Atlanta Compromise Essay Example

would impress their Northern visitors; attempting to portray that the South was making racial progress.

The language of Booker T. Washington’s speech was constructed as if a white man had written it. In the past African-Americans were not looked at as being able to develop a speech of such magnitude and influence. The language he used in his speech illustrated that he was a well-educated African-American and that he was able to touch on topics that appealed to white citizens while including progression for Blacks. The document was prescriptive, Washington gave specific remedies for how and in what settings whites and African-Americans could work together to reap the most benefits for each group. “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the finger, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress”, is the perfect quote from his speech to summarize the perspective of the document as a whole.

I thought that Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” was a step in the right direction for African-Americans of the time. I feel that Washington wanted to work with the white citizens by not asking for so many changes in society at one time. I got the impression that he wanted to start by building on their trust in one another that had begun during slavery. This document impacted my idea of progressivism because it depicted how an African-American was able to give a speech amongst a majority white audience and bargain for basic rights for his people.