Essentially, the educator proposed that Black people would chill out on the trying-to-be-equal stuff if white people just left us alone. In exchange for the gracious allowance of our existence, Black people wouldn’t ask for the right to vote, nor would they seek education beyond vocational training. The speech was seen by many as a total capitulation to white supremacy, as if white people haven’t whited since the day the Jamestown settlers demanded that the Powhatans enroll the colonizers in their free lunch program.
