External terror plus Black elite defeatism paved the way for Booker T. Washington’s leadership

Evidence

Negroes did not surrender the ballot easily or immediately… . But it was a losing battle, with public opinion, industry, wealth, and religion against them. Their own leaders decried “politics” and preached submission. All their efforts toward manly self-assertion were distracted by defeatism and counsels of despair, backed by the powerful propaganda of a religion which taught meekness, sacrifice and humility (pp. 692-93). This brings us to the situation when Booker T. Washington became the leader of the Negro race and advised them to depend upon industrial education and work rather than politics. The better class of Southern Negroes stopped voting for a generation, (p. 694) Through its wealth and educational institutions the Black elite survived, growing more remote from the masses of Blacks as its ability to reproduce itself developed: They avoided the mistake of trying to meet force by force. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 972

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the arc of the Black radical tradition — the Washington accommodation is a low point the reader’s project maps. — connects to: The Black women’s Baptist convention took bolder political stands than Booker T. Washington did. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1026