1945 (ca.), William H. Johnson, Booker T. Washington Legend -- Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington)
From the museum label: Here Johnson presented a formally dressed Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) addressing a class of Black students. He is framed by a blackboard on which a saw, trowel, and hammer represent the building trades, and a rake, shovels, and other farm implements attest to Tuskegee's importance as a center for agricultural research. The artist's palette, inkwell, and musical instruments may allude to the "Atlanta Compromise," a speech Washington gave at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1895. Washington proposed vocational and industrial education as the most effective way to improve the economic status of African Americans. His detractors, including W. E. В. Dubois, cofounder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), argued instead that higher education and civil rights activism offered the most effective paths to equality.
1945 (ca.), William H. Johnson, Booker T. Washington Legend -- Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington)
From the museum label: Here Johnson presented a formally dressed Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) addressing a class of Black students. He is framed by a blackboard on which a saw, trowel, and hammer represent the building trades, and a rake, shovels, and other farm implements attest to Tuskegee's importance as a center for agricultural research. The artist's palette, inkwell, and musical instruments may allude to the "Atlanta Compromise," a speech Washington gave at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1895. Washington proposed vocational and industrial education as the most effective way to improve the economic status of African Americans. His detractors, including W. E. В. Dubois, cofounder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), argued instead that higher education and civil rights activism offered the most effective paths to equality.