This is the first biography of Margaret Murray Washington. Outside of the occasional mentions when discussing club work or Booker T. Washington, there is not a single monograph on her life. More specifically, scholars Jacqueline Anne Rouse and Linda Rochell Lane have written brilliant works on Washington. In Rouse’s 1996 article “Out of the Shadow of Tuskegee,” she positioned Washington as a leader who stood independent of her husband Booker T. Washington. Historian Linda Rochell Lane in 2001 adds an invaluable compilation of Washington’s primary documents in A Documentary of Mrs. Booker T. Washington. These studies help us to better understand the need for a complete biography on her legacy. To be sure, the life of Washington is an American saga and broadens our understanding of race in America, higher education, black organizations and the larger Civil Rights Movement.
Drawing upon black feminist theoretical frameworks and performance theory this book analyzes Washington’s transgressive behavior, particularly with regard to her public activism, which helped construct her personified, gendered identity. At first glance, Washington’s public life consumed her private affairs. However, through a rereading of personal letters and diaries, her most intimate self is revealed. Washington led a rather conservative life, using the tools of positive propaganda to help reshape her own narrative, often sharing just enough to give the illusion of transparency. Similar to other race women, she carried the burden of leadership in silence, oftentimes in direct contradiction to her own needs and desires as a woman.
Befitting the spouse of a race leader, most of Washington’s social reforms fit into the Tuskegee models of industrial education and self-help. Yet, the public knows very little about the woman behind the man and Institute. For many black feminist historians, a lack of traditional resources has made it difficult to resurrect and retell the important histories of both familiar and obscure black women. In the case of prominent black male leaders, too often the historical impact their wives had on their philosophy of activism is diminished, as was the case with Amy Jacques Garvey. However, her story of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism was contextualized by historian Ula Yvette Taylor. Through a close reading of Amy Garvey’s diaries and personal papers, Taylor told the broader story of Marcus Garvey and Garveyism. What I find particularly engaging and which forms a crucial component of this work, are the ways in which Washington and other black women publicly engaged in this performance of secrecy, and yet worked publicly to broaden our understanding of the intersectionality of what it meant to be black, a woman, a southerner, a wife, a leader and a caregiver, in an often violent and deadly society.
In the midst of protecting her personal space, Margaret Washington used her platform of leadership to extend the efforts and agenda of Booker T. Washington onto females and children of the race. She expanded the Girls’ curriculum at the Institute, organized Tuskegee’s local women, introduced Mothers’ Meetings into her community and worked with clubwomen across the nation. Washington embodied service leadership and empowered generations of women to do the same.
The consequences of this new social order proved dire for many African Americans. As a black woman living during the nadir, Lucy Murray understood the limitations that quasi-freedom placed on black bodies. In addition to the legal system, Lucy Murray also had little power to exert her full humanity or femininity due to the racial hierarchy, toxic masculinity and overt poverty, all of which in turn added to her declining health. Yet, her intuitive foresight laid an important foundation for Washington’s activism, as she believed in her ability to exercise power through education. Immediately following emancipation, Lucy Murray ensured her daughters were educated. She used her limited power to provide a better future for her offspring, a privilege not afforded to her mother and countless other mothers during slavery. However, despite her efforts, blacks faced numerous challenges to their freedom.
The burden of poverty in Mississippi during Reconstruction was debilitating. We learn that a Quaker brother and sister, the Saunders, informally adopted Maggie at the age of seven. While a resident in their home she practiced a strict moral code, strong work ethic, and upheld concepts of thrift. Her exposure to these principals influenced her move to Nashville, Tennessee, where she began her lifelong career as a journalist, orator, educator, and clubwoman.
Margaret’s rising influence impacted her personal life. Soon after arriving to the campus she began a public relationship with Booker. As the founding Principal of Tuskegee Institute, it was well-known that he was a potential suitor, following the death of his second wife, Olivia America Davidson. Olivia died shortly after giving birth to their second son, Ernest. Booker’s first wife Fannie Smith, also deceased, had given birth to their only daughter Portia. With less than three years at the Institute, Margaret married Booker. Their union was one of service to the greater community. In 1895 Booker gave his famous ”cast down your bucket where you are” speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. He urged both races to work together towards a common good. Following the 1895 death of abolitionist Fredrick Douglass, Booker became the new leader of the race. This placed his marriage to Margaret at the forefront of the larger movement of racial equality. An investigation into their partnership helps to unravel who Margaret Washington became as a woman, a wife, a clubwoman and an educator, while also to better understand the influence of class. The new black elite helped to lay important foundations and perspectives within which Washington and other clubwomen of the nineteenth century saw themselves, allowing Washington and others to check the proverbial boxes of respectability and social acceptability. In essence, the class status afforded her the privilege of reflection.
As an adult, well into her thirties Washington used lessons from her youth to guide her future aspirations. She often talked about her mother’s insistence on education, the ties to a Quaker upbringing, her college education at Fisk University and her early work in the community. In addition, her marriage to a recognized leader and involvement with black women leaders in the North and South helped to reinforce Washington’s status within the nation and among the black elite. However, her social class did little to mute the violent society in which many blacks found themselves at the turn of the century.
The impact of racial uplift on black women’s public and private lives cannot be overestimated. Race leaders lacked the social, political, and economic means to change the dominant ideologies of white America. This forced them to create alternative images in order to combat vicious attacks against their womanhood and humanity. The advancement of the race depended on it. This psychological form of protection has been documented by psychologists and historians alike. Black feminist historian Darlene Clarke Hine refers to this practice as dissemblance: “the behavior and attitudes of black women that created the appearance of openness and disclosure but actually shielded the truth of their inner lives and selves from the oppressors,” and arguably the race. Washington and other intellectual elites worked against the system that attempted to define them solely on their race and sex, in effect creating spaces that protected their womanhood.
Washington’s activism in the pursuit of racial and economic uplift, and cutting-edge educational philosophies at HBCUs during the Progressive era, were important to her identity. She concerned herself with the development and education of blacks. Historian Audrey Thomas McCluskey reminds us of the long history of black female educators laboring in the Jim Crow South to form HBCUs, such as Lucy Laney’s Haines Institute, Mary McLeod Bethune and the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls, and Charlotte Hawkins Brown’s Memorial Palmer Institute. These HBCU administrators were collectively committed to education as a means to full citizenship rights, similar to the efforts being carried out by Margaret Washington at Tuskegee Institute. Studies also highlight the transitions made by model schools, initially part of the normal school curriculum, in their evolution into HBCUs. Stressing the importance of experimental learning at these educational centers, Washington saw her work in the community as an extension of her work on campus.
Thus, Washington’s intellectual and professional work reveals the extent to which black women were deeply influential in the betterment of their community and education of the race. It provides a lens into the internal workings of the black elite, while also complicating the narrative of the woman’s sphere. This study broadens our understanding of race and education in America, revealing how far we have come in terms of race and gender while also challenging us to continue in the pursuits of freedom and diversity of narrative.
Washington’s social work also provides insight into her deep-seated belief that education started in the home. Due to poverty in her formative years and her mother’s insistence that her daughters become educated, Washington better understood the significance of the professionalization of domesticity. She created advanced curricular programs to meet the needs of her students and community. She knew that in order to be useful citizens, the race needed to understand English and thrift, how to save money, math and gardening, politics and good nutrition. The development of the nation depended on stable homes and the implementation of women’s clubs. She challenged the ways in which curriculum was approached in the twentieth century, laboring in both the classroom and community. Whether she served as president or participated in other positions within the black Women’s Club Movement, her expertise and influence were often solicited and emulated.
Her work with the local chapter of Mothers’ Meetings in Tuskegee, Alabama, and the creation of the Tuskegee Woman’s Club (TWC) are arguably the foundations of her professional career. She used her experience in Tuskegee to expand the Tuskegee Machine through local partnerships. With the collaboration of local Tuskegee women like Cornelia Bowen, Bess Bolden Walcott, and Josephine Washington, the clubwomen created the Mt. Meigs Reformatory for Boys, placed bibles in prisons, championed health awareness throughout the South and established a Red Cross chapter in Tuskegee, among other initiatives. The TWC alone qualified Washington as an intellectual force and community builder. Deplorable conditions in Alabama made it essential for Washington to prioritize the black home. Waiting for the state to honor its post-reconstruction promises proved all too daunting. Washington’s instrumental role in the Tuskegee Machine fills a long-existing gap about her life, especially her work with the Tuskegee Woman’s Club. Through her leadership we learn of the intersectionality of education and home life as measures blacks could implement to advance their own plight within a racist society.
By the turn of the century, the Tuskegee Machine had a lasting impact on women of the race. Washington worked on local, national, and international platforms to garner support for her educational campaigns, as well as to chastise the race for behaviors she deemed uncivilized, all the while promoting ideas of race progress. The TWC critically reshapes our understanding of Washington’s achievements. She was a stern disciplinarian and a frequently called-upon mentor and organizer. She redefined club work and female activism, through her influence on the campus of Tuskegee and within the community, by ensuring the women were themselves educated in all matters concerning the race.
There has not been extensive research on her life as it pertains to her presidency of the first national organization of black clubwomen, the National Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, which Washington co-founded in 1895. A number of sources have been written that include information about black Women’s Clubs, particularly the NACW. However, none have placed Washington’s work with this organization at the center of their research. Margaret Washington, like other clubwomen, had the obligation to create sustainable institutions in the midst of hostility and rejection from both whites and blacks. However, because she willingly took leadership positions, she was elected chairwoman, vice-president and the fifth president of the NACW. Under that umbrella, Washington initiated such groups as the Alabama Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1898 and the Southern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1899. Her efforts within the NACW solidified her position as a national leader.
Paying homage to her journalistic work with the Fisk Herald, Washington established the official publication of the NACW, The National Notes, printed at Tuskegee Institute. As editor of the Notes, Washington encouraged women to establish local clubs of their own. Despite her expertise, she still faced challenges from within. A few clubwomen found her oversight to be too great and mirrored the control her husband had over the race. Washington also faced stiff opposition to the editing and printing of the National Notes at Tuskegee Institute. Numerous attempts were made by clubwomen such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett to relocate the Notes. Despite the protest, the organization’s official organ continued to be printed at Tuskegee until 1922.
Washington’s international influence and her ideas of Pan-Africanism were only heightened after the 1915 death of her husband. With the onset of America’s involvement in World War I, black soldiers were in direct contact with cultures from around the world. Fully aware of these changes taking place among military men, Washington believed female students deserved a global education as well. She wanted girls to be informed in all matters of society. She promoted ideas of a New Negro woman: a race woman who may not have had the experience of physical travel, but who was well versed in world affairs and in her responsibility to the uplift of the race. This mission became further realized through her club work. Washington created the International Council of Women of the Darker Races (ICWDR) in 1922, to continue her efforts of community improvement. The organization laid an important context to international partnerships, and the development of Washington’s perspective on issues of race and racism across the globe. Through the ICWDR, she established an agenda that promoted the education of African Americans the world over. She also led initiatives into Haiti that assisted in the education of school age girls.
Sheena Davis is an associate professor of history at Tuskegee University. Her articles have been published in the Alabama Review and the Journal of Southern History.
Margaret Murray Washington: The Life and Times of a Career Clubwoman by Sheena Harris
University of Tennessee Press | ISBN: 978-1-62190-619-3
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