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The phenomenal impact of Booker T. Washington on his time is underscored in this volume, documenting both Washington's continuing influence upon President Theodore Roosevelt and the growing dissatisfaction of some blacks with Washington's philosophy and leadership. The letters provide social historians and laymen alike with an abundant store of information on the man many consider to be the most influential figure in black history.

Probably nothing in Booker T. Washington'life had as much symbolic significance for the blacks for whom he claimed to speak as the day he dined with President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House, October 16, 1901. Not even the publication of his autobiography earlier that year had indicated so clearly just how far'up from slavery'Washington had traveled. Though criticized by many, the dinner was a sign, especially to his black supporters, of Washington's arrival at the heart of power in America. Even as Washington expanded his political influence to become a counselor of presidents, the racial climate was worsening and black political rights in the South were plummeting. Volume 6 documents the events of this somber period, including Washington's secret challenge to the Alabama grandfather clause. It also includes evidence of T. Thomas Fortune's diminishing influence with Washington and the extension of the Tuskegee Machine's web of influence into the North.

This volume turns from emphasizing Washington's institution-building (Tuskegee Institute) to examine those writings which reveal more about the black leader's growing role as a national public figure. Volume 5 covers a period during which Washington's fortunes continued to rise even as those of the black masses, for whom he claimed to speak, declined. Though forced to adhere narrowly to the racial philosophy he had espoused in the Atlanta Compromise address of 1895, Washington nonetheless was able to involve himself covertly in matters of civil rights and politics. He used the National Negro Business League as a front for political activity. He successfully lobbied against disenfranchisement of black voters in Georgia during November, 1899. During these years Washington began behind-the-scenes civil rights activities that foreshadowed a much more elaborate'secret life'after the turn of the century. He worked with lawyers of the Afro-American Council to test in the courts the grandfather clause of the Louisiana constitution of 1898, raising money to pay the legal costs and swearing the other participants to secrecy. T. Thomas Fortune, the leading black journalist of the day, was Washington's close personal advisor as he sought to spread his sphere of influence from his southern base to northern cities. Also included are writings on the first convention of the National Negro Business League, Washington's address before the Southern Industrial Convention in Huntsville, Ala., and the full text of Washington's first book, The Future of the American Negro, published in December, 1899. A fascinating view of Booker T. Washington and the milieu in which he operated, Volume 5 provides further reason to call the project, as C. Vann Woodward has done,'the single most important research enterprise now under way in the field of American black history.'