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Booker T Washington The Atlanta Compromise Essay

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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). 1895 was exactly thirty years after slavery (in the U.S.) was abolished, which, as every American should know, consisted of constant hard labor and work, with little to …show more content…

This was a big deal because of the huge amount of historical turmoil going on at this time, like the Harlem Renaissance but in Atlanta. Hartshorn and Pandit describe, “A ‘new South” was rising, one that attracted both black and nonblack migrants alike to take advantage of new opportunities in telecommunications, manufacturing, and education” (qtd. in Malega and Stallings 72). Like many people know, what goes up must come down, and although it is still a booming center of black success, Atlanta cannot hold all of black America up with it. The people that black Americans are distantly related to in Western Africa are more than hesitant to invest in the African Diaspora in the United States, according to Uzoigwe (283), because of lack of confidence. They do not identify with black Americans, as black Americans do not fully identify with them, and very many African Americans do not have family in Africa to turn to for business help. Africans are very separate in identification from black Americans who are descendants of slaves. It is the job of African Americans to do their part separately until black businesses can fully

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In 1895, Booker T. Washington mad an agreement known as the Atlanta Compromise. This was an agreement that stated that African Americans would be under white rule politically in order for them to recieve a more advanced education and due process in law. This meant that the African Americans needed to remain quiet in order for the whites to continue funding them. W.E.B Du Bois criticized Washington and did not agree with this compromise as he saw it as giving up to the white race. He believeed that Booker T. Washington was asking the African Americans to release their privillages.

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860 Words | 4 Pages

This was not a good piece of advice that Booker T. Washington gave especially with the hostility after the Civil War but Washington believes that it will be alright for African-Americans to cast down their buckets because “...people have tilled your fields, cleared your forests, built your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth” (Washington, paragraph 4). Washington is saying to cast down their bucket and thrive where all the fields have been tilled, where the railroads and cities are, and where the forests have been cleared to help the country continue to thrive. Washington also says, “casting down your bucket among my people … you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories” (Washington, paragraph 4). Washington is telling his fellow African-Americans that someday, they will have their own land and will have people running their factories for them. They just need to cast down their buckets and wait for that day to come because Washington believed that African-Americans and whites would be equal, it would just take some

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1596 Words | 7 Pages

Washington delivers the 1895 Atlanta Compromise Speech on September 18, 1895, at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. In the speech, Booker T. Washington ask African Americans not to be involved with any form of militant protest in order to gain civil rights and equality with the rest of society. In the speech Washington argues: “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 labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.

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838 Words | 4 Pages

Washington stresses “it is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top”. Cast your bucket into agriculture, mechanics, and other manual labor opportunities and learn to prosper. To his white audience, Washington uses the bucket analogy to encourage them not to recruit immigrants, but to “Cast down your bucket where you are” and hire from the eight million free blacks who have been loyally doing the work all along. By employing and also educating the black population, the economy will prosper for both races.

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The first metaphor is about a ship in need of water but the sailors don’t realize that they are standing in fresh water and need to cast down their buckets. The term “cast down your buckets where ever you are” Washington uses it to suggest that both the whites and blacks must compromise with each other. However, based on his perspective, the blacks must cast down their buckets in manual labor and not achieve for greater professions. While the whites only have to allow the free slaves to live among them in peace. Washington believes that the American Negro after being enslave for so long needs to earn the whites trust, and the only way to achieve that is by starting from the

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529 Words | 3 Pages

However Booker T. Washington believed in having a more skillful education, consisting of learning how to trade, mastering agriculture skills and more things one would need to get a job. However, W.E.B DuBois also put many efforts to achieve equal rights towards African Americans which Booker T Washington put on hold. Booker T Washington’s plan was to make it so that “Blacks would [have to] accept segregation and discrimination but their eventual acquisition of wealth and culture would gradually win for them the respect and acceptance of whites”. This vision that Booker T Washington had “practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro race”. W.E.B commented on this process saying it was an attempt, “to educate black boys and girls simply as servants and underlings.”

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On September 18, 1895, the African American educator and leader Booker T. Washington, delivered his famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. It is widely one of the most significant speeches in American history. Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Address was presented in the auditorium on the exposition grounds. The auditorium was packed, mostly with whites, but there was also a segregated Negro section. This speech is often called the "Atlanta Compromise" because Washington encouraged African-Americans to worry less about social segregation and more about achieving economic security.

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During the end of World War II, Harry Truman made a significant impact on America and nations worldwide which became remarkable to history. His name was indeed the worthiest name to the 20th century. Any decision that came across Truman to decide, led onto a great path. Without the decision making of Truman, America and nations throughout the world would have fell unto a deeper corrupt society. " America was not built on fear.

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Washington believed that collaboration was key to creating a more inclusive society for both races. Instead of getting African-Americans to the position of the whites, their contribution to the economy is enough for the whites to acknowledge their success. With one-third of the population being African-Americans, Washington points out that the one-third could either could add to the “crime and ignorance” or the “intelligence and progress” of the South. This meaning that through a collective effort, the success of the South would be furthered. “Cast down your bucket among these people who have helped make possible of this magnificent representation of the progress of the South.”

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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.

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500 Words | 2 Pages

“It is at the bottom of life we must begin, not the top.” Booker T. Washington’s philosophy was that African Americans should accept segregation. Born on April 5, 1856 in Virginia, Washington. Was 9 when slavery ended. Before going to school, he worked in salt and coal mines for 6 years.

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I emphasized the need for African Americans to gain practical skills that would enable them to become self-sufficient and contribute to society. In my famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech in 1895, I called on African Americans to focus on economic self-improvement rather than political activism. I argued that African Americans could gain respect and acceptance from white society by proving their worth through hard work and economic success.

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Carrie Missey History 122 Section 1 Blog #2 As Booker T. Washington said in his Atlanta Compromise Speech of 1895, cast down your bucket. He stated not only to his people but to the white southerners as well. The way that we can learn to be as one is to learn to rely on each other. In stating that he made a great point in the fact that his people were the ones who lived to make the southern man’s land what it was.

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Washington stated “Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields... builded your railroads and cities….and helped make possible this….progress of the South” (Washington, Atlanta Exposition Address). He repeats the phrase “cast down your bucket” to emphasise his message to blacks, to remain where they are. Specifically, he is telling whites to NOT seek immigrant workers, but instead reach out to millions of blacks who are unemployed in the South. Washington is asking whites to give blacks the chance to prove their worth, and influence economically. He also highlighted the fact that southern blacks were loyal workers, AND that they built the South without going on strikes and labor wars, which were common in northern industrial society.

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What make humanity unique is we manipulate our environment, changing nature when nature doesn’t suit us. Historically, these changes have targeted elements we interact with. However, with the advent of genome mapping and editing, humans are now able to change ourselves, or more accurately, edit our genome. Right now, gene editing is being used for gene therapy, to either add, remove, or edit a gene in order to ensure a therapeutic effect in either a person or an embyro. Gene therapy is not ethically immoral and should be allowed, although proper clinical and regulatory constraints must be underdone.

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