooded by millions of illegal immigrants with newly granted amnesty?
All Americans, black and white, see the results of black radicalism. The question is, for how much longer shall the black community follow the failed mantra of Du Bois? Where is the practical plan?
Booker T. Washington’s black conservatism stood on the three strong pillars of education, self-reliance, and entrepreneurship. But I must add a fourth pillar, the one I believe is the strongest: Christian faith. The backbone of the black community is faith, the church. Heck, look at how most black leaders have titles of divinity. We all used to make jokes about the ol’ Reverend Doctor, or “Rev Doc.” Everywhere you turn there are Rev Docs.
Yet where was the black community when the 2012 Democratic National Convention held a vote to remove God from the party platform? Watch the video and hear how God was booed and rejected with a resounding no. Where was the outcry?
If W. E. B. Du Bois were to write The Souls of Black Folk today, how would he define our souls? Who are we, and what do we believe in? Du Bois called Washington’s Atlanta speech a compromise, but it sure seems to me that by following Du Bois’s ideology we compromised our principles and values. What legacy are we leaving for our next generation? And why should the black community support amnesty for illegal immigrants knowing the consequences for black unemployment?
There can be no doubt the soul of our soul is conservative. We were raised to see education, self-reliance, and entrepreneurship as the keys to economic freedom and liberty. Where did we take a wrong turn?
I suspect that by now, those of you with a different perspective are reading this and steaming. Good. Those of you who are black and who follow the progressive socialist ideology and philosophy are most likely shouting at these pages, calling me an Uncle Tom and a sellout.
In return, let me say you are the ones who are the Uncle Toms and sellouts. You have sold your own once regal and proud black community for less than thirty pieces of silver, and to what end?
Conservatism in black America is not new, but it’s in dire need of a resurgence. Often I meet fellow blacks who pick me out of a crowd at the airport—my salt-and-pepper flattop is the giveaway—and too often they’ll whisper to me that they like my message.
I have only one thing to say in response: Stop whispering.
The time has come to realize that government cannot restore our black community. The key ingredients of individual responsibility, industrialism, education, initiative, investment, and innovation, as well as the restoration of our culture and the family unit, must come from us, from our community. We must have leaders who will not sell us out for their personal political gain. The winds are changing. The time has come to bring back “old school” black values.
Booker T. Washington was right. The soul of our soul is conservative, not progressive—and certainly not socialist. It is only by hewing fast to conservative principles that we have any hope of ensuring a brighter future for our children and grandchildren and moving them off the twenty-first-century economic plantation.
Chapter 9
THE BIG LIE AND THE TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY ECONOMIC PLANTATION
At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race, as for all races … economic independence.
—BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
It does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government: those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights and privileges in the end than they did in the beginning.
—CARTER G. WOODSON
A few months ago, I flew into Atlanta for a speaking engagement. I have to admit, my heart skips a little every time I go back home. I caught my first glimpse of the city during our approach for landing. Atlanta in springtime is a beautiful sight, full of lush trees and greenery. As the aircraft came in from the east, I could spy the downtown skyline from my aisle seat.
My destination on that day was in Cobb County. As I rode north up Interstate 85 toward downtown, my thoughts drifted back to the old days. We passed East Point, where my dentist practiced. We merged onto Interstate 75 and passed Turner Field (why didn’t they name it Hank Aaron Field?). Right next door to Turner Field was the hospice where I last saw my mom. I will never forget the toughest day in my life, checking her in there with terminal liver cancer, knowing it was probably the last time I would see her alive.
We drove near where the old Fulton County Stadium once stood. I remembered taking the number six Georgia Avenue bus over there for baseball games, and how intimidating that arena was when it was packed for a Braves baseball game and Chief Noc-A-Homa got us going with the Braves chop. Used to cost about six dollars to get an upper-deck “nosebleed” seat … those were the days.