I thought the reading for this week was really interesting.
It reflected the feelings of the country at the time through the views of three
different people to get a more accurate feel of what the atmosphere might have
been like.
The format of Booker T. Washington's writing, as well as W.E.B. Du
Bois, is in a narrative format, as if they were expressing their sentiments on
the present social issues and how they should be handled. I liked reading
the excerpts from their books because it gave me a good sense of what exactly
was going on in that time period and exactly what their thoughts were.
However, there were times while I was reading Du Bois that it got a
little wordy and I got a little bored. I really enjoyed Charles
Chestnutt's story, "The Sheriff's Children," as it presented the idea
in a story format and was able to bring the situation to life.
In “Up From Slavery”, by Washington, a
good portion of the excerpt they share is from a speech he gave at the Atlanta
Exposition. Before he gets up to deliver
the speech he said “the thing that was uppermost in my mind was the desire to
say something that would cement the friendship of the races and bring about
hearty cooperation between them” (162).
As I read through the address and the rest of the excerpt it seemed to
me that this statement is the underlying idea of Washington’s feelings
regarding the relationships between the White and African-American people. I like how he talks about “casting down your
bucket where you are” and “not permitting your grievances to overshadow
opportunities” (163). He is telling the
men of all races to cast their differences aside and to take advantage of what
is around them and use the others around them to make new friends and to build
up the economy again as well. There are
some things that Washington mentions where I can see that people of his race
could believe he isn’t fighting hard enough for them or
he is taking the other side, but he just
believes that things are going to come slowly for them and not happen
overnight.
One of the things I really like in
Chestnutt’s story was how he was able to portray the inner-struggle and the
consequences that people were dealing with both because of slavery and the
effects of the war. The sheriff, who is
the main character of the story, goes through a process of self-evaluation
during the course of the story to try to figure out what is most important to
him. He is extremely dedicated to his
job, but when he finds out the prisoner is his son he questions what the right
thing for him to do is, even when his life is threatened. I found it
interesting how freedom was portrayed in this story for the son of the
sheriff. He was trapped in the prison
literally speaking, but then even when he could escape or if he was released he
would never be free because “he had learned that no degree of leaning or wisdom
will change the color of (his) skin and (he) will always wear a badge of
degradation” (186). I think from the
encounter with his son the sheriff has guilt transferred to him and is now
weighed down by some of past actions and has lost some of his freedom. He felt that he “owed some duty to this son
of his” and “that he might have saved this spirit” (188). In order to get rid of some of his guilt he
hopes to “atone” for some of his sin by doing everything he can to acquit his
son of the crime only to find his son had bled to death during the night. The sheriff/father will always have to live
with what he has done, if anything the guilt has been made worse. I think Chesnutt chose an ironic way to
portray the white dealing with the consequences of the war.
Du Bois had a lot to say against
Washington in the excerpt from "The Souls of Black Folk, and how his thoughts “practically accept the alleged inferiority of
the Negro races” (248). To say the least
they do not agree on politics. Whereas
Washington believed it was fine to give up some of the social and political
rights to advance economically, Du Bois represented the group who believed they
should not be deprived of anything. One
of the issues he brought up was “through the pressure of the money-makers, the
Negro is in danger of being reduced to semi-slavery”(252) He also talked about how different classes of
citizens treated the African-Americans and though some were willing to help
most still view them as incompetent, as competition, or still hated them. I can see that both men have valid points, but
Washington is trying to please both groups of people where Du Bois is more
speaking for the cause of the African-Americans.
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