Booker T. Washington

• Blog – How is Washington providing an answer to the ‘go North’ or ‘stay South’ debate we looked at in Frederick Douglass’s Life and Times?

Booker T. Washington in his “Atlanta Exposition Address” began with a call to the blacks, which comprised nearly one-third of the South’s population. He told them that they needed to join the world of work. Within his speech, Washington provides an answer to “stay South”. He told the blacks that the best chance they had to join the world of work was in the South, most particularly in commerce and industry. “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.” (Pg. 595) This relates to Frederick Douglass’s Life and Times because Douglass tells the African Americans migrating to the North that they should not only to stay in the South but also that the Northern cities can’t take a large influx of people and that they can demand better jobs/higher pay if they support the Southern economy. Then Washington goes on to address his white audience. He told them that instead of waiting for immigrants and put them to work, they should hire some of the eight million blacks. Washington tries to entice the whites with telling them of how loyal and hardworking the blacks are. Along with trying to get blacks into the world of work he also tried to downplay the quest for civil equality by telling his white audience, “ 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.” (Pg. 596) Washington said this so as not to seem desperate, in hope that in not doing so the whites would be more willing to take a chance and hire some of the blacks.