The Strength to Rise: Martin Luther King Jr. and Booker T. Washington

On this episode of Our American Stories, two men, born generations apart, helped shape the course of American history. Booker T. Washington emerged from the aftermath of slavery, founding the Tuskegee Institute and preaching the power of education and self-determination. Decades later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. carried that torch into the modern civil rights movement, leading through nonviolent protest and faith in the promise of equality. Both faced profound racial injustice, yet neither let oppression define their spirit. Through education, courage, and peaceful resistance, they opened doors that generations still walk through today. Author James Ward reflects on their legacies and the zero-victim mentality that continues to inspire Americans today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including yours. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorites up next. Pastor and author
James E. Ward Jor came to national prominence after Jacob
Blake Jr. Was shot during an incident involving the Kenosha,

(00:32):
Wisconsin Police. What made his response so unique was his
call to prayer, peace, healing, and forgiveness. In his book
Zero Victim, Overcoming Injustice with a New Attitude, James Ward
tells his story as a zero victim Black American. Here's
James Ward talking about two other African Americans in US

(00:55):
history who inspired his zero victim mentality.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Like researching historical figures to see if there were any
other zero victim thinkers in history, especially in the African
American community. And one of the great zero victim thinkers
in American history is Booker T. Washington, who of course
became the first president of Tuskegee University. And I like

(01:21):
his writings. For example, Up from Slavery as a well
known writing of Booker T. Washington, and as early as
nineteen oh one he was communicating what I call a
zero victim message, speaking to blacks in the South who
had experienced tremendous victimization. You're still talking about the area's

(01:45):
era of blacks not being considered full human beings. You're
still talking about blacks being subject to Jim Crow laws
and the effects of slavery and racism that were very,
very pervasive in the South and was overt you know,
these things were it was a way of life. And
yet during that time, Booker T. Washington was encouraging blacks

(02:09):
in the South to not be victims, to not see
themselves as victims. That despite the injustice that they were
dealing with on a daily basis and historically, in my words,
he was encouraging them to overcome injustice with the new attitude.
And he began to explain, for example, to blacks in
the South who were working in the cotton fields, who

(02:32):
were working on the sugar plantations, who were working the
tobacco plantations. He was reminding the blacks during that time,
listen that even though slavery has been difficult, you have
the intellectual property of commerce. It was the blacks in South,
in the South, on those plantations that literally knew how
to grow tobacco and sugar cane and cotton. He tried

(02:57):
to explain to them and to teach them. And this
is where you see this really fleshed out and Tuskegan
University with his overall vision for the school. But he
was on this campaign to teach blacks in the South
that were industrious how they could use their intellectual capability
and the knowledge that they had gained from slavery to
be empowered economically, that they really understood, let's just say,

(03:22):
the basis of how to drive the economy in the South.
And Booker t would take that message even to the
pastors and the black churches, and you read from some
of his writings that he was oftentimes rejected and scolded
by the black pastors for not taking a much more
aggressive stance about slavery and the injustice that they were

(03:43):
dealing with. But he was not dismissive of that. But
he was talking about a new mindset. He was really
trying to encourage them to engage, and he was asking
the pastors to actually help teach what I call now
a zero victim mindset to people during that time. And
so I like his perspective in some situations it was
not well received, but then we see the effect of

(04:07):
a great university, which is Tuskegee University, coming out of
that way of thinking. Even his successor, Robert Modin the
continued this track where they were really calling blacks to
be empowered with this zero victim mindset, teaching them how
to engage economically with industry, how to use their hands

(04:28):
and their work experience, how to not be a victim,
how to be overcomers, and to not be overcome by
the circumstances that they were dealing with, to help Black
America really rise up into prominence for us to enhance
the quality of living for Black American people. And so
I appreciate his voice and his writings. I see so

(04:48):
many remnants of zero victim thinking in the life of
doctor Martin Luther King Junior, going through the civil rights
movements in the sixties, calling for nonviolence, calling for peace,
really using a biblical foundation concerning what justice is. He attempted.
Although not a perfect man, he wasn't flawless in any way,

(05:10):
but I really think he did a great job of
helping to lead our nation and what I call a
zero victim perspective of not seeing you know himself as
a victim, but really speaking and calling for biblical justice,
and not just a cultural perspective of justice, but really
calling for justice from God's perspective, based upon the truth

(05:30):
of God's word. And so I like to say that
doctor King was also a predecessor in the zero victim thinking,
you know, in the zero victim school of thought. And
I tell folks today, doctor King had a dream. We
have a vision now we really want to see and
we can use his mode of thinking and facing off
with some of the things that we're dealing with today,

(05:50):
with some of the socio political and racial challenges that
we see in America. I still think that there's there's
tremendous benefit in the mindset of a booker t Washing
and a doctor Martin Luther King Junior and dealing with
some of the challenges that we're facing off with in
today's society.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
And a great job on the editing and production of
that piece by Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
James Ward. His book Zero Victim, Overcoming Injustice with a
New Attitude is available on Amazon and all the usual suspects,
and it's great and fun to listen to a hero
talk about his heroes. And by the way, none of
these people are perfect people. We always have to say

(06:29):
that because too often in this world we're judging people
by their flaws and not by what they've overcome and
what they've contributed. And this is a real failure in
American life right now, to judge a person by their
worst day. It's a terrible thing. And my goodness, look
up Booker T. Washington his life, My goodness, we need
to know more and have more stories told about him.

(06:50):
And the same with Reverend King, who can call him
doctor King that always remember he was a reverend and
he loved the Bible and the Lord. The stories of
MLK Booker T. Washington as told by James E. Ward
here on Our American Stories and Lee Hbib here. And

(07:27):
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(07:48):
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