"Cast Down Your Bucket" Essay N2
Throughout American history, many speakers have encouraged messages for citizens to make changes, or pick sides to things going on in their every day lives. One person who worked to influence a change was Booker T. Washington, who sent out his message to the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895. While giving his speech, Washington uses rhetorical devices to establish and advance the idea that the African American and white races must work together to prosper industrially in the South.
One example of rhetoric Washington includes in his speech is anecdote. Washington tells the story of a lost ship with the men crying "Water, send us water!" Four times, the men on the ship are told four …show more content…
Washington encourages "making friends in every manly way of the people of all races, by whom you are surrounded." (para. 4) to "make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South." (para. 4) This is important because Washington ensures to the African Americans the idea that reaching out to your neighbors will do you greater good than reaching out to a foreign land. Washington then makes a bold statement in which he then uses to win over the white listeners of his speech: "Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your fireside. Cast down your bucket among these people who have without strikes and labor wars tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, just to make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South." (para. 5) This statement is vital to ensure that, in conjunction with the above statement to the African Americans, Washington is able to get both races thinking about working together to produce economical and industrial growth in the South