Name: Bhupal Khanal

Unit: 5 Document Analysis

After reading the speech of Booker T. Washington, I felt that the lesson of this speech is
still useful and applicable for some of the minority refugee communities in the United States. It
is more pragmatic now than it was in his time. In his speech he encouraged the AfricanAmerican to be independent, educated, skilled, and intellectual to compete with their white
counterparts. He also said that before getting all the rights and privileges of the United States
citizen, all the black-American should be educated and ready for it. Therefore he asked all the
people from black community to cast down their bucket where they were. Which means he
asked all the black-American to find an opportunity in their adversities. With this phrase he is
also encouraging all the African-American to find an opportunity in agriculture, mechanics,
commerce, domestic service, and other different professions. For the improvement of blackpeople skills especially for agricultural advancement he build the Tuskegee institute. As well as
he is reminding to his race that everything starts at the bottom not at the top. Since all the
African-American were tortured, enslaved, and were deprived from education or any other
vocation, so he is telling his people to be educated and skilled while using their rights and
privileges. Booker T. Washington was also telling his people not to portray or copy the white life
style before knowing what they are doing. He is also urging all black-American to enjoy their
work and he was warning his people that it is better to earn a dollar in factory instead of
spending it in an opera-house.
Along with African-American he also urged all the white people of south to cast their
bucket down which means to give an opportunity to the loyal, obedient, and hardworking
African-American whom they had known for years to work in their factories, farms, and houses
with decent treatment. As well as he was asking all the white people to train their labor with
different skill depending on the nature of their work and he was also asking all the white race to
educate all the one-third population of blacks for the development of southern state over all. He
is also telling that, if they give a chance to African-American for an education and different
training then black people can buy their useless land and help them economically as well. In
addition he was reminding all the white supremacies about the progress made by the black
people within thirty years from the ownership of few quilts, pumpkins, and chicken to the
invention and production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam-engines, newspapers,
books, statuary, carving, painting, the management of drug stores and banks which were
achieved by their hard work. With this argument he was telling all the white counterparts that
black-people also has an ability to improve and learn new things like them, which would help in
the construction of the new south, so that they should give an opportunity for education and
vocation to learn skill to all the one-third black population of the south. He also said that if white
people educate and train all the black population then there will be sixteen millions of hands to
help them in pulling the load, there would be decrease in the ignorance and crime, and there
would be more contribution on business and industrial prosperity of the south. All this sixteen
million black people will be loyal and obedient as in past to help them but in term of social

relationship they should be treated as the same finger of one hand. He proposed the white race
should treat the black race as separate as the fingers in the same hand for the progress of the
south.
Furthermore Mr. Washington was convincing all the black population of the south not to
better their lives with the past incidents, instead he told them to cultivate the friendly relations
with the southern white people who are their next-door neighbor. He also told his people that
nothing could be earned free, so that they should work hard to earn their freedom and to cultivate
mutual relation with the white people. As well as he told them that they should work hard to
prove that they can be as proficient as white.
In conclusion he said that the black-American got hopes, encouragements, and became
more close to the white race in thirty years. From his this statement I think he was over
exaggerating and over simplifying the life of African-American because even after the civil war
black people were treated harshly by the southern whites by passing the law like black codes,
law of segregation, and convicting all the black worker for their minor fault. Booker T.
Washington generalization on thirty years since civil war didnt quite match with what I read in
the book because there was very less hope in the black people of south even though they were
emancipated. Initially racist white of south tried their best to stop the black people from voting
and categorized them as second-class citizen where Fredrick Douglas commented, slavery is not
abolished until the black man has the ballot. Douglas also commented that anything less than
citizenship would betray the nations democratic promise and war meaning. Despite the Fredrick
Douglas protest racist southern white tried to eliminate the black voting disregarding the
fifteenth amendment as well as cruel white killed lots of black people by accusing them for the
act which is not done by them and lynching them. Therefore still there is very less hope in the
black community because racial issues were not really discussed after civil war. I agree with
Washington and his generalization about improvement of black people life within thirty years
after they got freed from slavery.
In addition Washington speech was not taken in positive way as per the oral history thus
this made the life of black people very hard in the south. In the south he had to walk warily to
avoid the harshest judgments from the white society as well as from his own people who were
narrow minded. From the comment it was clear that all the white supremacies has tried their best
to make the life of black people worst which as a result hamper the life of poor whites. As per the
oral histories some black went to the school to improve their lives, which says that even though
some narrow-minded black didnt like Washington comment but some educated black took it
positively and went to the school. After reading the comment on oral history and according to
our book there were no any hope for the new south at all because there were lots of economic
problem for the lower class white problems. They were not able to send their children to school
because of their inability to the clothes for them. If the poor white farmers were unable to send
their kids to the school it was impossible for black to get educated.

Reference:
Foner, E. (2014). An American History: Give Me Liberty! (S. Forman, Ed.), Freedoms
Boundaries, At
Home and Abroad (pp. 508 to 541). New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Foner, E. (2014). An American History: Give Me Liberty! (S. Forman, Ed.), What is Freedom
(pp. 444).
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Booker T. Washington Delivers the 1895 Atlanta Compromise Speech. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/39/

Almost Broken Spirits: Farmers in the New South. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5742

Atkins, J.M. (2015). New South Voices. Retrieved from http://newsouthvoices.uncc.edu