Booker T. Washington on Black Rights

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 fr

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r our sympathy at the very least. Washington's position in this speech and subsequent self-analysis, from Up From Slavery, whether we agree with it or not, clearly displays intricacy, subtlety, and variety of thought and rhetorical tactics. His speech and his analysis for that reason are indicative of far more than a merely moderate, or conservative, or "deferential" black leader's position. It is this observer's view that Washington is a far more wily and wise leader than his critics have realized. Washington declares that as he rose to speak "the thing that was uppermost in my mind was the desire to say something that would cement the friendship of the races and bring about hearty cooperation between them" (Washington 604). We can fairly glean from this that Washington was not trying to win short-term gains for blacks at the expense of long-term costs, namely any aggravation of relations between the races. He was aiming at bringing about the long-term cooperation of the races for the benefit of both. For example, he argues not simply that blacks should have the right to vote, but adds that such a change will be good for all, blacks and whites, and for the health and vigor of the nation's democratic form of government: In

Category: History - B