Essay #4 Rough Draft: Booker T. Washington & WEB Du Bois
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois are considered as the two most influential black leaders of all the black American movement history. However, they followed different ideologies concerning how black people should achieve civil rights. Booker T. Washington encouraged the need for African Americans to be able to compete skillfully on an economic basis with the white Southerners, while Du Bois wanted more than that, and exactly focused on encouraging the black Americans to fight for their civil rights rather than just acting passively, as Washington’s philosophy suggested. If a man feels oppressed, and thinks his rights are being held from him, then he should fight by all means possible to win them back, as the following analysis would debate it.
On one hand, there was a man, Booker T. Washington with the speech titled “The Atlanta Compromise”, who essentially supported the white’s rules by delaying racial equality and using numerous points such as the economic equality, which Washington considered the first point that black Americans must achieve, as he stated:” When it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world.” (1482) In fact, Booker T. Washington had his own idea concerning the African American social and economical progress. He wanted and urged blacks to accept discrimination during that period, and rather concentrate on elevating themselves through the means of hard work and material success within the black community. He believed in education in the crafts, industrial and farming skills, and the cultivation of virtues such as patience or enterprise. For him, this would win the respect of whites and lead to African Americans being fully accepted as citizens and integrated into all levels of the society.
On the other hand, W.E.B. Du Bois, a former follower of Washington who finally said no to...