I didn’t want to agree with David, but even crotchety Dean Walters had defended Washington. That had to count for something. Still, I didn’t want to seek peace with my former boyfriend. I wanted to hold my spear high, hopefully at throat level, since David not only had put on weight. He’d grown taller, at least two inches.
“Why aren’t y’all talking about women?” I asked. “Weren’t there any sisters who were concerned about Black folks?”
My ex-boyfriend said nothing. He cut into his pie with his fork, as the old man told me, I already knew there were Black women doing important work. Anna Julia Cooper, Mary McLeod Bethune, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and so many others. As he remembered, I’d written a paper on this, back in high school.
“In Brother David’s defense, I don’t think he’s trying to exclude women. I just think he’s curious about why I have animus toward Washington. And that’s because my mother didn’t like him. You see that picture? That was taken in 1895, twelve years before I was born.”
He pointed to the framed photograph of Lil’ May, Big Thom, and Tommy Jr. on the credenza. I’d passed by that photograph so many times, I no longer paid attention to it.
“That picture was taken on the day Booker T. Washington gave his most infamous speech at the cotton exposition,” Uncle Root said. “When he was still the Head Negro in Charge of the Race. Before that speech, he was a god among our people. His white patrons gave him money to fund Tuskegee. He even had dinner at the White House, but whenever a Negro man, woman, or child was killed, he was silent. He kept his peace, and that day at the Atlanta exposition, the event was segregated. They wouldn’t even allow the rest of us into the event. The only reason my mother was allowed to hear Washington speak is because she was a servant tending to a white child. She was holding Tommy Jr.’s hand.
“My mother had a memory like nobody’s business. It was miraculous. She could recall every word that someone spoke, and when I was little, my mother would repeat what she heard Booker T. Washington say to those white folks. He started out slowly, but then his message started getting good to him, like a preacher, don’t you know, and when he came to the crux of the matter, the white folks cheered him on.”
Uncle Root closed his eyes and folded his hands in his lap.
“He told them, ‘You can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.’”
Uncle Root opened his eyes.
“Can you imagine that? Here Booker T. Washington had the opportunity to change the hearts and minds of these vicious white southerners. He could have truly helped our people that day, and those despicable words are what he chose to deliver! He told those crackers that not only was segregation of the races perfectly all right, but he agreed with segregation! My mother didn’t understand everything in that speech, but she got the gist. She didn’t agree with what Washington said, not one bit, though naturally, Big Thom was just skinning and grinning, like he had seen Jesus move the Rock. My mother said, Washington was a well-spoken, well-dressed, red-nappy man with light eyes, and all he proved that day was he was a white man’s nigger. Not because he was forced to be, either. But because he just loved pleasing the white folks so much. He just loved to kiss the white man’s hind parts.”
He held up his index finger.
“And now, Ailey, you ask me about women? My mother was the wisest individual I have ever known! And I have learned through much experience that when a wise Negro woman tells me something, I pay close attention. And now, Brother David, I hope you understand why I do not think much of Booker T. Washington. I don’t even like giving him the respect of calling him ‘mister.’”
“All right, I get it, Dr. Hargrace. You won today, but I’m going to be ready for you next time.”
“And I eagerly await that opportunity.”