Introduction
The theme of racism is addressed in the works of Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. DuBois. The three authors take different approaches to racism and segregation. In his book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain shows the perception of a White boy raised to believe that Black people are slaves and inferior to White people.
Huck helps out a runaway slave named Jim due to the goodness in him, even though he is seriously conflicted about offering his assistance. Booker T. Washington believes in the theory of racial uplifting through the industrialization and civilization of African Americans. W.E.B. DuBois believes in the theory of double consciousness and the color line. The essay explores the presentation of slavery in the three books: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Up from Slavery, and The Souls of Black Folk.
Huckleberry
Huck gradually becomes aware of Jim’s humanity throughout the course of the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In the earlier parts of the novel, Huck does not indicate Jim’s humanization. He believes that Jim and his children are property. He constantly battles with himself over his actions to help Jim escape because he believes that it is a moral sin to help a black person escape from his master. He is conflicted in the earlier parts of the novel when he finds out that Jim has escaped from his owner, Miss Watson.
The conflict stems from an internal debate over his upbringing versus what he believes to be true. He was brought up to believe that Jim is property and that helping him escape would be a sin. On the other hand, he sees Jim as his friend and does not want him to be separated from his family, which would occur if he were to be sold to another farm in a distant location. The issue is depicted in Huck’s perception of Jim wanting to free his children. While Huck is willing, albeit with slight discomfort, to help Jim in his quest to escape, he does not believe that Jim should steal his children and wife.
Huck strongly believes that Jim is property and that his children are, too. The perception of African Americans is borne from his upbringing. When Jim talks about how he intends to buy his children once he gets his freedom, Huck does not question that notion much. However, when Jim mentions that if the owner is unwilling to sell them, he will have an abolitionist steal them, Huck is deeply offended. He states,
“Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm” (Twain 92)
Huck is angry at Jim because he helped him escape despite having internal conflicts, but Jim wanted more from his escape. Huck considers the old quote that states, “Give a nigger an inch, and he’ll take an ell.” (Twain 92). Huck believes that Jim should be grateful for the actions he took to save him from his slavers and be satisfied. It is evident that Huck and his kids did not view Jim as a person in the first few chapters of the book. As indicated in the quote, he states that the children belong to another man who had done Jim no harm despite the children being Jim’s.
However, with the gradual friendship and bond that develops between Huck and Jim, Huck slowly comes to the realization that Jim is more than just property. In the later parts of the novel, Jim is sold off by some con artists for cash. Huck convinces Tom Sawyer that they should go and rescue Jim from his captors. Huck takes significantly more risk to rescue Jim, indicating that his perception has changed from perceiving Jim as simply property to realizing that he is a person who does not deserve to become enslaved. Huck gains a newfound respect for Jim at the end of the novel and begins to understand why Jim wants to be with his wife and his children.
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington believed in a philosophy of racial uplift through positive contributions to society. Washington held this belief strongly based on his own experiences. These experiences are described in his book Up from Slavery. Booker T. Washington grew up in Franklin, Virginia, and started out life with his family on a plantation. Following emancipation, Washington and his family moved up to Walden, Virginia. His father was able to secure work at a salt furnace, and Washington eventually joined his father in pursuing this as a form of productive labor. However, Washington had larger ambitions as he strived continuously for education and a measure of participation in society. He learned the alphabet from a book his mother bought for him and started studying at a school in Ohio when a black educated man offered his services to the black population in the region. It is from this foundational basis that Washington started his educational journey.
When he heard of a school called the Hampton Institute, which specializes in educating black students, he vowed to raise money to go there. Washington stopped working for the salt furnace and started working as a help to the owner’s wife, Mrs. Rufner, who taught him how to live in civilized society (Washington 34). When he raises enough money, Washington starts on his journey. Along the way, he is denied boarding a hotel due to his race, forcing him to sleep outside, and in Richmond, Virginia, he has to sleep on an elevated sidewalk while working in the docks to raise money for the remainder of his journey. When he gets to the Hampton Institute, he is almost denied admission. He is offered work as a janitor while attending the school so he can pay for his board and part of his tuition. Washington was able to finish school and go back home to start his own education institute for Black students at home. He gains success and is invited to head a school in Tuskegee, Alabama. The school was a shanty next to a church, so he often traveled north to raise money for proper classrooms.
In his efforts to raise money for schools in the South, Washington becomes a public speaker and expounds on his theory of racial uplifting. From his own experience in life, Washington held the belief that Black people would eventually find recognition and respect from their White contemporaries if they were able to contribute positively through their labor and participation in civil society. Washington believed that through the provision of skills to society, Black people would play their part and, in so doing, gain acceptance from white people (Washington 23).
Washington stated that Black people would have to accept segregation for now but that this would change through virtues such as patience, enterprise, and thrift. His own life experiences that are described in the novel taught him that Black people would eventually gain full recognition as part of American society if they acted as responsible and reliable citizens. Washington pushed his theory of racial uplifting by creating schools and institutes where African Americans were educated in both normal education and were given skills of self-sufficiency and etiquette. Washington hoped that the skills learned through his schools would give Black students a foot forward in White society.
W.E.B. DuBois
W.E.B. DuBois talks about the theories of double consciousness and the color line. DuBois believes that these are the two major hallmarks of life for African Americans in their time. The notion of double consciousness is the notion that African Americans have to always look at themselves through the eyes of other people. Individuals would always measure themselves based on the perception of a world that looks at them in contempt and a sense of pity. DuBois states, “The History of the American Negro is the history of this strive-this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.” (DuBois 32).
His perception is that the Black person in America wants acceptance among his White contemporaries that he is both Black and an American. The Black person strives for recognition among those in civilized societies for his two attributes without being denied either. That he should not have to sacrifice his culture and his color to be considered an American and that he should not sacrifice the rights that come to him as an American for him to be Black. The notion of double consciousness made DuBois call for the right of African Americans to vote and for the elimination of the barriers placed by leaders in the South to prevent them from exercising this right.
DuBois also discussed the notion of the color line. He begins by explaining it as a metaphor for the veil. DuBois states, “In those somber forests of his striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw himself,-darkly as through a veil; and yet he saw in himself some faint revelation of his power, of his mission.” (DuBois 42). The veil symbolizes the visual manifestation of the color line since the opportunities presented to African Americans are vastly different from those perceived by their White contemporaries. DuBois explains that the problem of the color line can be solved by ensuring African Americans can vote.
DuBois took a different approach from Booker T. Washington. In fact, DuBois was strongly opposed to the notions that Washington was proposing, noting that it would perpetuate the disenfranchisement of African Americans. DuBois stated,
“But so far as Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, North or South, does not rightly value the privilege and duty of voting, opposes the higher training and ambition of our brighter minds,—so far as he, the South, or the Nation, does this,—we must unceasingly and firmly oppose them.” (DuBois 120)
His idea is that sole concentration on industrialization without civil action and advocating for the right of African Americans to vote would result in the passing of civil statutes to disenfranchise Blacks. DuBois was not wrong in this account because, by the time of writing his book, most southern states had passed laws preventing African Americans from voting.
Twain had considered the subject of African Americans voting through the character Pap, who says,
“It was “lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn’t too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they’d let a nigger vote, I drawed out. I say, “I’ll never vote again.” (Twain 27).
Conclusion
He refuses to vote because Black people will also be allowed to vote. DuBois notes that this is part of the racial exclusion and segregation prevalent among White people and that it was imperative for civil action to be taken to ensure that African Americans could vote.
Works Cited
DuBois, et al. Souls of Black Folk. Routledge, 2015.
Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Vol. 20. University of California Press, 2003.
Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery. Simon and Schuster, 2013.