Black blame game.(Book Review)

Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America By Jesse Lee Peterson WND Books, 224 pages, $22.99

Growing up a slave on a Virginia tobacco farm, Booker T. Washington "had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study would be about the same as getting into paradise." His dream came true in 1872, when he entered the Hampton Agricultural Institute, working as a janitor to cover his expenses.

By 1881, Washington was principal of the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers, later known as the Tuskegee Institute, which offered academic education and practical instruction, in subject areas ranging from farming to printing.

In an 1895 speech, Washington offered his thoughts on the value of work: "Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life."

That same year, W. E. B. DuBois received a doctorate from Harvard. He also became an educator, teaching for decades at Atlanta University. There the similarities end. While Washington espoused personal success through hard work, DuBois advocated social change through agitation and protest. Washington called for all people to take responsibility for themselves; DuBois argued that "the Negro Race ... is going to be saved by its exceptional men" who would "guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the worst."

While Washington advocated hard work in a flee market, DuBois promoted socialist black cooperatives. He joined the Communist Party in 1961 and renounced his American citizenship. He lived out his days in Ghana, where his home featured busts of Marx, Lenin, and Mao.

Black America, says the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson (who is black), has followed the advice of DuBois over that of Washington, to its great detriment. In Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America, Peterson writes that so-called black leaders are no more than "problem profiteers," effectively keeping others down by discouraging them from developing good character.