Booker T. Washington Rediscovered

Book info: Booker T. Washington Rediscovered (Hardcover, 280 pages) – Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. Language: English.

Booker T. Washington, a founding father of African American education in the United States, has long been studied, revered, and reviled by scholars and students. Born into slavery, freed and raised in the Reconstruction South, and active in educational reform through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Washington sought to use education to bridge the nation’s racial divide. This volume explores Washington’s life and work through his writings and speeches.

Drawing on previously unpublished writings, hard-to-find speeches and essays, and other primary documents from public and private collections, Michael Scott Bieze and Marybeth Gasman provide a balanced and insightful look at this controversial and sometimes misunderstood leader. Their essays follow key themes in Washington’s life―politics, aesthetics, philanthropy, religion, celebrity, race, and education―that show both his range of thought and the evolution of his thinking on topics vital to African Americans at the time. Wherever possible, the book reproduces archival material in its original form, aiding the reader in delving more deeply into the primary sources, while the accompanying introductions and analyses by Bieze and Gasman provide rich context. A companion website contains additional primary source documents and suggested classroom exercises and teaching aids.

Innovative and multifaceted, Booker T. Washington Rediscovered provides the opportunity to experience Washington’s work as he intended and examines this turn-of-the-century pioneer in his own right, not merely in juxtaposition with W. E. B. Du Bois and other black leaders.

Editorial Reviews Review Black educator Booker T. Washington is finally escaping his long-held characterization as an 'Uncle Tom,' particularly when measured against Harvard sociologist and freedom fighter W.E.B. DuBois.
―Steve Goddard, History Wire - Where the Past Comes Alive

Most significantly, the book's rich use of pictures to show historical documents provides contexts and shows the aura they possessed, considerably more than any existing scholarship on Washington has done. These visuals provide rare opportunities to students who have limited access to archival documents.
―Choice About the Author Marybeth Gasman (PHILADELPHIA, PA)is the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair and a Distinguished University Professor at Rutgers University. She is the author of Doing the Right Thing: How Colleges and Universities Can Undo Systemic Racism in Faculty Hiring and the coauthor of Making Black Scientists: A Call to Action.