Conflicting Views of Freedom

While reading Washington and Du Bois I took some notes. Primarily this was to see the differences between them, but I did try to look for some areas where they agreed. Under “Crossover” I only had listed that, “They both believed that Africans had something to offer the world.” Beyond that there was not much they came together on.

In Washington's “Up from Slavery” he encourages everybody to “Cast down your bucket where you are” (443). By this he means that blacks and whites could benefit a lot from one another if only they would respect one another. He promotes the idea of equality through partnership.

While addressing the white population he says “Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories” (443). He assures the white folks that if they help bring the freed slaves up to speed they will have a future just as secure as it was in the past, and that the black folks will be the most “law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has ever seen” (443).

Washington seems eager to move past the pain of slavery and into a new era. He's not idealistic. Although he desires social equality he's looking for stepping stones towards that goal. He states, “The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in a opera house” (444). He knows that complete change can't happen over night and seeks to achieve smaller measurable goals. He seems optimistic.

Du Bois is quite the opposite. His anger is very apparent. In fact, for me, his anger was far easier to discern than his proposals. He talks a lot about the dissatisfaction of the newly freed slaves, “The nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land” (456). He seems to be saying that partial freedom is no freedom at all. Or perhaps he's asking, “what's the point of freeing blacks if you're not going to make them equal socially?”

He seems to question the true intentions of the white folks, “what shall save us from a second slavery?” It seems that he is saying that without complete freedom they are still in a type of slavery. He goes on to say that, “Freedom, too, the long-sought, we still seek, - the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think, the freedom to love and aspire” (459). These are freedoms he clearly does not believe the “freed” slaves have, and he is pessimistic about the future.