Booker T. Washington Leader or Uncle Tom?
After the Civil War, slavery and discrimination had to be accomplished by other methods. The former slave owners were confronted with what they called “The Negro Problem.” Blacks are uneducated having just been released from slavery. They were poor and lived in slum conditions or in the woods or near army bases in makeshift tents. Racist stereotypes of Black rapists and lazy individuals were heavily propagandized. The South after the Civil War went through a transformation from anagricultural society to a more industrial one, and the white supremacists needed to make use of Black people to do their work. No one was more lazy than slave owners as they were not about to do their own cooking or picking the crops. They found an individual that agreed with them that Blacks would be needed to serve the needs of whites in a society that was seeking to make them the equal to whites in some areas. That person was Booker T. Washington. Ever wonder why there are public schools named after him in many cities and states, but few after W.E. B. Dubois?
Washington believed that the barriers of racial inequality and social injustice would start to dissolve once it became clear to whites that blacks would only be concerned with servicing the needs of whites and not their own Black community and be content with subsisting “by the labor of our hands.” These statements were spoken in 1895, at the Atlanta Exposition, also known as the Cotton States and International Exposition, which was held in Atlanta, Georgia. Washington’s speech placed more emphasis on accommodation to white supremacy than on fighting the segregation and racism that African Americans endured. He advised blacks to put aside demands for political and equal rights and instead focus on developing vocational skills and usefulness by physical labor. He rejected agitation and protest tactics. He was the “Sambo” of that day just like we have now in Herschel Walker, Kanye West, and others.
In short, Washington bowed down to the whims of white supremacists and this created a rift in the Black community. The Atlanta Exposition in 1895 was seen as a “compromise” with racists by the famed scholar and civil rights leader W.E. B. Dubois. W.E.B. Dubois, in the “Souls of Black Folk,” criticized Washington since he told the white audience that Blacks shouldn’t seek civil rights, that segregation is the correct thing, and Blacks should only seek vocational training and not compete with whites in the academic areas. Washington received astanding ovation from the whites in attendance who loved to hear him sell his people short. Washington was planning an accommodation to racism, which stressed training that serviced the needs of whites. This included education in sowing, cooking, washing clothes, driving Ms. Daisy, yard work, handyman type work, and emphasis on sports, dancing, singing; things that can entertain whites.
However, in a true fighting spirit, Dubois stressed the idea that racism must be fought and one should not make compromiseswith racism or racist ideology. Dubois believed in full integration,college education that trains Blacks in the academics and full civilrights for all African Americans. If Booker T. Washington’s ideas had prevailed there would never have been the benefits we have now. We would still only be able to be “The Help” to white bigots.It is interesting to note that the Supreme Court case of Plessey vs. Ferguson happened a year after Booker T. Washington gave an American white supremacist society a green light to make segregation legal.
