The Business Strategy of Booker T. Washington: Its Development and Implementation

2. Key Influences that Helped to Mold and Develop Washington’s Entrepreneurial Ideas

2 Key Influences that Helped to Mold and DevelopWashington’s Entrepreneurial Ideas Booker T. Washington’s entrepreneurial ideas were influenced by a multitude of individuals and events throughout his relatively short life. By his early adult years, twenty-eight to thirty-two, his entrepreneurial philosophy had been established. Influences after these years extended his essential philosophy but mainly just reinforced it. In analyzing Washington’s growth, it is not always clear which individuals or events influenced him the most profoundly . It is clear, however, that certain people and happenings impacted his outlook regarding business development, especially as related to uplifting African Americans during the nadir. Thus, in providing a conceptual framework to begin to describe and understand the influences that shaped, developed, and reinforced Washington’s entrepreneurial ideas, a dual-dimensional and multi-thematic analytical approach is employed. In the first dimension, I focus on influences that helped to mold and shape those core values within Washington that are at the root of his entrepreneurial philosophy, such as maintaining an organized system for working, a philosophy of labor, and high moral standards. Analyzing Washington’s sense of group consciousness, his initial introduction to the Protestant work ethic, and his exposure to business expansion in the South is necessary to help underscore his core values. In the second dimension, practical business influences on Washington are analyzed, such as his observation and evaluation of local and national entrepreneurs and his exposure to accounting methods and procedures. Washington’s early Tuskegee business influences, his business influences from captains of industry, and ideas garnered from key associates in the NNBL are the themes analyzed in the second dimension. Accordingly, this dual-dimensional and multi-thematic Key Influences 29 approach serves to accentuate key influences that contributed to the formation of Washington’s entrepreneurial philosophy. Moreover, using this approach serves well because a critical examination of Washington’s life discloses that his entrepreneurial philosophy contained a strong group component that developed during his youth and young adulthood , compelling him to always be conscious of and concerned about the plight of his race. Washington’s entrepreneurial philosophy was also highly influenced by the Protestant work ethic, business expansion throughout the nation (but mainly in the South), his relationships with key individuals who helped shape his budding business philosophy, and later by his relationships with important individuals who expanded or reinforced his established entrepreneurial philosophy. Hence, Washington’s core values and practical business influences, along with Reconstruction and the nadir, helped to establish his entrepreneurial philosophy. CoreValue Influences onWashington Group Consciousness The experiences that Booker T. Washington shared with the rest of his race and his drive for upward mobility caused him to develop a “group-advancement ” philosophy in regard to African-American entrepreneurship (along with his industrial educational program).1 He was never an advocate of pure individualism, even during an age of laissez-faire capitalism. He always promoted the progress of his race and assistance for its least fortunate members . The formation of this mindset extends back to Washington’s early years, when he first became aware that his race was an oppressed group. Reflecting on his youth during the Reconstruction period, Washington wrote of its effects not on himself but on his race: “In many cases it seemed to me that the ignorance of my race was being used as a tool with which to help [elect] white men into office, and that there was an element in the North which wanted to punish the Southern white men by forcing the Negro into positions over the heads of the Southern whites. I felt that the Negro would be the one to suffer for this in the end.”2 Washington was right, because the nadir’s effects in the South were largely in response to African-American advancements during Reconstruction. Even in Washington’s adolescent years, which were still during Reconstruction, the sense of group consciousness was evident. When he wrote of his decision to go to Hampton Institute, he 30 The Business Strategy of BookerT.Washington made it clear that members of his community supported him. Even some of the older members, who had been slaves most of their lives and had never thought that they would live to see a member of their race leave home to attend a boarding school, gave Washington a nickel, a quarter, or a handkerchief .3 These impoverished people gave whatever they could spare to help...