Before Booker T. Washington, we have small business owners but we do not have a philosopher of black entrepreneurship, and that's what Washington was.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The Washington black community was able to succeed beyond his wildest dreams. I mean, we had our own newspapers, our own restaurants, our own theaters, our own small shops, our own clubs, our own Masonic lodges.
W. E. B Dubois used the NAACP platform for two decades to discredit the character, reputation, and fund-raising efforts of capitalist and Tuskegee University founder, Booker T. Washington.
But we didn't have the financial structure, like the right attorneys, the right managers, the right accountants, and we were going against the grain of what black entertainers is supposed to do.
People don't know that there were very successful black businessmen in the years of apartheid.
Most black leaders, whether left, right or center, from Frederick Douglas and Martin Delaney on in the middle of the 19th century have not even wondered about the merits of the capitalist system.
You have little representation of young black men in the business sector, so you have children growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods who don't hear discussions at the dinner table about what goes on in business. It's almost as if we have two nations.
When I went to school, there were no Black philosophers, at least none that I was aware of, who were recognized by Western universities.
When I started the diamond business, no black person, period, was in it to do what we're trying to do to change the industry. So I like to do things that I see clearly that are in my, you know, scope. And then, I had to figure how I get talented or smart business people around me to execute. That's what I have to do.
The first black president will be a politician who is black.
Du Bois marked a great stage in the history of Negro struggles when he said that Negroes could no longer accept the subordination which Booker T. Washington had preached.
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