A Trip to the Southwest
By Booker T. Washington
[Reprinted from Issues & Views Spring 1997]
In November, 1905, I made a tour through the new Southwestern territory
speaking at such cities as Little Rock and Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Oklahoma
City and Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory; South McAlester and Muscogee, Indian
Territory; concluding at Fort Smith, Arkansas. During this trip I had an
opportunity to . . . observe and to compare a number of promising Negro
communities under new and unusual conditions.
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At Oklahoma City I was informed that Albert Smith, a colored farmer who
owns three farms of 160 acres each was, perhaps, the largest raiser of
cotton in the Territory. He is known as the "Black Cotton King." It was his
cotton that took the prize in the Oklahoma exhibit at the World's Fair in
Paris in 1900. Albert Smith came to the Territory from Alabama in 1890,
bringing a small amount of capital with him.
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Among the most successful and progressive businessmen I met on my
western trip was E.E. McDaniels, a railway contractor at South McAlester.
Mr. McDaniels, I learned, is at present worth about $50,000, the larger part
of which has been accumulated during a comparatively few years that he has
been engaged in railway building. Mr. McDaniels began business with another
colored man by the name of T.E. Currie, running a railway boarding house for
the men engaged in the construction of the railway from Memphis to Amarillo,
Texas.
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While I was staying at Fort Smith, which, while it is situated in
Arkansas, borders directly on the Territory, I learned of a Freedman farmer
named Zach Forman, who though he is wholly illiterate, has got possession of
1,200 acres of land in the rich Arkansas bottoms and is reputed to own 5,000
head of cattle.
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Riding on the train from South McAlester to Muscogee, my attention was
repeatedly called to the rich farms in that section of the country owned by
Negroes. For forty miles, along the line of this railway above and below
Muscogee, I was informed, nearly all of the property is owned by Negroes. In
Muscogee itself, Negroes are well represented in business and in the
professions.
-- Booker T. Washington. Excerpts from his book, The Negro In Business
(1907); limited edition reprint published in 1992 by DeVore & Sons, Inc.,
Wichita, KS.
See also
Booker T. Washington: Legacy Lost
Booker T. Washington: True Believer
The Movable School
Copyright 1997 Issues & Views
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