Booker T. Washington papers, 1903-1916.

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Booker T. Washington papers, 1903-1916.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53905923

Collection comprises correspondence and related material concerning the Carnegie Hall conference (January 6-8, 1904) and the subsequent formation of the Committee of Twelve. The conference was a critical event in the early history of the African American civil rights movement. It was organized by Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, and it brought together many of the most prominent African American leaders in the United States. Rather than a dialogue, the conference became a debate over the ascendancy of Washington's accommodationist views versus Du Bois' demands for full equality for African Americans. Despite their differences in viewpoint, when Washington proposed the Committee of Twelve to continue the work of the conference, Du Bois joined. However, when Du Bois' proposals that the committee become a more extensive civil rights organization were ignored, he resigned. The letters in the collection provide documentary evidence for these events, as well as commentaries on the status of African Americans. They detail Washington's relationships with many of the key African American leaders of his day. The most striking is Washington's correspondence with W.E.B. Du Bois, where the tension and ideological conflict between the two men is clearly demonstrated. Other prominent correspondents include Whitefield McKinlay, Judson W. Lyons, Kelly Miller, T. Thomas Fortune, Francis J. Grimké, Clement G. Morgan, Robert R. Moton, E.H. Morris, Fredrick L. McGhee, James H. Hayes, John S. Durham, Emmett J. Scott, Hugh Browne, Alexander Walters, Charles W. Chestnutt, and Charles W. Russell. Other items include a typed preface to, photocopy of, and original copy of the pamphlet "Why Disfranchisement is Bad" (July 1904); a photocopy of and a copy of the original article, "The Estimate of an eminent Virginian of the merit of the book THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN;" and a poem, "The Empty Sleeve." Acquired as part of the John Hope Franklin Collection of African and African-American Documentation.

107 items (.1 lin. ft.)

Duke University Libraries, Duke University Library; Perkins Library

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SNAC Resource ID: 7672751

Duke University Libraries, Duke University Library; Perkins Library

Related Entities

There are 17 Entities related to this resource.

Moton, Robert Russa, 1867-1940

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Robert Russa Moton (born August 26, 1867, Amelia County, Virginia – died May 31, 1940, Holly Knoll, Virginia), American educator and author. He served as an administrator at Hampton Institute. In 1915 he was named principal of Tuskegee Institute, after the death of founder Booker T. Washington, a position he held for 20 years until retirement in 1935....

McGhee, Fredrick L., 1861-1912

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w68h0spz (person)

Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915

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Booker T. Washington was an African American educator and public figure. Born a slave on a small farm in Hale's Ford, Virginia, he worked his way through the Hampton Institute and became an instructor there. He was the first principal of the Tuskegee Institute, and under his management it became a successful center for practical education. A forceful and charismatic personality, he became a national figure through his books and lectures. Although his conservative views concerned many critics, he...

Walters, Alexander, 1858-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tq87r9 (person)

McKinlay, Whitefield, 1857-1941

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sb6cxb (person)

Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gk06z2 (person)

W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Educated at Fisk University, he did graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate. Du Bois became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Due to his contributions in the African-American community he was seen as a member of a Black elite that supported some aspects ...

Chesnutt, Charles W. (Charles Waddell), 1858-1932

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Charles Waddell Chesnutt was America's first important African-American author, and earned a reputation for both his socially conscious work and his literary innovation. Born in Cleveland to free black parents, he was raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and travelled throughout the south, as well as New York and Washington, D.C., before settling in Cleveland with his wife. He had worked as a teacher, and in Cleveland started a successful stenography business, learned law, and passed the bar ...

Grimké, Francis J. (Francis James), 1850-1937

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Russell, Charles Wells, 1856-1927

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Miller, Kelly, 1863-1939

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6b85z4z (person)

Kelly Miller (1863-1939), an African American intellectual and professor, was born in South Carolina in 1863, just a few months after the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the South. As a child Miller expressed a penchant for mathematics, and he was sent for special education in a Presbyterian-sponsored school. After secondary school, he received a scholarship to study at Howard University. He graduated from Howard in 1886 and became the first African American student to enroll at John H...

Fortune, Timothy Thomas, 1856-1928

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T. Thomas Fortune was the foremost African-American journalist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He served as an editor, publisher, writer, orator and civil rights leader, using his position at a series of black newspapers in New York City as the leading spokesman and defender of the rights of African Americans in both the South and the North. Fortune's journalism career began in Florida, he moved to New York in 1881, and founded the "New York Freeman...

Durham, John S.

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Scott, Emmett J. (Emmett Jay), 1873-1957

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6v41hxn (person)

Secretary to Booker T. Washington and of Tuskegee Normal School Board of Trustees (1897-1919); special assistant, U.S. Secretary of War (1917-1919); secretary-treasurer and secretary, Howard University and its Board of Trustees (1919-1938); assistant publicity directory, Republican National Committee and advisor to the chairman of its Negro Affairs Committee (1939-1942); director, employment and personnel relations, Shipyard No. 4, Sun Shipbuilding Co. in Pennsylvania (1942-1945); secretary, Sou...

Lyons, Judson Whitlocke, 1860-1924

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6jd5kj1 (person)

Committee of Twelve for the Advancement of the Interests of the Negro Race

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Grimké, Archibald Henry, 1849-1930

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60w0btp (person)

1849 August 17 Born on plantation near Charleston, South Carolina, son of Henry Grimke and Nancy Weston. 1866 70 Attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. 1870 72 Tutored ...

John Hope Franklin Collection of African and African-American Documentation

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