Description
HIST 2020
US in the 20th Century
Question:
Do you think the concepts of “freedom” and the “American Dream” change for people living in the United States during the period from Reconstruction to World War II? Incorporate a minimum of 2 primary sources from the course to explain your argument. Additionally, contextualize your argument with the use of the Fonertextbook.
Additional Instructions:
Essays must be 2-3 pages in length (double-spaced). They should contain a strong thesis paragraph and a conclusion. The body of your essay should cite evidence throughout using parenthetical citations. For example: “But there was far more to the counterculture than new consumer styles or the famed trio of sex, drugs, and rock and roll” (Foner, 1002). If you are citing a primary source from Canvas, cite the author of the source and the page number: (Garvey, 23)or the name of the source and the page number: (Populist Platform, 2).
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114
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
dishes? Why, it would be blasphemy. I know that I am but a rib (woman) and so I
wash the dishes. Or I hire another rib to do it for me, which amounts to the same
thing
Let us consider the argument from the standpoint of religion. The Bible says,
“Let the women keep silent in the churches.” Paul says, “Let them keep their hats
on for fear of the angels.” My minister says, “Wives, obey your husbands.” And
.
my husband says that woman suffrage would rob the rose of its fragrance and the
peach of its bloom. I think that is so sweet….
I don’t want to be misunderstood in my reference to woman’s inability to
vote. Of course she could get herself to the polls and lift a piece of paper. I don’t
doubt that. What I refer to is the pressure on the brain, the effect of this mental
strain on woman’s delicate nervous organization and on her highly wrought sen-
sitive nature. Have you ever pictured to yourself Election Day with women vot-
ing? Can you imagine how women, having undergone this terrible ordeal, with
their delicate systems all upset, will come out of the voting booths and be led
away by policemen, and put into ambulances, while they are fainting and weep-
ing, half laughing, half crying, and having fits upon the public highway? Don’t
you think that if a woman is going to have a fit, it is far better for her to have it in
the privacy of her own home?
And how shall I picture to you the terrors of the day after election? Divorce
and death will rage unchecked, crime and contagious disease will stalk unbridled
through the land. Oh, friends, on this subject I feel – I feel, so strongly that I can-
not think!
QUESTIONS FOR READING AND DISCUSSION
1. According to Howe, why did anti-suffragists believe “all nature is against”
women’s suffrage? Why were suffragists “hyenas in petticoats”?
2. Why did Howe arrange anti-suffrage arguments in “couplets”? What points do
her couplets make?
3. What arguments, illuminated in Howe’s parody, “prove anti-suffrage in a
womanly way”? Why should women be “saved” from women’s suffrage?
4. Why did anti-suffragists believe, according to Howe, that “Whatever is, is
right”?
5. By ridiculing the contradictions and assumptions of anti-suffrage arguments,
what pro-suffrage arguments did Howe suggest?
DOCUMENT 21-5
Booker T. Washington on Racial Accommodation
Most progressives showed little interest in changing race relations; many in fact actively
supported white supremacy. Beset by the dilemmas of sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, dis-
franchisement, poverty, illiteracy, and the constant threat of violence, southerners
had few champions among progressives. Booker T. Washington, perhaps the era’s most
celebrated black leader, spelled out a plan of racial accommodation as a path toward prog-
ress. In an address to white business leaders gathered at the Cotton States and Interna-
tional Exposition in Atlanta in 1895, Washington outlined ideas that remained at the
center of debate among black Americans for decades.
PROGRESSIVISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
115
The Atlanta Exposition Address, 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
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SIVISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
115
The Atlanta Exposition Address, 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 ele-
ment of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you… 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 of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress.
It is a recognition that will do more to ceme t 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 inexperienced, 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 or stump speaking had more attractions 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.” … 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 better-
ing their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cul-
tivating 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 that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to
dignify 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 [knick-
knacks 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 over-
shadow 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
From Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1901).
116
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant
the ruins of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have,
without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded
your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth,
and helped 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 me
ar humble way, we
ready to lay
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G THE AMERICAN PAST
fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant
the ruins of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have,
without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded
your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth,
and helped 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, com-
mercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the 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….
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. …
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 privi-
leges 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
operahouse.
QUESTIONS FOR READING AND DISCUSSION
1. What did Washington mean by “Cast down your bucket where you are”?
2. Washington expressed a distinctive vision of racial equality and progress in his
famous statement, “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.
What were the implications of his vision for blacks who sought equality and
progress? What significance did Washington attach to the words separate and
mutual?
3. In what ways did Washington’s argument appeal to his white audience? Would
his speech have been different if he had been addressing a black audience? If
so, how and why?
4. To what extent did Washington’s speech exemplify the dilemmas of African
Americans in the Progressive Era?
PROGRESSIVISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
117
DOCUMENT 21-6
W. E. B. Du Bois on Racial Equality
Many educated African Americans, especially in the North, objected to Booker T. Wash-
ington’s policy of racial accommodation. In 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois attacked Washington’s
ideas and proposed alternatives that made sense to many black Americans, then and since.
One of the organizers of the Niagara Movement and of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, Du Bois had earned a doctorate in history from Harvard
and was a professor at Atlanta University when he published his criticisms of Washing-
ton, excerpted from his work The Souls of Black Folk.
Booker TS.
wy 1903
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IVISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
117
DOCUMENT 21-6
W. E. B. Du Bois on Racial Equality
Many educated African Americans, especially in the North, objected to Booker T. Wash-
ington’s policy of racial accommodation. In 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois attacked Washington’s
ideas and proposed alternatives that made sense to many black Americans, then and since.
One of the organizers of the Niagara Movement and of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, Du Bois had earned a doctorate in history from Harvard
and was a professor at Atlanta University when he published his criticisms of Washing-
ton, excerpted from his work The Souls of Black Folk.
Booker T. Washington and Others, 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 war
memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of astonishing commercial
development was dawning; a sense of doubt and hesitation overtook the freed-
men’s sons,—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 con-
centrating its energies on Dollars. His programme of industrial education, concili-
ation of the South, and submission and silence as to civil and political rights, was
not wholly original…. 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….
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 (it) … seemed, for a black
man, well-nigh impossible. And yet ten years later it was done in the words spo-
ken at Atlanta: “In all things purely social we can be as separate as 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 Mr. Washington’s cult has gained unquestioning followers, his work has
wonderfully prospered, his friends are legion, and his enemies are confounded.
To-day he stands as the one recognized spokesman of his ten million fellows, and
one of the most notable figures in a nation of seventy million….
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
From W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Company,
1903).
118
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
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 enter-
prises, 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 amost completely to overshadow the
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the right of suitrage.
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VISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
119
Cu
aby
2. He insists on thrift and self-respect, but at the same time counsels a silent
submission to civic inferiority such as is bound to sap the manhood of any
race in the long run.
3. He advocates common-school and industrial training, and depreciates insti-
tutions of higher learning….
This triple paradox in Mr. Washington’s position is the object of criticism by
two classes of colored Americans. One class is spiritually descended from Tous-
saint the Savior, through Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner, and they represent the atti-
tude of revolt and revenge; they hate the white South blindly and distrust the
white race generally, and so far as they agree on definite action, think that the
Negro’s only hope lies in emigration beyond the borders of the United States. And
yet, by the irony of fate, nothing has more effectively made this programme seem
hopeless than the recent course of the United States toward weaker and darker
peoples in the West Indies, Hawaii, and the Philippines,- for where in the world
may we go and be safe from lying and brute force?
The other class of Negroes who cannot agree with Mr. Washington has hith-
erto said little aloud. … Such men feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation
three things:
1. The right to vote.
2. Civic equality.
3. The education of youth according to ability.
They acknowledge Mr. Washington’s invaluable service in counselling
patience and courtesy in such demands; they do not ask that ignorant black men
vote when ignorant whites are debarred, or that any reasonable restrictions in
the suffrage should not be applied; they know that the low social level of the mass
of the race is responsible for much discrimination against it, but they also know,
and the nation knows, that relentless color prejudice is more often a cause than
a result of the Negro’s degradation; they seek the abatement of this relic of bar-
barism, and not its systematic encouragement and pampering by all agencies of
social power. … They advocate, with Mr. Washington, a broad system of Negro
common schools supplemented by thorough industrial training; but they are sur-
prised that a man of Mr. Washington’s insight cannot see that no educational sys-
tem ever has rested or can rest on any other basis than that of the well equipped
college and university, and they insist that there is a demand for a few such insti-
tutions throughout the South to train the best of the Negro youth as teachers,
professional men, and leaders….
They do not expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civic rights, and to be
educated, will come in a moment; they do not expect to see the bias and prejudices
of years disappear at the blast of a trumpet; but they are absolutely certain that the
way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily
throwing
them away and insisting that they do not want them; that the way for a people to
gain respect is not by continually belittling and ridiculing themselves; that, on the
Toussaint the Savior … Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner: Toussaint L’Ouverture was
a former slave who led the Haitian Revolution in 1798. African Americans Gabriel
Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner were executed for attempts to lead slave
rebellions in the United States in 1800, 1822, and 1831, respectively.
120
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
contrary, Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting
is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that
black boys need education as well as white boys….
[T]he 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 …; and, third,
while it is a great truth to say that the Negro MUST Swive and strive mightily to
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SIVISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
115
The Atlanta Exposition Address, 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 ele-
ment of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you… 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 of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress.
It is a recognition that will do more to ceme t 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 inexperienced, 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 or stump speaking had more attractions 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.” … 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 better-
ing their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cul-
tivating 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 that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to
dignify 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 [knick-
knacks 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 over-
shadow 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
From Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1901).
116
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant
the ruins of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have,
without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded
your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth,
and helped 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 me
ar humble way, we
ready to lay
3:23
Amail-attachment.googleusercontent.com
114
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
dishes? Why, it would be blasphemy. I know that I am but a rib (woman) and so I
wash the dishes. Or I hire another rib to do it for me, which amounts to the same
thing
Let us consider the argument from the standpoint of religion. The Bible says,
“Let the women keep silent in the churches.” Paul says, “Let them keep their hats
on for fear of the angels.” My minister says, “Wives, obey your husbands.” And
.
my husband says that woman suffrage would rob the rose of its fragrance and the
peach of its bloom. I think that is so sweet….
I don’t want to be misunderstood in my reference to woman’s inability to
vote. Of course she could get herself to the polls and lift a piece of paper. I don’t
doubt that. What I refer to is the pressure on the brain, the effect of this mental
strain on woman’s delicate nervous organization and on her highly wrought sen-
sitive nature. Have you ever pictured to yourself Election Day with women vot-
ing? Can you imagine how women, having undergone this terrible ordeal, with
their delicate systems all upset, will come out of the voting booths and be led
away by policemen, and put into ambulances, while they are fainting and weep-
ing, half laughing, half crying, and having fits upon the public highway? Don’t
you think that if a woman is going to have a fit, it is far better for her to have it in
the privacy of her own home?
And how shall I picture to you the terrors of the day after election? Divorce
and death will rage unchecked, crime and contagious disease will stalk unbridled
through the land. Oh, friends, on this subject I feel – I feel, so strongly that I can-
not think!
QUESTIONS FOR READING AND DISCUSSION
1. According to Howe, why did anti-suffragists believe “all nature is against”
women’s suffrage? Why were suffragists “hyenas in petticoats”?
2. Why did Howe arrange anti-suffrage arguments in “couplets”? What points do
her couplets make?
3. What arguments, illuminated in Howe’s parody, “prove anti-suffrage in a
womanly way”? Why should women be “saved” from women’s suffrage?
4. Why did anti-suffragists believe, according to Howe, that “Whatever is, is
right”?
5. By ridiculing the contradictions and assumptions of anti-suffrage arguments,
what pro-suffrage arguments did Howe suggest?
DOCUMENT 21-5
Booker T. Washington on Racial Accommodation
Most progressives showed little interest in changing race relations; many in fact actively
supported white supremacy. Beset by the dilemmas of sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, dis-
franchisement, poverty, illiteracy, and the constant threat of violence, southerners
had few champions among progressives. Booker T. Washington, perhaps the era’s most
celebrated black leader, spelled out a plan of racial accommodation as a path toward prog-
ress. In an address to white business leaders gathered at the Cotton States and Interna-
tional Exposition in Atlanta in 1895, Washington outlined ideas that remained at the
center of debate among black Americans for decades.
PROGRESSIVISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
115
The Atlanta Exposition Address, 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
3:23
A mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com
2 of 7
SIVISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
115
The Atlanta Exposition Address, 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 ele-
ment of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you… 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 of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress.
It is a recognition that will do more to ceme t 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 inexperienced, 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 or stump speaking had more attractions 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.” … 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 better-
ing their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cul-
tivating 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 that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to
dignify 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 [knick-
knacks 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 over-
shadow 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
From Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1901).
116
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant
the ruins of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have,
without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded
your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth,
and helped 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 me
ar humble way, we
ready to lay
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114
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
dishes? Why, it would be blasphemy. I know that I am but a rib (woman) and so I
wash the dishes. Or I hire another rib to do it for me, which amounts to the same
thing
Let us consider the argument from the standpoint of religion. The Bible says,
“Let the women keep silent in the churches.” Paul says, “Let them keep their hats
on for fear of the angels.” My minister says, “Wives, obey your husbands.” And
.
my husband says that woman suffrage would rob the rose of its fragrance and the
peach of its bloom. I think that is so sweet….
I don’t want to be misunderstood in my reference to woman’s inability to
vote. Of course she could get herself to the polls and lift a piece of paper. I don’t
doubt that. What I refer to is the pressure on the brain, the effect of this mental
strain on woman’s delicate nervous organization and on her highly wrought sen-
sitive nature. Have you ever pictured to yourself Election Day with women vot-
ing? Can you imagine how women, having undergone this terrible ordeal, with
their delicate systems all upset, will come out of the voting booths and be led
away by policemen, and put into ambulances, while they are fainting and weep-
ing, half laughing, half crying, and having fits upon the public highway? Don’t
you think that if a woman is going to have a fit, it is far better for her to have it in
the privacy of her own home?
And how shall I picture to you the terrors of the day after election? Divorce
and death will rage unchecked, crime and contagious disease will stalk unbridled
through the land. Oh, friends, on this subject I feel – I feel, so strongly that I can-
not think!
QUESTIONS FOR READING AND DISCUSSION
1. According to Howe, why did anti-suffragists believe “all nature is against”
women’s suffrage? Why were suffragists “hyenas in petticoats”?
2. Why did Howe arrange anti-suffrage arguments in “couplets”? What points do
her couplets make?
3. What arguments, illuminated in Howe’s parody, “prove anti-suffrage in a
womanly way”? Why should women be “saved” from women’s suffrage?
4. Why did anti-suffragists believe, according to Howe, that “Whatever is, is
right”?
5. By ridiculing the contradictions and assumptions of anti-suffrage arguments,
what pro-suffrage arguments did Howe suggest?
DOCUMENT 21-5
Booker T. Washington on Racial Accommodation
Most progressives showed little interest in changing race relations; many in fact actively
supported white supremacy. Beset by the dilemmas of sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, dis-
franchisement, poverty, illiteracy, and the constant threat of violence, southerners
had few champions among progressives. Booker T. Washington, perhaps the era’s most
celebrated black leader, spelled out a plan of racial accommodation as a path toward prog-
ress. In an address to white business leaders gathered at the Cotton States and Interna-
tional Exposition in Atlanta in 1895, Washington outlined ideas that remained at the
center of debate among black Americans for decades.
PROGRESSIVISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
115
The Atlanta Exposition Address, 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
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The Atlanta Exposition Address, 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 ele-
ment of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you… 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 of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress.
It is a recognition that will do more to ceme t 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 inexperienced, 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 or stump speaking had more attractions 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.” … 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 better-
ing their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cul-
tivating 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 that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to
dignify 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 [knick-
knacks 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 over-
shadow 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
From Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1901).
116
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant
the ruins of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have,
without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded
your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth,
and helped 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 me
ar humble way, we
ready to lay
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G THE AMERICAN PAST
fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant
the ruins of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have,
without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded
your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth,
and helped 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, com-
mercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the 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….
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. …
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 privi-
leges 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
operahouse.
QUESTIONS FOR READING AND DISCUSSION
1. What did Washington mean by “Cast down your bucket where you are”?
2. Washington expressed a distinctive vision of racial equality and progress in his
famous statement, “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.
What were the implications of his vision for blacks who sought equality and
progress? What significance did Washington attach to the words separate and
mutual?
3. In what ways did Washington’s argument appeal to his white audience? Would
his speech have been different if he had been addressing a black audience? If
so, how and why?
4. To what extent did Washington’s speech exemplify the dilemmas of African
Americans in the Progressive Era?
PROGRESSIVISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
117
DOCUMENT 21-6
W. E. B. Du Bois on Racial Equality
Many educated African Americans, especially in the North, objected to Booker T. Wash-
ington’s policy of racial accommodation. In 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois attacked Washington’s
ideas and proposed alternatives that made sense to many black Americans, then and since.
One of the organizers of the Niagara Movement and of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, Du Bois had earned a doctorate in history from Harvard
and was a professor at Atlanta University when he published his criticisms of Washing-
ton, excerpted from his work The Souls of Black Folk.
Booker TS.
wy 1903
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DOCUMENT 21-6
W. E. B. Du Bois on Racial Equality
Many educated African Americans, especially in the North, objected to Booker T. Wash-
ington’s policy of racial accommodation. In 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois attacked Washington’s
ideas and proposed alternatives that made sense to many black Americans, then and since.
One of the organizers of the Niagara Movement and of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, Du Bois had earned a doctorate in history from Harvard
and was a professor at Atlanta University when he published his criticisms of Washing-
ton, excerpted from his work The Souls of Black Folk.
Booker T. Washington and Others, 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 war
memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of astonishing commercial
development was dawning; a sense of doubt and hesitation overtook the freed-
men’s sons,—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 con-
centrating its energies on Dollars. His programme of industrial education, concili-
ation of the South, and submission and silence as to civil and political rights, was
not wholly original…. 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….
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 (it) … seemed, for a black
man, well-nigh impossible. And yet ten years later it was done in the words spo-
ken at Atlanta: “In all things purely social we can be as separate as 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 Mr. Washington’s cult has gained unquestioning followers, his work has
wonderfully prospered, his friends are legion, and his enemies are confounded.
To-day he stands as the one recognized spokesman of his ten million fellows, and
one of the most notable figures in a nation of seventy million….
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
From W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Company,
1903).
118
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
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 enter-
prises, 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 amost completely to overshadow the
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118
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
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 enter-
prises, 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, our own land, the reaction from
the sentiment of war time has given impetus to race-prejudice against Negroes,
and Mr. Washington withdraws many of the high demands of Negroes as men
and American citizens….
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:
1. The disfranchisement of the Negro.
2. The legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro.
3. The steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the
Negro.
These movements are not to be sure, direct results of Mr. Washington’s teach-
ings; but his propaganda has, without a shadow of 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:
1. He is striving nobly to make Negro artisans business men and property-
owners; but it is utterly impossible, under modern competitive methods, for
workingmen and property-owners to defend their rights and exist without
the right of suffrage.
PROGRESSIVISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
119
em
teen
2. He insists on thrift and self-respect, but at the same time counsels a silent
submission to civic inferiority such as is bound to sap the manhood of any
race in the long run.
3. He advocates common-school and industrial training, and depreciates insti-
tutions of higher learning….
This triple paradox in Mr. Washington’s position is the object of criticism by
two classes of colored Americans. One class is spiritually descended from Tous-
saint the Savior, through Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner, and they represent the atti-
tude of revolt and revenge; they hate the white South blindly and distrust the
white race generally, and so far as they agree on definite action, think that the
Negro’s only hope lies in emigration beyond the borders of the United States. And
yet, by the irony of fate, natkine beemare effectively made this programme seem
honeless than the recent course of the United States toward weaker and darker
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the right of suitrage.
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VISM FROM THE GRASS ROOTS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 1890-1916
119
Cu
aby
2. He insists on thrift and self-respect, but at the same time counsels a silent
submission to civic inferiority such as is bound to sap the manhood of any
race in the long run.
3. He advocates common-school and industrial training, and depreciates insti-
tutions of higher learning….
This triple paradox in Mr. Washington’s position is the object of criticism by
two classes of colored Americans. One class is spiritually descended from Tous-
saint the Savior, through Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner, and they represent the atti-
tude of revolt and revenge; they hate the white South blindly and distrust the
white race generally, and so far as they agree on definite action, think that the
Negro’s only hope lies in emigration beyond the borders of the United States. And
yet, by the irony of fate, nothing has more effectively made this programme seem
hopeless than the recent course of the United States toward weaker and darker
peoples in the West Indies, Hawaii, and the Philippines,- for where in the world
may we go and be safe from lying and brute force?
The other class of Negroes who cannot agree with Mr. Washington has hith-
erto said little aloud. … Such men feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation
three things:
1. The right to vote.
2. Civic equality.
3. The education of youth according to ability.
They acknowledge Mr. Washington’s invaluable service in counselling
patience and courtesy in such demands; they do not ask that ignorant black men
vote when ignorant whites are debarred, or that any reasonable restrictions in
the suffrage should not be applied; they know that the low social level of the mass
of the race is responsible for much discrimination against it, but they also know,
and the nation knows, that relentless color prejudice is more often a cause than
a result of the Negro’s degradation; they seek the abatement of this relic of bar-
barism, and not its systematic encouragement and pampering by all agencies of
social power. … They advocate, with Mr. Washington, a broad system of Negro
common schools supplemented by thorough industrial training; but they are sur-
prised that a man of Mr. Washington’s insight cannot see that no educational sys-
tem ever has rested or can rest on any other basis than that of the well equipped
college and university, and they insist that there is a demand for a few such insti-
tutions throughout the South to train the best of the Negro youth as teachers,
professional men, and leaders….
They do not expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civic rights, and to be
educated, will come in a moment; they do not expect to see the bias and prejudices
of years disappear at the blast of a trumpet; but they are absolutely certain that the
way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily
throwing
them away and insisting that they do not want them; that the way for a people to
gain respect is not by continually belittling and ridiculing themselves; that, on the
Toussaint the Savior … Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner: Toussaint L’Ouverture was
a former slave who led the Haitian Revolution in 1798. African Americans Gabriel
Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner were executed for attempts to lead slave
rebellions in the United States in 1800, 1822, and 1831, respectively.
120
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
contrary, Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting
is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that
black boys need education as well as white boys….
[T]he 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 …; and, third,
while it is a great truth to say that the Negro MUST Swive and strive mightily to
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tutions throughout me suuu w war
professional men, and leaders….
ot expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civic rights, and to be
7 of 7
ome in a moment; they do not expect to see the bias and prejudices
ear at the blast of a trumpet; but they are absolutely certain that the
way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily
throwing
them away and insisting that they do not want them; that the way for a people to
gain respect is not by continually belittling and ridiculing themselves; that, on the
Toussaint the Savior … Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner: Toussaint L’Ouverture was
a former slave who led the Haitian Revolution in 1798. African Americans Gabriel
Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner were executed for attempts to lead slave
rebellions in the United States in 1800, 1822, and 1831, respectively.
120
READING THE AMERICAN PAST
contrary, Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting
is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that
black boys need education as well as white boys….
[T]he 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…; 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 environ-
ing group, he cannot hope for great success.
In his failure to realize and impress this last point, Mr. Washington is espe-
cially to be criticised. His doctrine has tended to make the whites, North and
South, shift the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro’s shoulders and stand
aside as critical and rather pessimistic spectators; when in fact the burden belongs
to the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to
righting these great wrongs.
QUESTIONS FOR READING AND DISCUSSION
1. According to Du Bois, what were the shortcomings of the “Atlanta Compro-
mise”? What was compromised, and why? What consequences did the com-
promise have for black Americans?
2. In what ways did Washington’s “gospel of Work and Money” involve a “triple
paradox”?
3. What alternatives did Du Bois propose to Washington’s plan? How did the
political implications of Du Bois’s proposals differ from those of Washington?
4. Who did Du Bois consider his audience? To what extent did Du Bois and Wash-
ington differ in their assessments of their white and black audiences?
COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS
1. How did the views of Mother Jones, Marie Jenney Howe, and Mrs. Potter
Palmer about the possibility of harmony between classes compare with those
of Jane Addams?
2. How did Addams’s views of the necessity of settlement houses compare with
Royal Melendy’s description of working-class saloons? To what extent were
the two institutions similar or different?
3. To what extent did Booker T. Washington’s ideas about progress for black
Americans differ from Howe’s characterization of anti-suffrage arguments?
In what ways did W. E. B. Du Bois’s beliefs about the necessity of equality
and political conflict compare with Howe’s depiction of anti-suffragist
arguments?
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