Washington's Fight for Black Rights Revealed

As we read in the introduction to the Norton Anthology, "Of all the problems of the day, perhaps the most persistent and yucky to solution was the problem of racial inequation, more specifically what came to be known as the 'Negro problem.'" The passage goes on to check the pass on between Washington and the far more radical dusky leader and writer W.E.B. DuBois. Differences between the two focused on "which strategies give most effectively hasten complete equality educationally, socially, politically, and economically" (Norton 8). The run-in by Washington must be viewed in the context of that debate. In other words, Washington's arguments were part of a spectrum of responses to post- thraldom America's racial problems.

Willie Lee Rose, in Sla very(prenominal) nd Freedom, provides supererogatory context for understanding the place of Washington's approach. Rose writes that

. . . whatever harmonised account of the frustrations of swarthys during Reconstruction must eventually sadly abstain that never was so much lost for so many, mayhap a little because of the mis dispenses of so few. The Afro-Ameri lowlife suffered throughout the fulfilment from the disadvantage of his heritage of slavery, his illiteracy, his landlessness, his North-South divisions, and, yes, if we allow for be quite honest, as well as from habits and attitudes of deference toward white people born of s

Yes, this is almost nauseatingly deferential, and it is also untrue. Do we believe that the ex-slaves and children of slaves were " unbitter" about the cruelty and evil under which they had suffered in slavery?

Washington, Booker T. "The Atlanta Exposition Address." From Up From Slavery. Ed. ?. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. N.P.: N.P., N.D. 604-612.

However, if we job such deference, manipulative as it was meant to be, we must also note stronger statements such as the very first words of the speech: "One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No try seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success" (Washington 605).

This is a practical, non-deferential appeal aimed at reasonable white Southerners, arguing that they willing themselves benefit by opening doors to blacks. Washington appeals to blacks with reason, arguing that they should take advantage of the industrial revolution taking place. He issues a subtle warning which DuBois himself would perhaps be proud to make as his own: "Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward" (Washington 606).

Rose is accurate, in any case, in saying that our most honest response to the "black protagonists" of the Reconstruction period is "ambivalent" (Rose 111). We might not rack up with one or the other as too buttoned-down or too radical, but their various positions are at least within reason and call for our sympathy at the very least.

Those who would see Washington as deferential to whites and cipher more are reading his work with a very selective eye. Certainly there are parts of his composition which today must bring us up utterly with their apparent excess of deference. For example, he calls on whites to help blacks richly join society at all levels, adding,

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