The Negro Laborer: William Hooper Councill and the Rhetoric of Compromise

Abstract

The Negro Laborer: William Hooper Councill and the Rhetoric of Compromise Theresa McWilliams-Wessels (bio) By 1887, William Hooper Councill had been president of the State Normal and Industrial School of Huntsville, Alabama, for 12 years and had taught for 20 years. He filed suit against the federal government in a landmark discrimination case when his first-class ticket was refused on a train that did not have a car for people of color. That same year, he published The Negro Laborer: A Word to Him, a manuscript with his musings on the Labor Question—after the collapse of the slave-labor based economy and the rise of white supremacy combined with widespread illiteracy, the Black man’s position was precarious in the South. Councill hoped to gain support from white Southerners by demonstrating his willingness to train Black students in the industrial arts and by encouraging fellow Blacks to enter the work-force and prove their value in this new economy. In this manual, Councill uses a very specific rhetoric to reach his intended audience, which I will argue was not Black laborers but, rather, the whites who had the personal economic means to support his work and the political power to provide support in Montgomery, Alabama. Using coded language, Councill appeals to the paternalism of the southern whites as he seems to be promoting accommodationist practices among the Black laborers; at the same time, he makes a more radical argument by advocating for fairer treatment by their employers and fellow citizens. Because Councill has not received much attention from scholars, it may be useful to consider his contemporary Booker T. Washington to better understand the history and context of Councill’s contributions. Both men were presidents of their respective institutions, they became known for their oration skills, and they competed for private and public funding. Both Washington and Councill used the power of the printed word to secure support for Tuskegee Institute and the State Normal and Industrial School. Jane Gottschalk argues that the use of a very specific rhetorical strategy—the use of the homiletic, second--person, personal anecdotes and the careful wording—was selected to simultaneously disarm the white and inspire the Blacks in the audience of Washington’s speeches. Frederick K. McElroy proposes that Washington used trickster methodology in his writings, particularity in his autobiography, Up From Slavery. McElroy notes that “the black success narrative was Brother Rabbit conning and duping the larger animals, the slave trickster outsmarting his master, and the former slave Booker T. Washington mouthing subtleties in order to magically [End Page 246] remove money from the pockets of the rich in order to build Tuskegee Institute” (90). I shall argue that Councill, too, used these same rhetorical strategies in order to gain the confidence of his audience, but he did so in a more subversive manner. Councill was eight years older than Washington, and he had been a teen, not a child, when slavery ended. He would have had more time to understand the complexities of the relationships in the Deep South as he had lived in Alabama the majority of his life whereas Washington moved to Alabama only after his appointment to Tuskegee College. Councill spent his entire professional career in Madison County, Alabama, and had established a precarious relationship with the whites in power, and it was imperative to him that he maintain the support that he had. Thus, his text The Negro Laborer: A Word to Him may be addressed to the Black worker via its title, but the intended audience is the white reader; his rhetorical strategies allow him to address both audiences, white and Black, while simultaneously reassuring white and Black readers that there is a way to work together peacefully. The preface to The Negro Laborer, dated December 1887 and from Huntsville, reads as follows: Many friends have invited me to deliver addresses at various points upon the LABOR QUESTION. Being unable to attend all the appointments, I have concluded to reach them through the following pages. The LABOR QUESTION is one of vast importance to all good citizens, and continues to increase in magnitude with the growth of population. I claim no superior foresight...