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För sångaren och musikproducenten Barry White (1944-2003), som föddes med namnet Booker T. Washington White, se Barry White.

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Booker Taliaferro Washington, född 5 april 1856 i Franklin County, Virginia, USA, död 14 november 1915 i Tuskegee, Alabama, USA, var en amerikansk författare och politiker, känd för sitt arbete mot rasism och slaveri.

Washington föddes själv in i slaveri, men blev fri vid nio års ålder. Erfarenheterna av detta skildras i hans självbiografi Upp från Slaveriet (Up from Slavery, 1901).

Citat

• "I will let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him."
• "One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him." [3]
• "It is at the bottom of life we must begin, not at the top."
• "Think about it: We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands...Notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, we are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe." - from Up From Slavery
• "There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs -- partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."