Column: Booker T. offers lessons for Washington

• Booker T. Washington was born into slavery but rose to national preeminence.
• He admonished the rich to consider their responsibility to the poor, for the sake of social peace
• He admonished the poor to take full responsibility for themselves and their circumstances.

America has just endured a dangerously divisive election. Now we must set about solving the problems defined by the two presidential campaigns -- in particular, how to move our government and its people forward together. For a model of what we need to do, let's look back 100 years to a man who knew a lot about healing deep divides: Booker T. Washington.

Washington was a major force for change in his time. Industrialist Andrew Carnegie likened him to George Washington. President Teddy Roosevelt invited him to dinner at the White House. He was as famous as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would later become. He founded and built what is now Tuskegee University in Alabama and spent his career encouraging both Northern and Southern audiences to invest in the education of poor children, black as well as white.

Washington knew what it took to achieve success. He also knew the cruelest kind of dependency, having been born and raised in slavery. Yet he rose above that circumstance to become a world renowned educator and thinker. The principles he advocated and the actions he took a century ago provide a model for how we should address the problems we face today.

Washington argued that the rich and powerful have a duty to help the poor and powerless. That duty, he said, is based on the principles of justice and decency that ought to be evident to everyone -- especially those who follow Scripture. But he was wise enough to understand that moral or religious arguments aren't always the most persuasive. So he also offered a practical argument.

He said that all citizens of the United States are connected to each other. If the wealthy do not help the less well off, they will be pulled down themselves. Liberals and conservatives might disagree about how best to help the poor, but they both agree that poverty, crime, health care and education are expensive problems to solve. The issue, Washington said, goes well beyond economics. A country cannot have tens of millions of citizens in dire need without threatening its social and moral foundation. The people at the top are not immune from that threat.

But Washington also had another, equally powerful, message for the poor. Everyone owes a duty to themselves, he said, no matter how poor or powerless. Although they may be completely blameless for their predicament, they must accept responsibility for improving their lives. The poor, just like the rich, have duties to fulfill and must bear personal responsibility for their actions.

Washington never missed an opportunity to remind wealthy audiences in the North of their duties to poor Southerners. To poor audiences in the South, he used equally strong language to impress upon them that they couldn't wait for others to act.

Washington lived these lessons. He used his considerable rhetorical skills and connections to secure funding for his school from philanthropists like Carnegie, Julius Rosenwald and the Rockefellers. But he began Tuskegee long before he had received a dime from these men. In fact, Washington directed his students to build their own school. They made the bricks, constructed the classrooms, raised the livestock and grew the food they needed to survive, even after the philanthropists had come along.

No one, Washington said, is in this life alone. We are all connected. Blaming others for past grievances, he warned, was a waste of time. People must begin their journey where they are, not where they wished they were.

If Washington were alive today he would admonish us to stop debating how much or how little each of us should do. He would tell us that the rich must stop manipulating the political process to figure out ways to give less. He would also tell the poor that they can't rely on government to maintain themselves and their families.

In Booker T. Washington's day, our racial divide was so acute that the country was torn apart. Although this fissure has substantially narrowed, dangerous and deep economic disparities remain. All citizens share a vital, unbreakable bond. We must embrace that bond and try to meet our obligations to ourselves and to each other for both moral and practical reasons.

If we meet our obligations, does that guarantee success? Though always an optimist, Washington gave the only sensible answer to this question: "Duty is with us; results are with God." Others might phrase it differently, but his message was clear. All of us should follow his example today, in word and in deed.

Richard Schiffrin is an attorney in Pennsylvania and a Booker T. Washington scholar.

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