A Rhetorical Analysis Of Booker T. Washington's Speech

On September 18, 1895, an African-American leader and spokesman Booker T. Washington stood before a primarily white participant at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. His Atlanta Compromise speech was one of the greatest, most famous and influential speeches in American history (Harlan and Booker, 1987). Even though the planners of the exposition concerned that public sentiment was not ready for such a high-level segment, they decided that welcoming a black speaker would influence Northern guests with the signal of racial advancement in the South. Washington calmed his listeners’ worries about presumptuous blacks by appealing that his race would gratify itself with living by the makings of their hands. The speech placed
the basis for an agreement between Southern white leaders and African-American leaders in which Southern blacks would labor humble and surrender to the white political decree, while Southern whites assured that blacks would be given basic schooling and due process of the rule.
Washington started with a plea to the blacks, which consisted of one-third of the Southern populace, to join the domain of work. He stated that the blacks were given their chances in the South as contrasting to the North, mainly in the worlds of business and industry. He articulated to the white audience that reasonably than depending on the immigrant inhabitants arriving at the proportion of a million individuals a year, they should employ some of the nation's eight million blacks (Harlan and Booker, 1987). He applauded blacks' devotion, loyalty, and love in service to the white people, but cautioned that they could be a significant problem for humanity if repression continued, affirming that the development of the South was fundamentally tied to the handling of blacks and safeguarding of their liberties.
Washington also relieved many whites' worries about blacks' wish for social incorporation by asserting that both blacks and whites could be as discrete as the fingers, but be one as the hand in all things vital to mutual growth.
Washington's speaking also called for whites to take obligation for refining social and economic associations between the black and the whites. Washington guaranteed his audience that he would inspire blacks to become skillful in mechanics, commerce, agriculture, and domestic service he also promised to encourage them to glorify common labour (Perdue, 2011). Washington's speech answered the Negro problem which was the query of what to do about the horrible social and economic circumstances of blacks and the affiliation between blacks and whites in the economically fluctuating
South.
In his speech, Washington also advocated for the whites to make the black person a more useful. He claimed that there is no security or defense for any race but in the highest intellect and expansion of all. He referred to this as the laws of changeless justice that bonded both the Oppressor and oppressed (Logan, 1954). He added that If anywhere determinations were tending to limit the completest growth of the black person, they should be turned into inspiring, encouraging, and making him the most valuable and intellectual citizen. He guaranteed his audience such Effort or means would pay a thousand per cent interest. He stated that these efforts would be twice blessed that is; blessing the black person that gives and the black man that takes.
Washington also claimed that wisest among black race understood that the worry of questions of social equivalence was the radical foolishness, and that progress in the gratification of all the freedoms that would come to them was to be as the result of severe and continuous struggle rather than of false forcing (Perdue, 2011). He stated that No race that has something to give to the markets of the world is extended in any degree disliked. He encouraged the blacks that right to all privileges of the law could be theirs but it was much more important that they prepare for the application of these rights. He added that opportunity to make a dollar in a factory was worth markedly more than the chance to spend a dollar in an oppression house.
In conclusion, Washington stated that vocational education, which provided blacks a chance for economic sanctuary, was more important to them than social gains, political office, or higher education.
He summarized his idea of race relations suitable for the times by stating that both the black and whites could be as unconnected as the fingers, but be one as the hand in everything relevant to related progress. He also guaranteed that, for blacks to remain peaceful and socially distinct from whites, the white community required to accept obligation for improving the social and economic welfares of all Americans irrespective of skin
colour.