Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. Prior to the riot, African Americans had listened to Washington’s advice. Washington believed that African Americans should be sublevel to whites and focus all their time working diligently and progressing in blue-collar society. This would allow whites to feel supreme, but also allow African Americans to make something of themselves and provide for their families. Washington wanted blacks to be educationally ready for the argument of equality. These ideas would later begin to deteriorate in the black communities due to Jim Crow laws, racial discrimination, and eventually the race riot. Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. After the riot in Atlanta, many African American looked to the ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois. Bois, who help find the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, wanted to force equality for African Americans by all ways possible. He believed this would be a faster approach than Washington’s ideas. His can-do attitude is shown after the riot when African Americans begin to arm themselves and fight back. The author focuses on these two to prove the point that the African American people, while able to make decisions for themselves, were heavily influenced by the media, fear, and black leaders of their
African -American history predated the emergence of the United States as an independent country, and African – American literature was similarly in deep roots. Jupiter Hammon who was considered as the first published Black writer in America, he published his first poem named, “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries”in 1761. Through his poem, he implemented the idea of a gradual emancipation as a way to end slavery. His idea was later reprinted in some works such as Le Mulatre a short story published in 1837 by Victor Sejour
However Booker T. Washington believed in having a more skillful education, consisting of learning how to trade, mastering agriculture skills and more things one would need to get a job. However, W.E.B DuBois also put many efforts to achieve equal rights towards African Americans which Booker T Washington put on hold. Booker T Washington’s plan was to make it so that “Blacks would [have to] accept segregation and discrimination but their eventual acquisition of wealth and culture would gradually win for them the respect and acceptance of whites”. This vision that Booker T Washington had “practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro race”. W.E.B commented on this process saying it was an attempt, “to educate black boys and girls simply as servants and underlings.” The fact that Booker T Washington did not address to African Americans civil rights, is really important because it demonstrates that W.E.B DuBois did more than Booker T Washington. W.E.B addressed the rights of African Americans, which if fixed could create better education for African
Booker T. Washington was a man with highs standards a great work ethic and he was one of the most respected African Americans of his time. Born to a slave on a plantation in Hale’s Ford, Virginia, Booker T. knew from a young age the importance of a good education. Booker T is mostly known for his part in founding the Tuskegee Institute in 1881 along with George Washington Carver and Lewis Adams. Booker T. Washington was undoubtedly one of the most respected African Americans of his time. His values and beliefs established an imperative relationship with spiritual and political leaders of his time.
The Atlanta Exposition Address by Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), written as a strategy in order to combat racial tensions in the South. Washington was born into slavery, where he worked on a Virginia plantation until emancipation in 1865. He then moved to Virginia with his mother, and taught himself how to read and write. After many years of saving he enrolled in the Hampton Institute (later called Hampton University) in 1875 and Wayland Seminary from 1878-1879. He would later become a teacher at Hampton, and after recommendation from Hampton’s president, he was selected to lead Tuskegee University. He served as principal and founder at the newly built normal school that trained blacks to become teachers and agricultural industrial workers.
Outline: This essay will showcase the contradicting philosophies between W.E.B Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. Also, paying close attention to the different types of leadership between the two historic leaders in the black community. Both W.E.B Du Bois and Booker T. Washington contributed to and helped shape the future of African Americans.
To begin, the men had conflicting ideas about what constituted as African American equality. Booker T. Washington argued that the accumulation of wealth and the ability to prove that Blacks were productive members of society would be the mark of true equality for African Americans (Painter, 155). Because of this, Washington was less concerned about political rights and more on promoting the policy of accommodation. In other words, Washington felt that equality could be achieved by appealing to the white Southerner. Washington urged Blacks to accept segregation for the time being and focus on proving their equality through financial independence (Painter, 155).
In 1895, Booker T. WAshington gave the “Atlanta Compromise” speech at the at the Atlanta Cotton Exhibition , he urged African Americans to accept discrimination for the time being and concentrate on elevating themselves through hard work and material prosperity. One of his most famous quotes was “ In all things social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” He believed in education in the crafts, industrial and farming skills and the cultivation of the virtues of patience, enterprise and thrift. He stated, this would win the respect of whites and lead to African Americans being fully accepted as citizens and integrated into all strata of society. He was willing to trade politics and voting rights for economic rights. He founded organizations like the National Negro Business League to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro. But political leaders like W.E.B Dubois, did not agree with Washington’s philosophy. Dubois believed that social change could be accomplished by developing the small group of college-educated blacks he called "the Talented
Signs of Progress Among the Negroes, by Booker T, Washington. The Century Magazine, January 1900. New York City, New York. 11 pages. Reviewed by Jozlyn Clark
In September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington gave an address, that was known as the “Atlanta Compromise”, at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition. The fact that Mr. Washington was invited to speak to this all-white southern audience, was itself a historic event. In his speech, Washington made the argument that the African-American people should not ask for the right to vote, they would not retaliate against any racist behavior, and they would tolerate segregation and discrimination. Washington strongly argued that African Americans to get rid of Reconstruction-era notions of social equality. Booker T. Washington gave a couple proposals during this speech in Atlanta. Instead, he argued, most Southern blacks should pursue
There are a few ways that Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois differ in their strivings for racial equality. The reason that these men differ in their views are pretty apparent and go back to the separate arguments that Jane Addams and Elizabeth Cady Stanton produced for women's rights in the 19th century. Jane Addams made some compromises in her push for women's suffrage to make her argument easier to swallow and take a small step towards equality. Stanton puts out her whole argument for total equality which made her argument hard for her generation to accept, but got all the problems on the table.
Professor Khalil Girban Muhammad gave an understanding of the separate and combined influences that African Americans and Whites had in making of present day urban America. Muhammad’s lecture was awakening, informative and true, he was extremely objective and analytical in his ability to scan back and forth across the broad array of positive and negative influences. Muhammad described all the many factors during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries since the abolition of slavery and also gave many examples of how blackness was condemned in American society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Professor Muhammad was able to display how on one hand, initial limitations made blacks seem inferior, and various forms of white prejudice made things worse. But on the other hand, when given the same education and opportunities, there are no differences between black and white achievements and positive contributions to society. His lecture gave an insight of the way that we think, talk and respond to African American criminality.
Booker T. Washington was born a slave and worked as a janitor to get through school. Whereas W.E.B. Du Bois was born in the North and faced very little discrimination, and had an easier time getting into College. They were well educated, and the only difference between them was how they were raised in different environments. Both were on the journey to improve African American’s social and political status in America. However, they had different methods for getting what they wanted. Regardless, they were able to aid in ending discrimination and received equal standing in education, labor, acquiring of land, etc.. If it had only been Du Bois fighting for equality, then he would have achieved the fight for equality sooner. On the contrary, Du Bois only provided one view to how African Americans were being treated; Washington had a friendlier approach. This may be due to his fear of being lynched or placing African Americans in a harsher situation than they already were. Washington seemed more methodical—he was thinking about African Americans having the full rights of the 14th and 15th amendments. At the same, he was also concerned about the consequences of his speech, and if it angered the whites more than it relieved the situation they were all facing. Washington and Du Bois had every intention to improve the social and political status of African Americans, but they sought different plans to achieve such goals due to their different upbringings, values, and opinions.
Reason as to why he spoke- Wesson, Stephen. “Booker T. Washington and the Atlanta Compromise.” Booker T. Washington and the Atlanta Compromise | Teaching with the Library of Congress, 29 July 2011, blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2011/07/booker-t-washington-and-the-atlanta-compromise/. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017.
Booker T. Washington is by far one of the brightest and strongest minds from his time. During his Atlanta Exposition address he displays his intellect masterfully. From Mr. Washington’s use of language he was able to seamlessly piece together a speech that we still analyse to this day. Mr. Washington use of rhetoric explains and enlightens the circumstances of freed African Americans trying to fit into communities in the south. From mistreatment and racism still present in the newly freed people.