Bill Introduced to Expand the Booker T. Washington National Monument

By Butler T. Gray
Washington File Staff Writer

(Growing area nearby poses threat to park's rural character)

The U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands heard testimony July 24 on H.R. 1456, a bill which would expand the boundary of the Booker T. Washington National Monument through the purchase from willing seller(s) of a fifteen acre parcel of land adjacent to the existing monument.

The monument is located near the regional recreation area of Smith Mountain Lake in Franklin County, Virginia. Smith Mountain Lake is a rapidly growing area in Southwest Virginia that has had a notable increase in population and development in the last ten years.

With these new developments in residence, businesses, and traffic, the proximity of the monument to Smith Mountain Lake poses a real threat to the character and pastoral nature of the monument. The commercial and residential development are already visible from the park.

"Acquisition of this parcel would provide the necessary buffer between this development and the park so that visitors will be able to experience the area as it was during Booker T. Washington's life," according to Denis Galvin, Deputy Director of the National Park Service.

The estimated cost of purchasing the fifteen acres will be approximately $410,000. Seven of the fifteen acres in the expanded area were part of the original Burrough's farm where Washington was born into slavery and lived during his childhood.

State Representative Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (5th District of Virginia) first introduced H.R. 1456 in April of 2001 to facilitate the expansion of the monument boundary and the purchase of this property by the National Park Service.

Goode, who is a native and life-long resident of Franklin County said the park "portrays what Washington's rural life on a small tobacco farm was like and the rural character is critical to the park's interpretation of his life as an enslaved child during the Civil War."

The monument was authorized on April 2, 1956, to create a "public national memorial to Booker T. Washington, noted Negro educator and apostle of good will," said Galvin. "The Booker T. Washington National Monument preserves and protects the birth site and childhood home of Booker T. Washington while interpreting his life experiences and significance in American history as the most powerful African American between 1895 and 1915.

"The park provides a resource for public education and a focal point for continuing discussions about the legacy of Booker T. Washington and the evolving context of race in American society."

The park consists of 224 acres of rolling hills, woodlands, and agricultural fields. The primary archeological resources include the Burrough's home site or "Big House" and two slave cabin sites. A slave cabin was reconstructed on one of the sites in the 1960's.

Florella H. Johnson, Associate Superintendent of Franklin County Schools in Rocky Mount, Virginia said "It is one of the few National Park Service sites that is set aside where the American public can view on a smaller scale how slavery and the plantation system worked.

"The development of surrounding land will serve to enhance or diminish the quality of the monument's natural resources. It certainly must be our goal to keep the monument as close to its original state as possible," said Johnson.

"The lesson Booker T. Washington learned is an inspiration to all children," Johnson said. "He has certainly shown that the most difficult and toughest obstacles can be realized through perseverance and hard work. Booker T.'s life is definitely an example of the kind of people who make our country great."

Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in 1856. Washington, the foremost black educator, power broker, and institution builder of his time, founded the Tuskegee Institute in 1881, a black college in Alabama devoted to industrial and moral education and to the training of public school teachers.

In spite of the criticism the institution received, the Tuskegee Institute became known around the world as one of the best trade schools for African-American students in the United States.

Sociologist, Author & Civil Rights Leader W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois was one of Washington's most vocal critics. Du Bois referred to the school as the "Tuskegee Machine." He said that Washington was turning African-Americans into a servant class.

Du Bois was one of the most influential black leaders of the first half of the 20th Century. Dubois shared in the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. He served as its director of research and editor of its magazine, "Crisis," until 1934.

From his southern small-town base, Booker T. Washington created a national political network of schools, newspapers, and the National Negro Business League (founded in 1901). In response to the age of Jim Crow, Washington offered the doctrine of accommodation, acquiescing in social and political inequality for blacks while training them for economic self-determination in the industrial arts.

Washington's philosophy and the "Tuskegee machine" won him widespread support among northern white philanthropists as well as acclaim among blacks.