Booker T. Washington and the New York City Negro Business League's Role in Increasing Black Businesses in New York City

When considering Booker T. Washington, most informed people think only of his focus on industrial education or his educational ideas juxtaposed against those of W. E. B. Du Bois. But Washington's leadership had an economic component—economic development—which was dominant. Washington urged African Americans to establish a strong economic foundation through the widespread creation of businesses, which he saw as a method for ensuring civil rights for African Americans. As a national leader, Washington worked hard to promote entrepreneurship within his racial group as a strategy for obtaining true freedom, believing that if African Americans made themselves a crucial economic force within America's geopolitical structure, their lives would be drastically improved.

Washington became widely known as a national leader of his racial group after his 1895 Atlanta Exposition Address. During a period of enormous animosity and racial mistrust, Washington's address called for maintaining a respectful working relationship between Black and white people. For social equality, Washington asserted the races could be as separate as the fingers of one's hand.¹ For this, many white elites, whom Washington saw as the better class of whites, proclaimed him the new leader of his race, or the Moses of his people.² Eventually many of his people acknowledged Washington as their national leader.

By 1891, at age thirty-five, Washington had formed an entrepreneurial philosophy.³ He believed that economic development would ensure the rights and real freedom of his racial group within the United States. He lamented the path many had taken after slavery:

Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life [the immediate aftermath of slavery] we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skills; that the political convention of stump speaking had more attraction than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.⁴

For Washington, it was crucial to establish an economic foundation by starting small and expanding or starting at the bottom and working up. In establishing this economic base, Washington advocated that entrepreneurs always strive to offer high-quality goods or services to consumers, not only creating a niche but also making themselves indispensable economic entities within their surrounding communities. He envisioned these communities as markets comprising both Black and white patrons.⁵ The formation and development of this approach came about through Washington's early experiences orchestrating business ventures at his school, which catered to the surrounding Macon County, Alabama, community.⁶

As a national leader, Washington received numerous requests to speak throughout the country. En route to his engagements, he had the rare opportunity to observe many African Americans single-handedly engaged in business ventures. According to Washington, "the number of successful businessmen and women of the Negro race that I was continually coming in contact with during my travels throughout the country was a source of surprise and pleasure to me. My observations in this regard led me … to believe that the time had come for bringing together the leading and most successful colored men and women in the country who were engaged in business."⁷ Washington felt that if he could have these businesspeople meet and interact with one another, they would be further encouraged and would inspire others in their respective communities to undertake entrepreneurial ventures. During the winter of 1900, Washington, T. Thomas Fortune (the owner and editor of the New York Age, the leading African American newspaper of the day), Emmett J. Scott (Washington's official secretary), and other friends discussed strategies for bringing together African American entrepreneurs and promoting business development among African Americans.⁸

These men agreed that a meeting should be held in Boston, Massachusetts, on Thursday and Friday, August 23 and 24, 1900. These dates were auspicious for the meeting; late summer weekdays were slack periods for businesspeople, as well as for Washington, who had a demanding executive role at Tuskegee Institute. Moreover, during...