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Booker T. Washington was among the most celebrated educators, authors, and statemen of his day. He walked side by side with Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, H. G. Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, and Andrew Carnegie. He was the first African American to dine with the president in the White House and the first to have tea with the queen of England. He was the first African American to receive honorary degrees from Harvard and Dartmouth, the first African American to be honored on a postage stamp, the first African American to be commemorated on a coin, the first African American to have a naval vessel named for him, and the first African American to have schools named after him.
To many African Americans today, Washington points the way toward prosperity and sophistication. His spiritual and economic wisdom is being reclaimed as a proven path of racial advance, and his ideas are again gaining currency among upwardly mobile African Americans, In this brief volume, Stephen Mansfield reviews the course of Washington's life and highlights those principles and practices that undergirded the great educator's ability to empower all people to be the best they can be.
About the author
Stephen Mansfield is an educator, administrator, counselor, author, and pastor. Among his writings are dozens of articles and essays, three monograph, and two acclaimed books—Never Give In: The Extraordinary Character of Winston Churchill and Faithful Volunteers: The History of Religion in Tennessee. Mansfield is the senior pastor of the Belmont Church in Nashville, Tennessee.
George Grant is the director of King's Meadow Study Center, the editor of Arx Axiom newsletter, a regular columnist for World and Table Talk magazines, and a teaching fellow at the Franklin Classical School. He has written numerous essays and articles and more than four dozen books in the areas of history, biography, politics, literature, and social criticism. He and his family live in Middle Tennessee.
Summary
At a time when Booker T. Washington is being rediscovered by African Americans today, the author offers a compelling look at the man and the qualities of leadership he embodied in his life and work. The result is a timeless message of hope, empowerment, and responsibility, which Washington himself characterized as the training of head, heart, and hand.
