Pathos, Poverty, and Politics: Booker T. Washington’s Radically Reimagined American Civilization

Abstract

This article contends that in the period of his greatest political influence (1895–1905), Booker T. Washington called for a radical reimagining of American social and political life as a civilization characterized by reciprocity and equal dignity between the races. As this period corresponds with the nadir of black life in America, Washington has been derided as politically inept and his program of economic uplift has been condemned as miserably incapable of improving the condition of African Americans. These critiques have purchase, but fail to duly analyze the substance of Washington’s thinking. Examining Washington’s writing from this period for a political theory underlying his political program, I claim that these texts contain an internally coherent and often-attractive account of civilization comprised of black citizens who share equal social standing with white citizens, since all are industrious, confident, clean, and dignified. I argue that Washington’s object lessons contain examples of this dynamic of civilization and that Washington is part of a tradition of black political theory, which qualifies him as deserving of consideration as a political theorist on his own terms.