In the early 20th century, many social movements were transpiring. The Women Suffrage movement was underway and many immigrants were coming in to the country. A more prevalent movement occurring at the time was the African American population pushing for their own equality. Two men in particular had strong influences on this push: Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois. While they both had the same goal, their ideas on how to achieve this goal contradicted one another.
Washington was slightly before the time of Dubois. His ideals focused on "racial uplift". He was an educator and reformer, and arguably the most influential black leader of his time. He urged blacks to accept the discrimination that was being done unto them and rise in society regardless of it. This was where his views differed with Dubois. Dubois was an intellectual and political thinker. He was strongly against Washington's idea of accepting discrimination as he believed that that only furthered the white supremacy mindset of the time. He believed that blacks should fight for equality and then go from there.
Overall, Washington seemed to approach black inequality with a realist mindset, while Dubois approached it with an idealist mindset. Although rivals Washington and Dubois terribly disagreed on almost all of the other's ideals, each always shared a strong mutual respect for the other.
Here is a quote by Dubois which shows his respect for Washington and how his views were knowledgeable. But it also takes his approach to keep fighting to black equality. "One hesitates, therefore, to criticize a life which beginning with so little, has done so much. And yet the time is come when one may speak in all sincerity and utter courtesy of the mistakes and shortcomings of Mr. Washington's career as well as of his triumphs, without being captious or envious, and without forgetting that it is easier to do ill than well in the world"
ReplyDeleteTo add to the blog post above, W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the founding members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP), which through the courts battled to end segregation and made sure that African American men could utilize voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment. Du Bois encouraged blacks to serve in the military to display their loyalty and help obtain more equality. Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, emphasizing practical skills over book learning because he believed that learning trades and succeeding economically would help African Americans gain civil rights.
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