Head, Hand, and Heart in TREEMONISHA: The Hampton-Tuskegee Ideology, Part 2

My August 16, 2017 post (A New Look at TREEMONISHA) points out striking similarities between Booker T. Washington’s writing and Scott Joplin’s Preface to Treemonisha.  Both men speak of superstition’s survival on remote plantations from which whites have moved away after the war, thus leaving ignorant blacks without anyone to guide them.   Similarly, my November 14, 2017 post  (“You Can’t Fool Treemonisha”: The Hampton-Tuskegee Ideology, Part 1) focuses on Joplin’s use of literacy as a remedy for superstition and on his character Remus’ mention of Treemonisha’s “level head,” again pointing out parallels between Joplin's thinking and Washington's, which had been molded by Samuel Chapman Armstrong's teachings.  All of these points raise the possibility that Joplin  intended Treemonisha as his second tribute to Booker T.  Washington, following the loss of his first opera, A Guest of Honor.  The similarities do not end there.  A close look at Hampton and Tuskegee’s shared three-part mission reveals further connections with the opera and leads to a reinterpretation of Joplin’s Parson Alltalk.  

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