Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. du bois...

            After reading both “sides” if you will, I would consider Booker T. Washington to be on the conservative side and Du Bois to be on the liberal or “militant” side. There is definitely a difference in tone in these essays, but I’m hesitant to classify Du Bois as militant.

            I find it coincidental, that the more conservative of the two, was in fact born into slavery. I would have expected Washington to be more radical and more of a die hard against the South. 

Was there a method to his madness? 

Is this a classic “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” scenario?

I can’t help but wonder if Booker T. was torn between his mixed racial heritages?  Did he view himself as a middleman between Blacks and Whites?

            In his closing statement at the Atlanta Exposition:

“ …let us pray God, will come in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer in a nation absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, this, couples with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.”

                                                                 -Booker T. Washington

I think we get a true sense of who Booker T. Washington was as a person, in these closing words. He may have been conservative and overly reserved in the advancement of equal rights, but I believe he was cautious for a reason. Considering that he came from slavery and lived through the Civil War, he had seen so much hatred. He wanted to make a difference, and he did.

W.E.B du bois was an extremely powerful figure and leader for the African American race, and rightfully opposed to Washington’s views. Even though he was born after Emancipation, he saw at a young age the ugliness of racism that existed between races. Unlike Washington, he thought the way to equality was to stand up and fight for it.

From, The Souls of Black Folk,

“ …Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need education as well as white boys.”

            -W.E.B. du bois

This was partly a rebuttal to Washington’s approach of backing down and slowly earning a wage. Du bois advocated an equal playing field now, not tomorrow.

 

I found myself agreeing more with du bois for many personal reasons and I still consider him one of the top three most influential figures on civil rights. I also found it interesting that regardless of his “radical” views, he was the first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard. His legacy is huge.