Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington wrote, “The Atlanta Exposition Address” in order to help the slaves decide on whether it was best to stay where they are in the south, or seek better respect and freedom from the north. It seems that Washington was leaning towards the slaves staying in the south, even though the north would sound like a much better place to be in. The south may have a lot more racism, but there are just so many jobs in the south that the slaves would need to stay there for the south to survive. This seems to be the main reason as to why Washington would want the slaves to stay down there. Without them, the entire south economy would fall and the slaves would probably be the ones blamed for this. In the north, the slaves would have more opportunities and rights though the economy there may too fall if they all rush towards it. There are only so many jobs in the north and too many slaves migrating there would destroy what the north already has going for it. Washington is thinking more about he future and he knows that in time the south will become like north. The slaves just need to “offer up their buckets” to the people in the south and in time they will fill the buckets with everything the newly freed slaves would need.

Venture and Equiano

There were many differences and similarities in the stories about the two slaves, Venture Smith and Equiano. The main difference between the two would be the way each of then told their stories. Venture Smith sort of skipped over most of the bad things in his life and just focused on what life was like as a free man. He told stories of how he found his family and had to pay to get them. This was greatly different than the way that Equiano told his story. Equiano used just about every detail he could to show the reader just how horrible it was that a person would ever have to be put through what he got put through. As discussed earlier, a reason for this was probably because of who was telling each story. Equiano’s story was told by himself, which means that everything that he wants to convey he can make sure first hand that it’s added to his piece. Venture Smith on the other hand could not read and write. This means that his story was told by him but transcribed by what was probably a white man. The only reason that this could be a bad thing was that Venture Smith was trying to tell a story of how bad the white men treated him and the other slaves. If a white man if writing this story, chances are that he’s going to skip over the bad things that Venture would talk about and only talk about the parts that didn’t involve the white men. This is exactly how Venture’s story came out because he basically skipped over how horrible the boat ride was and most of the details on his kidnapping but kept in great detail everything that happened post slavery. In Equiano’s story, he talks about how horrible everything was using every detail he can to get the message across. His message was aimed at the white people who did this to him, which is probably why his message was more explicit. The endings of the two stories also differ greatly. In Venture’s story, he sets out and tries to buy his family back out of slavery and also some other slaves along the way. In Equiano’s story, we get the ending of him trying to abolish slavery all together. It seems as though Equiano’s has more value to it only because he just wants everyone to be equal, while Venture Smith is sort of buying into slavery when you think about it. He’s basically paying for people’s freedom, while Equiano is saying that people should just be free and that they shouldn’t have to buy their freedom from people.