Gradual Racial Progress Theme Analysis

The most controversial theme of Up From Slavery is Washington’s repeated promotion of the idea of gradual racial progress. Washington’s views on elevating African Americans from the depths of slavery suggested that swift progress that is enforced by the government could actually be harmful to African Americans, because it pushes them to become independent citizens without being prepared to act as such. He discouraged any sort of political action outside of voting and running for office, and he felt that black Americans would find much more progress through excelling in labor and vocational professions than in direct political protest or action.

Many black thinkers at the time, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, found this view distasteful, as black Americans had been used for 250 years as degraded human labor, and the proposal to continue as a laboring class seemed a regression rather than a progression. However, others found Washington’s proposition attractive in its simplicity and attainability. Black leaders on the left continually spoke of the high ideals of liberty and true equality, which to some ex-slaves and newly emancipated children seemed to be abstract and unattainable ideals. Washington’s gradual uplift through labor served as a practical goal that most people could envision. Likewise, white Americans widely accepted Washington’s version of racial progress, because it did not challenge the widely held racist assumption that black Americans were designed by God to be a laboring class. While catering to white racism was not Washington’s goal, he did believe that avoiding backlash from white power-structures until black Americans could prove their merit was another advantage of his ideas. So although Washington’s views can be seen as problematic, his belief in gradual racial progress served as a kind of compromise between a white America that as a whole did not support racial uplift and a black America that wished to be recognized as sovereign and free citizens of the United States.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Washington believed that racial progress does not come from political agitation. In his early years in West Virginia, he saw many mine labor strikes ending with miners exhausting their savings in the duration of a strike and being forced to return to work penniless, no better off than before. He thought this was wasteful, because if miners were able to work over time and maintain their savings, they would perhaps be able to retire early or get an education and a less hazardous job. Washington essentially sees political protest simply as a waste of resources and time. Washington also believes that “agitations of questions of social equality” are a waste of time and “the extremest folly.” For him, progress will only be found “as the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.” Many of the primary political goals of African American leaders at the time seemed useless and artificial to him, and he believed that the only way to truly uplift the race was through self-improvement and hard work. To Washington, political agitation or protest was a sign of regression, not the sign of strides towards racial progress.

Washington instead suggests that the full exercise of political rights will be the result of “slow growth, not an overnight, gourd-vine affair.” Washington is stating that racial progress will be gradual, and that patience and striving toward growth over time will be the true development of the race. To Washington, striving to gain full and immediate rights will agitate whites who hold onto racist views of the political and social role of black Americans, as well as disadvantage black Americans because they are not developed or “prepared” enough to have full and equal rights. To him, these rights need to be earned by merit through labor, not by reward from the government or American society.

To achieve true racial uplift, Washington believed black Americans should “cast down your bucket where you are.” This phrase is Washington’s most infamous and is often what he is remembered for, both in its delivery in the “Atlanta Exposition Address” and in his racial ideology in general. At the beginning of the address, Washington tells a parable of a ship lost at sea with its sailors dying of thirst, only to discover that the ship has found its way to the Amazon River, a source of fresh water. When the ship calls out for fresh water from another ship, the other ship replies, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” In Washington’s eyes, this is the true goal of race relations in the United States. He wishes for black Americans to cast down their buckets where they are as carpenters, blacksmiths, farmers, sharecroppers, etc., and excel in their professions to build merit through labor.

This ideology is opposed both to the first Great Migration—the migration of newly freed blacks to the North after the Civil War—and to the striving of black Americans to hold positions higher in society, such as lawyers, doctors, or Congressmen. He felt that both of these things crippled black Americans. The Great Migration fractured black communities in the South, and in his eyes African Americans were not prepared socially and mentally to fill high positions in society. Thus he promotes finding contentment in one’s own situation, without searching to elevate political status outside of labor and work. He believes that if black Americans labor together, white Americans will universally acknowledge their work and dissolve racial prejudices that govern their political views.

While Washington’s views on racial progress are optimistic and hopeful, they are often seen as problematic. His perspective mirrored much of the racist rhetoric of the time that suggested that black Americans needed to “stay in their place” as laborers, and that social equality would make them feel like they were better than whites. Many people, upon hearing Washington’s “cast down your bucket” parable, were deeply troubled and felt that Washington was regressive in his racial views. But many others, both black and white, felt that Washington’s views were reasonable in that they provided real and practical goals that black Americans could strive for without agitating white aggression. With the backdrop of the almost constant lynchings in the South, finding peace and racial harmony, even if it meant striving only towards labor, was an attractive concept for many Southerners. Despite pushback, Washington became one of the foremost leaders in race relations and education in the U.S. because of these cautious and conservative views, and his popularity helped to fund his school at Tuskegee and even received attention from President Grover Cleveland. So while some of his proposals are certainly problematic, Washington’s promotion of gradual racial progress at least aimed to provide a solution to soothe the angry, racist sentiments of white Americans while arming black Americans with practical and attainable aims and hope.