Eric and Ernest Hughes never met their great-grandfather Booker T. Washington, but they talk about the educator as if he were a distant relative they see at family reunions.
The Denver residents help keep Washington’s legacy alive through gatherings of kin nationwide.
They tell his history as if they lived it themselves, reciting names, dates and scenes from the early 1900s.
Like Washington’s visit to California, where nearly a hundred years after his trip, a mighty sequoia bears his name. Or Washington’s relationship with George Washington Carver, who was the godfather of the siblings’ mother. Or how at age 25 he worked with students to build a college to educate a race less than a generation out of slavery, even laying the bricks themselves.
“We grew up in a family of storytellers, I guess because there was such a historical story to tell,” Ernest Hughes said.
Since birth, the brothers have learned about the life of Washington, from his beginnings in a one-room Virginia slave house to his founding of what is now Tuskegee University, a historically black college in Alabama.
“He founded Tuskegee to serve the students and the communities they came from, and to return to those communities and be successful,” Eric said.
Classes in hygiene, dress code and etiquette were taught along with botany and chemistry. There were students who had never used a toothbrush or sat down for dinner.
“These were people who came out of servitude – actually ‘servitude’ isn’t strong enough – out of the institution of slavery and were just set free,” Eric said.
Washington’s goal was to help them survive in a free world.
“He realized it was helpful to the cause for (President) Lincoln to emancipate the slaves. But blacks had to prove their value and become valuable in a society that would get rid of them,” Ernest said.
“He was about the business of saying, ‘We’ve got to demonstrate to these folks our value. If we can become an economic cog, then we can move on to more social things.”‘
Washington helped establish 5,300 schools in the South, where schools previously didn’t exist for blacks. He consulted with Presidents McKinley, Taft and Theodore Roosevelt on race relations.
He traveled the U.S., raising money to educate former slaves, writing books on the condition of the blacks and speaking on the importance of good health.
The walls of Eric Hughes’ home depict Washington’s journey. There are black- and-white pictures of Washington and his descendents. The bookshelves are lined with first and second editions of “Up From Slavery,” one of Washington’s most popular books, as well as lesser-
known writings: “The Story of My Life and Work,” “Character Building,” “My Larger Education” and “The Man Furthest Down.”
In plastic sleeves are papers written about him dated as early as 1908. There are pamphlets, coins and stamps commemorating him.
Some were purchased from book dealers, but many were passed down through generations.
The brothers learned of Washington not only from the books and photos, but also from relatives who followed in his footsteps and became educators: elementary school teachers, professors, university deans, trustees.
“We learned the importance of education in his life, in our lives, in our family’s lives, the importance of education to our race,” Eric Hughes said.
“There is an educational thread that is woven through our families.”
To pass the family’s oral history to the next generation, the brothers started hosting biennial family reunions in cities that were key to Washington’s life. The first two were held in Tuskegee. In 2000, the family traveled to Washington’s birthplace near Roanoke, Va., now a national monument. The 2002 reunion was held in Malden, W.Va., where Washington moved after his emancipation and where he was introduced to education.
“Booker could not go to school; the laws wouldn’t allow him to go, but he had a burning desire to go,” Eric said. “One of his chores was carrying books to the one- room schoolhouse. He would see the students engaged and figured that getting into that school would be like getting into paradise.”
In 2004 the family met in Hampton, Va., where Washington graduated from what is now Hampton University. In 2006 the family will again travel to Tuskegee to celebrate Washington’s 150th birthday.
The 2008 reunion will be in Riverside, Calif., near Sequoia National Park. Last year, the park broke its policy and for the first time since 1938 named a tree after Booker T. Washington.
“Each of these reunions is such a sharing of history,” Eric said.
The goal is to keep the story going, to pass on Washington’s philosophies on life and education to the next generations.
“The reunions are our education seminars,” Eric said. “There is so much history shared, so much education.”
