It was to people such as these that Booker T. Washington brought hope, and serving them he passed on to fame.  Within a few years schools on the plan of Tuskegee began to spring up all over the South, at Denmark, at Snow Hill, at Utica, and elsewhere.  In 1900 the National Negro Business League began its sessions, giving great impetus to the establishment of banks, stores, and industrial enterprises throughout the country, and especially in the South.  Much of this progress would certainly have been realized if the Business League had never been organized; but every one granted that in all the development the genius of the leader at Tuskegee was the chief force.  About his greatness and his very definite contribution there could be no question.

3. Individual Achievement:  The Spanish-American War

It happened that just at the time that Booker T. Washington was advancing to great distinction, three or four other individuals were reflecting special credit on the race.  One of these was a young scholar, W.E.  Burghardt DuBois, who after a college career at Fisk continued his studies at Harvard and Berlin and finally took the Ph.D. degree at Harvard in 1895.  There had been sound scholars in the race before DuBois, but generally these had rested on attainment in the languages or mathematics, and most frequently they had expressed themselves in rather philosophical disquisition.  Here, however, was a thorough student of economics, and one who was able to attack the problems of his people and meet opponents on the basis of modern science.  He was destined to do great good, and the race was proud of him.

In 1896 also an authentic young poet who had wrestled with poverty and doubt at last gained a hearing.  After completing the course at a high school in Dayton, Paul Laurence Dunbar ran an elevator for four dollars a week, and then he peddled from door to door two little volumes of verse that had been privately printed.  William Dean Howells at length gave him a helping hand, and Dodd, Mead & Co. published Lyrics of Lowly Life.  Dunbar wrote both in classic English and in the dialect that voiced the humor and the pathos of the life of those for whom he spoke.  What was not at the time especially observed was that in numerous poems he suggested the discontent with the age in which he lived and thus struck what later years were to prove an important keynote.  After he had waited and struggled so long, his success was so great that it became a vogue, and imitators sprang up everywhere.  He touched the heart of his people and the race loved him.