Answer of Peace

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And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace. Genesis 41:16 KJV

Whether received through God’s written word, in the inward parts of one’s inner man through God’s Spirit, or through one of God’s messengers, believers (and occasionally even unbelievers), can expect to receive answers from God for perplexing and difficult circumstances in life. When one find such answers from God, they will be answers of peace, and Joseph’s communication to Pharaoh demonstrates much for discerning God’s answers of peace.

First, Pharoah was troubled and confused about a circumstance that was presented to him. (To be sure, not every dream conforms to this, for Pharoah was leader of a great people and his decisions had impact among his people and throughout many surrounding nations, including God’s people. This dream was no vain or carnal imagination for personal aggrandizement, it affected people.)

Secondly, Pharoah searched for answers (and could not find it) among the wise men and magicians of Egypt, those widely acknowledged to have preeminent, world-reknown expertise in such matters. Thirdly, Joseph’s communication was one that was “in season,” for a problem presently confronting Pharaoh in the very near future. (It will be no hindsight commentary that anyone can provide, for answers are always seemingly perfect concerning past events where all circumstances are known.)

Fourthly, God’s answer of peace provided a solution. (To be sure, it would not be Pharaoh who would be “so discreet and wise” to manage the store houses of Egypt–but someone who could (for Pharaoh had to attend to the broader and wider matters of the state) in this situation, he needed a Joseph.) In the end, God’s answer of peace not only resolved the difficulty and provided a solution, but resulted in blessing; the blessing was not only intended for a single individual, but Egypt, surrounding nations and particularly God’s own people.

‘The Talented Tenth Reexamined’: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, August 12, 1948

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“I want then to reexamine and restate the thesis of The Talented Tenth which I laid down many years ago…I realized that it was quite possible that my plan of training a talented tenth might put in control and power a group of selfish, self-indulgent well to do men. [But] great moral leaders are needed […] my pointing out the new knowledge necessary for leadership and new ideas of race and culture still remains that fundamental and basic requirement of character for any successful leadership toward great ideals.”-W.E.B. Du Bois, “Talented Tenth: Memorial Address,” August 12, 1948, Sigma Pi Phi’s fraternity, 19th Grand Boule Conclave

Though W.E.B. Du Bois’s conception of the ‘Talented Tenth’ was most widely introduced in his 1903 _The Souls of Black Folk_ in a chapter titled, “Of the Training of Black Men,” it was very likely originally conceived by Morehouse College’s namesake, Henry Morehouse, who was a Baptist minister that had long supported the then Augusta Theological Institute founded in 1867 and subsequently became Atlanta Baptist Seminary and Atlanta Baptist College before the college’s name was changed in 1913 to honor Morehouse.

Partly in response to the widespread notoriety of Booker T. Washington’s 1895 Exposition Address which championed industrial education, Morehouse wrote in the Independent Magazine in April 1886: “In the discussion concerning Negro education we should not forget the talented tenth man. An ordinary education may answer for the nine men of mediocrity; but if this is all we offer the talented tenth man, we make a prodigious mistake…The tenth man, with superior natural endowments, symmetrically trained and highly developed, may become a mightier influence, a greater inspiration to others than all the other nine, or nine times nine like them.”

Morehouse’s article similar to many White and Black northerners sought to counter or add to Booker T. Washington’s ideals of education by offering differing views of how to properly train African Americans i]during the aftermath of enslavement. While it is difficult to decisively determine, given Henry Morehouse’s theological beliefs, the concept certainly presupposed a moral and ethical underpinning rooted in Baptist theology.

And this, in part, was Du Bois’s conception when he first introduced the term in the American Negro Academy in 1897 as part of a paper he delivered in the afternoon session of the academy’s founding titled, “The Conservation of Races.” For the Academy, which had limited its membership to literate and educated African Americans—including moral and ethical requirements—endeavored to be comprised of African American leaders who would “guide both the opinions and habits of the crude masses […] because the religious training of our race has been one-sided and disproportionate.” Booker T. Washington himself had been invited to membership to which no response was ever recorded from Washington on whether he would accept. He very likely would not although he had later contributed an essay that was published in a 1903 book publication, _The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative American Negroes of To-Day_with three of the founding members of the Negro Academy including Du Bois and Paul Laurence Dunbar.

All the same, in many ways, the failure to sustain the high-minded intentions of the American Negro Academy—in part owing to Crummell’s death the following year and Du Bois’s waning intrest in religion as the pathway to moral and ethical behavior—carried an unintended ripple effect into the education of African American men and women at liberal arts colleges in the early 20th century, which Du Bois in the twilight of his life, now sought to correct in this 1948 address. And perhaps after a full reading of his “reexamination of his original thesis,” a deeper tension—oil and water even—may be found in his initial attempts to partner with Reverend Alexander Crummell where he first conceived his Talented Tenth thesis: the formation of African American leadership in the African American community without a mutually agreed upon basis for what morality and ethics constitute.

Heart-Head-Hands

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“We can fill your heads with knowledge, and we can train your hands to work with skill, but unless all this training of head and hand is based upon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better off than the most ignorant.” – Booker T. Washington, A Sunday Evening Talk

Presidential Commentary by Dr. Brian Johnson 

In this writer’s opinion, “integrity” is the greatest 9-letter word, “knowledge” is the second greatest, and “ignorance” is-by far-the worst and most dangerous. And the founding principal and president of Tuskegee (Institute) University, Booker T. Washington, gives on this Sunday evening talk his oft-repeated conception of “heart-head-hands” to help his students avoid the dread of becoming “no better off than the most ignorant.” One can easily seek the help of professors to develop one’s “head”. (These men and women have as their primary purpose to fill the “heads” of students with “knowledge”.) Likewise, professors are able to help make a student’s “hands”-or their work-“skill”[ful]. (Through repeated instruction and correction a student will either become skillful at their work or they will receive failing grades.) Yet, the matter of the “heart,” Mr. Washington suggests, is one matter where students must begin and complete this work largely alone.

(Let no man or woman ever presume to become an expert on the subject of another’s heart.) Of all subject matters, it is the one that is deeply personal and unique to the individual. Whereas both the competencies of the “head” and the credentials of the “hands” lie in full view, the character of the “heart” is always hidden from view. Yet, without it, all else “will amount to nothing.” For Mr. Washington’s complete configuration of Heart-Head-Hands in education is akin to the strength necessary to shoot arrows a great distance even as universities have shot forth their sons and daughters into rewarding and meaningful careers of service. (The heart is the unseen and invisible strength that determines how far one can bend the bow to make the arrow go. How far one can bend the bow and shoot the arrow tells you precisely what one needs to know.)

THE MISTAKES OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

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“I remember one young man in particular who graduated from Yale University and afterward took a post-graduate course at Harvard, and who began his career by delivering a series of lectures on “The Mistakes of Booker T. Washington.” It was not long, however, before he found that he could not live continuously on my mistakes. Then he discovered that in all his long schooling he had not fitted himself to perform any kind of useful and productive labour. After he had failed in several other directions he appealed to me, and I tried to find something for him to do. It is pretty hard, however, to help a young man who has started wrong.” – Booker T. Washington, (1911) My Larger Education

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. offers the following concerning men and women whose actions are similar to the young man described in Booker T. Washington’s aforementioned passage: “Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way – and the fools know it.” And the founding principal and president of Tuskegee (Institute) University provides several important lessons about both the young man-as well as all men and women of his ilk-who seek to establish their name and reputation on the basis of disparaging the name and reputation of others-particularly those whose accomplishments they will only be brought in close proximity to only upon the basis of “controversy.”

First, Mr. Washington never ever mentions this young man’s name. While this unidentified young man knew full well that persons might give him a hearing-not upon the basis of his own person and accomplishments-but based upon the person and accomplishments of his topic, “The Mistakes of Booker T. Washington,” identifying or responding to this young man provided not a single, solitary benefit to Mr. Washington and Tuskegee.

Second, Mr. Washington understood that the young man’s premises were flawed from the onset, and it is the clearest telltale example of Mr. Washington’s oft-repeated phrase, “Let examples answer.” To be sure, the actions of no man or woman are all “good” or all “bad.” (This is naïve, simplistic and child-like thinking.) Yet, in the face of the clear, overwhelming and documentable evidence that testify to the good that Mr. Washington had done locally, regionally and nationally, this young man titled his lecture series according to what he perceived were the mistakes of Mr. Washington.

Here again, what one consistently reads and hears, one will consistently become. And this young man ought to have taken heed to how and to what he was hearing for it ultimately led to what he had become. (For this young man’s attempt to categorize and confine a man of Booker T. Washington eminence and accomplishments to a series of perceived mistakes that his limited training, limited knowledge and limited life experience identified did nothing but demonstrate his failure to understand the significance of the (2) greatest 9-letter words and the single, most dangerous 9-letter word: 1. “Integrity” 2. “Knowledge” 3. “Ignorance;”)

Finally, we should consider Mr. Washington’s demonstration of another one of his famous aphorisms: “I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him.” The very same young man who sought to disparage and defame Mr. Washington later sought him for assistance, and Mr. Washington “tried to find something for him to do.” (This dynamic needs no additional commentary.) Yet what is deserving of additional commentary is that this young man might have spent his time and work writing, lecturing and building his own legacy and life worth reading as opposed to seeking to denigrate another’s whose legacy and life of building Tuskegee (Institute) University spanned 34 years (1881-1915) and remains and is read to this very day.

TITLES

TITLES

“I do not say you should not use them, should not possess them, should not crave them, but do not make the mistake of feeling that titles are going to help you, unless you have got strength aside from the title. No amount of titles will put brains into a person’s head if the brains are not there before.” – Booker T. Washington, “A Sunday Evening Talk,” January 10, 1909

Hear this again and again: Positional and titular authority is the lowest form of authority. If a man or woman cannot nor does not command the respect of his supervisors, peers, colleagues and subordinates independent of a position or title, this man or woman is no greater than the man or woman who has no such position and title. Positions change, and the only permanence one can possess is that found in one’s own person in back of the position.

This is why the founding principal and president of Tuskegee University constantly impressed upon his students the need to constantly improve their own persons. Note the following: It is but half the task to secure the title or position. The most significant half is what one does with the title or position. (One must not only plan how to get the position or title, but what to do with the position and title when one gets it.) And the attention paid to one’s own person helps towards this end. Aside from acquiring credentials and competence, the comprehensive development of one’s character is a third facet that can never be taken from the person in back of a position. (Character is not your highest moment or your lowest moment. Character is your most consistent moment.)

More importantly, Character, like documentable Credentials and demonstrative Competence, is easily transferable from position to position, unit to unit or organization-to-organization. This also explains why the singular, solitary focus upon a position and title (as opposed to the development of one’s own person) is unwise. For the man or woman who has “strength aside from the title” and who has “brains” in their “heads” will always possess these attributes without regards to a position or a title. (And they will always be desired and in demand.) And the founding principal and president of Tuskegee University who we celebrated in the centennial year since his passing (1915-2015) was not only such a man, but he also offered these wise “words” and set forth the accompanying “works” in his 34-year long presidency at the helm of Tuskegee (Institute) University (1881-1915).

Matter Already Attended To

Matter already attended to…Will send you paper with announcement.” -November 12, 1902, “From Emmett Jay Scott to Booker T. Washington”

A man or woman situated similar to the founding principal and president of Tuskegee (Institute) University can hear no more satisfying words than the following: “Matter already attended to…” And this refrain, “[the] matter [has] already [been] attended to” is typically uttered by the best and most successful employees. And Booker T. Washington’s long-time aid, Emmett Jay Scott, was such an employee. (Note: If a man or woman could successfully work for Booker T. Washington, he could go on to successfully work for anyone, which Mr. Scott did at the highest federal levels.)

For the man Booker-as demonstrated in his correspondence-was a man of integrity, knowledge, exacting detail and substance-not messiness, ignorance or fluff. He managed serious matters within the Tuskegee organization that impacted both the “macro” and “micro,” and to have one of his subordinates to express in response to an earlier query that  “[the] matter [has] already [been] attended to” must have brought deep delight and satisfaction to Mr. Washington. For when a “matter [has] already [been] attended to” in an organization as large as the one he served as chief executive officer over, he need not attend to it.

Moreover, if he need not attend to such matters then he could go on to attend to matters that he alone could attend to. And herein lies the deep delight and satisfaction. For like Booker T. Washington’s long and impressive 34-year leadership at the helm of Tuskegee University, the best leaders select the best men and women that enable him or her to lead. And Mr. Washington’s success at selecting such able men and women is evidenced in that his leadership is celebrated at Tuskegee University nearly 111 years since his passing.

Discover more from Brian Johnson, Ph.D.

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  • Follow Brian Johnson. “Brian L. Johnson” and “A Young Man Apart, A World Apart,” 2010-20xxAny Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “Brian L. Johnson” and “A Young Man Apart, A World Apart,” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.”Brian L. Johnson” and “A Young Man Apart, A World Apart,” 2010-20xx. Any Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “Brian L. Johnson” and “A Young Man Apart, A World Apart,” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.Email Address:Follow

One Generation Gathers…The Next Generation Builds

“Phillips Brooks gave expression to the sentiment: ‘One generation gathers the material, and the next generation builds the palaces.’ As I understand it, he wished to inculcate the idea that one generation lays the foundation for succeeding generations.” – Booker T. Washington, Future of the American Negro (1899)

Any institutional or organizational leader would be remiss–no fool hearted–if he or she did not first look to, then build upon and, finally, greatly improve upon the foundation of the past–particularly when that foundation is as solid and substantive as that which is founded in 1881 at Tuskegee (Institute) University. (And this writer believes that the founding principal and president of Tuskegee, Booker T. Washington, was prescient enough to know that his was a foundation that any man or woman could build “palaces upon.”)

Preparation, planning, purpose and performance are the hallmarks of sound management practices in any leadership and management paradigm, and a leader must not only prepare and plan on how to ascend to institutional leadership, but what to do with it once he or she gets it. One certain way of doing this is to return to the founder’s “foundation.” Booker T. Washington laid a rock-solid foundation based upon personal and organizational “integrity,” the greatest 9-letter word.

In perusing through some 34 years of this man’s letters, books and correspondence, one finds that “integrity” is the most consistent and persistent attribute permeating within each writing or speech. Whether writing or speaking to persons small or great, he installed a vision on the basis of being truthful, honest and earnest in all his dealings, and such attributes appealed to both external and internal constituents alike-particularly when seeking major, transformational gifts like Booker T. Washington secured. (The best institutional leaders and organizations are “transparent,” “consistent,” “communicative,” and “collaborative”.)

What the man, Booker Washington, spoke, wrote and did concerning Tuskegee University in one arena was consistent with what he spoke, wrote and did concerning Tuskegee University in another arena, thus forming an unbroken chain of integrity on which he built the foundation of Tuskegee. This integrity extended not only to the world-renowned bricks of Tuskegee’s oldest buildings, but also to the foundational philosophy of Tuskegee University and its founder.

The Principle of the Pillar

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
Revelation 3:12

Although some read the book of Revelation for those things that have already been fulfilled, some read it for its many future implications and still others read it for its many present implications; perhaps the most expedient way to read it is to bear all three in mind, simultaneously, particularly for the principle of the pillar.

For having overcome his insecurities, doubts and double-mindedness, Peter (along with James and John) was considered a pillar in the Lord’s house. And surely all who have endured to the very end, overcoming the world and its temptations, trials and afflictions, will become pillars in the temple of God found in Heavenly Jerusalem.

Moreover, we who are presently alive ought to appear as pillars in our present assemblies and communities, (fixed in the faith) grounded and settled-always overcoming-because of it. For the overarching principle of the pillar is one of strength to support and to bear the weight of not only ourselves but others. Most importantly, pillars stand upon truth chiefly expressed through the word of God and in the person of Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth and the life.

[That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.]

1 Tim. 3:15 KJV

Kings and Priests: Out of Our Kin Into Our Sacred Civic Callings Revelation 5:9-10

Bill Winston’s Joseph Business School Magazine: “Out of Our Kin: Into Our Sacred Civic Callings”

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