From our vantage point, this is ludicrous. Booker T. Washington has long been criticized for engaging in respectability politics—that if Blacks just acted the way that white people wanted them to, then there could be racial harmony. Washington, some feel, was participating in the system of white supremacy. I get it. I really do. And if this is your view, you’re not wrong. But I’ll also add an AND to these sentiments. The system was inherently racist, AND Booker and Anna were doing what they thought was best at the time.
