Placing Black Progress on Display: Booker T. Washington in Florida, March 1912

This lecture is from May 2021 by Florida A&M University Professor Dr. David H. Jackson. This talk is part of a series of programs and events in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibit “When the Train Comes Along”: Booker T. Washington at the Tampa Bay Casino. During the presentation, Dr. Jackson discusses Booker T. Washington’s visit to Florida in 1912 during the midst of the Jim Crow era.  He visited ten cities and made several whistle stops along the way.  His tour was sponsored by the Florida State Negro Business League and was not conducted simply for self-promotion or personal gain. Instead, Washington used his visit to Florida to address the so-called “Negro problem” and to challenge white stereotypes of blacks and racist notions that black people were degenerating and retrogressing into barbarism since slavery.  These trips became a significant way that the Tuskegee leader worked to undermine white supremacy throughout the country.