Sharing Strategies for Racial Uplift: Afro-Cubans, Afro-Puerto Ricans, and African Amer-
Booker T. Washington, too, was set apart from most of his fellow-
former slaves. He rose to a position as leader of African Americans
and consorted and collaborated with the wealthiest and most power-
ful white and black Americans. However, Washington was committed
to the agricultural workers of the South, and was wary of the preten-
sions of the emerging black middle class (Norrell, 2009 and Moses,
2004). Though it is not true, as earlier historians claimed, that he
wanted to prevent African Americans from attaining professional
careers, his focus was indeed on the lower classes of the South. As he
pointed out, most of his students came from the country, where agri-
culture was the main source of employment. By giving them a trade
that would work in their context, they would be more successful, and
also be able to address the needs of their own communities. Washing-
ton “wanted to be careful not to educate our students out of sympathy
with the agricultural life,” so that they would not abandon their com-
munities for the cities.^11 This kind of skill set would not only be useful
for themselves and their communities, and it would also help race rela-
tions. Washington thought that creating a place for African Americans
in the larger economic context would make them useful to white soci-
ety, causing whites to change their attitudes, and racial uplift would
follow from there (Moses, 2004).
No doubt Serra and Gómez were attracted by Washington’s strat-
egy of economic progress leading not only to racial uplift, but also
racial harmony. Their commitment to the Cuban nationalist ideology
of Martí would have made this strategy particularly attractive. But in
fact, these Afro-Cuban leaders were not as interested in agricultural or
rural laborers as Booker T. Washington was. As discussed above, they
were primarily concerned with the economic status of the urban black
population—artisans and tradesmen.
As Frank Guridy points out, the Afro-Cuban students sent to
Tuskegee were likely an elite group. They had been sent by an influen-
tial and successful Afro-Cuban intellectual and politician, Juan Gual-- Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute: Personal Growth Leaflet Number 86. Tuskegee
University Archives.