Booker T. Washington, An Amazing Life

Good evening, Welcome to Voice in the Wilderness. This is Don Noble of

Pure Heart Ministries, and I welcome you today with exceedingly abundantly and overflowing joy.

This is Black History Month, and tonight we're going to talk about an

amazing life, the life of Booker T. Washington. But before I go

there, there's something that's been bugging me, and it actually kind of goes

in the flow of what I'm going to be talking about with regard to Booker

T. Washington. But this happened at the Super Bowl game. Millions of

people watching, I'm sure most of you listening watch the Super Bowl. It's

the only football game I watch all year, and sometimes I don't even watch

the Super Bowl. But nevertheless I watched the whole game. And what disturbed

me was, I forget what part of the game, but coach Andy Reid

of the Chiefs pulls out of the game Travis Kelcey, Well, everyone knows

Travis kelce because he's dating Taylor Swift. Big deal. I could care less

anyway, he pulls him out of the game, and Travis Kelsey was not

in the least bit happy about it. Proceeded to march over to his coach

and purposely, purposely bumped him, causing the coach to like stumble a little,

but fortunately he was able to stay upright and then proceeded to scream in

his face. Now we could see his facial expressions, so you could see

that he was very angry. You could tell by the look on it.

You could you could read it. But we didn't know what he was saying.

So they had lip readers analyze what he said. It was not nice

and he used that bad word that you know begins with that certain letter that

I'm not going to say, and so whatever he said, it was really

not nice. What is my point? My point is this, The word

honor means to demonstrate high respect or great esteem for someone. By honoring another,

you are saying you see great value in them. Here's what Scripture says

one Peter to seventeen. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God,

Honor the King. When we honor the King Jesus by the life that

we live, by the words that we speak. But it also says to

honor all people that's unsaved, saved doesn't matter. Honor all people. Scripture

says. This act by Travis Kelcey was extremely dishonoring to a man who is

his coach, who is a man of authority over Travis Kelsey. So when

you are a player, you are submitted to the one in authority. The

coach is the one in authority, and you honor that authority by listening to

what the coach says. You don't bump him to almost knock him down or

say ugly mean things shouting screaming right in his face on national TV, like

for everybody to see. I mean, it wasn't bad enough that he did

it, It was even worse that cameras caught it and so the whole world

gets to see it. Anyway, I had righteous indignation. I still have

righteous indignation. I am mad about it because it was so so dishonoring to

this coach, so dishonoring. And of course the coach didn't shout back,

did he No, he stayed silent, which was the right thing to do.

But I tell you, see, this is the day that we live

in, this is the culture we live, and we think that we can

do that to people. We can dishonor them, We can dishonor our boss.

We can dishonor our parents. We can dishonor you know, people that

are older than you. Know, if someone's older than you, I mean

you shouldn't dishonor them, but especially those who are in authority over you,

your pastor, your preacher, your priest, you know, your boss.

Come on now, someone told me that he's a born again Christian. I

don't know that that's true, but I could tell you if he says he

is, I'm saying, really, I I don't believe that. Nevertheless,

I had to get that off my chest because it was it just bugged me

that he's so dishonored. And the Bible says, what's you sew, you

will reap, So there we go. I know one thing. And then

after watching him with the with the big award in his hand, and he's

over there shouting some whatever he was shouting. I would not want to be

married to a man that behaved that way, and I was not. Fortunately,

I was married to a gentleman, a true, true gentleman. So

back to Booker T. Washington. I'm ashamed to say that I knew little

about this man, and I knew little about the impact that he had on

his generation and the generations to come. His life and accomplishments are way too

vast to talk about in one program, so I'm just going to try to

highlight some things that really I felt made him so special. He accomplished many

things. But just a little background. He was born in eighteen fifty six.

That's a long time ago in Virginia, actually five years before the start

of the Civil War. He was born into slavery, and his family was

freed when the United States troops reached the area where he was born. It's

near hales Ford in Franklin County, Virginia. Booker T. Washington never knew

his father. He was nine years old when he and his family gained freedom

under the Emancipation Proclamation. His mother took the family to the free state of

West Virginia. Yay, that's where I'm from. That's where I live.

So that made me excited. I didn't know that, But the illiterate boy

taught himself to read and attended school for the first time. They settled in

the little town of Maldon, West Virginia. He worked in the salt furnaces

and coal mines in West Virginia for several years to earn money. He finally

made his way east to a school in Virginia called the Hampton Institute at the

age of sixteen. He walked nearly five hundred miles to attend this school,

and it was founded by a Union general by the name of Samuel Chapman Armstrong.

Washington later stated this, He says, I have spoken of my admiration

for General Armstrong, and yet he was but a type of that christ like

body of men and women who went into the Negro schools at the close of

the war by the hundreds to assist in lifting up my race. The history

of the world fails to show a higher, pure and more unselfish class of

men and women than those who found their way into those Negro schools. Graduating

from the Hampton Institute in eighteen seventy five, Booker T. Washington wrote in

his book titled Up from Slavery. He wrote that in nineteen oh one,

he says, perhaps the most valuable thing that I got out of my second

year at the Hampston Institute was an understanding of the use and value of the

Bible. Miss Natalie Lord, one of the teachers from Portland, Maine,

taught me how to use and love the Bible. I learned to love to

read the Bible, not only for the spiritual help which it gives, but

on account of it as literature. The lessons taught me in this respect took

such a hold on me that at the present time, when I am at

home, no matter how busy I am, I always make it a rule

to read a chapter or a portion of a chapter in the morning before beginning

the work of the day. Whatever ability I may have as a public speaker,

I owe in major to Miss Lord. Booker. T. Washington wrote

in a book he titled The Story of My Life and Work. Aside from

General Armstrong, he said, the persons who made the deepest impression upon me

at Hampton were Miss Natalie Lord and Miss Elizabeth Brewer, two teachers from New

England. I'm especially indebted to these two for being helped in my spiritual life

and led to love and understand the Bible, largely by reason of their teaching.

I find that a day rarely, if ever passes when I am at

home that I do not read the Bible. Miss NATLEI Lord wrote in an

article for the Hampton Institution publication called The Southern Workman in May of nineteen oh

two. She said, Booker, as we always called him, I was

much interested in him from the first. He is quiet, unassuming manner.

His earnestness of purpose and faithfulness greatly impressed me. I saw in him one

whom you could completely trust. He was diligent in his business and yet unselfish

in his thought for others. So I want to just stop there for a

moment to show you the contrast. And you could say, well, you

know, football players, you know they're you know, full of energy and

passion and drive and whatever whatever. But I bet you you could find a

lot of players, professional football players who are quiet, quiet men. And

when I read this statement that she wrote about him, she said, his

quiet, unassuming manner, unassuming means I'm not trying to show the world that

I'm a big I'm a big deal. His earnestness of purpose and faithfulness greatly

impressed me. Later, Booker T. Washington attended Whalan Baptist Seminary in Washington,

d c. He then, in eighteen seventy six, he taught school

in Malden, West Virginia. He had returned to West Virginia and taught school

in that same town where He also taught a Sunday school class at the African

Zion Baptist Church, and then he returned after graduating from the Hampton Institute,

he returned to teach at the Hampston Hampton Institute. Of course, Booker T.

Washington's most impressive accomplishments were while he was at the Tuskegee Institute, where

General Armstrong you know, desired and then of course appointed him to be the

head of the school when he was only twenty five years old. And of

course Washington was a reformer. I mean, he did so many things at

that institute to change the life of those who, you know, were emancipated,

and so he was trying to really help the Negro race, as he

called it. In the spring of eighteen ninety six, Booker T. Washington

invited George Washington Carver to teach at Tuskegee as he had just received his master's

degree from Iowa State Agricultural Institute. They became friends, and Booker T.

Washington became friends with the leading men of his day, including steel industrious industrialist

Andrew Carnegie, Standard Oil's John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Huttleson Rogers,

George Eastman, inventor and founder of Kodak and Sears Roebuck and company president Julius

ROSENWALDT. Julius Rosenwald funded a pilot program of over one hundred elementary schools designed

and operated by Tuskegee, Rosenwald and Carnegy took a matching fund approach to expand

to four nine hundred and seventy seven schools, two hundred and seventeen teacher homes,

and one hundred and sixty three shop buildings in fifteen states. An agricultural

college on wheels taught over two thousand farmers in twenty eight states. I like

that. I think they came up with some pretty pretty cool ideas. So

I want to share some other things which give you some insight into this man.

Booker T. Washington believed that to be great one should read the Bible.

And these are things he wrote in his Booker T. Washington Papers from

eighteen eighty nine to eighteen ninety five, and he said, as a rule,

a person should get into the habit of reading his Bible. You never

read in history of any great man whose influence has been lasting who has not

been a reader of the Bible. He says, take Abraham Lincoln and Gladstone,

the British Prime Minister. Their lives show that they have been readers of

the Bible. If you wish to properly direct your mind in your lives,

begin by reading the book of all books. Read your Bible every day,

and you will find how healthily you will grow. In his address at Columbus,

Ohio, made twenty fourth nineteen hundred, booker T. Washington stated this.

He said, the men, the men doing the vital things of life,

are those who read the Bible and are He added, those who have

accomplished the greatest results are those who never grow excited or lose control, but

are always calm, self possessed, patient and polite, again talking about people

losing their control. He believed in a religious life and that it was key

to freedom, usefulness, and honor, and he wrote that in another book

he said, educated men and women, especially those who are in college,

very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people.

No young man or woman can make a greater error than this. He says,

My observation has taught me that the people who stand for the most in

the educational and commercial world and then the uplifting of the people are in some

way really connected with the religious life of the people among who they among whom

they reside. This being true, we ought to make the most of our

religious life, so we can see that obviously, this was extremely important to

Booker T. Washington. Reading the Bible, living the Bible. I think

that's probably what struck me the most about him. I mean, Booker T.

Washington went before a Queen Victoria. I mean he you know, traveled

Europe. I mean, he was extremely famous. Everybody wanted to listen to

what he had to say, and he did, you know, a great

service to the African American culture, people their lives. And that Tuskegee Institute

was amazing. I mean, what they were able to accomplish there. One

of the things that Washington said about when he was describing the Tuskegee Institute and

by the way that was established started which is thirty three people in Alabama.

But he said, while the institution is in no sense denominational, we have

a department known as the Phelps Hall Bible Training School, in which a number

of students are prepared for the ministry and other forms of Christian work, especially

work in the country districts. He said, in the school, we make

a special effort to teach our students the meaning of Christmas, to give them

lessons in its proper observance. The season now has a new meaning, not

only through all that immediate region, but wherever our graduates go. And I

think that kind of struck me because I thought, oh, we're learning about

the meaning of Christmas. Here we are, how many years later, one

hundred or so years later, and we're not even saying the word. We

don't want to say the word Merry Christmas. I mean, things have shifted

a whole lot. But nevertheless, the Tuskegee Institute was really amazing. You

know. They they did so much there. I mean, they constructed so

many buildings, classrooms, barns, out buildings. They grew their own crops,

they raised their own livestock, and they were learning to provide for the

most basic necessities. But both men and women had to learn trades as well

as academics, so it wasn't just a trade school. The Tuskegee faculty used

all these activities to teach the student's basic skill skills to take back to their

mostly rural black community. Communities throughout the South. The main goal was not

to produce farmers and tradesmen, but teachers of farming and trades who could teach

in these new schools that I talked about and colleges for blacks across the South.

And as time went on, this school expanded, adding programs, departments.

It was massive and continues to this day. He led Tuskegee. Booker

T. Washington led Tuskegee Institute for more than thirty years after becoming its leader,

and as he developed it, adding to both the curriculum and the facilities

on the campus. He became a prominent national leader among African Americans, with

considerable influence with wealthy white philanthropists and politicians. One thing I wanted to share

with you was Booker T. Washington was the first African American to have his

image on a US postage stamp nineteen forty. In nineteen forty five, he

was the first American African American elected to the Hall of Fame, and in

nineteen forty sixty's image was placed on a US coin. In eighteen ninety six,

Booker T. Washington was awarded an honorary master's degree from Harvard The first

New England university to confer an honorary degree upon a black man. Harvard President

Charles W. Elliott wrote May twenty sixth, eighteen ninety six. He says,

President Booker T. Washington, my dear sir, Harvard University desires to

confer on you at the approaching commencement and honorary degree. But it is our

custom to confer degrees only on johnomen who are present. Our commencement occurs this

year on June twenty fourth, and your presence would be desirable from about noon

until five o'clock in the afternoon. Would it be possible for you to be

in Cambridge on that day? Believe me, with great guard, very truly

yours and so Then the Harvard president spoke at Tuskegee's twenty fifth anniversary in nineteen

oh six, stating, now listen to this statement. I was like wow.

By nineteen oh five, Tuskegee produced more self made millionaires than Harvard,

Yale, and Princeton combined. Yeah, I'm going to say it again because

you didn't catch it. By nineteen oh five, Tuskegee Institute produced more self

made millionaires than Harvard, Yale, and Princeton combined. Wow. He was

awarded an honorary doctorate from Dartmouth in nineteen oh one, and many places and

items were named for him, including a bridge, a mountain, a ship,

an airplane, a stamp, a coin, a college, parks,

buildings, elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. In November eighteen

ninety seven, Booker T. Washington arrived at the White House and met President

William McKinley. And from that meeting, I will tell you that Booker T.

Washington wanted the President to come to Tuskegee and lo and behold through a

variety of different things that happened. The President did come to Tuskegee and the

town went crazy. In fact, all of the white people supported it.

I mean, it's kind of amazing to think that at that time, you

know, that's the Deep South, and but lists just like they I don't

know, like they all got along. But I do want to share another

bit of information. After the Civil War, freed slaves began to advance like

Booker T. Washington, but Democrat vigilante groups in the South tried to keep

them down, committing over four thousand lynchings. Who committed the four thousand lynchings

Democrats Democrats. The Tuskegee Institute recorded that from eighteen eighty two nineteen sixty eight,

three four hundred and forty six blacks and two hundred ninety seven whites were

lynched, the whites being radical Republicans who were caught registering freed blacks to vote.

Oh my goodness, could we please to share that with our current White

House. Yeah. Three, roughly thirty five hundred blacks and roughly thirteen hundred

whites were lynched, and they the whites were Republicans helping the blacks. And

then when Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, invited Booker T. Washington as an

honored guest for dinner at the White House, who the Democrats went crazy?

And they wrote in their Democrat paper in the South saying, the most damnable

outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States was committed

yesterday by the President when he invited a n N word to dine with him

at the White House. It would not be worth more than a passing notice

if Theodore Roseneveld had sat down to dinner in his own home with a Pullman

car porter. But Roosevelt the individual and Roosevelt the president are not to be

viewed in the same light. Isn't that extremely disgusting? It is to me

anyway, this was a great man who made a great impact on not just

the community, but the culture of the African American people in our nation,

and he is to be applauded. I am. I feel so honored to

talk about him. I wish I could have met him. What an honor,

and it is worthy. He is worthy of honor, this man.

So you know, teach your children about the truth and about things that you

know we aren't taught in schools anymore. But anyway, I I just felt

it such an honor to learn something about a man that I knew hardly anything

about. And wow, what an impact he made in our nation. So

with that, I'll conclude and just say amen, Amen. Well, this

is Don Noble. You can go to www dot pureheart dot today and listen

to this podcast again, or you can download the iHeartRadio app, go to

pure Heart Ministries and listen twenty four to seven. Of course, you can

email me all lowercase letters, all one word donatpurehart dot today. And I

haven't received an email for some time, so I'm really encouraging you to send

me an email and then you can financially support this ministry by sending a check

to Pure Heart Ministries, PO Box eighty five, Valley Grove, West Virginia

to six six oh. And of course, never stop praying. I need

your prayers. Well, God bless you. I look forward to being with

you again next week. This is Don Noble saying Shalom shalom, Peace be unto you