Washington to Hunter

Dear Ms. Jane Edna Hunter,


I must say, I greatly admire your rhetoric for the most egoistical of reasons... your observations of the Phillis Wheatley Association preserve exactly what I meant when I told our people to "Cast Their Buckets Down." Thank you for preserving my legacy.

For I have always said, if we do not satisfy our white employers, how are we, as Negroes, to expect any gains in our social position or favorability? I adore your writing that "the most important factor in successful domestic service is a happy and human relation between the lady of the house and the maid." Observations and practices like these are integral to the Negro's well-being, his flourishing.

Because, although W.E.B. Du Bois argues that the Negro needs to be intellectualized, he does not provide concrete, completable tasks for the Negro, but imagines an alternative, likely unattainable universe. I grew up a slave, and the Negro who wants to and needs to survive and operate, must learn how to go about surviving now. Thank you for explicating how these rules may apply to our dear sisters.

Kindly,
Booker T. Washington