Equality for All

Mary Kate Ryser-Oatman

English 48B

January 15, 2009

Journal #3 Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery

"I do not believe that any state should make a law that permits an ignorant and poverty-stricken white man to vote, and prevents a black man in the same condition from voting" (Washington 687).

Booker T. Washington is explaining that it is unfair to allow poor, white men to vote when at the same time, there are black men of the same social class, and they are not allowed to cast their votes.

I thought what Booker T. Washington made an excellent point, why would our country deny black men to vote, but all white men were allowed to? It seems ridiculous that they could not vote when they had been freed from slavery. The South tried everything they could to prevent them from voting, by giving them certain literacy tests and denying those who did not own property. This was a time when they had been freed for only a short period, so I am sure that very few of them owned land. As for the literacy tests, a great majority of them did not have a formal education. Most of the black men who had been freed were born on the plantation as a slave, and they were in slavery for decades. They had no educational training; most of them probably did not know how to read or write.

Why would the South not cooperate and just give them the right to vote when after all they were now citizens of the United States of America. I have never personally been in any southern states, and I do not know a lot about the Reconstruction period, and it is hard for me to understand why they resented black people so much, and why they considered them to be only worthy of slavery. I know it was due to the color of their skin, but it just seems so ridiculous. The color of someone's skin should not matter. I guess it is like when the Pilgrims first came to America, and the Indians were already living here. The Pilgrims, and all of the other settlers who came, thought the Indians were savages and that they looked different. They, like the South, could not understand that they were not savages, but real people with feelings, and hope for the future just like anyone else.

According to Wikipedia, even though the South barred many black men from voting, "More blacks continued to vote in border and northern states. Washington emerged as the spokesman for the black community." Washington tried to rally support for black men to hopefully someday be able to vote in the South. While they could vote in northern states, a majority of them lived in the South, in areas where they had been slaves on plantations. They could not afford to pack everything up and move to the north, all because of voting rights. Black men and women had to be able to work to support their families, and it was hard enough trying to find work in areas where racism was so intense. They only hoped that one day; they would have the same privileges as the white men in the South had.