The Legacy of Washington

This essay discusses the legacy of Booker T. Washington, a leader of the black community in the post-civil war era. It explores his autobiography 'Up From Slavery' and his Atlanta Speech, highlighting his contributions to the fight against racial oppression and the importance of education.

Running head: THE LEGACY OF WASHINGTON
THE LEGACY OF WASHINGTON
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Booker Taliaferro Washington was one of the pioneering intellectuals who had played an
active role in championing the rights of the people of colour in the United States of America in
order to fight racialism in the post civil war period in the country. Being of African American
descent, and born to parents who were slaves, brought up at a farmyard of Virginia amidst a lot
of difficulties, he had never given up. Over the years by means of receiving holistic education he
had made himself capable of being the one to show people belonging to his racial background
the path to development. The most notable contributions of his has been to disseminate the
importance of education in bringing one up from the quagmire of oppression and making oneself
self sufficient. In this particular essay his legacy as a leader of the blacks and other oppressed
people belonging to non white racial background in the post civil war period shall be discussed,
in light of his autobiography, ’Up From Slavery’ and his Atlanta Speech.
His autobiography, ’Up From Slavery’ is a memoir of the journey of his life from being a
child of a slave to his rise to the prestigious position of a school master. ’Up From Slavery’ very
vividly portrays the struggle which he had had faced in his life to reach up to a position from
where he could exert life changing influence upon the lives of the oppressed ones, which had
continued for as long as forty years.
The autobiography very eloquently expresses the differences in the social conditions
pertaining to the racial dynamics of the region where he resided, the southern part of the country,
which used to be infamous for inter racial tensions. He had mentioned that the years preceding
the civil war and abolishment of slavery in the United States of America were marked by
immense hardships, which were relatively relaxed in the post civil war period. Growing up
witnessing, the hard labour his mother had to devote to bring food to the table, the thoroughly
miserable condition of life that they led caused by the ill treatment of the white masters and

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underpayment of salaries, and the brutality perpetrated on the child labourers of the city of
Malden, Washington had decided that he shall be breaking free from the shackles of oppression
(Washington).
His conviction for leading a better life had driven him to pursue education seriously so
that he could not just change his own life but also that of others of his kind. Washington had used
the example of his mother whom he considered as a victim of the system of slavery. She was a
noble woman and performed all her duties diligently, yet she was accused of being a thief. Like
her, there were many other slaves who tended on to their masters with the fullest fervor, yet the
reward was meagre and beatings were an inevitable part of the fate of the slaves. Some slaves
could even go to the extent of laying down their own lives for their mistresses but the children of
the whites grew up to thrash the slaves who nurtured them. He had thus taken to manual labour
to supplement the expense of his education, as he had made it his goal to pursue his education at
the Hampton Institute. All of it despite not having pleasant memory about manual labour which
was the prerogative and duty of the slaves and was not very rewarding.
From helping out his teachers to keep the classrooms clean and tidy, he was gradually
promoted to the level which enabled him to be a teacher to students of all ages at night classes,
on Sundays and even by means of delivering lessons privately. That was his first encounter with
teaching and later during the period of Reconstruction he had tried to expand the horizon of his
work by actually doing something concrete in terms of making the vision of making the lives of
the blacks better. The promise of providing educational and vocational opportunities to the
oppressed race of the country was actually fulfilled by Washington by setting up of the Tuskegee
school (Washington).

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The provisions necessary for setting up was missing. There was no infrastructural facility,
and moreover the people were too poor to pay for the education of their children. Hence the
Tuskegee system of school had to choose an alternative method of disseminating education
amongst the masses which was quite different from the New England system and did not rely on
the text book mode of instruction. The goal was to help people to excel in being what they were
good at. Which meant that Washington encouraged the people to be whatever they wanted, either
a farmer or a teacher or anything else but they were essentially supposed to be morally upright
human beings. The aim was to raise and nurture people who would acquire skills that would be
beneficial to the local people and the local economy (Washington).
The most striking feature of the Tuskegee system of education was that it had tried to
cultivate the skills of the local people in a way which would be marketable, and the emphasis
was thus on vocational training. Coming from an underprivileged background, he did not want
his fellow people to suffer like him and his mother, hence he tried to make the people of colour
capable enough to venture out into the world of opportunities and make their lives better outside
the limits of the farms of white masters. The white masters in the views of Washington were
extremely exploitative and they hindered the progress of the black people as that would dissuade
them from working in their fields as slaves (Washington).
Washington had in the post civil war period tried to fight the notion that the people of
colour were incapable of being intelligent and to occupy positions and offices which are
monopolized by the whites. Though the white masses were hostile towards the people of colour,
yet Washington was mindful of not saying anything publicly which would incite violence
amongst the whites and the people of colour. The Black Belt, where Washington lived was prone

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to riots and he had tried to pacify riots by calling for more cooperation among the races
(Washington).
He had emphasized upon the harmony between the whites and the people of colour in
several of his public speeches. In of the most notable speeches of his, is the Atlanta Speech, in
which he had emphasized upon the failure of the reconstruction era to provide the people of
colour with opportunities to uplift themselves. Hence he had put forward his idea of segregated
schools for the whites and the black and had also called for more harmony between the two
races. The reason behind arriving at such a compromise was Washington’s foresightedness that
even in the post civil war period the situations were not conducive enough for the people of
colour to lay a claim to equality and a position of parity with the whites. Hence he wanted to
separate facilities for the blacks just to avoid clashes and violence, as the blacks had to
concentrate more on building their future instead of indulging in rivalries (Washington).
Thus it becomes clear that the segregationist policy of Washington was actually not a
ploy to divide the whites and the people of colour. Rather it was a method to forge cooperation
amongst the two races.

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References
Washington, Booker T. "The Atlanta exposition address." Capitalism vs. Collectivism: The
Colonial Era to 1945. Routledge, 2013. 58-68.
Washington, Booker T. Up from slavery. Simon and Schuster, 2013.