Booker T Washington African American Dignitaries

Booker T. Washington, regarded today to be one of the greatest inspired and valued African American dignitaries, was brought into slavery at birth yet later liberated by the transfiguring outcomes of the Emancipation Proclamation. In maintaining his charming and serene character along with his part in humanitarian doings, political affairs, and debates, resulted in an outcome of great recognition quickly after the conclusion of the civil war. He worked for the coexistence of blacks and whites and in his strive, he delivered his most famous speech, known as the “Atlanta Compromise”. He expresses his beliefs that African Americans should take advantage of what they know and strive to excel in the occupations that they already have instead of

Many racist say that Negroes were happy to be faithful servants. The way Washington responded to a view such as this would be “ Cast down your buckets where you are,” it is kind of a way of saying they were not content with being ‘faithful servants’ and it was his way of encouraging blacks to do better. They had seen the Negroes as less than human. They said that Negroes were an unskilled, ignorant and dependant race. They proved this view throughout history because they had the three-fifths compromise and other laws set out specifically for the Negroes. They did not want the African Americans to have the same rights or be equal to them in anyway. Washington response to this situation to the Negroes would be “I will not permit any man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.” He would also have a response for the whites, which they favored him for, “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet as one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” The message he was sending to the Negroes was he would not act out or do things to show the whites that he hated them. He wanted them to know yes they do us wrong but he did not think they deserved the satisfaction of him hating them for it. The whites showed their

Washington was a pragmatist who engaged in deliberate ambiguity in order to sustain white recognition. He knew exactly what to say to please them and keep the whites feeling superior. Many Blacks saw him as a compromise. Due to this fact some Blacks did not like Washington because his views and position he held as the white man’s favorite. In his tactics he manage to become the primary exponent of white philanthropic- industrial efforts, to get African-Americans and the working class white education to meet the needs of industrial America. He was the instrument of elite white industrialist such as George Foster Peabody and Robert C. Ogden. They seemed to have shaped the major shift of black education from state supported public education to something that accommodates them and kept them superior, industrial education. They liked Washington because he delivered the skills and tools to blacks for industrial education. Amongst all other tactics he had Washington just seemed to offer the doctrine of accommodation in social and political inequality for blacks while training them for economic self-determination in the industrial arts. Washington said himself that “I believe that any man’s life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high water mark of pure useful living.” What he was