ipl-logo

Analysis Of Booker T. Washington's Speech: The Atlanta Exposition

612 Words3 Pages

In Booker T. Washington's speech "The Atlanta Exposition", he proposes that in order for African-Americans to become finacially established and to feel safer in their home towns they must trade their equality for economic freedom. In his philosphy, it is impossible for any man to demand the laws of freedom if he does not contribute to the production of the country. "the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly... progress in the enjoyment of all privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of articical forcing" (Washington 7:19). To Washington social equality should not be African-Americans main focus during this time period. He believes that once African-Americans can prove theirseleves loyal to their …show more content…

Through his acts, Washington was able to earn a name for himself. Many African-Americans took this economic route. Now that they were freedpeople many of them took on domestic and heavy labor jobs. According to Creating Black Americans even when African-Americans continued to work, they still could not get fincaily stable. When African-Americans took on labor jobs like sharecropping or tenant farming, it was a never ending circle of debt. This would ended in one of two ways: basically becoming a slave o your debt or becoming a slave to the convict leasng system. African-Americans could find jobs, but there were not a lot of well paying jobs offered to them. Back during the Civil War we see a disparity in pay between African-American and Caucasion soldiers even in the nineteenth century there is still a great difference in pay. There were more African-American male workers, female workers, young workers, and elderly workers than Caucasions. Yet, African-Americans are still under payed. Even while working the same job a Caucasion male teacher made $479.79 each school year, while the an African-American teacher made $91.45 each school

Show More
Related
860 Words | 4 Pages

Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Exposition Address In his Atlanta Exposition Address, Booker T. Washington stressed that his listeners “cast down your bucket where you are.” Booker T. Washington was one of the most prominent African-American leaders in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He believed in vocational education and personal self improvement. Acquiring economic power through patient industry was his principle concern.

Read More
1281 Words | 6 Pages

Just after Reconstruction, life for African Americans began to go downhill as all of their newly gained rights became suppressed because of the new laws and systems that were put in place. Many African Americans that stayed in the South did so because they wanted to continue working in agriculture, and, therefore, had the end goal of getting their own land, which let them fall into the trap that was sharecropping. Africans Americans would rent small plots of land from a landowner, and pay their debts in the form of a portion of their crops. There was also the vagrancy law, which caused any African American that was not working and had no proof that they had a job to be arrested. This leads to the convict lease system, in which wealthy, usually Caucasian American, people rented out prisoners for labor.

Read More
838 Words | 4 Pages

Washington is wise because of his experiences and is well aware that even the whites Exposition organizers and attendees that largely support him have fears and reservations about how much opportunity they truly want his fellow black Americans to have. He knows that the white leaders feel threatened by the possibility of blacks achieving economic success and expecting to be equal and fully integrated with whites. Washington soothes these fears by saying that “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”. Booker T. Washington understood that great progress requires great patience, and his choice of language in this speech is

Read More
821 Words | 4 Pages

Achieving African American Equality Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois were two of the most influential advocates for African American equality during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Blatty, 1). Although both men ultimately had the same goal, their methods for achieving African American equality were remarkably different. To begin, the men had conflicting ideas about what constituted as African American equality. Booker T. Washington argued that the accumulation of wealth and the ability to prove that Blacks were productive members of society would be the mark of true equality for African Americans (Painter, 155).

Read More
538 Words | 3 Pages

African Americans are now free but they didn’t have anything of their own so anything they needed they had work for it, so they all needed jobs. In the South, they were acquainted with one system of labor. They were presented with another system of labor, called Wage Labor, but they wouldn’t appreciate it. The South had been so use to the system of slave labor, because they could get what their essentials without paying them to get it….Wage labor would result in a destructive outcome to the South (2).

Read More
1187 Words | 5 Pages

Booker T. Washington and Others” Dubois uses a great deal of rhetorical strategies. His most used rhetorical strategy was ethos or ethical. This makes him a trustworthy and credible source, giving him the stronger argument. Dubois starts off his essay by stating that Booker T. Washington’s ideas of acquiring new skills and staying silent as a form of gaining equal rights was not an original idea. He emphasizes that, “His programme of industrial education, conciliation of the South, and submission and silence as to civil and political rights, was not wholly original; the Free Negroes from 1830 up to wartime had striven to build industrial schools, and the American Missionary Association had from the first taught various trades; and Price and others had sought a way of honorable alliance with the best of the Southerners.”

Read More
414 Words | 2 Pages

Imagine being an African American during the Progressive Era and not having the same rights that other people have. Booker T. Washington was born to a slave in 1856 and his mother was a cook on a plantation, while his father was a unknown white man most likely from a nearby plantation. At a young age, Washington worked hard and was sometimes beaten if he did not do what he was supposed to. There was a schoolhouse near the plantation he worked at, and he saw children his age learning, but at the time it was illegal to teach slaves. At nine years old, Booker T. Washington went to work with his step father instead of going to school.

Read More
1091 Words | 5 Pages

First, at the same time of inspiring his fellow African- Americans to develop their self- worth and self- esteem, he had also disheartened them to have the courage to defy the injustices that were directed toward them. This only strengthened the claim of the Whites that the African- Americans were the lesser kind of human beings and only existed for the sole purpose of serving their masters-the Whites. Furthermore, while Washington ambitioned the Black- Americans to someday rise and became craftsmen and landowners, he imbued to them that their civil and political rights were of no importance. Correspondingly, this advocacy of Washington was beyond the bounds of possibility because the African- Americans would not freely and fully exist if they did not have the right to vote. Lastly, at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, he had deprived the African- American youths of their rights for higher learning.

Read More
727 Words | 3 Pages

He contended that Washington's perspectives empowered white segregationists and restricted open doors for African Americans. He accepted that African Americans ought to have the chance of advanced education, and ought to battle for their social equality, instead of holding up for those rights to be conceded after financial fairness had

Read More
488 Words | 2 Pages

In an era where African Americans were caught in the middle of an awkward transition between slavery and unrestricted freedom, few voices could rise above the noise to lead Blacks to a better future. Booker T. Washington, a former slave himself, found that voice. Approaching contemporary issues through a realistic lens, Washington saw Black empowerment in the world of industry rather than in the world of politics. He saw solutions in brotherhood among diverse cultures, a necessity for a nation torn apart by extreme polarization, and understood the importance of training the first generations of free blacks for the workforce. In this sense, Washington established himself as a true visionary.

Read More
846 Words | 4 Pages

He says that "It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities" (Washington). Because of Washington's acceptance of inferiority of his race, at the time, economically, he again appeals to the white audience in front of his speech, at the African American expo. He almost apologizes for how low the blacks are starting by saying "Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humble effort at an exhibition of our progress, you must not expect overmuch" (Washington). This puts the pressure of equality on the black community, and takes pressure off the white community.

Read More
771 Words | 4 Pages

Booker T. Washington is by far one of the brightest and strongest minds from his time. During his Atlanta Exposition address he displays his intellect masterfully. From Mr. Washington’s use of language he was able to seamlessly piece together a speech that we still analyse to this day. Mr. Washington use of rhetoric explains and enlightens the circumstances of freed African Americans trying to fit into communities in the south. From mistreatment and racism still present in the newly freed people.

Read More
1236 Words | 5 Pages

More job opportunities began to open up therefore, there was an increased need for skilled workers. Companies thought it was a great idea to hire African Americans who would be more than willing to work, grant them a smaller pay and have their business continue to thrive in the prosperous decade. The white leaders of the industry often took advantage of policies to ensure that African Americans would be confined to the least desirable jobs with the lowest wages (Phillips 33). Within the jobs, workers would also be faced with discrimination. The African Americans would receive death threats in their place of work almost daily and were made to feel as if they were only there to benefit the economy (Phillips 39) For many years in American History, African Americans only received training to be skilled workers, as it didn 't seem necessary for them to receive any further education (Blanton 1).

Read More
899 Words | 4 Pages

In 1895, Booker T. Washington gave a speech called “The Atlanta Compromise.” Within this speech he spoke his most famous words, “Cast down your bucket” (192). He addresses this phrase towards black people and white people, telling the blacks to cast down their buckets inorder for them to receive assistance from white people. He tells the white people to cast down their buckets and invest in the likes of hardworking black people, as to create a mutual agreement and eventually equality. Washington believes that labor will allow blacks to be equal, rather than education (192).

Read More
578 Words | 3 Pages

When the African Americans were finally freed from the hold of slavery, many of them were not able to participate in normal jobs due to the lack of experience, knowledge and skill. Since the former slaves were originally not able to get on their own feet due to having no money, their former masters offered them a deal; if they work for them, they will pay for housing, tools, and etc. While the deal did not seem bad, in actuality the former owners were taking advantage of them, they offered them a job at their planation, to where the African Americans worked a similar job to when they were slaves. However, the made sure that they were constantly in debt, not able to pay off what they owed the employers for housing, tools, and other items the received. For instance, document one shows a chart of the process that was just described; former save receives land and other items, sharecropper is given crops to sell after he has harvested, landowner makes sure that the sharecropper is always in debt, and then the process repeats itself.

Read More

More about Analysis Of Booker T. Washington's Speech: The Atlanta Exposition

Related Topics

Open Document