Summary Of Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Address

I feel that one of the greatest things about others people’s opinions, is that they belong to them and need not be claimed by me. As in the case of W.E.B Du Bois, I find myself in disagreement with a lot of what he said in reference to Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Address. I was not entirely too familiar with Washington’s address, so it proved an enlightening read for me. What I thought while reading it was that, this was a man who understood that you can catch more flies with honey rather than vinegar. Many whites were still resistant to the black race and Washington understood that and talked to them in a manner which eased a majority of their fears. Washington appeared to me, to want to create an atmosphere in which whites and

He said that they should cast down their buckets, “cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.” (par. 3). The term man was used originally to describe all of mankind; there was no race assigned to it. Which is why he used it so much during his speech; he is using the term to link the white men and the black man together in unity. His use of the word manly doesn’t simply mean big and strong like we understand it in today’s terms. I believe that to the black men he was saying that they should not limit themselves. That they were more than just uneducated former slaves, or farmers. At that moment he was addressing his race, but he was also silently saying to the white men, that they are not beasts, they are their fellow man, meant to stand alongside all men as equals. I believe that Du Bois not only misunderstood much of Washington’s speech, but that he also expected too much from one man. In his want to have the ability of his race to vote, to have the opportunity to higher education, and to gain political power, Du Bois is right. However, Washington appeared to know what Du Bois struggled with; progress isn’t made overnight, it is an