Speech analysis „the way forward “
In the year 1895 at the Atlanta Exposition the African-American teacher and reformer, Booker T. Washington discusses his vision of the future in front of a mixed raced audience asking how the black-white relations will be affected by the end of slavery. His purpose is to create sympathy between the two races but especially to persuade the white people to encourage and promote education for black people.
From his point of view, it is more important for the black people to have education and be hard-working than equal rights. He also wants to prevent black people from immigrating into the north, he wants them to stay in the south, which has become dependent on the black people, especially for its industrial and economic wealth.
Booker T. Washington opens his speech with a story from the novel “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville to illustrate his point. Throughout his speech he refers back to the story to underline and make his arguments clear. From the novel he uses the expression: “cast your buckets where you are” repeatedly.
This makes it easy to follow Washington’s line of argument and the meaning of this quote becomes transparent. He wants people to do the most of any situation they are in and to value the resources they have where they are, pointing out that people don’t need to go elsewhere to encounter wealth and strength.
Washington repeats the same advice for white people that he gives to African Americans suggesting them to also “‘Cast down their (your) buckets where they (you) are’” (l.26-29). Instead of “look(ing) to the incoming of those of foreign birth” (l.26-27), or immigrants, Washington urges white Southerners to rely upon the many African Americans they already know to help rebuild the South.
This input echoes the guidance Washington gave the black race to develop friendships with white Southerners instead of “bettering their condition in a foreign land.” In both instances, Washington advises Southerners, white and African American, to look to each other in order to achieve progress, rather than leaving or turning to outsiders.
By repeating the phrase “cast down your bucket where you are” to white Southerners in addition to the black race, Washington creates a sense of unity, similarity and shared experience between the two races because he offers the same advice to everyone.
As the speaker tries to clarify that the black race is loyal, he names everything they did for the development of the economy of the South. By choosing to focus on the extensive contributions African Americans made to the South during their enslavement, Washington emphasises how much they can contribute to the future “prosperity of the South” as free men and women.
Washington describes this “loyalty” through images of African Americans caring for white Southerners and their families, such as nursing the children of white Southerners, watching by the sick-bed of their mothers and fathers, and following white Southerners “with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves.” This imagery contributes to the persuasiveness of Washington’s point of view, because it suggests that African Americans can truly be trusted, since their “loyalty” or fidelity comes from a personal, emotional and familiar connection and love for white Southerners.
The message is we-focused, this way a certain sympathy between the audience and the speaker is created. He makes it seem like he is part of the public he is talking to, he is their equal and does not try to look better. With “we” and” they” Washington refers to the black race.
As Booker T. Washington himself is black and born as a slave he is the right person to empathize with the black people. And he has earned the respect of the white powerful men as he has risen through hard and devoting work to be the founder and first principal of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which under his leadership became the nation’s largest and best-known industrial training school.
The language is perfectly appropriate for the audience as it is sublime but comprehensible for everyone, which is very important as all classes attend his speech.
All in all, this speech is very powerful and causes a big impact on the audience, including me. Booker T. Washington reaches this power and persuasiveness through his rational, logical and emotional arguments as they are based on events and the situation of that time, so everybody is involved and part of his speech.
Washington describes “those of foreign birth” as having “strange tongues and habits.” His choice of the word “strange” emphasizes the familiarity, comfort, and safety of “the eight millions of Negroes whose habits they know.” Washington’s suggestion that working with African Americans is a safe and comfortable alternative to working with unfamiliar and “strange” foreigners supports his point of view that white Southerners should rely upon African Americans whom they already know, rather than take the chance on those they do not know.
DE
