Commems Collection Classic: 1946-51 Booker T Washington - Sales Kickoff Address In Congress

Note: The address below is reproduced verbatim as it appears in the Congressional Record. Its language reflects its time (1947).

In the First Session of the 80th Congress (February 1947), Senator Clayton Douglass Buck (R-DE), former Governor of Delaware, rose in the US Senate and offered the following in regards to the new Booker T. Washington Birthplace Memorial Half Dollar:

"Mr. President, on behalf of the District of Columbia Booker T. Washington memorial-coin headquarters, I desire to make a brief statement regarding this distinguished American citizen in honor of whom the Seventy-ninth Congress authorized the minting of a commemorative 50-cent coin.

Booker T. Washington was a great American. Theodore Roosevelt has well said of him that:

For 20 years before his death he had been the most useful, as well as the most distinguished, member of his race in the world, and one of the most useful, as well as the most distinguished, of American citizens of any race.

Both white and Negro owed him much. A firm believer in industrial education for his race, he built virtually by his own endeavor world-famous Tuskegee Institute, which has trained thousands of his race for a useful place in society. His wisdom is never shown better than in the attitude he took as to the part the Negro should play in politics. He said:

In my opinion, it is a fatal mistake to teach the young black man and the young white man that the dominance of the white race in the South rests upon any other basis than absolute justice to the weaker man. It is a mistake to cultivate in the mind of any individual or group of individuals the feeling and belief that their happiness rests upon the misery of someone else, or their wealth by the poverty of someone else. I do not advocate that the Negro make politics or the holding of office an important thing in his life. I do urge, in the interests of fair play for everybody, that a Negro who prepares himself in property, in intelligence, and in character to cast a ballot, and desires to do so, should have the opportunity.

At Harvard, in 1896, while conferring upon him the first honorary degree conferred by that university on a Negro, President Elliott said, "Teacher, wise helper of his race, good servant of God and country.''

The last session of Congress authorized the coining of a new half dollar honoring Booker T. Washington. On February 28 the District of Columbia will celebrate Booker T. Washington Day by launching the sale of these coins. They will be sold for $1, as authorized by law, 50 cents of which will go to the memorial fund to build a specialized industrial training school and shrine on the Washington birthplace in Franklin County, Va.

I hope and urge that many will cooperate in this great and beneficial tribute to a real American."

IMO, a respect-filled tribute to Washington and a fitting manner by which to help kick off sales of the new commemorative coin that honors his life and legacy.

1946 Booker T. Washington Birthplace Memorial Half Dollar



For more of my topics on commemorative coins and medals, including more on the history and design of the Booker T. Washington half dollar, see: Commems Collection.