Major Themes

DIGNITY OF LABOUR

During Booker Washington’s time, the black masses believed that labour was a curse. For his community – newly freed from the chains of slavery – education became the means to avoid this curse for the rest of one’s life.

Booker, however, understood that labour was something to be loved, not to be escaped from. The time he spent in Mrs Ruffner’s house taught him the importance of doing things in a proper, prompt and systematic manner. Later, seeing Miss Mackie – a woman of considerable education and social standing – perform menial tasks with delight, taught him to love labour for its own sake. At Hampton, he learned the purpose of education: to create avenues for individuals to learn to do things that the society wanted done, thereby making them valuable as well as self-reliant.

Armed with these lessons, Booker approached the people of his race. He sought to impress upon them the utility, beauty and dignity of labour. He made them aware of the need to do the common things in an uncommon manner if they were to progress, and hence, be accepted as equals by the whites. The Tuskegee Institute, which was built by the actual, hard labour of its students, was founded on these very ideas. 

During Booker Washington’s time, the black masses believed that labour was a curse. For his community – newly freed from the chains of slavery – education became the means to avoid this curse for the rest of one’s life.

Booker, however, understood that labour was something to be loved, not to be escaped from. The time he spent in Mrs Ruffner’s house taught him the importance of doing things in a proper, prompt and systematic manner. Later, seeing Miss Mackie – a woman of considerable education and social standing – perform …