I had to write this paper for a History Class and take on a viewpoint of who was right. Tell me what you think.

Washington vs. Dubois

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois were prominent leaders in the black community in the late 19th and early 20th century. Although both had good intentions and only wanted what was best for blacks they both went about the change in social adjustment differently. In order to understand why each man believed different paths for a better society and social justice were to be achieved; we have to understand the background of each individual. However, it is only Dubois who comes out ultimately with the better options for racial equality and advancement for African-Americans in the tension filled environment of the post-civil war era.
Booker T. Washington was born a slave on a plantation in Virginia in 1856. He was freed in 1865 at the end of the Civil War. In 1872 he attended Hampton Institute, an industrial school for blacks and Native Americans. This school believed that blacks should acquire a vocation or skill in order to own land or a home. The men were taught how to farm and be good laborers while the women were taught how to be teachers and maids in order to serve whites. Later Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in 1881 in Tuskegee, AL. This school had the same ideals as Hampton and survived due to the major contributions from such wealthy white tycoons as Andrew Carnegie wanting good laborers.
Washington is primarily remembered for his speech in Atlanta, GA at the opening of the Cotton States and International Exposition titled the “Atlanta Compromise” given in 1895. In this speech he said that Negroes needed the help of whites to elevate in society because they owned the government and all the property. He pleaded with whites to hire Negroes over immigrants and advised Negroes to advance through hard work not by demanding equal rights because that was the cause of violence towards blacks in the south. He believed that civil and social equality would eventually be given to them by this philosophy of hard work, proving to white society that all blacks were not liars and winning their respect. This philosophy was one of accommodation to white oppression and southern whites responded with enthusiasm to these ideas because it did not involve political, civil, and social aspirations and it would consign the Negro to an inferior status among whites. If African-Americans agreed upon this plan of action it would have hindered their advancements and kept them to a level of society below whites.
W.E.B. Dubois, fearing this mentality would only serve only to perpetuate existing white oppression, had a different viewpoint and different solutions. He advocated persistent agitation, political action, and academic education. He rejected Washington’s submissive attitude and spoke about a “talented tenth”, a college educated elite who would lead the way for cultural and economic elevation. In his book, “The Souls of Black Folk”, he states: “The Negro Race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education then, among Negroes, must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth. It is the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the mass away from the contamination and death of the worst.” In speaking of “the worst” he is speaking of Booker T. Washington and his followers. He accurately predicted that if blacks waited for whites to extend equal rights voluntarily, they would probably wait forever. These ideas would serve to further equality among the races and were a must better option than accepting the unjust situations of the time. It was through these ideas that African-Americans would better themselves in the civil rights movements later on.
W.E.B. Dubois’s background was also severely different than Washington’s and thus probably the main reason for such a dramatic change in opinion. Dubois was born in Barrington, Massachusetts in 1868. He obtained his PhD from Harvard, the first black to do so. His family had been free from slavery for over one hundred years. He was a pioneer of the civil rights movement and helped found the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). By not being born during slavery and also not being born in the south Dubois takes on a different approach than Washington, who slavery probably affected psychologically and made him fearful of what whites would do if blacks didn’t take on a more gradual approach.
I think that Dubois takes on the best method for social justice and the Civil Rights movements that took place later are proof of this. It was the ideas that Dubois brought forth that were enacted later on such as sit-ins, protests, and rallies which brought about change. This confirmed that his concepts of political action and persistent agitation to achieve equal rights would be successful. Both Dubois and Washington wanted the same things eventually, equal rights, but it was Dubois’s attitude that is the most agreeable, believing that blacks should not have to sacrifice their constitutional rights in order to achieve a status that was already guaranteed. He lived a very long life, eventually growing tired of the inequality of the social atmosphere and moving his family to Ghana in 1961 where he died in 1963 at the age of 95. At his funeral he had read his own words which reflected his views perfectly, “One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end some slowly, because time is long. Good-bye."