Booker T. Washington:
b. 1856 d. 1915

As we discussed in class, Washington’s legacy is a troubled one. He was integral to the dissemination of the philosophy that hard work, morality, and patience were to be of the most benefit to Southern African Americans in the years following the Civil War. He has been called overly conciliatory to the desires of white Southerner, his accomodationism has been cited as continuing, and institutionalizing, the disenfranchisement of Southern blacks (as Du Bois argues, see below).

Washington’s “Atlanta Exposition Address” is noteworthy for numerous reasons: for the context of its delivery, for the resulting national acclaim it garnered Washington, for the vision it contained regarding white/black relations in the South and North. Washington’s 1895 address was intended to present the vision of cooperative, passive, and hard-working black Americans to those whites still controlling political power – and in fact, the fate of many black Americans – in the South and North.

Washington writes that in the years immediately following the Civil War, black Americans sought to begin this “new life” at the “top instead of the bottom”; in these years “a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill” (1623). For Washington, these political aims were wrong-headed and potentially dangerous. The maxim he repeats – “cast down your bucket where you are” – is infinitely portable and applicable to him. He asks his brethren to “cast down their buckets” in “agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions” (1623). He explains, “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” (1625). Such remarks, however, were met with disdain by generations of African American leaders who followed Washington.

Washington was, in many regards, a “nativist.” Within a climate of anti-immigrant anxiety, as held by white Americans, Washington capitalized on a fear of the unknown “other” in the interest of securing employment and building alliances with white Americans. Continuing his metaphor of casting down a bucket, he declares “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” (1624). Washington feels that his people must benefit from their familiarity to white Americans, as they have been, he says, “patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful” (1624). The new immigrants, from Europe and elsewhere, are “unknowns” in this regard, and are fearsome aliens to many American in the late 1890s (and through the first decades of the twentieth century).

Washington is, in effect, a “protectionist” rather than a radical.

Recall our discussion of the key tenets of Washington’s philosophy. Does he represent individuals or communities? Does he encourage black American to strive for higher education and individual advancement or does he encourage dedication to community security and survival? Do his beliefs have their basis in a desire for pecuniary advancement and stability? What is the role of money in his vision of “progress” for black American in the South. Is his goal one of culture or capital?

W.E.B. DuBois:
b. 1868 d. 1963

In our discussion of the first chapter of The Souls of Black Folk , we discussed the complexity of Du Bois's text. Du Bois proposes the notion that the "American Negro" "is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world" (1705). What does Du Bois mean by "second sight"? Du Bois explains that the African American "ever feels his two-ness" -- why?

Consider the bars of music that are the epigraphs for Du Bois's chapters. What is their possible function? Recall our discussion of the music of black America and its reputation as "American music." I referred to James Weldon Johnson at this point in our discussion. Johnson is the author of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912). If spiritual music, if soul music, if jazz, if blues, are known in other nations as "American music," but the people who created these forms of musical artistry are marginalized at home in America, what do we learn about Du Bois's theory of "two-ness"?

Much of our discussion about Du Bois centered around his opposition to the attitudes and philosophy of Washington. Du Bois wrote, "we must lay on the soul of this man [Washington], a heavy responsibility for the consumation of Negro disenfranchisement, the decline of the Negro college and public school, and the firmer establishment of color caste in this land" (qtd. in Bauerlein, par. 6). Why does Du Bois level such a charge at Washington?

Du Bois indicts Washington for "so thoroughly" learning "the speech and thought of triumphant commercialism, and the ideals of material prosperity" that Washington preferred to envision a future for Africans American based on practical servitude to the vicissitudes of the marketplace rather than to the impulses of "culture" and intellectual excellence (1711). Du Bois accuses Washington of potentially believing that it would be "absurd" for a "lone black boy" to devotedly study a "French grammar amid the weeds and dirt of a neglected home" (1711). What conflict emerges between the philosophies of the two men, as these philosophies are presented by Du Bois?