Although Washington was sincerely devoted to racial uplift, he was accused by his black contemporaries of being too passive when it came to asserting the black man?s claims to equality. But even his severest critics would concede that he was a great educator, a man who had overcome almost unbelievable obstacles, and a symbol of the promise of America which was realized in the lives of so few blacks. His contemporaries and subsequent generations have recognized him as a great American. In this booklet Barry Mackintosh, a former park historian at Booker T. Washington National Monument, describes the successes and failures of this complex man who made such an impact on his age.

John W . Blassingame Yale University