Both men were aware that the need for African Americans to become technologically literate was paramount. However, whereas Washington advocated a hands-on external approach, DuBois promoted a paternalistic form of advancement of the Black race.
Booker T. Washington- encouraged african americans to improve their educational and economic well being (wealthier) in order to end segregation. this will give people more respect and get better jobs. W.E.B DuBois- believed African Americans should protest unjust treatment and demand equal rights.
Booker T. Washington and Others.” DuBois rejected Washington's willingness to avoid rocking the racial boat, calling instead for political power, insistence on civil rights, and the higher education of Negro youth.
Two great leaders of the black community in the late 19th and 20th century were W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. However, they sharply disagreed on strategies for black social and economic progress.
DuBois believes Washington is promoting an assimilationist strategy for African Americans—specifically, African American men, as he does not directly address African American women.
Du Bois also criticized Washington's approach at the Tuskegee Institute, a school for blacks that Washington founded, as an attempt “to educate black boys and girls simply as servants and underlings.”
Washington argued that African Americans must concentrate on educating themselves, learning useful trades, and investing in their own businesses. Hard work, economic progress, and merit, he believed, would prove to whites the value of blacks to the American economy.
Why did W. E. B. Du Bois disagree with what he called the Atlanta Compromise? He argued that Booker T. Washington's ideas aimed to satisfy powerful whites, thereby giving credence to the idea that African Americans were inferior.
In it, Washington suggested that African Americans should not agitate for political and social equality, but should instead work hard, earn respect and acquire vocational training in order to participate in the economic development of the South.
His cause included people of color everywhere, particularly Africans and Asians in colonies. He was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for the independence of African colonies from European powers.
In 1905, DuBois met with a group of 30 men at Niagara Falls, Canada. They drafted a series of demands essentially calling for an immediate end to all forms of discrimination. The Niagara Movement was denounced as radical by most whites at the time. Educated African Americans, however, supported the resolutions.
He believed the educated African Americans must use their education and training to challenge inequality.
Du Bois believed social change could be accomplished only through agitation and protest, and he promoted this view in his writing and in his organizing work. He was a pioneering advocate of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism, and he urged his readers to see “Beauty in Black.”
Booker T. Washington believed that racism and discrimination will always exist in America and that African American will never be treated equally. Therefore, he set up Tuskegee Institute (a college to learn practical skills such as farming, etc.)
Washington argued that African Americans must concentrate on educating themselves, learning useful trades, and investing in their own businesses. Hard work, economic progress, and merit, he believed, would prove to whites the value of blacks to the American economy.
Of course, it is easy to see where Du Bois’ influence has lead. The Civil Rights Movement was built on the back of teachings and ideas spread by the likes of W.E.B Du Bois.
In 1903, Du Bois published The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of 14 essays the depicted Black life at the turn of the century. The book is believed to be one of the most influential social books of the century. After the creation of the NAACP in 1910, Du Bois was given the position of Director of Publicity and Research.
Washington believed Blacks having economic independence and creating wealth for themselves would lead to equality while Du Bois argued that fighting for civil rights was the right course to take.
He believed putting all efforts into building wealth without having civil rights guaranteed to Black s was a dangerous approach.
Washington believed the first step towards complete equality for blacks was a step towards financial independence.
After the creation of the NAACP in 1910, Du Bois was given the position of Director of Publicity and Research. His main job was editing the NAACP’s monthly magazine, which he named The Crisis. The magazine was a major success and the circulation reached 100,000 in 1920.
Washington’s push for putting almost all efforts into building strong Black communities away from white communities is an idea a lot of Black leaders view as smart now. His push for Black ownership is the basis for many successful black businesses that kept many communities afloat in the South.
In Teaching Democracy, Walter C. Parker states, “Johnson and Johnson (1988) call the strategy Structured Academic Controversy in order to emphasize, first, the structured or scaffolded nature of the discussion and, second, the academic or subject matter controversies that at are at issue.” (Parker, p.142)
At the conclusion of the discussion students should be given the full text of the Atlanta Compromise Speech and spend the rest of the period in silent reading.
In Teaching Democracy, Walter C. Parker states, “Johnson and Johnson (1988) call the strategy Structured Academic Controversy in order to emphasize, first, the structured or scaffolded nature of the discussion and, second, the academic or subject matter controversies that at are at issue.” (Parker, p.142)
After readings, teacher leads students through short whole class debriefing, including revisiting understandings of key vocabulary. Teacher asks: what additional things did you learn about the life and ideas of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois in the readings from Blackpast.org? How have the readings changed your understanding of some of the key vocabulary terms?
Activity: Working in pairs or teams, students posit preliminary definitions of terms based on prior knowledge. Later, as a whole class, in a debriefing activity teacher will give additional information, refining student’s understanding of these terms, some of terms, such “Talented Tenth” or “Accommodationism” which cannot be adequately understood without background information from teacher and readings.
It is the turn of the twentieth century. Design a plan which represents the best strategy for change, educational progress and race relations, based on ideas from each man’s speeches and writings. Also mention which ideas from each leader you would not include and tell why.
1. Students are organized into groups of four, and each group is split into two pairs. One pair in a foursome studies one side of the controversy, while the second pair studies an opposing view. Partners read the background material and identify facts and arguments that support their assigned position.
Both men wanted the same thing: socioeconomic equality for Blacks in America, but based on their experiences, they formed two contrasting opinions on how to get there. In the beginning, DuBois supported Washington’s theories but later became one of his biggest critics.
In the book “Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915: Racial Ideologies in the Age of Booker T. Washington, ” August Meier writes “At no time were Booker T. Washington’ s policies favored by all negroes.
This led him to believe that a group of intellectual Blacks, which he dubbed “the talented tenth,” would rise and lead the masses.
In 1867, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Alabama State University, Barber-Scotia College, Fayetteville State University, Johnson C. Smith University, Saint Augustine’s University ...
In the book W.E.B . Du Bois : Black Radical Democrat, Manning Marable explains the social aspect of Du Bois’ philosophy, “If negroes were to be the central actors in the making of a new racial history, the problem of racism must therefore be analyzed first and foremost from a Black perspective, employing a language and cultural style that resonated with African Americans. Whites could be observers and occasional participants in this new conversation about race, but they would not dictate the terms of discourse.”
By Jessica Dortch. AFRO Production Editor. When you think about influential Black intellectuals in history, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois are among the first names that come to mind.
Du Bois’ methods were seen as radical to southern Blacks, while Washington’s approach received backlash from northern Blacks accusing him of being a “sell out,” that furthered the White agenda.
At the time, the Washington/Du Bois dispute polarized African American leaders into two wings–the ‘conservative’ supporters of Washington and his ‘radical’ critics. The Du Bois philosophy of agitation and protest for civil rights flowed directly into the Civil Rights movement which began to develop in the 1950’s and exploded in the 1960’s. Booker T. today is associated, perhaps unfairly, with the self-help/colorblind/Republican/Clarence Thomas/Thomas Sowell wing of the black community and its leaders. The Nation of Islam and Maulana Karenga’s Afrocentrism derive too from this strand out of Booker T.’s philosophy. However, the latter advocated withdrawal from the mainstream in the name of economic advancement.
A summary of Booker T.’s life, philosophy and achievements, with a link to the famous September 1895 speech, “the Atlanta Compromise,” which propelled him onto the national scene as a leader and spokesman for African Americans. In the speech he advocated black Americans accept for awhile the political and social status quo of segregation and discriminaton and concentrate instead on self-help and building economic and material success within the black community.
Washington, educator, reformer and the most influentional black leader of his time (1856-1915) preached a philosophy of self-help, racial solidarity and accomodation. He urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and concentrate on elevating themselves through hard work and material prosperity.
In it Du Bois describes the magnitude of American racism and demands that it end. He draws on his own life for illustration- from his early experrience teaching in the hills of Tennessee to the death of his infant son and his historic break with the ‘accomodationist’ position of Booker T. Washington..
Booker T. today is associated, perhaps unfairly, with the self-help/colorblind/Republican/Clarence Thomas/Thomas Sowell wing of the black community and its leaders. The Nation of Islam and Maulana Karenga’s Afrocentrism derive too from this strand out of Booker T.’s philosophy. However, the latter advocated withdrawal from the mainstream in ...
This interesting 1965 article by writer Ralph McGill in The Atlantic combines an interview with Du Bois shortly before his death with McGill’s analysis of his life. In the interview, Du Bois discusses Booker T., looks back on his controversial break with him and explains how their backgrounds accounted for their opposing views on strategies for black social progress
Two great leaders of the black community in the late 19th and 20th century were W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. However, they sharply disagreed on strategies for black social and economic progress.
No account of Black history in America is complete without an examination of the rivalry between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, which in the late 19th to early 20th centuries changed the course of the quest for equality in American society, and in the process helped give birth to the modern civil rights movement. Though Washington and Du Bois were born in the same era, both highly accomplished scholars and committed to the cause of civil rights for Black people in America, it was their differences in background and method that would have the greatest impact on the future.
In contrast to Washington, Du Bois maintained that education and civil rights were the only way to equality and that conceding their pursuit would simply serve to reinforce the notion of Black people as second-class citizens.
Following a series of articles in which the two men expounded on their ideologies, their differences finally came to a head when, in 1903, Du Bois published a work titled The Souls of Black Folks, in which he directly criticized Washington and his approach and went on to demand full civil rights for Black people.
Believing that political action and agitation were the only way to achieve equality, in 1905 Du Bois and other Black intellectuals founded a political group called Niagara, which was dedicated to the cause.
By the early 20th century, Washington and Du Bois were the two most influential Black men in the country. Washington's conciliatory approach to civil rights had made him adept at fundraising for his Tuskegee Institute, as well as for other Black organizations, and had also endeared him to the white establishment, including President Theodore Roosevelt, who often consulted him regarding all matters about Black people.
After joining the American Communist Party in 1961, Du Bois repatriated to Ghana and became a naturalized citizen. He died in Ghana on August 27, 1963, at the age of 95. Martin Luther King Jr. led the March on Washington the next day.
It was, however, referred to pejoratively as the “Atlanta Compromise” by its critics. And among them was Du Bois. Booker T. Washington at his desk in the Tuskegee Institute, 1894. Photo: Associated Press [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.