"We Very Much Prefer to Have a Colored Man in Charge": Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee's All-Black Faculty

Abstract

"We Very Much Prefer to Have a Colored Man in Charge":Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee's All-Black Faculty Crystal R. Sanders (bio) in the spring of 1896, a young george washington carver completed his master's degree in agricultural science at Iowa Agricultural College (present-day Iowa State University). Carver had a host of job offers to consider, including an offer to remain at his current institution as a professor and an offer to join the faculty at the Black Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College in Mississippi. Tuskegee Institute was not on his radar, but he was on theirs. Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee's principal, wrote Carver in hopes of getting him to establish a school of agriculture at the Alabama institution. He explained that the Slater Fund, a northern philanthropic organization committed to Black industrial education, planned to underwrite the endeavor, and its trustees asserted that "there was no colored man in the country fit for such work."1 Washington did not accept such a limited assessment of the Black applicant pool in agriculture, and so he sought out Carver. In his attempt to recruit the scientist to Tuskegee, Washington stated his desire "to have a colored man in charge." He conceded, however, that "if we cannot secure you, we shall be forced perhaps to put in a white man."2 Booker T. Washington was successful in hiring George Washington Carver and dozens of other Black faculty to Tuskegee Institute. In [End Page 99] fact, there were no non-Black members on faculty at the Alabama institution during Washington's tenure from 1881 to 1915.3 This all-Black faculty did not occur by happenstance. Washington regularly wrote to college presidents and deans at northern institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Pennsylvania State College seeking information about Black alumni from those schools whom he could hire. He also employed Roscoe C. Bruce, a Harvard graduate and the son of the second Black United States senator, to recruit Black teachers from elite liberal arts schools.4 By 1900, Tuskegee had a student body of 1,100 and eighty-six officers and instructors. The list of Black educators who spent time at the Alabama institution included Robert Robinson Taylor, who became the first licensed Black architect and the first Black graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Nathan B. Young, who served as president of both Florida A&M College and Lincoln University in Missouri; and Adella Hunt Logan, who graduated from Atlanta University and became a leader in the universal suffrage movement.5 It is not clear if Washington ever advertised his all-Black faculty in promotional materials or speeches, but he boasted that Tuskegee employed more Black college graduates than any other institution in the United States.6 This article explores the all-Black academic corps that Booker T. Washington assembled at Tuskegee Institute and demonstrates that it was an inherent challenge to white supremacy during the nadir of American race relations. The highly educated Black faculty elevated the race's image at a time when dominant stereotypes of African Americans in popular culture portrayed them as uncouth, promiscuous, dishonest, and slothful. The faculty's intellectual prowess resulted [End Page 100] in practical benefits for the surrounding community, including the generation of electricity for the white town in which the institute was located and innovative agricultural discoveries, including new uses for neglected crops such as the cowpea, sweet potato, and peanut.7 In showcasing the capabilities of African Americans within a climate of racism and repression, Washington skillfully refuted white supremacy. Moreover, the influx of Black instructors into the Deep South served as a form of resistance in the face of calls for the massive removal of Black people from the region by white nationalists like Alabama senator John Tyler Morgan who, in the 1890s, singled out the best-educated African Americans as the first to go.8 Booker T. Washington's commitment to Black advancement through an all-Black faculty is often overshadowed by his promotion of industrial education. For certain, the Hampton-Tuskegee model of industrial education that prioritized basic skills was at odds with the educational vison crafted by many former slaves who...