Washington vs. Douglass

Washington Vs . Douglass

Booker T . Washington was born into slave life in a plantation in Virginia . Like most slaves they slept on a dirt floor , went by with little in food and clothing and without education . Yet unlike most slaves , northern slaves were treated with decency . He remembered that his mother would cook chicken late in the evenings to feed them . He guessed she must have taken it from the masters ' house , thieving as it may have seemed then , he did not condemn it . They were victims of the institution of slavery

. When their young masters came home wounded from the war , the slaves took turns in caring and nursing them . When the men went to war the slaves guarded and protected the women and children to the extent of putting their lives at stake . All this came with sincerity because of the kindness their masters had shown them . When the Emancipation Proclamation came , they were reluctant to leave the masters who treated them like family . Washington condemned slavery but held no bitterness for the Whites . He blamed no one for the grip slavery had on the system . He valued the lesson it taught slaves , then freemen , which was self-reliance that became their strength in life

Frederick Douglass saw the harshness and human indignities suffered by slaves since he was a small child in Maryland . He was witness to the beatings , whippings , lashings , shootings and other dehumanizing atrocities of overseers and slave owners on slaves . Killing a slave or a...