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Rhetorical Devices In Booker T Washington

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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. Using ethos to motivate the African American people to never stop working hard no matter that they face. Starting with the fact that African Americans would only help America reach even higher feats he white man would still oppressed them,“the …show more content…

Washington in his second Paragraph speaks about how the African American peoples story is changing in a dramatic way. Booker T. Washington has great use of logos to get the African American peoples to never stop working. Mr. Washington enlightens African Americans that the transition is going to be rough but they will be successful, “our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom” (Paragraph 2). The transition will not be easy, nor will all the people freed will have success but any success will be the success of the African Americans as whole. What does that mean? As claimed by Booker T. Washington, “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” (Paragraph 2). The African American people will and over time work to get to the top, and that they will prove to the white man that they do belong whether success of the field or in the new world they have finally allowed to be successful in. In this paragraph Mr. Washington uses a emotional point and turned it into motivation for Africans to work hard and try their best no matter what lay ahead. “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” (Paragraph

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Not only was he a teacher but also he was a Civil Rights activist and public speaker. In 1985, four years after opening his own school, Tuskegee Institute, Mr. Washington gave a speech about race relations, known as The Cotton States and International Exposition Speech, and it made him a national figure. Mr. Washington struggled for most of his lifetime. He struggles while a slave, when he was free and even struggled to have an education. He didn’t have everything handed to him, if he wanted something; he had to work for it.

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Booker T. Washington demands that jobs in the south not be given to immigrants when the recently freed African Americans had already more than earned those jobs and had proved their loyalty to the south time and time again; the intended audience of this speech was, of course, the white men who controlled the southern

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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

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Booker T. Washington was an educator, and one of the most influential black leaders of his time. Washington preached to the black people that of self-help, being united as one race and accommodation to the whites, would make white people accept blacks. He encouraged blacks to submit to racial discrimination at the moment, and focus on proving themselves by doing hard

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Dr. W.E.B Du Bois uses this essay to sway the audience of the insufficiency of the statements that Mr. Booker T. Washington has made about African Americans being submissive of rights and the creation of wealth. Mr. Washington believes that the black race should give up and give into what the society norms were at that time sequentially just to have a certain right. Dr. Du Bois refused to believe that the black race should give up one right to get another right. Especially, when the white South had all rights without expecting to give up anything to have those rights.

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Washington believed in working simple labor jobs and starting from the bottom and progressing up in order to gain the respect necessary to achieve racial equality, Du Bois believed in not submitting to lesser occupations and demanding racial equality. Washington says that the key to prosperity is through learning to dignify common labor. Whereas Du Bois states that “Becoming a gospel of work and money to such an extent as apparently almost completely overshadow the higher aims of life.” “Common Labor” is viewed by Washington as the only way to make progress toward a higher quality life, however, Du Bois views “common labor” as a social setback. Washington’s views can be summed up, almost completely, in the following quote “It is at the bottom of life we must begin, not the top.”

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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.”

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At the beginning of his speech, he goes on by giving thanks to all of the managers of the magnificent Expositions at the stages of thee progressive movement;furthermore, Booker T.Washington says.(Bio.com)”It is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of the bottom;that a seat in Congress or the State of legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden. ”Booker T.Washington was saying that we are more important and are capable of being something more important and not just able to have skills to get you through life,but skills that put you in a higher standard or ranking. We may be inexperienced but give us a opportunity and will get the education and funding we need to be great leaders.(Bio.com)leading us to advance our African American culture. Booker T hit a critical point on this next quote talking about race and how we should be able to come together or atleast venture out into different races to gain more knowledge.

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T. Washington wrote, “The sentiment of the masses of my race when I say I have no value of manhood...been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent exposition at every stage of its progress, “What Washington is saying is he believed African Americans can’t be as influential as white people. However Du Bois states, “The end of his striving to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation to use his best powers and latent genius”. By saying this Du Bois shows that he believes African Americans can prosper in society and be just as influential as the white people.

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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.

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1479 Words | 6 Pages

Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois were black leaders who held similar ideals. They both believed that whites should eventually recognize blacks as their equals and give them rights such as suffrage and economic freedom. They also acknowledged that because of their lack of education and prosperity, blacks were at a disadvantage to whites. Therefore, as DuBois wrote in his Souls of Black Folk, whites needed to “arouse and encourage” blacks for them to be successful. However, they disagreed on how blacks should attain this success.

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Booker T. Washington was an African-American civil rights activist that established Tuskegee University. Booker T. Washington was born a slave and at the age of nine he was freed, thanks to the emancipation that was passed. Washington always wanted to have a good education and eventually be economically successful because most African-Americans didn’t have those privileges. As a result of this Washington worked very hard as a janitor and a teacher of an elementary school to gain his wealth, so he could eventually lead a university. In America, at the time when Washington was “building” his university, former slaves couldn’t get successful because white people didn’t want African-Americans to be better than them and/or that white people were more wealthy from birth; therefore, they were more qualified for a certain job.

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1208 Words | 5 Pages

DuBois contrasts the 19th century ideas of author Booker T. Washington with the results they yielded, and various topics are consistent with the ideology in King’s letter. DuBois states that Washington said the black population had to give up political power, the insistence on civil rights, and a higher education of black youth in order to survive. To disprove that claim, his rebuttal was that it resulted in the “1. The disfranchisement of the Negro, 2. The legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro.

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The African – American 's Assimilation into White America America is often considered the land of opportunities, a place where people can have a fresh start, a clean slate. America is a land that is made up of immigrants. Over the centuries America has been a place where people dream to live in, however the American dream wasn 't as perfect as believed; there were issues of race inferiority, slavery and social inequality amongst other problems. When a person arrives into a new society he has a difficult task ahead of him- to assimilate into that new society- which includes the economical, cultural, political and social aspects. In the following paper I will discuss how the African American, who came as slaves to America, has fought over the centuries to achieve equality in a white society that discriminated them.

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E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington debated whether to confront or appease racist attitudes in the United States. As segregation regimes took hold in the South in the 1890s with the tacit approval of the rest of the country, many African Americans found a champion in Booker T. Washington and adopted his self-help autobiography, Up from Slavery (1901), as their guide book to improve fortunes. Washington portrayed his own life in such a way as to suggest that even the most disadvantaged of black people could attain dignity and prosperity in the South by providing themselves valuable, productive members of society deserving of fair and equal treatment before the law. A classic American success story, Up from Slavery solidified Washington’s reputation as the most eminent African American of the new century. Yet Washington’s primacy was soon challenged.

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