This book is an ideological analysis of the religious rhetoric of Booker T. Washington and its impact on his audiences and followers. Washington became one of the most powerful Black men of the Progressive Era as leader of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama. Washington’s motivation grew out of his childhood slave experience and struggle to gain education following Emancipation in the Reconstruction South. He supported industrial education for Blacks, but rejected the political protest model demanding civil rights. He developed an educational model advocating economic…