Abstract
Booker T. Washington, the preeminent African-American leader of his day, won followers and supporters by taking "educational tours" through Southern states. Traveling through Arkansas and the Oklahoma and Indian territories in 1905 won him much support for his agenda. His most successful tour, however, was through Mississippi in 1908, directed Charles Banks, setting the standard for subsequent tours. On his Mississippi trip, Washington spoke to an estimated forty thousand to eighty thousand people. Over the years, he spoke to well over 350,000 black and white people through these campaigns. Indeed, they were his means to "meet the masses of my people and to instruct them as far as I can through speadking to help them in their industrial and moral life."1 After the successful Mississippi tour, Washington traveled through South Carolina, Virginia, West Virgina, and Tennessee in 1909, North Carolina in 1910, Texas in 1911, and Florida in 1912.2
Recommended Citation
Jackson, Jr., David H.
(2002)
"Booker T. Washington's Tour of the Sunshine State, March 1912,"
Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 81:
No.
3, Article 4.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol81/iss3/4
