{"id":535,"date":"2014-04-07T03:38:36","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T03:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stampingamericanmemory.org\/?page_id=535"},"modified":"2014-04-07T03:38:36","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T03:38:36","slug":"booker-t-washington-and-the-emancipation-stamps","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stampingamericanmemory.org\/2014version\/representing-unity-and-equality-with-new-deal-commemoratives\/booker-t-washington-and-the-emancipation-stamps\/","title":{"rendered":"Booker T. Washington and the Emancipation Stamps"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the struggle over the Anthony-suffrage stamp, the widely circulated African-American newspaper Chicago Defender<\/em> asked, \u201cHow About Us?\u201d Acknowledging that women ought to be represented on stamps, the paper pressed that there \u201cshould be some stamps bearing black faces\u201d as well. When the USPOD expanded its commemorative program in the 1920s, the Defender<\/em> and many citizens called for stamps celebrating the heroism and achievements of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Crispus Attucks. Bostonians hailed Attucks as a martyr who was remembered as the first casualty of the Revolution. Why wouldn\u2019t he qualify as an American hero equal in valor to Nathan Hale, whose likeness appeared on a stamp in 1925? ((\u201cBy Way of Suggestion,\u201d The Chicago Defender<\/em>, May 9, 1925, A10; \u201cHow About Us?,\u201d The Chicago Defender<\/em>, June 7, 1930, 14; and Rod Juell, \u201c1\/2-Cent Hale,\u201d Arago: People, Postage and the Post<\/em> (Washington, D.C.: National Postal Museum, May 16, 2006), http:\/\/arago.si.edu\/flash\/?s1=5|sq=nathan%20hale|sf=0<\/a>. For other petitions, see Design Files, stamps # 873 and #902, National Postal Museum.)) Many African Americans were frustrated that the postal service, and their government, continued to ignore the achievements of people of color.<\/p>\n\"Major<\/a><\/span>Major Richard Robert Wright, Sr (public domain photograph)<\/small><\/span>\n

The most ardent supporter of a Washington stamp was Major Richard Robert Wright, Sr, an accomplished former slave who fought in the Spanish-American War, served as the first president of the Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth (now Savannah State University), and founded the Citizens and Southern Bank and Trust Company in Philadelphia. With a seemingly sympathetic administration in office, Wright began petitioning President Roosevelt and Postmaster General Farley in 1933 and regularly wrote scores of letters through 1939. By the mid-1930s, as the number of commemoratives grew at a rapid rate, African American newspapers again called on the government to choose Washington, Attucks, or Douglass for a stamp. The Defender<\/em> asked fellow \u201cRace citizens\u201d across the country to write personal letters to Farley requesting a Washington stamp. Momentum also was building for a Frederick Douglass stamp, pushed by another commemorative committee that also waited and waited for the Department to choose their African American hero. The secretary of Dunbar High School\u2019s stamp club in Washington, DC appealed to President Roosevelt asking for a stamp honoring \u201cmembers of the Negro race\u201d because \u201cwe are loyal citizens and always answer when our country calls, regardless of the discriminations we are forced to suffer.\u201d ((N. S. Noble, \u201cThe Constitution’s Stamp Corner,\u201d The Atlanta Constitution<\/em>, February 10, 1935, 2K; \u201cWrite Mr. Farley and Ask Him about the Stamp Issue,\u201d 5; Arthur Whaley, \u201cWhat About a Stamp?,\u201d The Chicago Defender<\/em>, December 25, 1937, 16; and Herbert A. Trenchard, \u201cThe Booker T. Washington Famous American Stamp (Scott No. 873): The Events and Ceremonies Surrounding Its Issue,\u201d The Ceremonial<\/em>, no. web issue no. 4 (n.d.): 8\u201311. Wright\u2019s efforts to publicly celebrate African American freedom did not end with this stamp but included conceptualizing National Freedom Day. Ethel Valentine to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 25, 1938, Design File, stamp #902,National Postal Museum.)) Constantly reminded of their status as second-class citizens, some African Americans fought for a stamp as a small step along a long road to achieving full political equality. Achievements made by African Americans would gain legitimacy when representing the United States on a stamp.<\/p>\n

In July 1939, the USPOD announced that Washington\u2019s image would appear as part of the series honoring thirty-five \u201cFamous Americans.\u201d Though not honored separately like Anthony, the Washington\u2019s stamp was lauded as a victory by African American leaders because it finally broke the color barrier imposed on postage designs. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Washington was the most-widely recognized African American, so it comes as no surprise that he was the first black person to earn a stamp. Known internationally for founding the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Washington created a path for African Americans in the rural south to achieve economic equality through mastery of trades and skills first, before agitating for full political and social rights. Often described as an accommodationist, Washington was an acceptable representative of African American achievement to many white Americans who believed in racial segregation and the genetic inferiority of African Americans. His approach, thought to be very practical, was acceptable to many southern African Americans. Conveniently, Washington\u2019s philosophy was also acceptable by the federal government who would soon ask African Americans to fight in another world war for a country that did not allow them full rights as citizens. ((Louis Harlan, \u201cBooker T. Washington and the Politics of Accommodation,\u201d in John Hope Franklin and August Meier, eds., Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century, Blacks in the New World<\/em> (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 1-18.))<\/p>\n

Three months after this announcement, the Diamond Jubilee of the Emancipation Proclamation event in Philadelphia celebrated the publication of the Washington stamp. Postal officials attended this \u201cgrand\u201d celebration, and Major Wright and Mary McLeod Bethune, a prominent civil rights leader and advisor to FDR as a member of the Federal Council on Negro Affairs, were on hand. They distributed miniature busts of Washington to white and black children who attended, representing more than five hundred public schools in the Philadelphia area. ((Kent B. Stiles, \u201cReleases Honor 35,\u201d New York Times<\/em>, July 23, 1939, XX10; \u201cStamp Victory,\u201d The Chicago Defender<\/em>, September 16, 1939, 19; \u201c7,000 Celebrate Issuance of Booker T. Washington Postage Stamp in Philly,\u201d The Chicago Defender<\/em>, October 7, 1939, 19.)) These busts would be physical reminders of Booker T. Washington\u2019s self-declared legacy as one who raised himself \u201cup from slavery\u201d and would not agitate for social equality. Celebrating these two events together with a mixed race audience gestured to Washington\u2019s autobiography where he recalled that newly-freed slaves felt no bitterness towards their white masters upon hearing the Emancipation Proclamation read. Whites and blacks came together in another symbolic gesture during the ceremony as four girls\u2014two black, two white\u2014marched on stage in military costumes, carrying an American flag that they then draped across the shoulders of Major Wright \u201cin token of his victory in securing\u201d the Washington stamp. ((Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, Page, and Company, 1919), 21; Louis R. Harlan, The Booker T. Washington Papers<\/em>, vol. 3 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974), 538\u201387; \u201c7,000 Celebrate Issuance of Booker T. Washington Postage Stamp in Philly,\u201d 19.))<\/p>\n

This was a significant symbolic moment, indicating that Wright, in place of Washington, was worthy of representing the entire US population and nation by appearing on a stamp. The multi-racial audience and participants appeared to \u201ccast down\u201d their buckets in a joint celebration of Washington\u2019s work. Wright\u2019s successful efforts created a space where an African American stood equally alongside other Americans, represented the U.S. on postage and could open the door for other black heroes to earn a place in the official American narrative told through commemoratives.<\/p>\n\"Booker<\/a><\/span>Booker T. Washington 10-cent, Famous American series, 1940 (Smithsonian National Postal Museum Collection)<\/small><\/span>\n

Washington\u2019s stamp looked similar to the other Famous American Educators in this series with only the specific portrait and ink color distinguishing each issue. Washington\u2019s engraving came from a familiar photograph where he looks outward from the stamp. While the Washington was colored brown, it was in keeping with the colors established for other 10-cent stamps in this commemorative series. Washington\u2019s 10-cent issue was the highest priced stamp in the group of five educators honored in the series. Major Wright and others worried that the price might hinder purchases from African Americans. Despite his concerns over the higher price, the Washington was one of the most widely-sold (twenty-three million dollars worth) stamp in the Famous Americans series. ((\u201cFarley At Tuskegee Same Day \u2018Booker T.\u2019 Stamp Goes On Sale,\u201d The Chicago Defender<\/em>, January 6, 1940, 12; \u201cStamps in Educators Group of Famous American Series,\u201d New York Times<\/em>, February 8, 1940, 20; and Trenchard, \u201cThe Booker T. Washington Famous American Stamp (Scott No. 873): The Events and Ceremonies Surrounding Its Issue.\u201d))<\/p>\n

The Washington stamp was first released and sold at the Tuskegee Institute\u2019s Founder\u2019s Day celebration on April 7, 1940 that brought postal officials together with the Tuskegee community. At the celebration, Postmaster General Farley sold the first Booker T. Washington stamp in coordination with the Tuskegee Philatelic Club. Farley spoke at the ceremony hailing Washington\u2019s legacy as a \u201cpioneer educator\u201d and spokesman of his race. The Defender devoted tremendous amounts of copy to the events at Tuskegee by publishing photographs and large portions of the speeches. According to Farley, \u201cNegro progress\u201d could be traced directly to Washington\u2019s \u201chumanitarian work, noble ideals, and practical teachings\u201d that he put into place at Tuskegee. Importantly, according to Farley, Washington taught that \u201cmerit, no matter under what skin was in the long run recognized and rewarded.\u201d His other greatest achievement was in \u201chis interpretation of his people to the white men,\u201d or his accommodationist approach to the fight for political equality. To compliment Washington\u2019s dedication to training young people of the south, Farley, drew a parallel between Washington\u2019s \u201crefusal to accept personal gain with that of Robert E. Lee.\u201d Farley furthered the comparison by weaving into his speech a statement by Lee about his strong obligation to train young men of the south after the Civil War. According to Farley not \u201cone word of that declaration need be changed were the speaker Booker T. Washington.\u201d Not surprisingly, the Defender reports omitted this portion of the speech. ((\u201c3,500 Hear Postmaster Farley At Tuskegee,\u201d The Chicago Defender<\/em>, April 13, 1940, 9; \u201cFarley Praises \u2018Mr. B. T.\u2019 As \u2018Negoro Moses,\u2019\u201d The Atlanta Constitution<\/em>, April 8, 1940, 2; \u201cFarley Opens \u2018Booker T.\u2019 Stamp at Tuskegee,\u201d The Chicago Defender<\/em>, April 13, 1940, 1; \u201cHe Couldn\u2019t Hate,\u201d Christian Science Monitor<\/em>, April 19, 1940, 22.))<\/p>\n

Farley cleverly connected Washington\u2019s work with that of Robert E. Lee during this first day ceremony for an audience of Americans not attending the Tuskegee events. One can imagine that a few gasps were heard in the audience upon Farley drawing such a comparison. Perhaps anticipating angry letters from white southern citizens, Farley explained that Washington was another southern leader who devoted himself to bettering the lives of young people. To make the Washington stamp acceptable to white southerners, the hero of the \u201cLost Cause,\u201d Lee (honored a few years earlier on postage) was called upon to make Washington\u2019s achievements also appear equally heroic.<\/p>\n

Washington stood equally distinguished alongside fellow Famous Americans, however, the stamp commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the signing of the Thirteen Amendment issued the same year looked backwards. News of this stamp came as a surprise to many as the USPOD announced the printing only one week before it was available for sale during the final days of the New York World\u2019s Fair in October 1940. Generally, the Department announced commemorative stamps at least a few months before their printing to allow for first day ceremonies to be planned and to build anticipation from collectors and the petitioning communities or commissions. ((W. Bloss, \u201cThe Stamp Album,\u201d C4; Special, \u201c13TH Amendment Stamp to Be Issued,\u201d The Chicago Defender<\/em>, October 12, 1940, 4; \u201cPresident Praises Negroes at Fair,\u201d New York Times<\/em>, October 21, 1940, 20; \u201cEmancipation Stamps Are Result Of A Long Fight,\u201d The Chicago Defender<\/em>, October 26, 1940, 1.)) While debuting at the World\u2019s Fair, the USPOD missed an opportunity sell and promote it earlier that year at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago that celebrated seventy-five years of freedom. Black achievements were celebrated while federal agencies and private corporations demonstrated concern for African American welfare through agricultural, housing, and employment exhibits. The USPOD was one of the agencies that staged a small exhibit to sell the Washington stamps\u2014and easily could have sold the Thirteenth Amendment issue. ((Robert W. Rydell, World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions<\/em> (University of ChicagoPress, 1993), 157-192.))<\/p>\n

Labeled as a \u201cNew Deal masterstroke,\u201d the stamp was released just prior to the presidential election of 1940. While all commemoratives seemed to represent someone\u2019s agenda, this one in particular appeared to be politically motivated by FDR. Major Wright was delighted because he had been working for nearly a decade, petitioning for both an African American figure and a emancipation stamp. Wright wanted a 3-cent stamp specifically, because it could be used to mail a first-class letter, which happened to be the same denomination as the Anthony and other single commemoratives issued during the Farley administration. While various ceremonies celebrated this diamond jubilee of the Emancipation Proclamation, the true anniversary was of the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. ((W. Bloss, \u201cThe Stamp Album,\u201d C4; \u201c13TH Amendment Stamp to Be Issued,\u201d 4; \u201cPresident Praises Negroes at Fair,\u201d 20; \u201cEmancipation Stamps Are Result Of A Long Fight,\u201d 1.)) Wright\u2019s vision for celebrating emancipation as an uplifting and powerful moment in American history was not realized in the imagery chosen for this anniversary.<\/p>\n\"Thirteenth<\/a><\/span>Thirteenth Amendment, 3-cent, 1940 (Smithsonian National Postal Museum Collection)<\/small><\/span>\n

During the stamps\u2019 first day release ceremony, President Roosevelt used the stamp as a vehicle to praise African Americans\u2019 achievements after slavery even when the image chosen to represent emancipation was actually one of subservience. The stamp featured an engraving of the Freedmen\u2019s Memorial depicting Lincoln standing over a kneeling slave, bowing at Lincoln\u2019s feet, struggling to break the chains of bondage. Although financed partially by freed slaves, a white commission controlled the sculpture\u2019s construction and chose a design representing emancipation as a generous act of moral leadership by Lincoln and enfranchised whites. Supposedly honoring freedom from bondage, the sculpture as composed by artist Thomas Ball did not represent a newly-freed slave figure on equal ground with Lincoln. The slave figure was still breaking away from slavery with no symbols of hope designed into the memorial to indicate that freedmen could ascend to a position of equality promised by emancipation. Given to the city of Washington in 1876 by the \u201ccolored citizens of the United States,\u201d the memorial reasserted racial hierarchy in which descendents of slaves would always be inferior to white men. (( Kirk Savage, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America<\/em> (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1997). Additionally, the first day issue of the emancipation stamp occurred during the World\u2019s Fair in New York in October 1940, a fair rife with racial tensions and protests over lack of African American representation in the fair\u2019s planning, management, and exhibits at the Fair\u2019s opening in 1939. Rydell, World of Fairs<\/em>, 157\u201390.)) In choosing this image to commemorate emancipation with the Freedmen\u2019s Memorial, the USPOD celebrated Lincoln, not freedom and equality, but instead a racial order in which descendents of slaves could never realize full equality in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Choosing to commemorate the Thirteenth\u2014and not the Fourteenth Amendment, that gave all adult males full rights of citizenship\u2014seemed deliberate to focus attention on the abolition of slavery and not on citizenship equality. Similar to the choice of Washington, the USPOD chose Lincoln to represent black freedom by printing a non-threatening stamp that also did not challenge the authority of state laws that legalized segregation. ((Savage, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves<\/em>, 89-128.)) Complicating the matter was FDR\u2019s speech read at the Fair. In addition to lauding achievements of African Americans who had \u201cenriched and enlarged and ennobled American life,\u201d his language emphasized the need for American unity as he gestured toward the war in Europe. Liberty was \u201cunder brutal attack\u201d and peaceful lives were challenged by \u201cbrute force\u201d that would \u201creturn the human family to that state of slavery from which emancipation came through the Thirteenth Amendment.\u201d Through this celebration, he called Americans to \u201cunite in a solemn determination to defend and maintain and transmit to those who shall follow us the rich heritage of freedom which is ours today.\u201d ((\u201cPresident Praises Negroes at Fair,\u201d 20.)) FDR rhetorically ignored the fact that the entire \u201chuman family\u201d was not enslaved until 1865, but it was very specifically reserved for those of African descent. For FDR, the emancipation stamp was not a celebration of freedom for African Americans, much like the statue representing emancipation, but rather a call for unity under the false pretense that all Americans were created equal.<\/p>\n

Prior to these stamps, the absence of African Americans symbolized their lack of political power. The publication signified a slow shift in nationalized political and cultural agitation. This shift, of course, was not without many contradictions in implementation. During FDR\u2019s administration, African Americans did not benefit equally from New Deal-funded programs as whites because of the ways federal programs were constructed and implemented at a local level. At the same time, civil rights groups began publicizing their agendas more loudly and making their fight more visible to federal officials and the general public. Labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph threatened to march on Washington in 1941 to demand an end to racial discrimination in the defense industries and in the military. FDR partially conceded to some of Randolph’s demands by signing Executive Act 8802 in June 1941, which ended discrimination in the defense industries and federal defense positions. Randolph cancelled the march, and FDR never desegregated the military. Individuals like Randolph laid groundwork for additional legislation and executive orders to come that slowly repealed legal segregation. ((Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks<\/em>; and Executive Order 8802, accessed July 17, 2009, http:\/\/www.archives.gov\/historical-docs\/todays-doc\/index.html?template=print&dod-date=625<\/a>.))<\/p>\n

Both stamps printed in 1940 illustrated the contradictory ways the U.S. government treated African Americans. As the individual achievement of Booker T. Washington\u2014as an educator and not as a political figure\u2014was revered in April, African Americans, as a race, were reminded in October that their freedom and equality still depended on whites. The Washington issue directly honored the achievements of one man and gestured toward millions of people defined and segregated by their race, yet the emancipation stamp reinforced racial hierarchies that prevented former slaves from achieving equality. The Thirteenth Amendment stamp, coupled with Washington\u2019s, sent a message that the federal government approved of individual but not racial group achievement. FDR demanded desegregation of private industry but did not desegregate the military. Even so, FDR deftly combined Washington\u2019s and Lincoln\u2019s images as symbols of American progress to pave the way toward asking African Americans to work hard for a greater cause, and he alluded that their skills, labor, and duty would be rewarded with full equality under the law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the struggle over the Anthony-suffrage stamp, the widely circulated African-American newspaper Chicago Defender asked, \u201cHow About Us?\u201d Acknowledging that women ought to be represented on stamps, the paper pressed that there \u201cshould be some stamps bearing black faces\u201d as well. When the USPOD expanded its commemorative program in the 1920s, the Defender and many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":500,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-535","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stampingamericanmemory.org\/2014version\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stampingamericanmemory.org\/2014version\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stampingamericanmemory.org\/2014version\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stampingamericanmemory.org\/2014version\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stampingamericanmemory.org\/2014version\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stampingamericanmemory.org\/2014version\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/535\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stampingamericanmemory.org\/2014version\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stampingamericanmemory.org\/2014version\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}