My Hero is Booker T. Washington!
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON VISIT IN MUSKOGEE.
by Wally Waits
Booker T. Washington's arrival in Muskogee caused a commotion. His arrival attracted a crowd estimated to number between five and six thousand when he arrived on November 20th, 1905. Naturally, most in the crowd were African Americans. The heavy foot of Jim Crow still separated the Black race from everyone else. Consequently, many in Indian Territory wanted to hear how they could finally, fully be free.
The Civil War ended forty years earlier in Virginia. It was not lost on the crowd that Dr. Washington was born a slave in Virginia. It was also common knowledge that he had dined with the President of the United States. Everyone who came to Muskogee, it seems, wanted to learn how he overcame his humble beginnings.
Booker Taliaferro Washington lived under slavery for nine years. After the war ended, his mother moved the family to the new state of West Virginia. There he began studying in school for the first time. It was under these circumstances that he learned to read and write at a later age than students do today.
At age sixteen, Booker left home to enter the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute back in Virginia. A couple of years later, he attended a seminary in Washington, DC. In 1881, he became the first principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama. When the Katy train pulled into the Muskogee station, Washington had been teaching for less than fifteen years. C. E. Jones extended an invitation to visit Indian Territory to survey the progress of African-American life.
Onlookers crowded the streets and the station that Monday morning. Some were atop boxcars that sat idle on adjacent tracks. A few who wished to get a glimpse of the "Moses of the Negro race" hung from telephone poles nearby. When Washington walked out of his special boxcar, the pressure to surge closer brought a call for calmness, order and silence so that everyone could hear Dr. Washington.
The welcoming committee consisted of A. G. W. Sango, W. H. Twine, J. H. Lilly and Louis T. Brown. Sango feted the visitors and city representatives at his home. Dr. Washington and his party of four spent the night at the home of Dr. R. H. Watterford because all of the Watterford children studied at Tuskegee.
The original plan was for Dr. Washington to speak in the Raymond Auditorium. However, the news of his visit to Muskogee attracted thousands more than the available seating allowed. The city then agreed to arrangements to block traffic on Okmulgee Avenue. The committee erected a platform at the intersection of Second Street for Dr. Washington. Here are a couple of points he made that Monday evening.
"Here in the south both races labor under a disadvantage, because the bad that there is among whites and blacks is, almost without exception, flashed all over the country, while the worthy acts of both races are seldom know beyond the borders of the community or state."
"For the present, and, in my opinion, for centuries to come, we are to live here side by side, and, since this is true, the wise and safe policy for each one to pursue is for each race to live in peace and harmony, each striving to promote the welfare of the other."
"We must continually train our children, setting the example ourselves, that there is no disgrace in any kind of labor but that there is a disgrace in all idleness. We as a race have got to learn the dignity and duty of labor."
"Fertile farm after fertile farm has been pointed out to me on my trip through this country, with but a little two-room house, no stable, and the harness and tools exposed to the weather. That's not living; it is existing. Stop existing and go to living."
"A farmer should make more than a living. He should build a four or five room house, get books, carpets on the floor, pictures on the wall, then he will commence to enjoy life."
Muskogee has a reminder to of Dr. Washington's 1905 visit. On Highway 69, the Booker T. Washington Memorial Cemetery is named in his honor.
Labels: A. G. W. Sango, Booker T. Washington, C. E. Jones, Dr. R. H. Watterford, J. H. Lilly, Louis T. Brown, W. H. Twine
posted by Wally Waits at 2:56 PM
Muskogee, Oklahoma, United States
repost from December 2, 2015 · Muskogee
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
BOOKER T, WASHINGTON IN MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA
My Hero is Booker T. Washington!
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON VISIT IN MUSKOGEE.
by Wally Waits
Booker T. Washington's arrival in Muskogee caused a commotion. His arrival attracted a crowd estimated to number between five and six thousand when he arrived on November 20th, 1905. Naturally, most in the crowd were African Americans. The heavy foot of Jim Crow still separated the Black race from everyone else. Consequently, many in Indian Territory wanted to hear how they could finally, fully be free.
The Civil War ended forty years earlier in Virginia. It was not lost on the crowd that Dr. Washington was born a slave in Virginia. It was also common knowledge that he had dined with the President of the United States. Everyone who came to Muskogee, it seems, wanted to learn how he overcame his humble beginnings.
Booker Taliaferro Washington lived under slavery for nine years. After the war ended, his mother moved the family to the new state of West Virginia. There he began studying in school for the first time. It was under these circumstances that he learned to read and write at a later age than students do today.
At age sixteen, Booker left home to enter the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute back in Virginia. A couple of years later, he attended a seminary in Washington, DC. In 1881, he became the first principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama. When the Katy train pulled into the Muskogee station, Washington had been teaching for less than fifteen years. C. E. Jones extended an invitation to visit Indian Territory to survey the progress of African-American life.
Onlookers crowded the streets and the station that Monday morning. Some were atop boxcars that sat idle on adjacent tracks. A few who wished to get a glimpse of the "Moses of the Negro race" hung from telephone poles nearby. When Washington walked out of his special boxcar, the pressure to surge closer brought a call for calmness, order and silence so that everyone could hear Dr. Washington.
The welcoming committee consisted of A. G. W. Sango, W. H. Twine, J. H. Lilly and Louis T. Brown. Sango feted the visitors and city representatives at his home. Dr. Washington and his party of four spent the night at the home of Dr. R. H. Watterford because all of the Watterford children studied at Tuskegee.
The original plan was for Dr. Washington to speak in the Raymond Auditorium. However, the news of his visit to Muskogee attracted thousands more than the available seating allowed. The city then agreed to arrangements to block traffic on Okmulgee Avenue. The committee erected a platform at the intersection of Second Street for Dr. Washington. Here are a couple of points he made that Monday evening.
"Here in the south both races labor under a disadvantage, because the bad that there is among whites and blacks is, almost without exception, flashed all over the country, while the worthy acts of both races are seldom know beyond the borders of the community or state."
"For the present, and, in my opinion, for centuries to come, we are to live here side by side, and, since this is true, the wise and safe policy for each one to pursue is for each race to live in peace and harmony, each striving to promote the welfare of the other."
"We must continually train our children, setting the example ourselves, that there is no disgrace in any kind of labor but that there is a disgrace in all idleness. We as a race have got to learn the dignity and duty of labor."
"Fertile farm after fertile farm has been pointed out to me on my trip through this country, with but a little two-room house, no stable, and the harness and tools exposed to the weather. That's not living; it is existing. Stop existing and go to living."
"A farmer should make more than a living. He should build a four or five room house, get books, carpets on the floor, pictures on the wall, then he will commence to enjoy life."
Muskogee has a reminder to of Dr. Washington's 1905 visit. On Highway 69, the Booker T. Washington Memorial Cemetery is named in his honor.
Labels: A. G. W. Sango, Booker T. Washington, C. E. Jones, Dr. R. H. Watterford, J. H. Lilly, Louis T. Brown, W. H. Twine
posted by Wally Waits at 2:56 PM
Muskogee, Oklahoma, United States
repost from December 2, 2015 · Muskogee