Kate Masur

Project Report: Oral History and the History of the Civil Rights Movement - Kim Lacy Rogers, The Journal of American History, Vol. 75, No. 2 (1988), pp. 567-576

In September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington gave an address, that was known as the “Atlanta Compromise”, at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition. The fact that Mr. Washington was invited to speak to this all-white southern audience, was itself a historic event. In his speech, Washington made the argument that the African-American people should not ask for the right to vote, they would not retaliate against any racist behavior, and they would tolerate segregation and discrimination. Washington strongly argued that African Americans to get rid of Reconstruction-era notions of social equality. Booker T. Washington gave a couple proposals during this speech in Atlanta. Instead, he argued, most Southern blacks should pursue

Isabel Wilkerson is very thorough in this reading. She covers the exodus of blacks from the Deep South beginning with the First World War up to the end of the Civil Rights Movement, and even slightly beyond. Because this occurrence of migration lasted for generations, it was hard to see it while it was happening, and most of its participants were unaware that they were part of any analytical change in black American residency, but in the end, six million African Americans left the South during these years. And while Jim Crow is arguably the chief reason for this migration, the settings, skills, and outcomes of these migrants ranged as widely as one might expect considering the movement’s longevity. I liked Wilkerson’s depiction of Ida Mae,

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” King’s words immaculately depict Booker T. Washington’s methods of ending discrimination in the Jim Crow south. While King’s words perfectly depict Washington’s philosophy, they directly rebut against WE.B Dubois’ methods of ending discrimination in the Jim Crow south. Even though both men agreed that African Americans deserved the fair treatment, they combatted viewpoints on how to resolve the issue. Booker T. Washington believess that African Americans should be proficient in manual labor before even considering the possibilities of political positions or equal rights, on the other hand, W.E.B

Free People of Color: Inside the African American Community, written by James Oliver Horton, is an interesting book that portrays antebellum African American communities and its occupants whose lives were both confounded by prohibitive powers and brought together by common goals.It explores dynamic debates within these communities over gender, color, and national identities, as well as leadership styles and politics. Published in 1993, this book uncovers the diversity and distinctions of free black society in northern cities such as Boston, Buffalo, and Washington D.C. A Smithsonian director and an American civilization professor at George Washington University in Washington D.C., Horton captivates the reader with a compelling study of the

America is often considered the land of opportunities, a place where people can have a fresh start, a clean slate. America is a land that is made up of immigrants. Over the centuries America has been a place where people dream to live in, however the American dream wasn 't as perfect as believed; there were issues of race inferiority, slavery and social inequality amongst other problems. When a person arrives into a new society he has a difficult task ahead of him- to assimilate into that new society- which includes the economical, cultural, political and social aspects. In the following paper I will discuss how the African American, who came as slaves to America, has fought over the centuries to achieve equality in a white society that discriminated them. I will show how abolitionists like Fredrick Douglass and W.E.B Du Bois used literature to fight the preconceptions about the black people.

Washington begins by addressing the population of African Americans in the south. “One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race.” He establishes the importance of African Americans in the South. He then goes on stating “The opportunity here afforded will awaken

In the book “Killers of the Dream” by Lillian smith there are several ideas that are brought forward that really demonstrate that the author exaggerates the true situation and the state of affairs in the south. In the context of the book, the south was experiencing serious crisis when the whited propagated segregation against the blacks and other low class whites. The paper contains the author’s thesis and a summary of the author’s primary points. Additionally, the paper examines whether the authors account is incomplete, questionable or cases where the account does not make sense. The social profiling that resulted was regrettable and brought serious repercussions to the society in general. The points out the dream of a child being individual

Booker T. Washington is by far one of the brightest and strongest minds from his time. During his Atlanta Exposition address he displays his intellect masterfully. From Mr. Washington’s use of language he was able to seamlessly piece together a speech that we still analyse to this day. Mr. Washington use of rhetoric explains and enlightens the circumstances of freed African Americans trying to fit into communities in the south. From mistreatment and racism still present in the newly freed people.

E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington debated whether to confront or appease racist attitudes in the United States. As segregation regimes took hold in the South in the 1890s with the tacit approval of the rest of the country, many African Americans found a champion in Booker T. Washington and adopted his self-help autobiography, Up from Slavery (1901), as their guide book to improve fortunes. Washington portrayed his own life in such a way as to suggest that even the most disadvantaged of black people could attain dignity and prosperity in the South by providing themselves valuable, productive members of society deserving of fair and equal treatment before the law. A classic American success story, Up from Slavery solidified Washington’s reputation as the most eminent African American of the new century. Yet Washington’s primacy was soon challenged. In his landmark collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, a professor of sociology at Atlanta University, disputed the main principle of Washington’s political program, the idea that voting and civil rights were less important to black progress than acquiring property and achieving economic self-sufficiency and then Du Bois’s striving to dramatize in his narrator a synthesis of racial and national consciousness dedicated to “the ideal of human brotherhood” made The Souls of Black Folk one of the most

This work by Booker T. Washington, “The Atlanta Exposition Address”, or also known as “The Atlanta Compromise”, was a speech given in 1895 at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta that had a lasting impact not only to the crowd listening, but to the nation as a whole. Booker T. Washington was admired and appreciated by many black Americans. Although, everyone in the African American Community admired his overall achievements leading up to his speech in Atlanta, some of his ideas and thoughts became very controversial within the black community and possibly encouraged the Jim Crow era by proposing the ideology of separate but equal. “The Atlanta Exposition Address,” was significant in shaping history because it; sparked a split and debate within the African American community over the ideas Booker T. Washington proposed in the address, and simultaneously affected the nation as a whole with future laws passed off the basis of Washington’s ideology.

Dr. W.E.B Du Bois uses this essay to sway the audience of the insufficiency of the statements that Mr. Booker T. Washington has made about African Americans being submissive of rights and the creation of wealth. Mr. Washington believes that the black race should give up and give into what the society norms were at that time sequentially just to have a certain right. Dr. Du Bois refused to believe that the black race should give up one right to get another right. Especially, when the white South had all rights without expecting to give up anything to have those rights.

For African-Americans facing opposition from antagonistic whites and Jim Crow laws leaving the South made political, social, and economic sense.

After recent protests in Baltimore, Badger (2016) explores the nature of policies set in the early 1900’s that have shaped the city of Baltimore, and that continue to have an effect on their quality of life. Actions such as redlining and urban renewal have perpetuated poverty and segregation in the same neighborhoods today as 75 year ago. This article calls attention to the effect of system-wide race discrimination in Baltimore, and how policies create a cyclical link between race and disadvantage in communities.

Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. Prior to the riot, African Americans had listened to Washington’s advice. Washington believed that African Americans should be sublevel to whites and focus all their time working diligently and progressing in blue-collar society. This would allow whites to feel supreme, but also allow African Americans to make something of themselves and provide for their families. Washington wanted blacks to be educationally ready for the argument of equality. These ideas would later begin to deteriorate in the black communities due to Jim Crow laws, racial discrimination, and eventually the race riot. Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. After the riot in Atlanta, many African American looked to the ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois. Bois, who help find the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, wanted to force equality for African Americans by all ways possible. He believed this would be a faster approach than Washington’s ideas. His can-do attitude is shown after the riot when African Americans begin to arm themselves and fight back. The author focuses on these two to prove the point that the African American people, while able to make decisions for themselves, were heavily influenced by the media, fear, and black leaders of their