Cast Down Your Buckets Where You Are

Booker T. Washington
By Randall E. Brock

Booker T. Washington's renowned speech at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895 catapulted him into national prominence, and set the stage for his recognition historically as an important American. "Cast down your bucket where you are" was indelibly etched into the economic and political fabric of a society grappling with the advent of the industrial revolution and pending capitalism.

 

Mr Washington articulated the strategy that it was the dual responsibility of Blacks and whites to make the Negro a more productive and valuable participate in America's coming industrial growth and prosperity. In exchange for the support needed from whites. Mr Washington encouraged Blacks to abandon the strategy of agitation and the call for civil rights.

 

Mr. Washington disagreed with other leading Negro's of his time, who sought to direct responsibility for change towards the system of governance that denied Black's fair and just treatment. With W.E.B. DuBois as one of the principal advocates, this strategy required first and foremost of a political movement to challenge the status quo.

The differing views of the hundred years continues as the underpinning of today's struggles for improved conditions amongst African Americans.

 

Is the system of institutional racism and economic exploitation at fault, and thus the responsibility of all American's to improve the improvised conditions faced by many African Americans? Or is it the responsibility of Blacks to shoulder the responsibility for their conditions, and work to pull themselves up by their "bootstraps?"

 

WASHINGTON SPEAKS

 

Booker T. Washington believed in the importance of recognizing the stage of development at which most southern Blacks resided. What was important for the broader society to recognize was that "... education of the Negro should be not so much as a matter of charity, but as a matter of business, that like in other business, should be thoroughly studied, organized and systematized.

 

"Cast down your buckets..." was a call for "the Negro to be made the intelligent laborer, the trained farmer, the skilled artisan of the south." Once accomplished, the ladder would be there for Blacks to climb the rungs. The future would be more assured because the economic foundation would be immovable.

Washington's speech emphasized the economic needs of the newly freed slaves as contrasted with their political needs at the time. "I have merely insisted that we should do first things first; that we should lay the foundation before we sought to erect the superstructure.

With the coming Industrial Revolution of the North, Washington envisioned many economic opportunities for freedmen in the South. In his mind the time was not right to fuel race hatred and separatism. The foundation was laid for his advocacy when he stated " ... 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." Whites moved expeditiously to embrace these ideas.

According to Washington, "I have constantly urged upon them (other Negro leaders) that we must begin at the bot­tom instead of at the top; that there will be little permanent gain by 'short-cut' methods." These words had been the guiding principles in his development of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. There he stressed the value of hard work, self­reliance and service to others.

His overall philosophy was based on personal experiences, the social and political climate, and the economic con­ditions around him. He recognized that many Negroes in the South were not prepared to handle their newly granted freedom after Emancipation.

Even W.E.B. DuBois, one of Mr. Washington's greatest challengers, view­ed the industrial education of southern blacks as useful. According to Mr. DuBois, "It (Negro industrial training) has helped bridge the transition period between Negro slavery and freedom. It has taught thousands of white people in the South to accept Negro education, not simply as a necessary evil, but as a possible social good.

THE DEBATE

Many Negroes criticized Washington's speech and began calling it the "Atlanta Compromise, as labeled by DuBois, because they felt he had endangered the southern Negroes' fight for equality. DuBois began his public critique of Washington around 1900, five years after the Atlanta speech. He wrote "... the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters; it is to make carpenters men." Much has been written about the historical debate between Washington and Dubois. Washington clearly understood the political and social conditions of the South and framed his views to address the masses of destitute Negroes who lack­ed the skills necessary to operate in an economy in transition towards industrial production.

He met Southern Negroes where they were and gave them an opportunity to gain respect and a measure of success laboring with their hands. The age-old adage that hard work will someday pay­off was an important component of Washington's quest to educate the Negro.

DuBois' strategy for uplifting the Negro centered on the development of a cadre of blacks whom he called the "talented tenth." This group was com­prised of the best and brightest minds; in essence the thinkers and "leaders" of the race. It would be this group, according to DuBois, that would reach back and uplift the Negro race. DuBois argued that Washington's strategy made blacks passive and unwilling to stand up for their rights as men.

RELEVANCE FOR TODAY

What is clear about this most important historical debate is that both men had the utmost respect for the other's sincerity in the development of strategies to uplift the race. However, they fundamentally disagreed on approach. A similar disagreement continues to rage to­day within America over strategies and programs for assisting African-Americans.

The debate is one that centers on responsibility for the plight of the African­American community. A view that was predominate during much of the 1960s and 70s was that the "system" caused the despair amongst people of color, and it was the responsibility of government and industry to "right" the situation. The 1980s brought with it a perspective that black people must take greater respon­sibility for their conditions and thus work to become more self-reliant; pulling themselves up by their "bootstraps."

As this political debate rages on in the black community and in the broader society, the economic hardships endured by a growing segment of black people becomes even worse.

With over a third of the African­American community entrenched in dire poverty, and the American economy in transition, Booker T. Washington's economic strategy, divorced of his political prescriptions, are viable today.

In the late 1800s America was in tran­sition from an agrarian society to an in­dustrial one. Today, the economy is in a two-fold transition: first, the movement is from a manufacturing to a service and information driven structure; and second­ly, the U.S. economy is interconnected to a global system of production and trade.

During Washington's time he ad­vocated a strategy aimed at those at the bottom of the ladder, to "cast down your buckets ..." and he designed a program for industrial training.

Today, those at the bottom of the lad­der must be trained to compete in a global and information-oriented economy. But as Mr . Washington articulated almost 100 years ago, recognizing the stage of development is critical to designing a suc­cessful education strategy. And within this design, " ... hardwork, self-reliance and service to others" must be stressed.

As Booker T. Washington stated in his Atlanta address, "Nearly 16 millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load up­ward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one­third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third its in­telligence and progress; we shall con­tribute one-third to the business and in­dustrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnation, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.

He truly sounds like a statesman of the 1990s, rather than the 189Os. There must be an economic plan added to today's political agenda to guide the African American's struggle for a better quality of life.

Randall E. Brock is a freelance writer from Battle Creek, Michigan

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