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BookerT.WashingtonandFamousMen H opkins’s journalistic essays at the Colored American Magazine shed light on her biography, although the references are often indirect. Her “Famous Men of the Negro Race” series, running from November 1900 to October 1901, is the best starting point for a discussion of her negotiations with one of the most influential race leaders, Booker T. Washington, and of her position as a radical African American in the Boston of her time. Similar to most women who aspired to obtain positions of prominence , Hopkins faced a power structure working against her. In November 1900 Hopkins started her series “Famous Men of the Negro Race” with a statement of purpose: “Races should be judged by the great men they produce, and by the average value of the masses” (“Toussaint” 11). Hopkins’s view of the famous men of her race was shaped by her era’s concepts of perfect manhood and her own beliefs in a common descent and a common purpose, which she once called “the vision of the Holy Grail” (“Robert Morris” 337). Like many of her contemporaries, Hopkins felt the need to move away from the definition of races as inferior or superior, civilized or uncivilized, of races as determined only by skin color, shape of the head, texture of the hair, or shape of the nose.1 Famous men and women, according to her and most other African American intellectuals of her time, possessed reliable and verifiable records of achievements that could be documented. In writing these sketches, Hopkins drew upon her profound knowledge of the political and social climate of her immediate surroundings, Boston, and of African American history in general. The idea of the “average value of the masses” that she mentions repeatedly in her essays came out of her deep conviction that the members of one race were not homogeneous as to educational standards, achievements, and moral advancement. This fundamentally class-based concept reflected the belief of many African Americans that “social equality” did not necessarily mean that the poor rural Negro should be judged the same as the well-to-do African American businessman or Harvard-educated race leader. Hopkins, 70 Washington and Famous Men 71 however, never conveyed the feeling that she looked down upon the uneducated African American. Instead, she thought it the moral responsibility of the wealthier and better-educated part of the population to uplift the race. The many intricate manifestations of class consciousness in her fiction, especially her nonpatronizing portraits of folk characters, will be treated later. In her dealings with famous men of the race, at this point it must be emphasized that she always judged the individual according to his value for the race in general. She regarded individual achievements as the results of social and racial circumstances, which put the individual, who profited from them, under an obligation to work for the welfare of all. Hopkins’s biographical essays may be read as comments on the contemporary situation of African Americans. The many references to Booker T. Washington reflect her and the journal’s dependence on his support and goodwill. Since Booker T. Washington was a very controversial figure, provoking wholehearted approval or bitter disapproval, she could not avoid taking sides. It will be observed that she did so, often indirectly, and tried to prevent an open conflict, but lost her position as editor despite her caution. The first editorial of the Colored American Magazine advocates the “bonds of that racial brotherhood, which alone can enable a people, to assert their racial rights as men, and demand their privileges as citizens” (“Editorial,” May 1900, 60). While calling for progress, activism, and justice, it also carefully praises the aims and personality of Booker T. Washington. The editorial ends, for example, with the following comparison of Washington and Christ: “Surely whatever else he deserves, he does not deserve censure, criticism and calumny. Sad would it be, indeed, if it were said of him as it was said of another of earth’s greatest benefactors ‘He came unto his own and his own received him not’ ” (62; see also Schneider 64). Booker T. Washington was the “wizard” of Tuskegee, the founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, an institution dedicated mostly to industrial education, and its principal from 1881 till his death in 1915. Controversial as a race leader, he warned African Americans against political agitation and promoted industrial education and agricultural expertise, which would guarantee them a...

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