Booker T Washington made those comments during Jim Crow apartheid. That's how far off and dumb Washington was. Of course whites loved Washington because he didn't mind staying a punk and just taking the racism.
We did not get the right to vote, equal rights or equal opportunities because of the Booker T Washington plan. We did not get civil rights by doing what Booker T wanted done. This is what some black conservatives need to understand. Appeasing and going along with the whites who are racists hoping that changes them DOES NOT WORK! Washington’s plan did not work for one major reason. Ta-Nehisi Coates points this out in his 2009 article, “The Tragedy And Betrayal Of Booker T. Washington.”
“The dominant logic of the post-Reconstruction era held that the real problem wasn't white racists, but carpetbaggers and meddlers from up North who'd elevated illiterate blacks above their station. The white Southerner, presumably, had no existential objection to blacks, they just didn't want to live next door to them or have an illiterate and morally degenerate population electing their politicians. To this Washington, and much of black America, said Fine. Cease fire. You let us be, we'll let you be.”
His idea or plan did not work out because he dismissed one essential truth. Southern Whites hated blacks. They did not want blacks succeeding, all they wanted was for blacks to get out of the way and return to slavery. He seems to have paid no attention to how much southern whites did not like the fact blacks were free. Like a few of todays black conservatives, Washington looked past the rhetoric whites kept on speaking, the laws and polices they passed and thought that perhaps if we just accept things, one day we will gain our respect. Eventually if we do it this way, the racism will end. That if we just leave them alone and do what we do, if we just ignore the racism they won’t bother us and we won’t bother them.
To further understand how stupid those comments are, Washington lived when blacks did not have full constitutional rights. We could not vote in the south. We were overtly denied opportunities by law. No matter how loud republicans of today get with how they are the party of Lincoln, blacks then did not have much support from either the republican or democratic party. He was in the south where whites would sneak up on your family and do harm if you got too “uppity.” The night riders burned crosses in yards. The military was of no help to them. Neither were the police or the justice system. Lynching was legal. Whites were slaughtering blacks at will and Washington was watching it.
Frederick Douglass spoke a truth Washington was far to timid to hear.
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