Booker T. Washington, in Chapter XIV, "The Atlanta Exposition Address," from his book Up From Slavery, reveals Washington to be a brilliant tactician in the fight for black rights and black power. It is true that Washington was criticized in his own time and later for being too accommodating toward whites, especially Southern whites, and for being too moderate in his call for the expansion of black rights.
However, the speech which Washington gave at the Atlanta Exposition, and the analysis of the speech and its extraordinary public reception, both included in this chapter, show that Washington was a crafty thinker who believed sincerely that a moderate approach would succeed and that a more radical approach would have brought disaster for blacks in the South.
The speech by Washington and his commentary on its impact on American society at the turn of the century reveal much about the issue of the role of blacks in the national culture some thirty years after the end of the Civil War and slavery. The text especially tells us about the state of racial relations in the South in hat era, and the careful line blacks, and black leaders, had to walk as they moved slowly but steadily toward a more equitable society.
The various perspectives Washington takes in the speech and analysis are clearly necessary in his mind because of the terrible legacy of slavery decades after the Emancipation Proclamation. The slaves were not free, certainly not in the sense that whites were free at the turn of the century, and the intricate and subtle arguments and pleading of Washington are the result of the continuing legacy of slavery.
As we read in the introduction to the Norton Anthology, "Of all the problems of the day, perhaps the most persistent and resistant to solution was the problem of racial inequality, more specifically what came to be known as the 'Negro problem.'" The passage goes on to note the debate between Washington and t...