"Cheeky"

Jacki Procter
English 48B
Journal #4
Feb. 15, 2009

Quote:

”It shows a mighty lot of cheek/To study chemistry and Greek”

Summary:

Washington’s opinion that the black race should focus on hard work to rise, be accepted, and respected and that education was secondary to the work that needed to be done by the white race. Therefore it was “cheeky” when blacks should be more humble in his opinion.

Response:

I really think he thought his philosophy was the course of action for the black race. Under the political circumstance s in 1877 when the Compromise of 1877 allowed for withdrawal of Federal troops from the south, who were there to protect blacks when they were freed after the Civil War, and throughout reconstruction efforts, lynching were acceptable in society. I can understand that Washington may have felt it was necessary for the survival of his race to be humble towards whites not to bring attention to them - to lay low.

I saw some pictures online of lynched black men with white men standing around looking into the camera with no remorse detectable. It’s shocking to me that happened. No consideration that they were killing a human being. How did all those Christians justify killing – lynching black people? It’s pathetic and even more so the way everyone is so de-synthesized to this. How scary it must have been for black people to live in that era.


I think that Washington for the time being had to promote this philosophy of working hard and detract from the fact that every black person wanted to learn to read. White man doesn’t want the black man to be educated –Feared black educated men when so many in the white south were uneducated. A lot of lives were probably saved because of what Washington promoted. I was watching Oprah on PBS regarding her ancestry and her great great grandfather in 1887 bought a large plot of land when things were beginning to get “crazy” and the genealogist remarked how amazing that was that he managed to make that purchase considering the political climate.