Along the way, I found more great quotes by this person.
Here, from Wikipedia, is a teaser about this person:
This person was born April 5, 1856 and died November 14, 1915; was an American educator, author and leader of the African American community. S/he was freed from slavery as a child, gained an education, and as a young adult was appointed to lead a teachers' college for blacks. From this position of leadership s/he rose into a nationally prominent role as spokesman for African Americans.
I thought it would be nice to hear some positive coming out of a black person, particularly in light of the filth we've been subjected to by the alleged black leaders the past week or so.
So, who is this mystery guest? Why, none other than Booker T. Washington. I think I would have liked to have known him. After a remarkable life, he seems to have embodied the true ideals for getting along with his fellow man. We didn't hear from him the hate and vitriol we hear from the likes of Sharpton, Jackson and Wright.
We do hear echoes of him in today's Juan Williams and Bill Cosby, who espouse education, responsibility and not expecting everyone to do for you. One of my favorite Cosby quotes is, "What good is Brown v. Board of Education if nobody wants it?"
The very last quote is the one I heard today, the one which sent me on my quest. Mr. Washington wrote it as a preface to one of his books, and it is circa 1911.
One last tidbit? Mr. Washington was mulatto as well, born to a white plantation owner and a slave mother. He was just as mulatto as Barack Hussein Obama; what he is lacking, however, is the sense of entitlement, the anger, the arrogance. He was a producer, being one of the original founders of Tuskegee College. He mingled with great men, regardless of color, and was able to obtain funding for his schools based on his vision.
That all sounds wonderful, but let's keep this in perspective. Mr. Washington was a product of a completely different era. HE WAS A SLAVE. He was freed and HE MADE SOMETHING LASTING OF HIMSELF.
He wasn't a hustler, he wasn't a race baiter, he wasn't a hater. He was a real man--certainly a rarity today.
More important, it is men like him who were the inspiration for the civil rights workers 75-80 years later. He was the inspiration of what could be gained with education, with quiet dignity and non-violence.
He is the kind of man blacks need to be looking up to--not the race baiters, not the haters, not the hip-hop filth and the hos and bling.
Below are quotes of Booker T. Washington. Emphasis is mine.
No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.A truly remarkable man and well worth learning about. His lessons and ideas are as timely today as they were a century ago.
Most leaders spend time trying to get others to think highly of them, when instead they should try to get their people to think more highly of themselves. It’s wonderful when the people believe in their leader. It’s more wonderful when the leader believes in their people!
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.
Character, not circumstances, makes the man
I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high water mark of pure and useful living.
"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."
"As I look back now over that part of our struggle, I am glad that we had it. I am glad that we endured all those discomforts and inconveniences. I am glad that our students had to dig out the place for their kitchen and dining room. I am glad that out first boarding-place was in that dismal, ill-lighted, and damp basement. Had we started in a fine, attractive, convenient room, I fear we would have "lost our heads" and become "stuck up".It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for one's self."
"With God's help, I believe that I have completely rid myself of any ill feeling toward the Southern white man for any wrong that he may have inflicted upon my race. I am made to feel just as happy now when I am rendering service to Southern white men as when the service is rendered to a member of my own race. I pity from the bottom of my heart any Individual who is unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice.
"The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women."
"I have great faith in the power and influence of facts. It is seldom that anything is permanently gained by holding back a fact."
There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well.
Also posted at Digg! here; GOP Hub here and Grizzly Groundswell here.
