Comparing the European and the U.S. South in Booker T. Washington’s The Man Farthest Down

In The Man Farthest Down (1912), the prominent African American leader Booker T. Washington describes his 1910 visit to Europe. The book focuses on the living conditions of the working classes in Europe, with the goal of proving that African Americans in the United States South were overall better off than the labouring classes in Europe. While the book pays attention to the conditions of the urban poor in London and the farmers in Denmark, most of its chapters are devoted to territories the author defines as being in the European South. For Washington, the European South does not correspond to an exact geographical location. It is rather comparable to the South of the United States, in that it comprises the less economically developed regions of Europe. It includes Southern Italy, as well as the territories inhabited by minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including present-day Poland and the Czech Republic, conventionally located in Central Europe. Washington’s comparison between the South of the United States and the European South focuses on the living conditions of peasants, but it also looks at their discrimination and racialization, as well as their struggles for uplift and emancipation. While Washington foregrounds an accommodationist stance, his book also contains many observations that deconstruct racial hierarchies, supporting and highlighting the processes of emancipation. An analysis of these tensions in the text affords a better understanding of Washington’s politics, revealing the originality of his interpretation of ‘Southern’ societies and his deconstruction of prevailing stereotypes.