The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.8, page 350, Sept. 1905, U. of Illinois Press

The page presentation framework of the Booker T. Washington papers is designed to provide researchers worldwide with searchable access to the thousands of pages comprising the fourteen volumes, most of which are out of print. Adapted from the National Academy Press's Open Book framework, this framework allows searching down to the page level, provides sorting of search results chronologically, enables easy navigation across multiple volumes, and allows page-by-page local printing (via PDF) of every page.

[ Top of Page ]

[ Home ]

[ Contact Us ]

[ Help ]

OCRed data provided for searching only.
The BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Papers terpret the North to the South in this matter, in the interest of the South itself. The attitude of the South, as expressed in criticism such as I have made reference to, seems to many and probably to most men at the North simply hysterical; and I cannot help thinking that the root of it is to be found in the South's failure to understand that the North is as firmly set upon race purity as our good friends of the South. There is no evidence anywhere that race purity in the North is endangered by the courtesies shown to exceptional colored men; and if the South will only take this for granted it will do much to bring the two sections into closer sympathy with each other. I suppose the point of view of the South is that such an incident, when made known to the negroes at the South, will fill the race with social ambitions which otherwise it would not have. It certainly does not have this effect in the North; and if the Southern newspapers themselves did not advertise such happenings from one end of the South to the other, the negroes of the South would never know of them. In a word, it seems to me important to say (and I have tried to say it kindly), that fundamentally the North agrees with the South on the subject of race purity; but that it must be left at liberty to exercise the right to discriminate between an individual and his race, which is one of the incidents of the complete freedom from social danger that prevails here. For the South to demand the contrary would be to attempt to place upon the North ''a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.'' I know that at this moment you are a candidate for Governor of the State of Georgia. I therefore enclose my public letter to you under this private cover, so that, if it would embarrass you in any way to print it at this time, you may return it to me, and I will then send it to some other newspaper. If it does not embarrass you to print it, there is no paper in the South in which I should be so glad to have it appear as in ''The Atianta Constitution.'' Wishing you good luck in your campaign, I am, with kind regards, Yours sincerely, Beth Low] TL Copy Con. 878 BTW Papers DLC. 35o