No other preeminent contemporary black intellectual has so strongly dissociated American Christianity from the successful acquisition of equal rights for black Americans.

For some black intellectuals today, the word ‘racism’ has become a verbal and intellectual crutch — a substitute for investigating cause and effect, the basic principle of scientific inquiry.

Judging strictly by merit, Booker T. Washington should be no less celebrated by Americans than Martin Luther King Jr., for Booker understood what leads to progress.