Unit
Years: 1890-1920
Freedom & Equal Rights
Historical Events, Movements, and Figures
Students should have prior knowledge of Reconstruction and the backlash against it, including the development and proliferation of Jim Crow laws in the South. An understanding of lynching and its scope would be additional content that would support student learning in this lesson. Finally, instruction about W.E.B. DuBois’s work and ideas would complement this lesson, though it is not strictly necessary to review beforehand and could instead follow this lesson.
You may want to consider prior to teaching this lesson: The Breakdown of Justice: Lynching and the Scottsboro Case
During the Jim Crow era, Black intellectuals had differing ideas on what constituted racial uplift. Booker T. Washington believed that self-reliance and a practical, vocational education for Black students would lead to eventual progress and acceptance for Black Americans, in contrast to the views of other leaders like W.E.B. DuBois who demanded political action and immediate improvements in civil rights.
Introduction
After the Civil War, Congress ratified the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, making slavery illegal and granting Black Americans the rights of citizenship. However, the day-to-day reality for formerly enslaved people remained grim, especially when Reconstruction failed to protect Black Americans from discrimination and outright violence. In 1857, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote in the Dred Scott decision “that blacks had no rights which whites were bound to respect,” and this idea remained deeply rooted in Southern White communities. White people worked extremely hard to maintain their privilege while Black people made only incremental progress in grasping and holding onto their new constitutionally-guaranteed political and legal rights.
A few Black intellectuals rose to prominence with different proposals for how to secure Black rights and support Black communities within this complex context of antebellum American society. Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) was one such leader. Washington was an enslaved person during his childhood and is best remembered as the founder of one of the nation’s first historically-Black colleges, the Tuskegee Institute, and for his speech known as the Atlanta Compromise.
Booker T. Washington and Education
As President of the Tuskegee Institute, Washington stressed the importance of a practical, vocational, industrial education for Black students–one that would earn Black communities a respectable place as paid workers who would contribute to the American industrial economy. His first students built Tuskegee from the ground up on the lands of an abandoned plantation, and once up-and-running the school offered courses in trades such as carpentry, agriculture, and domestic work. Washington’s contemporary W.E.B. DuBois criticized Washington’s assimilationist approach, instead urging Black students to get an education for learning’s sake and to make intellectual contributions to American society. But Washington believed that “no race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.” For Washington, securing a place as paid laborers in the economy would be the best path forward for Black Americans.
The Atlanta Compromise
Washington’s success at Tuskegee earned him the ear and attention of a broad spectrum of the nation, from White politicians to Black sharecroppers. He was invited to make a speech at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition, an event held in September of 1895. The Exposition was seen by White Americans as an exhibition of the progress of a new and reconstructed South. The South needed to show the nation that it had successfully rebuilt its economy and made political and social progress since the Civil War, especially for the millions of Black Americans living in the states of the former Confederacy. Booker T. Washington was the Black American that the White Exposition organizers selected to speak for and about this progress. While certainly his invitation to speak on the opening day of the Exposition was an honor, Washington wrote in his autobiography Up From Slavery that he felt as “a man feels who is on his way to the gallows.” Washington’s daunting task at the Exposition was to speak to a group of disparate constituencies—Black and White, Northerner and Southerner—under the same tent and at the same time.
Washington’s speech, which came to be known as “The Atlanta Compromise,” struck a conciliatory tone. Washington stressed that if Black Americans worked hard and became economically self-sufficient, White Americans would eventually accept them. He did not directly challenge Jim Crow laws or call for equal rights and instead emphasized the importance of Black people gaining “the knowledge of how to live…how to cultivate the soil, to husband their resources, and make the most of their opportunities.” To Washington, education was the means of racial progress and assimilation was the end. He urged Black Americans in the South to accept their fate for now and work hard within the status quo to earn a better place in society later. His message was well received by White members of the audience, and just a few years later Washington became the first Black American to dine with a U.S. President at the White House.
Opposing Views
By the dawn of the twentieth century, as racial discrimination and violence escalated, Washington’s approach to race relations met with increasing criticism from other Black leaders. Individuals such as William Monroe Trotter, editor of Boston’s The Guardian, and W. E. B. DuBois, one of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century, believed strongly that for Washington to bypass the quest for civil rights was a tragic mistake, a surrender rather than a compromise. Washington’s critics viewed him as an “accommodationist”–someone who accommodated and accepted White supremacy rather than challenged it. Historians today acknowledge the complexity of Washington’s legacy. While his philosophy of self-help and industrial education did not lead to the racial uplift that Washington hoped for in the South, his ideas contributed to a burgeoning debate among Black intellectuals about the goals and the methods of an emerging movement for civil rights.
Aiello, Thomas. The Battle for the Souls of Black Folk: W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, and the Debate that Shaped the Course of Civil Rights. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Publishing Group, 2016.
“Booker T. Washington National Monument.” National Park Service, March 17, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/bowa/index.htm
Calista, Donald J. “Booker T. Washington: Another Look.” The Journal of Negro History, vol. 49, no. 4, 1964, pp. 240–55. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2716459. Accessed 1 July 2023.
Dagbovie, Pero Gaglo. “Exploring a Century of Historical Scholarship on Booker T. Washington.” The Journal of African American History, vol. 92, no. 2, 2007, pp. 239–64. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20064182. Accessed 1 July 2023.
Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: New American Library, 1969.
DU BOIS, W. E. B., and SHAWN LEIGH ALEXANDER. “OF MR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND OTHERS.” The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches, University of Massachusetts Press, 2018, pp. 40–57. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv346v0g.9. Accessed 1 July 2023.
Forth, Christopher E. “Booker T. Washington and the 1905 Niagara Movement Conference.” The Journal of Negro History, vol. 72, no. 3/4, 1987, pp. 45–56. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3031507. Accessed 1 July 2023.
Grossman, James. A Chance to Make Good: African Americans 1900-1929. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Harlan, Louis R. The Booker T. Washington Papers: The Making of a Black Leader New, 1856-1901. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.
Katz. Eyewitness: A Living Documentary of the African American Contribution to American History. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Marable, Manning. “W.E.B. DUBOIS AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST RACISM.” The Black Scholar, vol. 16, no. 3, 1985, pp. 43–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41067172. Accessed 1 July 2023.
Norrell, Robert J. “Booker T. Washington: Understanding the Wizard of Tuskegee.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 42, 2003, pp. 96–109. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3592453. Accessed 1 July 2023.
Washington, Booker T. “Inferior and Superior Races.” The North American Review, vol. 201, no. 713, 1915, pp. 538–42. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25108427. Accessed 1 July 2023.
Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Historiographical debates about Booker T. Washington’s legacy have shifted significantly over time, with contemporary historians taking a more neutral stance than previously, when historians privileged the ideas of W.E.B. DuBois over those of Washington. We recommend taking a similarly neutral stance to Washington’s work and encouraging students to think critically about both Washington and his detractors. By putting Washington’s ideas into the context of the challenges facing formerly enslaved people living in the Jim Crow South and by comparing and contrasting Washington’s own works over time rather than solely contrasting them with DuBois’s writings, teachers can help students to examine Washington’s legacy with nuance and complexity.
Finally, one of the sources in this lesson contains the n-word, and we strongly recommend having some discussion with students about the historical context for its use, as well as its meaning today. Use discretion and provide content warnings about violent language before distributing sources that contain the n-word or other slurs.
The period of Reconstruction following the Civil War ushered in a new era of White supremacy in the South, and many Black Americans continued to experience discrimination, segregation, and violence, despite their newfound Constitutional rights. Out of the context of these Jim Crow restrictions grew several prominent Black leaders with differing views on how to pursue what they called “racial uplift.” Booker T. Washington was one such leader. Washington made a name for himself as an educator and the leader of the Tuskegee Institute, which still exists today as the historically-Black Tuskegee University. At Tuskegee, Washington taught his students vocational skills like agriculture and domestic work and emphasized the importance of good manners. In Washington’s opinion, these skills would allow Black people to improve their social standing by becoming productive workers and members of society.
In his speech known as the Atlanta Compromise, Washington laid out his views for the “new South.” He encouraged the Black community not to directly challenge the status quo in a fight for civil rights and instead to assimilate into White society by working hard and becoming more self-reliant. Washington believed that “no race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.” For Washington, securing a place as paid laborers in the economy would be the best path forward for Black Americans. And while Washington’s philosophy earned him the ear and the trust of several prominent White politicians and many Black Southerners, other Black leaders such as W.E.B. DuBois were skeptical of his approach, which they saw as “accommodationist” because it accommodated–rather than challenged–White supremacy. Historians today acknowledge the complexity of Washington’s legacy. While his philosophy of self-help and vocational education did not lead to the racial uplift that Washington hoped for in the South, his ideas contributed to a growing debate among Black intellectuals about the goals and the methods of an emerging movement for civil rights.
Select the activities and sources you would like to include in the student view and click “Launch Student View.”
It is highly recommended that you review the Teaching Tips and sources before selecting the activities to best meet the needs and readiness of your students. Activities may utilize resources or primary sources that contain historical expressions of racism, outdated language or racial slurs.
Place students into small groups, with 3-4 students per group. Instruct each group to create a timeline of Booker T. Washington’s life and career. The timelines should have at least 6 key events related to Booker T. Washington’s life. For each event, the group should include the following information:
Have students share their timelines with the class, and discuss the following as a full group:
For this Socratic Seminar, have students read the full text of Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise speech. Since the text is quite lengthy, consider assigning it for homework or giving an additional class period for students to read and analyze the source prior to the discussion.
After the seminar, lead a reflection in which students answer the following questions:
“The Atlanta Exposition Address” Booker T. Washington’s address at The Cotton States Exposition, September 1895
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and Citizens
One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers if this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.
Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperience, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention of stump speaking had more attraction than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.
A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, “Water, water: we die of thirst!” The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time the signal, “Water, water; send us water!” ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are”––cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind 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. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. 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.
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, trilled your fields cleared you forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped to make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious interests of both races one. 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.
There is no defence or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand percent interest. These efforts will be twice blessed— “blessing him that gives and him that takes.”
There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable:—
The laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;
And close as sin and suffering joined
We march to fate abreast.
Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.
Gentlemen of the exposition, as we present to you our humble effort at an exhibition of our progress, you must not expect overmuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous sources), remember the path that has led from these to the inventions and production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving, paintings, the management of drug stores and banks, has not been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall short of your expectations but for the constant help that has come to our educational life, not only from Southern states, but especially from Northern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement.
The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.
In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to you of the white race, as this opportunity offered by the exposition; and here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago. I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and intricate problems which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, then, coupled with out material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.
(Document 5.2.2)
In order to complete the Jigsaw activity, place students into small groups and give each group one of the following primary sources. The sources describe various responses to Washington’s Atlanta Compromise speech.
Now divide students into new groups so that each group has at least one representative from each primary source above. As a group, the students must work together to write a news report of Washington’s Atlanta Compromise speech. Their goal is to present a balanced view that includes multiple perspectives on Washington’s speech and his overall philosophy of race relations. Each group’s news article should contain some direct quotations from the sources and some original writing summarizing the speech and its context.
Have each group read their news article out loud to the class, and discuss the following questions to reflect:
Excerpt from Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington, 1901
First published in 1901, Booker T. Washington’s autobiography was a best seller and was translated into more than a dozen languages.
The receiving of this invitation brought to me a sense of responsibility that it would be hard for any one not placed in my position to appreciate. What were my feelings when this invitation came to me? I remembered that I had been a slave; that my early years had been spent in the lowest depths of poverty and ignorance, and that I had had little opportunity to prepare me for such a responsibility as this. It was only a few years before that time that any white man in the audience might have claimed me as his slave; and it was easily possible that some of my former owners might be present to hear me speak.
I knew, too, that this was the first time in the entire history of the Negro that a member of my race had been asked to speak from the same platform with white Southern men and women on any important National occasion. I was asked now to speak to an audience composed of the wealth and culture of the white South, the representatives of my former masters. I knew, too, that while the greater part of my audience would be composed of Southern people, yet there would be present a large number of Northern whites, as well as a great many men and women of my own race.
Source: Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. p. 4 (Document 5.2.1)
Excerpt from Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington, following his address at The Atlanta Exposition
The first thing that I remember, after I had finished speaking, was that Governor Bullock rushed across the platform and took me by the hand and that others did the same. I received so many and such hearty congratulations that I found it difficult to get out of the building. I did not appreciate to any degree, however, the impression which my address seemed to have made, until the next morning, when I went to the business part of the city. As soon as I was recognized, I was surprised to find myself pointed out and surrounded by a crowd of men who wished to shake hands with me. This was kept up on every street on to which I went, to an extent which embarrassed me so much that I went back to my boarding-place. The next morning I returned to Tuskegee. At the station in Atlanta, and at almost all of the stations at which the train stopped between that city and Tuskegee, I found a crowd of people anxious to shake hands with me.
The papers in all parts of the United States published the address in full, and for months afterward there were complimentary editorial references to it. Mr. Clark Howell, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, telegraphed to a New York paper, among other words, the following, “I do not exaggerate when I say that Professor Booker T. Washington’s address yesterday was one of the most notable speeches, both as to character and as to the warmth of its reception, ever delivered to a Southern audience. The address was a revelation. The whole speech is a platform upon which blacks and whites can stand with full justice to each other.”
The Boston Transcript said editorially: “The speech of Booker T. Washington at the Atlanta Exposition, this week, seems to have dwarfed all the other proceedings and the exposition itself. The sensation that it has caused in the press has never been equalled.”
I very soon began receiving all kinds of propositions from lecture bureaus, and editors of magazines and papers, to take the lecture platform, and to write articles. One lecture bureau offered me fifty thousand dollars, or two hundred dollars a night and expenses, if I would place my services at its disposal for a given period. To all these communications I replied that my life work must be in the interests of the Tuskegee school and my race, and that I would enter into no arrangements that seemed to place a mere commercial value upon my services.
Some days after its delivery I sent a copy of my address to the President of the United States, the Hon. Grover Cleveland. I received from him the following autographed reply:—
GRAY GABLES, BUZZARD’S BAY, MASS.,
OCTOBER 6, 1895.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, ESQ.;
MY DEAR SIR: I thank you for sending me a copy of your address delivered at the Atlanta Exposition.
I thank you with much enthusiasm for making the address. I have read it with intense interest, and I think the Exposition would be fully justified if it did not do more than furnish the opportunity for its delivery. Your words cannot fail to delight and encourage all who wish well for your race; and if our coloured fellow-citizens do not from your utterances gather new hope and form new determinations to gain every valuable advantage offered them by their citizenship, it will be strange indeed.
Yours very truly,
GROVER CLEVELAND
Source: Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. p.13-15 (Document 5.2.3)
Excerpt from “A Plea for His Race,” The Constitution (Atlanta, GA), September 19, 1895
A PLEA FOR HIS RACE
Booker T. Washington Tells About the Efforts of the Negro
HIS SPEECH A THOUGHTFULL ONE
He Was Given a Splendid Reception and His Speech Was Frequently Interrupted by Applause.
The colored race had a representative on the programme of the opening exercises of whom they have great reason to be proud.
Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial school, spoke for the negro. It was the first time a colored orator had even stood upon a platform before such a vast audience with white men and women. It was an event in the history of the race.
No one expected such a speech from Washington as he made. There was not a superfluous word in it. It was in the very best of taste and there was not a jarring note in it. It made a magnificent impression and was frequently interrupted by applause.
The Constitution went on to quote Washington’s speech in full.
Source: The Constitution. Atlanta, GA Thursday, September 19, 1895. (Document 5.2.4)
“Booker T. Washington is Dead,” The Guardian , November 20, 1915
Trotter, editor of Boston’s The Guardian vigorously opposed Booker T. Washington’s approach. (For more information about Trotter, see Documents 5.4.1 and 5.4.2) In the obituary, however, he wrote graciously.
Booker T. Washington is Dead.
Booker T. Washington is dead. He had a long and eventful career. His energy, persistence and resourcefulness were remarkable. He built up an immense industrial school. He won great recognition from the dominating elements in this Republic. He had unusual ability as an organizer. He attained great distinction and was the most conspicuous Colored man of his day. At one time he wielded a tremendous power over the industrial and political opportunities of Colored people. By the Colored race he was both ardently supported and strenuously opposed with regard to his industrial and political propaganda. A deep cleavage was made in the Colored American group by his doctrine. This is as much a part of his career as is his international reputation and it is a part of the history of the Colored race.
The leading part which the Guardian and its editor took for years in opposition to Dr. Washington’s activities outside of his school work, are too well known to be repeated now that he is dead. Nor is the hour of grief for his family and admirers appropriate time for adverse criticism. The controversy may well subside on both sides. This is the time for the race to unite in defense of its rights and liberties. “De Mortuis nil nisi Bonum”
[The Guardian went on to quote from the Atlanta Constitution.]
Atlanta Constitution Comment
Leading Democratic Newspaper of Bourbon South Sets Booker Washington Up as a Model Colored Leader (Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Ga, Nov. 16, 1915).
One of the most striking and significant facts in connection with the death of Booker T. Washington, famous Negro educator and a long-time leader of his race, was the carrying out even in the face of death or his often expressed determination to “come home to die.”
Born in the south and spending his life here for the benefit and uplift of the members of his race he preferred above all things to die at home at the scene of his labors of a third of a century where he built the Tuskegee Institute and started it upon the great work it has done for his race.
There could be no more striking illustration of how the Negro feels about the south. In this final act of his life Washington told the story of what The Constitution has so often sought to impress and of what he himself has declared upon every available ocassions, that the south and its people are the best friends the Negro has.
Booker Said “White of South Best Friends of Colored Race.”
Booker Washington’s expressed feeling that the white people of the south were the best friends of the Negro and his application of that thought and principle to his effort for the betterment of his race, were perhaps more responsible than any other factor for his attainment of the remarkable success of his career. Conservative in thought and word, but vigorous and enthusiastic in constructive effort and action, he made for himself a wonderful record in the betterment of his race along these particular lines of industry and usefulness which will best serve them in the lives they have to live.
Washington gained and held the confidence of men of strength and prominence in every walk of life, both in the north and south and in that way he accomplished for Tuskegee Institute what others who have sought to build upon sectional feeling and prejudice have failed and will always fail to do
Both Tuskegee institute and his race will experience a serious loss in Washington’s death. It will be well for the race and its future development if there shall come others like him and take up the work he has laid down.
(Document 5.2.7)
Place students into pairs, and give each pair the following critique of Washington’s work by W.E.B. DuBois.
Students should use the OPCVL document analysis protocol to analyze their assigned source, and should prepare a short oral presentation to the class to summarize their analyses. After each pair shares their analysis, ask the class the following questions and facilitate a closing discussion:
Excerpts from “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” by W. E. B. Du Bois, 1903
Easily the most striking thing in the history of the American Negro since 1876 is the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. It began at the time when [Civil] [W]ar memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of astonishing commercial development was dawning; a sense of doubt and hesitation overtook the freedmen’s songs,—then it was that his leading began. Mr. Washington came, with a simple definite programme, at the psychological moment when the nation was a little ashamed of having bestowed so much sentiment on Negroes, and was concentrating its energies on Dollars. 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. But Mr. Washington first indissolubly linked these things; he put enthusiasm, unlimited energy, and perfect faith into this programme, and changed it from a by-path into a veritable Way of Life. And the tale of the methods by which he did this is a fascinating study of human life.
It startled the nation to hear a Negro advocating such a programme after many decades of bitter complaint; it startled and won the applause of the South, it interested and won the admiration of the North; and after a confused murmur of protest, it silenced if it did not convert the Negroes themselves.
To gain the sympathy and cooperation of the various elements comprising the white South was Mr. Washington’s first task; and this, at the time Tuskegee was founded, seemed, for a black man, well-nigh impossible. And yet ten years later it was done in the word spoken at Atlanta: “In all things purely social we can be as separate as the five fingers, and yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” This “Atlanta Compromise” is by all odds the most notable thing in Mr. Washington’s career. The South interpreted it in different ways: the radicals received it as a complete surrender of the demand for civil and political equality; the conservatives, as a generously conceived working basis for mutual understanding. So both approved it, and to-day its author is certainly the most distinguished Southerner since Jefferson Davis, and the one with the largest personal following.
Next to this achievement comes Mr. Washington’s work in gaining place and consideration in the North. Others less shrewd and tactful had formerly essayed to sit on these two stools and had fallen between them; but as Mr. Washington knew the heart of the South from birth and training, so by singular insight he intuitively grasped the spirit of the age which was dominating the North. And so thoroughly did he learn the speech and thought of triumphant commercialism, and the ideals of material prosperity, that the picture of a lone black boy poring over a French grammar amid the weeds and dirt of a neglected home soon seemed to him the acme of absurdities. One wonders what Socrates and St. Francis of Assisi would say to this….
Among his own people, however, Mr. Washington has encountered the strongest and most lasting opposition, amounting at times to bitterness, and even-to-day continuing strong and insistent even though largely silenced in outward expression by the public opinion of the nation. Some of this opposition is, of course, mere envy; the disappointment of displaced demagogues and the spite of narrow minds. But aside from this, there is among educated and thoughtful colored men in all parts of the land a feeling of deep regret, sorrow, and apprehension at the wide currency and ascendancy which some of Mr. Washington’s theories have gained. These same men admire his sincerity of purpose, and are willing to forgive much to honest endeavor which is doing something worth the doing. They cooperate with Mr. Washington as far as they conscientiously can; and, indeed, it is no ordinary tribute to this man’s tact and power that, steering as he must between so many diverse interests and opinions, he so largely retains the respect of all….
But Booker T. Washington arose as essentially the leader not of one race but of two,—a compromiser between the South, the North, and the Negro. Naturally the Negroes resented, at first bitterly, signs of compromise which surrendered their civil and political rights, even though this was to be exchanged for larger chances of economic development. The rich and dominating North, however, was not only weary of the race problem, but was investing largely in Southern enterprises, and welcomed any method of peaceful cooperation. Thus, by national opinion, the Negroes began to recognize Mr. Washington’s leadership; and the voice of criticism was hushed.
Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and submission; but adjustment at such a peculiar time as to make his programme unique. This is an age of unusual economic development, and Mr. Washington’s programme naturally takes an economic cast, becoming a gospel of Work and Money to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the higher aims of life. Moreover, this is an age when the more advanced races are coming in closer contact with the less developed races, and the race-feeling is therefore intensified; and Mr. Washington’s programme practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races. Again, in our own land, the reaction from the sentiment of war time has given impetus to race-prejudice against Negroes as men and American citizens. In other periods of intensified prejudice all the Negro’s tendency to self-assertion has been called forth; at this period a policy of submission is advocated. In the history of nearly all other races and peoples the doctrine preached at such crises has been that manly self-respect is worth more than lands and houses, and that a people who voluntarily surrender such respect, or cease striving for it, are not worth civilizing.
In answer to this, it has been claimed that the Negro can survive only through submission. Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the present, three things,—
First, political power
Second, insistence on civil rights
Third, higher education of Negro youth,— and concentrate all their energies on industrial education, the accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation of the South. This policy has been courageously and insistently advocated for over fifteen years, and has been triumphant for perhaps ten years. As a result of this tender of the palm-branch, what has been the return? In these years there have occurred:
These movements are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr. Washington’s teachings; but his propaganda has, without a shadow of a doubt, helped their speedier accomplishment. The question then comes: Is it possible, and probable, that nine millions of men can make effective progress in economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile caste, and allowed only the most meagre chance for developing their exceptional men? If history and reason give any distinct answer to these questions, it is an emphatic No. And Mr. Washington thus faces the triple paradox of his career:
It would be unjust to Mr. Washington not to acknowledge that in several instances
he has opposed movements in the South which were unjust to the Negro; he sent memorials to the Louisiana and Alabama constitutional conventions, he has spoken against lynching, and in other ways has openly or silently set his influence against sinister schemes and unfortunate happenings. Notwithstanding this, it is equally true to assert that on the whole the distinct impression left by Mr. Washington’s propaganda is, first, that the South is justified in its present attitude toward the Negro because of the Negro’s degradation; secondly, that the prime cause of the Negro’s failure to rise more quickly is his wrong education in the past; and, thirdly, that his future rise depends primarily on his own efforts. Each of these propositions is a dangerous half-truth. The supplementary truths must never be lost sight of: first, slavery and race-prejudice are potent if not sufficient causes of the Negro’s position; second, industrial and common-school training were necessarily slow in planting because they had to await the black teachers trained by higher institutions,— it being extremely doubtful if any essentially different development was possible, and certainly a Tuskegee was unthinkable before 1880; and, third, while it is a great truth to say that the Negro must strive and strive mightily to help himself, it is equally true that unless his striving be not simply seconded, but rather aroused and encouraged, by the initiative of the richer and wiser environing group, he cannot hope for great success….
The black men of America have a duty to perform, a duty stern and delicate, —a forward movement to oppose a part of the work of their greatest leader. So far as Mr. Washington preaches Thrift, Patience, and Industrial Training for the masses, we must hold up his hands and strive with him, rejoicing in his honors and glorifying in the strength of this Joshua called of God and of man to lead the headless host. But so far as Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, North or South, does not rightly value the privilege and duty of voting, belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and ambition of our brighter minds, —so as far he, the South, or the Nation, does this, —we must unceasingly and firmly oppose them. By every civilized and peaceful method we must strive for the rights which the world accords to men, clinging unwaveringly to those great words which the sons of the Fathers would fain forget: “We hold these truths to be self evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Source: DuBois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. 1903 (Document 5.2.6)
Divide students into small groups, and assign each small group one of the following works by Booker T. Washington.
Have each small group create a poster to teach the class about their document. Each poster should contain the following elements:
Hang the posters around the room in chronological order of when they were created and facilitate a gallery walk so that all students have time to read and reflect on all the posters.
After the gallery walk, have students write an individual reflection in response to the following questions:
Booker T. Washington’s Address at the National Peace Jubilee in Chicago, October 16, 1898
Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen:On an important occasion in the life of the Master, when it fell to Him to pronounce judgment on two courses of action, these memorable words fell from his lips: 'And Mary hath chosen the better part.' This was the supreme test in the case of an individual. It is the highest test in the case of a race or nation. Let us apply the test to the American Negro.
In the life of our Republic, when he has had the opportunity to choose, has it been the better or worse part? When in the childhood of this nation the Negro was asked to submit to slavery or choose death and extinction, as did the aborigines, he chose the better part, which perpetuated the race.
When in 1776 the Negro was asked to decide between British oppression and American independence, we find him choosing the better part, and Crispus Attucks, a Negro, was the first to shed his blood on State street, Boston, that the white American might enjoy liberty forever, though his race remained in slavery.
When in 1814, at New Orleans, the test of patriotism came again, we find the Negro choosing the better part, and Gen. Andrew Jackson himself testifying that no heart was more loyal and no arm more strong and useful in defense of righteousness.
When the long and memorable struggle came between union and separation, when we knew that victory on one hand meant freedom, and defeat on the other his continued enslavement, with full knowledge of the portentous meaning of it all, when the suggestion and temptation came to burn the home and massacre wife and children during the absence of the master in battle, and thus ensure his liberty, we find him choosing the better part, and for four long years protecting and supporting the helpless, defenseless ones entrusted to his care.
When in 1863 the cause of the union seemed to quiver in the balance, and there were doubt and distrust, the Negro was asked to come to the rescue in arms, and the valor displayed at Fort Wagner and Port Hudson and Fort Pillow testifies most eloquently again that the Negro chose the better part.
When a few months ago the safety and honor of the republic were threatened by a foreign foe, when the wail and anguish of the oppressed from a distant isle reached his ears, we find the Negro forgetting his own wrongs, forgetting the laws and customs that discriminated against him in his own country, again choosing the better part—the part of honor and humanity. And if you would know how he deported himself in the field at Santiago, apply for an answer to Shafter and Roosevelt and Wheeler. Let them tell how the Negro faced death and laid down his life in defense of honor and humanity, and when you have gotten the full story of the heroic conduct of the Negro in the Spanish-American war—heard it from the lips of Northern soldiers, and Southern soldiers, from ex-abolitionists and ex-masters—then decide within yourselves whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country should not be given the highest opportunity to live for its country.
In the midst of all the complaints of suffering in the camp and field, suffering from fever and hunger, where is the official or citizen that has heard a word of complaint from the lips of a black soldier? The only request that has come from the Negro soldier has been that he might be permitted to replace the white soldier when heat and malaria began to decimate the ranks of the white regiment and to occupy at the same time the post of greatest danger.
This country has been most fortunate in her victories. She has twice measured arms with England and has won. She has met the spirit of rebellion within her borders and was victorious. She has met the proud Spaniard, and he lays prostrate at her feet. All this is well, it is magnificent. But there remains one other victory for Americans to win—a victory as far-reaching and important as any that has occupied our army and navy. We have succeeded in every conflict, except the effort to conquer ourselves in the blotting out of racial prejudices. We can celebrate the era of peace in no more effectual way than by a firm resolve on the part of Northern men and Southern men, black men and white men, that the trenches that we together dug around Santiago shall be the eternal burial place of all that which separates us in our business and civil relations. Let us be as generous in peace as we have been brave in battle. Until we thus conquer ourselves, I make no empty statement when I say that we shall have a cancer gnawing at the heart of the republic that shall one day prove as dangerous as an attack from an army without or within.
In this presentation and on this auspicious occasion, I want to present the deep gratitude of nearly ten millions of my people to our wise, patient and brave Chief Executive for the generous manner in which my race has been recognized during this conflict—a recognition that has done more to blot out sectional and racial lines than any event since the dawn of our freedom.
I know how vain and impotent is all abstract talk on this subject. In your efforts to 'rise on stepping stones of your dead selves,' we of the black race shall not leave you unaided. We shall make the task easier for you by acquiring property, habits of thrift, economy, intelligence, and character, by each making himself of individual worth in his own community. We shall aid you in this as we did a few days ago at El Caney and Santiago when we helped you to hasten the peace we here celebrate. You know us; you are not afraid of us. When the crucial test comes, you are not ashamed of us. We have never betrayed or deceived you. You know that as it has been, so it will be. Whether in war or in peace, whether in slavery or in freedom, we have always been loyal to the Stars and Stripes.
In order to prepare for the Silent Discussion, have students use the internet to individually define the term “respectability politics.” Share out and write a class definition on the board.
Lead a silent discussion to connect this idea to Booker T. Washington and other Black leaders in various struggles for civil rights in history and today. Instruct students to write a paragraph response to a discussion prompt, and then leave their response on their desk. Every student stands and moves to another student’s desk, reads that student’s response, and then writes a comment or a question directly on that student’s paper. Consider giving students clear directions for their replies, such as to agree or disagree with the student, to come up with an additional example, or to link to a primary source they have read. Have students again stand and move to a third student’s desk and write another reply to add their voice to the discussion unfolding on the page in front of them. Then have students return to their desks and read through the responses on their page. Lead a brief verbal debrief of the prompt and then repeat the process with a new question.
Consider the following prompts for the silent discussion:
Read both poems below aloud as a class, with each verse being read by a different student.
Have students discuss and analyze the poems in pairs, with pairs answering from selected questions:
Finally, have each pair write an original poem to capture what they see as the legacy of Booker T. Washington. Leave time for students to share their poems with the class.
Place students into groups of 3-4, and instruct each group to write an original interview or panel discussion between Booker T. Washington, another of the historical figures listed below, and a student from today. Options for historical figures include:
Their interview should aim to showcase different perspectives about how to achieve racial justice, including their own perspectives as students of history. In order to create their interview, students should conduct scholarly research to deepen their understanding of Washington’s work and to learn more about the other historical figure they have selected for the interview. Consider mandating a specific number of scholarly and/or primary sources and in-text citations for the interview to ensure students are developing their research skills through this project.
Give students an option to write an interview transcript or create a live or recorded skit of the interview, and hold an expo for students to share their creations with the class.
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