A Chief Lieutenant of the Tuskegee Machine: Charles Banks of Mississippi.

A Chief Lieutenant of the Tuskegee Machine: Charles Banks of Mississippi. By David H. Jackson Jr. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, c. 2002. Pp. xvi, 282. $55.00, ISBN 0-8130-2544-3.)

In A Chief Lieutenant of the Tuskegee Machine, David H. Jackson Jr. chronicles the life of Charles Banks (1873-1923), Mississippi's leading African American entrepreneur and adherent to Booker T. Washington's strategy of self-help and racial uplift in the Jim Crow South. Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Banks rose to become a retail merchant, bank founder, mill owner, and a founder and leading citizen of the all-black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Jackson attributes Banks's achievements to an incredible ethic of hard work, business acumen, personal drive, and determination. Banks's close association with the founder of Tuskegee Institute and the National Negro Business League (NNBL), Booker T. Washington, opened important doors for him and provided valuable contacts. This significant study offers a different perspective on the black struggle. Banks was a successful black businessman who, in the end, fell prey to a faltering southern economy too dependent on a single cash crop, schisms within the black community, the failure of African Americans to support black-owned businesses sufficiently, and the persistent onslaught of Mississippi whites jealous of successful blacks and fearful of competition.

Banks and other Mound Bayou community leaders were guarded in their criticisms of the racism and hostility of surrounding white communities. Adopting the accommodationist tone of Washington, they spoke of the better class of whites who they believed could be counted upon to be fair and to help protect the community. Jackson shows his pro-Washington bias by failing to adequately critique the community's lack of race consciousness and self-assertion. Instead, he seems to accept the community's posture as reasonable, given that the white sheriff of the region and the all-white fire department in nearby Cleveland, Mississippi, had been helpful in the past. In view of the long-standing reality of race relations in the Jim Crow South, these few acts of goodwill, even multiplied, should not have left any black person feeling safe and secure, especially in Mississippi. Black leaders elsewhere criticized Banks and his followers for accepting the color line and avoiding the struggle for civil rights. Loyal to the Tuskegee directive, Banks believed that real progress was financial. He did venture into backroom politics when he supported William Howard Taft and, later, Theodore Roosevelt. When Banks became critical of Taft for his failure to make good on political promises, Jackson theorizes that Banks may have tested his relationship with Washington, since the "Wizard of Tuskegee" claimed to be neutral on the choice between Roosevelt and Taft in 1912. Jackson's discussion of this event lacks clarity.

When Washington died in 1915, Banks found himself increasingly outside the umbrella of support that Washington had provided through the NNBL and his linkages with northern white industrial supporters such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Jackson, however, does not delve deeply into those relationships or explore the funding sources of the NNBL.

Even that support probably would not have been enough to help Banks and Mound Bayou survive the downturn in cotton prices in 1919, the failure of the town's cottonseed oil mill, and the collapse of the town's bank two years later. Whites sealed the economic fate of Banks and Mound Bayou when they began boycotting the town's businesses. Jackson chronicles this demise but misses the obvious conclusions that racial uplift through accommodationism failed and that business entrepreneurship alone, no matter how clever, could not overcome the stultifying effects of racism. Nor does Jackson tell us how much money Banks lost. At the height of his economic prowess in 1915, Banks's net worth was $100,000 (a substantial sum at that time). Jackson does inform us that Banks continued to hold business interests in Mound Bayou despite moving to Memphis in 1922. Banks died not long after, in October 1923.

Despite its repetitions and need for more critical analysis, Jackson's book is a valuable addition to the literature on the "Wizard of Tuskegee" and those who adhered to his philosophy.

University of Miami 

DONALD SPIVEY