Booker T. Washington letters to Henry Pleasants Jr.

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was a Black American educator and orator who led the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, from 1881 until his death in 1915. Washington gave a lecture at Haverford College in Roberts Hall on December 6, 1905 entitled "Some Phases of the Negro Problem." The lecture was delivered under the auspices of the Civics Department of the Loganian Society, later known as the Civics Club, chaired at the time by Henry Pleasants Jr., Haverford Class of 1906. Washington was introduced by President Isaac Sharpless. According to the January 1906 issue of The Haverfordian, Washington "dealt with the negro and industrial education in his logical, common-sense way, now and then adding a bit of humor to drive home a point." Washington "laid emphasis upon the fact that the negro would have to become of social value before he could attain social recognition." The Haverfordian article notes that Washington "said to the colored people in the audience: 'Get a bit of property. Get a bank account. No one will have any use or respect for you until you get something that they want. When you get it they will have use for you; when you show them that you can hold your own against them, when they try to get it away from you, they will have respect for you.'" Washington went on to discuss "the efficiency of industrial education" and the Tuskegee Institute.

In his second letter to Pleasants in March 1906, Washington thanked him for the Civics Club's donation of seventy-one dollars to the Tuskegee Institute. This donation coincides with a capital campaign that Washington launched in January 1906 to raise money for the school.

After graduating from Haverford, Henry Pleasants Jr. (1884-1963) received an M.D. from University of Pennsylvania in 1910 and went on to practice medicine in West Chester, Pennsylvania.