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Chapter 4: Helping Others
Explanation and Analysis—Minimizing Racism:
One of the primary critiques wielded against Up from Slavery is that it minimizes the realities of racism. For this reason, Washington has been considered by some to be an unreliable narrator. For example, rather than acknowledging the effects of racist legislation like the Black Codes and Jim Crow laws (that were in place when this book was written in the late 1890s), Washington suggests that the only real challenge Black Americans face is their own lack of interest in or commitment to hard work.
At one point in the book Washington even suggests that the effects of the Ku Klux Klan are barely felt by Black Americans anymore:
I have referred to this unpleasant part of the history of the South simply for the purpose of calling attention to the great change that has taken place since the days of the “Ku Klux.” To-day there are no such organizations in the South, and the fact that such ever existed is almost forgotten by both races. There are few places in the South now where public sentiment would permit such organizations to exist.
Washington’s assessment that “there are few places in the South where public sentiment would permit such organizations to exist” has proven to be incorrect, as the Klan returned to full force mere years after Up from Slavery was published (and the group still exists in the 21st century). Many of Washington’s Black contemporaries were more realistic about the lingering post-war racism in the American South and believed that it would take more than hard work for Black people to be seen as equal to whites.
Related Themes:
