Booker T Washington Address Analysis

The late 1800’s, a time of great racial tension in the South, set the stage for Booker T. Washington’s famous address. During this time of crisis in the United States, blacks were the victims of unspeakable crimes such as torture, castration, hanging and lynching at the hands of white Americans (Retrieving the American Past 7). A new strategy needed to be developed to assist the blacks in America. The organizers of the Atlanta Exposition invited Booker T. Washington to speak at their event because he was a politically powerful African American who was accepted by the majority of white Americans. Washington, an ex-slave, and the founder of the Tuskegee Institute, a predominantly Black institution and a model industrial and agricultural school, believed that blacks should attend school and learn skills that would enable them to better themselves and
In one of the most significant speeches in American history, Washington encourages blacks to take advantage of opportunities in agriculture, business and commerce rather than protest as a means of securing civil rights and equality (Alridge). He indicates that mistakes were made in the early years after emancipation in his statement, “It is at the bottom of life, we must begin, and not at the top” (Washington 8). This reference specifically targeted blacks vying for public office rather than starting with a trade or occupation. Washington believed that Reconstruction efforts failed because they offered too much too soon and that it was critical that blacks were educated and worked their way up the ladder to success. Washington states, “No race can prosper till it, learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem” (Washington 9). This statement reiterates Washington’s ideas regarding blacks learning a trade in order to earn a good living before going on to