Essay Sample on African-Americans: Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are

Introduction

Washington meant that the Negroes should focus on making differences by addressing their root problems rather than looking beyond their current situation. Change and relations with the whites will occur if they embrace creating relations from their nearest reach. Washington feels that African Americans in the south have more chances of pursuing change if they embrace their manual labor to develop skills and knowledge. Manual labor is an opportunity to which the Negroes can unite before facing the white.

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What Washington Is Arguing For

Washington is arguing for the fair treatment of African Americans by the whites in the south. The Negroes have played a vital role in influencing the prosperity of the south. Accommodating the Negroes as friends would be more beneficial than forcing them to work while still sabotaging their work to create chaos and losses. Extremest folly is the knowledge that whites lack. If a social change has to be achieved, individuals should take advantage of what the whites do not know. Social changes occur through struggle because the whites are not ready to embrace the African Americans in society.

Appealing to a White Audience

Washington addresses the audience in the second person while he refers to the blacks in the third person, meaning the black audience is not present. For instance, 'Casting down your bucket among my people…' Washington would have addressed the audience differently if they were black. For instance, he could have used more family-related words like my brothers and sisters. Washington would like to show his connection and identity with the black audience. He would also use the first person plural pronoun to show he belongs to the audience.

Racial Accommodation

The Southerners felt that the policy was insightful on how they would fully maximize the African American efforts in their activities. The racial accommodation is a strategy to which they would impact the morale of African American slaves through friendship and civilization. All the parties would benefit and would achieve both social and economic prosperity. African Americans have struggled to ensure they enjoy the same legal privileges as their white counterparts.

Washington uses this phrase, ‘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,' to show the similarity between the blacks and the whites as human beings with needs and desires to progress. Despite their color differences, African Americans and the Southerners desire to be free and prosper in their social, economic, intellectual, and political aspects.

W.E.B Du Bois on Racial Equality

Washington, through ‘separate fingers on one hand' attitude, meant that the African Americans had the same desires to pursue. Washington advocated for equality, addressing their needs because they are the same as those of the whites. The African Americans compared their needs to those of the southerners. According to DuBois, Washington was compromising with the white southerners. Washington wanted the blacks to forget all the sins the white had done once they get accommodated. According to DuBois, Washington's ideas made Africans think they would only survive by submitting to the white southerners even though they were in their land.

Three Main Policies

Washington led to the emergence of three policies:

The Disfranchisement of the Negro

African Americans were deprived of various permits, such as their rights. The blacks were viewed as inferior compared to other races, and because of their low social level, they ought to be discriminated against.

The Legal Creation of a Distinct Status of Civil Inferiority for the Negro

African Americans were regarded as low-class individuals who accepted their inferiority by giving up their lands to accommodate the white southerners. African Americans became artisan businessmen and property owners who could not defend their rights on these low-level statuses.

The Withdrawal of Aid for Training

Negroes were made to strive hard to help themselves since they had abolished common schools for industrial training. The schools became slow because they had to wait for black teachers to train white schools to go back and teach.

Three Half-Truths

Washington propaganda led to the emergence of the half-truth that south attitude was right because the Negroes inferiority allowed for such an attitude. The African Americans had shown the white southerners that they could accept them to occupy their land for political power, industrial training, and civil rights. Secondly, the education offered to Negroes prevented them from rising quickly. The Negroes considered the education offered to them as inadequate for their civilization. They, therefore, need industrial training to enable them to become property owners and businessmen. Third, Negroes future depended on their efforts. These led to abolitions of the aid that was offered to the Negroes. The Negroes, according to Washington, needed the same chances to develop themselves.

Conclusion

The Negroes problem is equality and recognition by the south. The problem lies in the shoulders of Negroes because they believe they have to strive to succeed in their struggles. The Negroes mistake to accept help and support from the south makes it impossible to solve their problem. The problem should get shouldered by the nation. The nation is capable of creating policies through available materials and wisdom they possess. The problem needs to get seconded by institutions with the political powers to address such issues.

Bibliography

Johnson, Michael P. Reading the American Past: Volume II: From 1865: Selected Historical Documents. Vol. 2. Macmillan, 2012.