Analysis Of Up From Slavery By Booker T. Washington

Since the beginning of the Civil War and the 1920’s, African American leaders and writers have shown the different perspective of what is to be Black in a society that neglected African-Americans. African-Americans have been in the middle of a battlefield of discrimination, success, and opportunity among whites. Demonstrated in Literature African-Americans have used the idea of blackness and whiteness to show that African American still suffered racial discrimination after the Civil War. Exclusively, in authors who have suffered discrimination skin deep the idea of black over white is remarkable shown. These authors have made a significant impact even among themselves, resulting in big debates toward the definition of Blacks in the United States. The description of African-Americans among whites and even among African-Americans led to the ideology of what is to be black. Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, W.E.B. Du Bois’ Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others taken from the Souls of Black Folk, and Langston Hughes’ The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain illustrated this idea of what is to be an African-American among white people. Booker T. Washington’s speech Up from Slavery is an excellent example of what is to be Black among whites. In 1901, Washington wrote an outstanding essay based on his speech at the Atlanta Exposition Address expressing his feeling toward the speech itself and results of it. In his statement, Booker T. Washington goes on with his intellectual language to address whites and blacks on their relationship. Washington begins his speech mentioning the population of African American in the south, statement that later will be transformed into an area of confusion and no escape for most African-Americans. Strange from an African American, Booker T Washington offers blacks to rely on whites, this idea seemed naïve for most African American. However, the idea represented an escape for whites since it was coming from a famous African-American leader. According to Booker T. Washington, African-Americans did not have the chance to be successful because of their background compared to whites. Therefore, blacks should always …show more content…
Washington. In the essay Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington, the ideology of a relationship between blacks and whites is primarily present throughout the piece. Booker T. Washington always pointed out that whites and blacks should be more friends then enemies that they should work together for their benefits. Nevertheless, that relationship will open more doors for African American such as voting. He stated that by voting the Negro man “should more and more be influenced by those of intelligence and character who are his next-door neighbors (whites)” (Washington 436). According to Booker T. Washington, the Negro man must depend on, look, and go with everything the white man does. The white man who by the way, is the “best influence” for the black man, is also the best escape from the ideology of blacks and whites being different. By this, Booker T. Washington confused the idea of being black in the United States; he throughout the essay regularly used the idea of the friendship of black and whites. The idea that might appear as a good solution for African-Americans in the south and the north since people wanted to be equal, but also, this idea confused many African-Americans, Booker T. Washington is telling people from his race to rely on the same people who mistreated them for