During this period of literature of the Reconstruction to the New Negro Renaissance, 1865-1919, African Americans were becoming more educated and more aware of the rights that they were entitled to. The start of this Reconstruction Era began after 1863’s emancipation of slaves in the Confederate states and the Civil War’s end in 1865. Although the three Civil Rights amendments, thirteenth(1865), fourteenth (1868), and fifteenth (1870), ends slavery in slaves states, ensures equal protection and due process for all citizens, and gives voting rights to all men(Black and White), institutionalized segregation was still an issue(UShistory.org). Nevertheless, more voices began to emerge as social and political changes were made approaching the Renaissance. These brave men and woman of color tried these issues and expressed themselves using the art of literature. The major reasons Blacks displayed these expressions was to: (1) articulate intellectual achievements, (2) teach themselves, (3) correct the historical record of the black experience, and (4) document and shape social and political aspirations and conditions(Gates). After the distinguished abolitionist and writer Fredrick Douglass died on February 20, 1895 at Cedar Hill’s woman’s rights meeting one intellectual leader in particular, Booker T. Washington, become a key spokes person and writer of the Black Community(bibliography.com). Dr. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” is noted as one of the most influential and significant speeches delivered in America(Gaston). It’s time to explicate Dr. Washington’s address as it relates to the one of the four major aims for writing literature during this era and his life story.
The story of Booker T. Washington begins in slavery on April 5, ...
... middle of paper ...
...ston, Paul M. The New South Creed; a Study in Southern Mythmaking. New York: Knopf, 1970. 208-12. Print.
• Gates, Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 1996. Print.
• Huff, Eddie. "Booker T. Washington Inspirational Network." Booker T. Washington Inspirational Network. N.p., 2007. Web. 08 Mar. 2014. .
• Johnson, Walter. "Analysis of "Cast Down Your Bucket"" Demand Media, 13 June 2011. Web. 08 Mar. 2014. .
• Smith, Adam. "CHAPTER XI OF THE RENT OF LAND." An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Oxford: Clarendon, 1976. 161. Print.
• Squires, Catherine R. "The Nineteenth Century: From Slavery to Recontruction." African Americans and the Media. Cambridge: Polity, 2009. 29-30. Print.
Prentice Hall Anthology of African American Literature. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. 163-67. Print.
Literature is written in many ways and styles. During his time, Frederick Douglass’s works and speeches attracted many people’s attention. With the amount of works and speeches Douglass has given, it has influenced many others writers to express themselves more freely. Though Douglass lived a rigorous childhood, he still made it the best that he could, with the guidance and teaching of one of his slave owner’s wife he was able to read and write, thus allowing him to share his life stories and experiences. Douglass’s work today still remain of great impact and influence, allowing us to understand the reality of slavery, and thus inspiring many others to come out and share for others to understand.
Writing around the same time period as Phillips, though from the obverse vantage, was Richard Wright. Wright’s essay, “The Inheritors of Slavery,” was not presented at the American Historical Society’s annual meeting. His piece is not festooned with foot-notes or carefully sourced. It was written only about a decade after Phillips’s, and meant to be published as a complement to a series of Farm Credit Administration photographs of black Americans. Wright was not an academic writing for an audience of his peers; he was a novelist acceding to a request from a publisher. His essay is naturally of a more literary bent than Phillips’s, and, because he was a black man writing ...
Ida B. Wells-Barnett is an investigative journalist who wrote in honesty and bluntness about the tragedies and continued struggles of the Negro man. She was still very much involved with the issue even after being granted freedom and the right to vote. Statistics have shown that death and disparity continued to befall the Negro people in the South where the white man was “educated so long in that school of practice” (Pg. 677 Par. 2). Yet in all the countless murders of Negroes by the white man only three had been convicted. The white man of the South, although opposed to the freedom of Negroes would eventually have to face the fact of the changing times. However, they took every opportunity and excuse to justify their continued horrors. There were three main excuses that the white man of the South came up w...
Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois are both writers who use realism as their literary mode. They both try to depict life the way it was and didn’t “sugar coat” it. They both also wanted more civil rights to be given to the blacks. Although they lived in the same era they had different opinions on how to get these rights. They think differently about education, racial advancement, and relationships between blacks and whites. Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois’ ideas are reflected in their different writing styles, and different backgrounds, along with his intentions, becoming important when their differences had one of the greatest impacts on the future.
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (London: 1776), 190-91, 235-37.
Booker T. Washington was one of the most well-known African American educators of all time. Lessons from his life recordings and novelistic writings are still being talked and learned about today. His ideas of the accommodation of the Negro people and the instillation of a good work ethic into every student are opposed, though, by some well-known critics of both past and current times. They state their cases by claiming the Negro’s should not have stayed quiet and worked their way to wear they did, they should have demanded equal treatment from the southern whites and claimed what was previously promised to them. Also, they state that Washington did not really care about equality or respect, but about a status boost in his own life. Both arguments presented by Washington and his critics are equally valid when looked at in context, but When Mr. Booker gave his speech at the Atlanta Acquisition, he was more-so correct in his belief of accommodation. His opinions concerning that hard work achieved success and respect and that demanding requests does not give immediate results were more rational, practical, and realistic than others outcries of immediate gratification and popularity contests.
“Sincerely and earnestly hoping that this little book may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system, and hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds … relying upon the power of truth, love, and justice, for success in my … efforts and solemnly pledging myself anew to the sacred cause, I subscribe myself” (Douglass 76). With these words, Frederick Douglass (c. 1817-1895), an emancipated slave with no formal education, ends one of the greatest pieces of propaganda of the 19th century America: that slavery is good for the slave. He writes his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, as an abolitionist tool to shape his northern audience’s view of southern slaveholders. Through personal anecdotes, Douglass draws an accurate picture of slave life. Simultaneously, he chooses these events for how they will affect the northern audience’s opinion of southern slaveholders (Quarles ii). By using the written word, Douglass targets educated northern whites because they were the only group capable of changing the status quo. Illiterate northern whites and free northern blacks could not vote, while white Southerners would not vote because they did not want change. For that reason, Douglass used his life story as an instrument to promote abolition among literate northern whites (vi).
This book was about Booker T Washington who was a slave on a plantation in Virginia until he was nine years old. His autobiography offers readers a look into his life as a young child. Simple pleasures, such as eating with a fork, sleeping in a bed, and wearing comfortable clothing, were unavailable to Washington and his family. His brief glimpses into a schoolhouse were all it took to make him long for a chance to study and learn. Readers will enjoy the straightforward and strong voice Washington uses to tell his story. The book document his childhood as a slave and his efforts to get an education, and he directly credits his education with his later success as a man of action in his community and the nation. Washington details his transition from student to teacher, and outlines his own development as an educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He tells the story of Tuskegee's growth, from classes held in a shantytown to a campus with many new buildings. In the final chapters of, it Washington describes his career as a public speaker and civil rights activist. Washington includes the address he gave at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895, which made him a national figure. He concludes his autobiography with an account of several recognitions he has received for his work, including an honorary degree from Harvard, and two significant visits to Tuskegee, one by President McKinley and another by General Samuel C. Armstrong. During his lifetime, Booker T. Washington was a national leader for the betterment of African Americans in the post-Reconstruction South. He advocated for economic and industrial improvement of Blacks while accommodating Whites on voting rights and social equality.
James, Johson Weldon. Comp. Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 832. Print.
...ave Exposes Slavery,” in Kennedy, David M. and Thomas A. Bailey. The American Spirit: United States History as Seen by Contemporaries. Vol. I: To 1877. Eleventh Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
Larsen, Nella. “Quicksand.” The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed .Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2004. 1085-1167. Print
Of the many truly inspirational speeches given by African Americans, Booker T. Washington’s The Atlanta Exposition Address is one of the few that intends to achieve compromise. In his speech, Washington is trying to persuade an audience composed significantly of white men to support African Americans by granting them jobs and presenting them with opportunities. His goal is to convince his white audience that African Americans will be supplied with jobs lower than those of white men, allowing white men always to be on top. Booker T. Washington’s The Atlanta Exposition Address adopts a tone of acquiescence and compromise to persuade a predominantly white audience to accept his terms.
Therefore Booker T. Washington became a antiracial leader, that help start several civil rights organization, such as the “ NAACP”, “National Association for The Advantest of Colored people”, “The National Black caucus”, and countless others. For these numerous reasons, Booker T Washington became know by many as a great American, that help change the American struggle of racism and is recognized by various Americans as a powerful American leader. Because booker T. has went down in American history as a great leader I am going to write an analytically outline of Booker T. Washington’s great works...
Smith, A. (2009). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations. Digireads.com Publishing.