  Few of these thoughtful feminists, it should be noted, were energetic advocates of Nationalist emigration during this turbulent period. Perhaps because many Nationalist agendas and articulations were soon eclipsed (though by no means completely silenced) during the years of 1880–1915 that came to be largely dominated by the persuasive ameliorative leadership of Booker T. Washington (1856–1915), an educator and strategic power-broker who focused his considerable efforts on uplifting a Black southern peasantry into educated literacy for economic self-reliance and on the nation-wide organization of Negro businesses for the pursuit of predominance in certain sectors of the economy. After delivering a poignant and crafty invited “Atlanta Exposition Address” to resounding praise during an 1895 international industrial exposition, Washington, already well on his way as a leader recognized as such by Negro people, was elevated by certain powerful and influential White people to the vaunted position as their leader and spokesman for “the Negro” to whom they would turn to broker matters in race relations. The key to this positioning was the reaction of many White people, concerned about post-war transformations under way in race relations, to the following declaration in Washington’s Exposition address: “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress” (Washington 1895; 1992, p. 358). Concentrating on the first part of his statement, anxious White people interpreted his public endorsement of the “purely social” separation of the races as an endorsement by Washington of the hegemony of White people in all areas.