During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Booker T. Washington became a spokesman for blacks in America. The debate over whether his philosophy and actions betrayed the interests of African Americans rose after he founded a school for them which lacked in strong academic teachings. Whether Washington wanted the best for African Americans or wished to please white society was not always clear. His actions proved more so that he helped African Americans so that they would please white society during that time period. This was the argument of Donald Spivey while Robert J. Norrell chose to defend Washington in his document. Spivey made a stronger argument supported with evidence to prove that Washington’s philosophy and actions betrayed the interests …show more content…
of African Americans of the time period. Spivey’s document had a specific viewpoint stating that the Tuskegee Institute that he founded did not provide a strong education to prepare the African Americans for the work that they would be doing.
In fact, the institute mainly provided the students with educations on how they should act and how to make them “indispensable ‘objects’ to the prosperity of the nation” (Spivey 148). This meant failing to provide real education that would be useful to the students at the institute. Spivey also noted that most teachers at Tuskegee Institute were Hampton graduates meaning that they were more experienced in discipline rather than teaching the students the tasks that they would find useful. Spivey was led to believe that Washington was training the African Americans to please white society as the founder of the Tuskegee Institute because the academic classes were not taken very seriously and were optional. Spivey supported these ideas by using quotes from the institute. Whether it be notes sent to the founder of the “misbehaving children” or regulations crafted to discipline the students. These additions to the document help formulate Spivey’s argument and make it more concrete, showing how if the students did not act as they should they would be punished for it. This proves that Washington did not have the best interests of the African Americans in mind. He provided them with inadequate educations for tasking that they would need to master. Washington’s actions and rules at the …show more content…
Tuskegee Institution show his lack of care for their interests. Norrell’s document on the other hand, argues that Washington always defended education for blacks and trained his students this way in order to create a better image of the race.
His viewpoint was that Washington was always an advocate for blacks and was simply thinking of whites about “the future of race relations” in America. This was due to the fact that it was the white society segregating the blacks and using newspapers to reflect the “Negro-as-beast” thinking. Norrell supported these ideas using examples from the time period. For example, “In 1899, in response to the horrific Sam Hose lynching in Newnan, Georgia, Washington wrote to the Birmingham Age-Herald that he opposed ‘mob violence under all circumstances. Those guilty of crime should be surely, swiftly and terribly punished, but by legal methods” (Norrell 159). Using examples from the time period helps him to convey his argument that Washington had good intentions and make it
stronger. Ultimately, Spivey had a stronger argument in his document. This is because he used more quotes from the time period that directly supported his view and showed that Washington’s institute did not provide adequate education for the students. He picked out notes written to the founder describing the misconduct of the African Americans in the institute and rules that were enforced. This shows that Washington cared an extreme amount of the behavior of the students as opposed to mainly focusing on their educations to help them with work. This came across as a stronger argument that Norrell’s because his argument was not as direct and straightforward as Spivey’s was. Although he used examples from the time period, Norrell did use fewer in his document and they were less closely related to the main argument he was making. This therefore, made Spivey’s argument look stronger because of the direct correlation between his examples and the main point that he was trying to prove. Overall, Booker T. Washington’s philosophy and actions did betray the interests of African Americans as well explained in Donald Spivey’s Shine, Booker, Shine: The Black Overseer of Tuskegee. His institution gave more lessons on how to behave rather than important academic knowledge that would be useful to his students. This meant that Washington failed to provide them with the information that they needed to succeed in society. This obviously means that the African American’s best interests were not in mind. Spivey conveyed this idea well throughout the document making a stronger argument than Robert J. Norrell in his document Understanding the Wizard: Another Look at the Age of Booker T. Washington. While both authors brought strong and well thought out arguments to the table, Spivey had a more convincing and well supported viewpoint.
and challenges to African Americans from 1910 until about 1930. Du Bois felt that Americans
Washington wanted to ensure the white race that education of colored individuals would not lead to a decrease in domestic services, as this was one of the main fears presented throughout. The beginning of the Institute started with only Washington as the teacher, and thirty students (Washington 58). While the Tuskegee Institute did an excellent job in developing students minds and reading abilities, Washington wanted to also teach his students practical life skills. Understanding that his students came from homes with little opportunities, Washington made it a priority to teach students how to care for their themselves. Students were taught how to bathe, care for their teeth, wash their clothing, and even what to eat and how to eat properly (Washington 61). Along with these basic skills, students were taught in a way so they could both become teachers and return to the plantation districts (Washington 61). Rather than simply studying books, students engaged in labor and physically saw what it meant to pave one’s own way. Washington wanted to implement a set of agricultural skills that would allow students to gain a new set of ideas and energy that could improve the industry. Soon after Washington found a new location to move his growing school, students were in charge of completing all the chores needed to successfully move to the farm. While
When it all comes down to it, one of the greatest intellectual battles U.S. history was the legendary disagreement between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. This intellectual debate sparked the interest of the Northerners as well as the racist whites that occupied the south. This debate was simply about how the blacks, who just gained freedom from slavery, should exist in America with the white majority. Even though Washington and DuBois stood on opposite sides of the fence they both agreed on one thing, that it was a time for a change in the treatment of African Americans. I chose his topic to write about because I strongly agree with both of the men’s ideas but there is some things about their views that I don’t agree with. Their ideas and views are the things that will be addressed in this essay.
Booker T. Washington was an African American leader who established an African-American college in 1181. Then in 1895 delivered the Atlanta Compromise Speech to an audience of mainly Southerners, but some Northerners were present. In his speech he made a few points. He said, “No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.” Washington believed that the African American race needed to learn first that manual labor was just as important as the work of intellects. He thought that until they learned this they were not worthy of becoming intellects themselves. The color line is thus important in teaching them this lesson. He also said, “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 exercise of these privileges.” His opinion was that one day blacks would deserve to have equal rights with the whites, but right now in 1895 the blacks needed to be...
During the late 19th and early 20th century, racial injustice was very prominent and even wildly accepted in the South. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois were two of the most renowned “pioneers in the [search] for African-American equality in America” (Washington, DuBois, and the Black Future). Washington was “born a slave” who highly believed in the concept of “separate but equal,” meaning that “we can be as [distant] as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress” (Washington 1042). DuBois was a victim of many “racial problems before his years as a student” and disagreed with Washington’s point of view, which led
Both Washington and DuBois wanted the same thing for blacks—first-class citizenship—but their methods for obtaining it differed. Because of the interest in immediate goals contained in Washington’s economic approach, Whites did not realize that he anticipated the complete acceptance and integration of Negroes into American life. He believed blacks, starting with so little, would have to begin at the bottom and work up gradually to achieve positions of power and responsibility before they could demand equal citizenship—even if it meant temporarily assuming a position of inferiority. DuBois understood Washington’s program, but believed that it was not the solution to the “race problem.” Blacks should study the liberal arts, and have the same rights as white citizens.
When in reality, how can a slave-owning President be a hero to Black Americans today? Similarly, Americans of native descent today could not worship Washington, if they knew explicitly how he had treated their ancestors. However textbooks do not explicitly reveal these faults, and even if they give some indication the authors make sure to justify Washington to the best of their ability. Many Americans fail to know very little about the claims of Washington’s greed for wealth, his inability as a politician and President to speak before the Senate and Congress, and the debate to whether he was as good a General as is commonly believed. In addition to these forgotten flaws and human frailties; are the purely fabricated tales of Washington’s childhood, which are still retold to children today.
...to be equally educated. His speeches not only attracted the black people but also, northern and southern white people. Booker worked hard for all that he achieved during his life time. People all over were followers of Booker T. Washington. One example of how much these followers appreciated Washington is through raising money for a trip to Europe. Not just anyone went to Europe in those days. The trip showed how much the people appreciated Booker’s efforts for civil rights and education of blacks. They sent
W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington were two very influential leaders in the black community during the late 19th century, early 20th century. However, they both had different views on improvement of social and economic standing for blacks. Booker T. Washington, an ex-slave, put into practice his educational ideas at Tuskegee, which opened in 1881. Washington stressed patience, manual training, and hard work. He believed that blacks should go to school, learn skills, and work their way up the ladder. Washington also urged blacks to accept racial discrimination for the time being, and once they worked their way up, they would gain the respect of whites and be fully accepted as citizens. W.E.B. Du Bois on the other hand, wanted a more aggressive strategy. He studied at Fisk University in Tennessee and the University of Berlin before he went on to study at Harvard. He then took a low paying research job at the University of Pennsylvania, using a new discipline of sociology which emphasized factual observation in the field to study the condition of blacks. The first study of the effect of urban life on blacks, it cited a wealth of statistics, all suggesting that crime in the ward stemmed not from inborn degeneracy but from the environment in which blacks lived. Change the environment, and people would change too; education was a good way to go about it. The different strategies offered by W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington in dealing with the problems of poverty and discrimination faced by Black Americans were education, developing economic skills, and insisting on things continually such as the right to vote. ...
Throughout his essay, Du Bois challenged Booker T. Washington’s policy of racial accommodation and gradualism. In this article Du Bois discusses many issues he believes he sees
Booker T. Washington Booker T. Washington was a great leader. He was all for helping the black community become stronger. His goal was very hard to achieve considering the period in which he lived. America, during Washington's time under reconstruction. The Civil War was over and blacks were, by law, equal to any other human being.
In 1881, I founded and became principal of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. I started this school in an old abandoned church and a shanty. The school's name was later changed to Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). The school taught specific trades, such as carpentry, farming, and mechanics, and trained teachers. As it expanded, I spent much of his time raising funds. Under Washington's leadership, the institute became famous as a model of industrial education. The Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site, established in 1974, includes Washington's home, student-made college buildings, and the George Washington Carver Museum.
Lewis’s viewpoint is not without it’s truths. The Harlem renaissance was overseen by a number of intellectuals such as Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Dubois. Booker T. Washington‘s, a highly influential speaker of the age, words appealed to both Caucasians and African-Americans. Washington forged an interracial bridge of communication through his unique tactics in the quest for equality. He believed in more subtle ways of gaining equality through hard work, cunning, and humility. He stated, “The wisest among my race understands that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist 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.”(Salley, 15) With this statement, Washington himself denies that this new awakening in equality and arts could be forced,...
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.
Booker T. Washington was a young black male born into the shackles of Southern slavery. With the Union victory in the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, Washington’s family and blacks in the United States found hope in a new opportunity, freedom. Washington saw this freedom as an opportunity to pursue a practical education. Through perseverance and good fortunes, Washington was able to attain that education at Hampton National Institute. At Hampton, his experiences and beliefs in industrial education contributed to his successful foundation at the Tuskegee Institute. The institute went on to become the beacon of light for African American education in the South. Booker T. Washington was an influential voice in the African American community following the Civil War. In his autobiography, Up from Slavery, Washington outlines his personal accounts of his life, achievements, and struggles. In the autobiography, Washington fails to address the struggle of blacks during Reconstruction to escape the southern stigma of African Americans only being useful for labor. However, Washington argues that blacks should attain an industrial education that enables them to find employment through meeting the economic needs of the South, obtaining moral character and intelligence, and embracing practical labor. His arguments are supported through his personal accounts as a student at Hampton Institute and as an administrator at the Tuskegee Institute. Washington’s autobiography is a great source of insight into the black education debate following Reconstruction.