Of the Coming of John

In the chapter “Of The Coming Of John” by W.E.B Du Bois tells the story of two men named John, one white and one black. The story begins in the small town in which both Johns are from. John Jones regarded by “the white folk of Altamaha” (166) as a “good boy, fine plough-hand, good in the rice-fields, handy everywhere, and always good natured and respectful” (166). Through this description the audience is aware of the ways in which the white world measures the worth of a black man; focused primarily on the physical work that he does and what physical jobs he is good at. The use of the world “respectful” implies that John is a man who presents no issues or resistance to the white community, thus he is well liked.

When it becomes known that John’s mother is going to send him north for school the white community shake “ their heads” and remark that school will “spoil him, ruin him” (166). These comments are similar to the way in which Mr. Auld discouraged his wife from educating Frederick Douglass. This illuminates the way in which white people viewed the education of blacks to be dangerous and destructive. In their eyes the less knowledge the black community had the more secure their social standing would be.

The narrator describes a distinct difference in John Jones appearance once he completes school. “He grew in body and soul, and with him his clothes seemed to grown and arrange themselves. . . And a new dignity crept into his walk” (169). The physical transformation becomes a symbol of the intellectual transformation he has made. He becomes aware of “the Veil that lay between him and the white world; he first noticed now the oppression that had not seemed oppression before . . . He felt angry now” (169). As his feelings shift John begins to dread returning to his hometown because he knows that his new knowledge will never let him be happy as he was once. The community he was once apart of he no longer fits into. And the community who supported him in pursuing his education no longer recognizes the boy they once loved. Du Bois makes an interesting comment on education and how it is not such a wonderful thing sometimes but rather something that causes discontent.

Once he has returned home John Jones has a brief conversation with his sister in which she questions if school makes everyone unhappy. John replies regretfully that is does and his sister says “ ‘I wish I was unhappy, . . . I think I am, a little” (175). We see that his sister has the same yearning for education that John had and as she has grown she has become aware of oppression slightly in the way that John has. After his school is shut down by the judge John discovers the other John attacking his sister and strikes him with a branch using “all the pent-up hatred of his great black arm” (178). He leaves calmly and tells his mother is his returning North. As the men on horses approach him his only thought is to pity them and accept his fate.

What role does the narrator occupy? Does he seem invested in one John or the other?

Why do the two Johns make the decisions they do? Do they definitively make decisions or does fate/destiny seem to take a role?

Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery

Booker T Washington was one of the most prominent and well respected civil rights activists in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. He insisted that black equality and suffrage would take time, “the opportunity to freely exercise such political rights will not come in any large degree through outside or artificial forcing, but will be accorded to the Negro by the Southern white people themselves, and that they will protect him in the exercise of those rights” (Washington 114). Washington is an eternal optimist and even at some points in his autobiography seems that he sympathizes for the Southern white man:

“Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution…When freedom came, the slaves were almost as well fitted to begin life anew as the master, except in the matter of book-learning and ownership of property. The slave owner and his sons had mastered no special industry. They unconsciously had imbibed the feeling that manual labour was not the proper thing for them. On the other hand, the slaves in many cases had mastered some handicraft, and none were ashamed, and few unwilling, to labour” (9).

Oxford English dictionary defines ‘imbibe’ as “To cause to absorb moisture or liquid; to soak, imbue, or saturate with moisture; to steep” (OED, ‘imbibe’ v.).  Washington uses imbibe to suggest that it was not a choice for his white master to hold the belief that African Americans were fit for manual labor while he and his sons were not. Washington implies that it was not a conscious thought or decision on behalf of his master, but that he simply soaked in this idea from society. Through this and other passages in Up from Slavery, it is difficult to tell if Washington is making excuses for the Southern white man and his role in oppressing African Americans, or if this is just a compromise he makes intentionally to win the approval of the white man and reach his long-term goal of equal rights and suffrage.

            Washington recalls that when the slaves were called to the big house, all of the master’s family were present so “they could see what was to take place and hear what was said. There was a feeling of deep interest or perhaps sadness, on their faces, but not bitterness”(Washington 10). Based on what we know about Washington and his goal to make amends between African Americans and Southern whites, I have to wonder if he is portraying his former owners so positively as to give a reason for fellow African Americans to not be bitter as well.

            Many condemn Booker T. Washington for not being bold in his demand for equality. One of Washington’s most famous and vocal critics was W.E.B Du Bois. Du Bois opposed Washington’s Atlanta Compromise for separate but equal education and treatment. Refusing to simply wait for African American rights to be handed to them by Southern whites, Du Bois encouraged African Americans to actively fight for and take their rights. Washington would argue that one may try to gain these rights by artificial force, however man cannot change another man’s heart, and until the Southern white population acknowledges African American rights, their rights will not be recognized. 

Do you think that Washington was right in making excuses for the Southern white population, and that, “it is no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution”? Or do you think he was being too merciful of the Southern white population?

A white speechwriter/Tuskegee publicist, Max Bennett Thrasher, assisted Booker T. Washington with his autobiography Up from Slavery. Does that change your opinion of how Washington portrays the white population, his view on the white population and their involvement or un-involvement in the “institution” of slavery?

Compared to Du Bois, Washington’s approach to equal rights was more modest. Do you think he was less passionate about the movement or do you think that this was intentional, if so for what purpose?

Booker T. Washington vs W.E.B. Du Bois

By: Valencia Price

One of the most important topics that were debated in the 20^th century for African Americans was how to better the social and economic progress of African Americans in America. This topic caused many controversies and debates in the black community during that time. Two men were at the head of these debates. W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washing were these two men. Their strategies on how to accomplish progression in the black community were complete opposites. Du Bois publicly criticized the strategy proposed by Washington. Washington’s strategy was commonly referred to as The Atlanta Compromise. Under this strategy, black people would continue to work and abide by the segregated laws of the south, and whites would provide them with education and gradually give them opportunities to better themselves in society. His strategy centered on a gradual process compared to Du Bois’ strategy. Under Dubois’ strategy, the progress would result in a more immediate gratification. He wanted civil rights for blacks and more political representation for blacks. He thought in order to accomplish this the elite African Americans at the time were needed. The term the talented tenth was used to refer to these elite men. Their goal was to educate and guide the black population in order to better the race as a whole. Du Bois valued education in the sense of classical education compared to Washington who placed a strong value on developing skills particular to specific crafts. Both men caused a divide in the black community. If you agreed with Washington then you were considered to be conservatives, and if you agreed with Du Bois you were considered to be a radical.

In assuming the role of being the devil’s advocate, I believe that only one strategy is correct and that strategy is Du Bois’. He is right for criticizing Washington’s strategy. The following questions are the main reasons for why I agree with Du Bois. Why would Washington continue to allow black people to suffer from discrimination and harm constantly done against them by white people? Why would he not want immediate changes that can benefit African Americans? What makes him think that white southerners would come through on their side of the agreement? Washington is being very naive by trusting that the white southerners would allow for blacks to have any opportunities in the future. They were the men who enslaved blacks and still believe that blacks are inferior. Logically, it makes no sense to believe that they will allow social and economic progress for African Americans as long as they had control of the south. For this reason, Du Bois is right for wanting immediate changes. Blacks needed representation in politics and to become educated past the basics in order to better the race. The only people who could gain these positions and be good role models for the rest of the population are the elite African Americans of that time period. Therefore, Du Bois’ strategy is what makes the most logical sense and could benefit African Americans the most.

What is your opinion about the debate? Which strategy would have the most success concerning the social and economic progress of African Americans?

Quotes from Booker T. Washington Speeches

All quotes from the Selected Speeches of Booker T. Washington, Ed. E. Davidson Washington. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. 1932). 


From "The Negro and his Relation to the Economic Progress of the South," an address delivered before the Southern Industrial Convention in Huntsville, Alabama on October 12, 1899:

On whites and blacks coexisting in the south --
"...although a negro and an ex-slave myself, there is no white man whose heart is more wrapped up in every interest of the South and loves it more dearly than is true of myself. The South can have no sorrow that I do not share can have no prosperity that I do not rejoice in; can commit no error that I do not deplore, can take no step forward that I do not approve.

Different in race, in color, in history, we can teach the world that, although thus differing, it is possible for us to dwell side by side and live in peace, in material prosperity. We can be one, as I believe we will be in a larger degree in the future, in sympathy, purpose, forbearance, and mutual helpfulness. Let him who would embitter, who would bring strife between your race and mind, 'be accursed in his basket and his store, accursed in the fruit of his body and in the fruit of his land.' No man can plan the degradation of another race without being himself degraded. The highest test of the civilization of a race is its willingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate"  (79).


[A few additional quotes will be filled in here. I have bad xeroxes.]

"[...]the whole problem of the Negro in the South [rests itself] upon the question as to whether he makes himself of such indispensable service to his neighbor, to his community, that no one can fill his place better in the body politic. There is no other safe course for the [Negro] to pursue. If the black man in the South has a friend in his white neighbor, and a still larger number of friends in his own community, he has a protection and a guarantee of his rights that will be more potent and more lasting than any our Federal Congress or any outside power can confer. While the Negro is grateful for the opportunities which he enjoys in the business of the South, you should remember that you are in debt to the black man for furnishing you with labor that is almost a stranger to strikes, lock-outs, and labor that is one with you in language, sympathy, religion, and patriotism, labor that has never been tempted to follow the red flag of anarchy, but always the safe flag of the country and the spotless banner of the Cross" (81)

"The slave's chain and the master's alike are broken; 
The one curse of the race held both in tether; 
They are rising, all are rising -- 
The black and the white together" (86)

From Washington's First Annual Address as President, delivered at the first meeting of the National Negro Business League in Boston, MA on August 24, 1900. 


"This organization does not overlook the fact that mere material possessions are not, and should not be made, the chief end of life, but should be used as a means of aiding us in securing our rightful place as citizens and of enlarging out opportunities for securing that education and development which enhance our usefulness and produce that tenderness and goodness of heart which will make us live for the benefit of our fellow men and for the promotion of our country's highest welfare" (88).

"Let every Negro strive to become the most useful and indispensable man in his community. A useless, shiftless, idle class is a menace and a danger to any community. When an individual produces what the world wants, whether it is a product of hand, head, or heart, the world does not long stop to inquire what is the color of the skin of the producer...We must not in any part of our country become discouraged and desolate; we must maintain faith in ourselves and in our country. No race ever got upon its feet without a struggle, without trials and discouragement. The very struggles through which we often pass give us strength and experience that in the end will prove helpful. Every individual and every race that has succeeded has had to pay the price which nature demands from all. We can-[90] not get something for nothing. Every member of the race who succeeds in business, however humble and simple that business may be, because he has learned the important lessons of cleanliness, promptness, system, honesty, and progressiveness, is contributing his share in smoothing the pathway for this and succeeding generations. For the sake of emphasis, I repeat that no one can long succeed unless he keep in mind the important elements of cleanliness, promptness, system, honesty, and progressiveness" (89-90).

"In conclusion may I add that we shall succeed in our purpose in this organization just in proportion as each individual members is able to forget himself, to hide himself behind the great cause which has brought us together" (90).

Harriet Jacobs Skip/Skim Overview for Tuesday 2/14

Chapter XII: Fear of Insurrection
Jacobs describes the developments on her plantation and in the surrounding area following Nat Turner's Insurrection -- here's a link to Turner's confessions and to the Wikipedia article on the insurrection. The whites have a "muster" where they shoulder their muskets and father together to police the community. Jacobs is educated and generally aware of conditions and so she knows about the "true state of affairs" - that there has been a slave rebellion in Virginia. Other slaves do not. Many whites from a twenty mile radius of Edenton, NC come into town and search blacks' homes and torture slaves and free blacks alike. This is another situation where living in town is beneficial, as Jacobs and her family have white protectors. Slaves in rural environments fare much worse: "Colored people and slaves who lived in remote parts of town suffered in an especial manner" (203).

Jacobs describes the whites' efforts to frame blacks by planting "powder and shot" in their belongings and their suspicion of her written documents. She also mentions that the whites involved in the muster harass and persecute a number of innocent blacks who happened to have items that could be construed as incriminatory in their homes as well as those who tried to escape punishment by claiming to have knowledge about the conspiracy. She describes one man who claimed to have information and did not. He succeeded only in "augment[ing] his own sufferings and those of the colored people" (207).

She describes the closure of the black church and the discriminatory policies of the white churches.

XIII: "The Church and Slavery"
Jacobs continues to discuss religion, and particularly the meetings arranged by the whites with the white Episcopalian minister the Reverend Mr. Pike. His sermons focus on submission and he is gradually less and less interested in ministering to the slaves. She describes the hypocrisy and outright cruelty of a Methodist class leader on 210 and 211. On 212 and 213 she describes a qualified and unprejudiced Episcopalian minister that actually tailors his sermons to the slaves and how blessed of an influence he was upon them. She describes her own labors to teach a slave, uncle Fred, how to read.

Jacobs argues that missionaries are needed among the slaves as badly (if not even more) than among foreign heathens, yet white southern Christians "send the Bible to heathen abroad, and neglect the heathen at home" (214). She observes that if any ministers were to attempt to labor among the slaves, they would be "hated by the south, and would be driven from its soil, or dragged to prison to die."

She describes the misinformation of Northern visitors to the South and the damage dealt by their positive accounts of slavery and concludes by mentioning Dr. Flint's false-hearted conversion and continued hypocrisy.

XVI: "Scenes at the Plantation"
Jacobs has decided that she would rather live and work on the plantation of Dr. Flint's son than move to the private cabin he keeps trying to build for her. She sets about preparing the house for the arrival of Mr. Flint's new wife. Her daughter Ellen suffers greatly on the plantation because she is not used to being separated from her mother. Harriet Jacobs has not been allowed near Mrs. Flint (the wife of Dr. Flint) on account of the latter's hatred for and suspicion of her.

When she is tipped off by a friend that her children are to be sent to the plantation to be broken in, she begins to plan their escape.

Harriet Jacobs Skip/Skim Overview for Thursday 2/9

Chapter III: "The Slaves New Year's Day"
This chapter is not a discussion of the danger of the holidays as in Douglass. Instead Jacobs addresses the perils of hiring day (January 1st) for slaves. Jacobs mentions that the slaveholder's give the slaves some holidays and that some "give them a good dinner under the trees" (143), and points out that the good bosses (vs. masters) have slaves plead to be hired out to them. She asks her free, white, northern readers to "contrast [their] New Year's day with that of the poor bond-woman," comparing their pleasant and "blessed" day with the "peculiar sorrows" of slave mothers. She describes a woman who has all seven of her children taken from her on a sale day as well as the method of deserting old slaves whom masters' consider as having outlived their usefulness like Douglass's grandmother.

Chapter IV: "The Slave Who Dared to Feel Like a Man"
Jacobs begins by mentioning her grandmother's "beautiful faith" and comparing it to Benjamin and her own doubts. They are said to "condem[n]" her faith (146). Jacobs remarks that Benjamin (her uncle) and her brother William are unsuited for slavery. She discusses William's unwillingness to submit to the cowardly bully that owns him. She "advised him to be good and forgiving" but "was not unconscious of the beam in her own eye," a reference to Matthew 7:3 -- "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" (KJV) or "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (NIV).

Jacobs claims that the "war of [her] life had begun" and that she is "powerless" but still "resolves never to be conquered," but her language foreshadows her downfall. Mr. Flint is unwilling to sell her because he claims that she is his "'daughter's property'" and her mistress (Mrs. Flint) is already beginning to suspect an affair between Jacobs and her husband (149).

Benjamin attempts to run away but is captured by a ship captain in accordance with the fugitive slave laws and returned home to jail where he continues to resist his master's authority. He is sold south to Louisiana, but he escapes. Jacobs' grandmother had tried to use her influence with a gentlemen she knew in New Orleans in his favor, but his white face (on account of his illness0 allows him to go north unquestioned.

Benjamin is seen by someone from their town in New York, but the man who sees him and whom Jacobs calls "a gem worthy of a purer setting"- does not report him (155). Benjamin runs into his brother Phillip who has been sent north for business and who plans to return back into slavery. Benjamin tells Phillip that their mother should purchase his freedom instead. They lose track of Benjamin forever. Jacobs' grandmother purchases Phillip's freedom.

Chapter VIII: "What Slaves Are Taught to Think of the North"
Jacobs describes how slaveholders lie about the north - a tendency also discussed by Douglass. SHe describes a slaveholder telling her that a friend that had run away was starving, sick, and begging to be taken back to the South as a slave. She writes that she later stayed with that friend and found her comfortable - "She had never thought of such a thing as wishing to go back to slavery" (178).

Jacobs condemns the fugitive slave laws, northerners who recognize them, and black men who are willing to allow slaveholders to brutalize their wives and daughters. She admits that these men are inferior, but attributes their inferiority and ignorance to the authority of the white slaveholders. As we discussed in class, Jacobs writes that slaves resent northern supporters of slavery and points out that these men and women are (like Mrs. Auld in Douglass's narrative) "very apt scholars" of cruelty and injustice who "generally go beyond their teachers" and that they are "proverbially the hardest masters" (180). She also describes intelligent slaves' awareness of the abolition movement and the fact that "Even the most ignorant [slaves] have some confused notions" about abolition. She describes one woman's mistaken (but revealing) notion regarding the "queen of 'Merica" and her triumph over the president and slavery in "Washington city" (180). Jacobs wishes that the President was indeed "subordinate to Queen Justice" (180).

Chapter IX: "Sketches of Neighboring Slaveholders"
Jacobs describes the horrendous occurrences on neighboring plantations. Mr. Litch has many slaves (600) and overseers, a jail, and a whipping post. He cooks fat pork over slaves who are being punished and burns them with the falling fat. He brutally punishes slaves who steal from him or his neighbors (largely because it reflects poorly on his own prosperity). He murders slaves freely. His brother and himself are morally reprehensible. Jacobs writes that "Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities" like slaveholding North Carolina (182).

Mrs. Wade is another slaveholder who was very cruel to her slaves before her death. After she dies, a slave sneaks in to slap her for all of her cruel treatment, but this act is witnessed by Wade's child who tells her father and causes the slave to be sold south to Georgia.

The son of a much loved slave named Charity tries to escape and is caught and "placed between the screws of the cotton gin" where he dies from his wounds and is eaten by rats (184). Jacobs tells of the dehumanization of the living as well as the dying in this chapter. She also mentions a rare example of a "humane slaveholde[r] (185) -- a woman who was really religious and kind to her slaves. She tries to liberate them, but only is able to liberate a few before she marries a greedy man who has children with her slaves. Her husband "was called a good master" because he took care of his slaves' basic needs, but he was still a terrible man.

Jacobs describes the corruption of slave girls, the children of slaveholders, slaveholders themselves, and their wives by slavery. She describes the hatred of slaveholder's wives for the slave mistresses and their mixed race children fathered by their masters. She also mentions a rarer incident where the daughter of a slaveholder has a child by "one of the meanest slaves on his plantation" (188) and the slave is sent away. Jacobs claims that in cases like this one, the "infant is smothered, or sent where it is never seen by any who know its history" (188). The reader gets the sense that the offspring of white mothers and slave fathers fare somewhat better than the children of slave mothers and white fathers.

Jacobs writes that she "was twenty-one years in that cage of obscene birds" or slavery, and this foreshadows her escape. She is almost 21 years old by this point in her narrative (189).

Mapping Douglass and Jacobs

View Douglass and Jacobs in a larger map



View Harriet Jacobs - Writing Freedom in a larger map