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In the late 1800s there were three African-American leaders who wanted to integrate blacks into white society in three very distinct ways. Marcus Garvey actually did not want to integrate blacks into white society but instead remove them altogether. Garvey started the Back-to-Africa movement, to have all blacks in the United States return to Africa and resettle in their homeland. W.E.B. DuBois, the second prominent leader, advocated a more radical approach. He was the founder of the NAACP. DuBois promoted that the Talented Tenth, or the "exceptional men," would be the ones to lead the race out of segregation. This Talented Tenth, or the most educated 10% of the African-American population, was to be forcibly infused into white leadership positions. The third approach, promoted by Booker T. Washington, was one that stressed accommodation. Washington desired African Americans to be assimilated into white society as communities became dependent upon the skills African Americans had to offer. It was an assimilation process based on trust.
Booker T. Washington is best known for articulating his position in 1895 at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. The speech was titled "Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are," but later became known as the Atlanta Compromise speech. Washington said that the Negro race began with "ignorance and inexperience" in wanting to assume leadership positions at the top. He realized that it was more efficient for African Americans to be integrated into white society from their present position of being exceptional farmers and skilled artisans.
In the speech he used the analogy of a ship's crew in need of water. In sending forth a distress message they received the reply, "Cast down your bucket where you are." The reply was offered three times before the crew obliged its message. In doing so they discovered they were no longer sailing in the salt water of the ocean but in the fresh water at the mouth of the Amazon River.
He then used this analogy to say for integration we need to cast down our buckets where we reside this day. To the blacks he spoke: " 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' Cast it down, making friends in every manly way of the people of all races, by whom you are surrounded." To the whites he spoke: "To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted, I would repeat what I have said to my own race: 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your fireside."
Washington was an advocate of building up the community with mutual trust, affection, and service. This echoes the teaching of Paul and his desire to build a church that is supportive and encouraging of all members. Paul wrote, "Therefore encourage one another and build up each other." If Christians are to work together within individual congregations and in ecumenical enterprises, then we must be supportive and encouraging of one another.
Booker T. Washington is best known for articulating his position in 1895 at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. The speech was titled "Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are," but later became known as the Atlanta Compromise speech. Washington said that the Negro race began with "ignorance and inexperience" in wanting to assume leadership positions at the top. He realized that it was more efficient for African Americans to be integrated into white society from their present position of being exceptional farmers and skilled artisans.
In the speech he used the analogy of a ship's crew in need of water. In sending forth a distress message they received the reply, "Cast down your bucket where you are." The reply was offered three times before the crew obliged its message. In doing so they discovered they were no longer sailing in the salt water of the ocean but in the fresh water at the mouth of the Amazon River.
He then used this analogy to say for integration we need to cast down our buckets where we reside this day. To the blacks he spoke: " 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' Cast it down, making friends in every manly way of the people of all races, by whom you are surrounded." To the whites he spoke: "To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted, I would repeat what I have said to my own race: 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your fireside."
Washington was an advocate of building up the community with mutual trust, affection, and service. This echoes the teaching of Paul and his desire to build a church that is supportive and encouraging of all members. Paul wrote, "Therefore encourage one another and build up each other." If Christians are to work together within individual congregations and in ecumenical enterprises, then we must be supportive and encouraging of one another.
