Compare And Contrast Booker T. Washington And W. E. B. Dubois

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B DuBois were two very different men who came from completely different lifestyles. These men had one major thing in common, though they argued relentlessly on how to achieve their shared goal. Both men wanted to eventually have equal rights for the colored people of America. Their methods were a little different though. Booker T. Washington believed that if the blacks became hard workers, the whites would slowly begin to treat them as equals. He wanted them to work hard so that the change to racial equality would be gradual and there would not be as many outbursts by upset Americans. Less Americans would be upset because they had already come to terms with the fact that the blacks are hard workers and deserved to be treated as

Washington believed that gradual change will be able to give the blacks more rights and opportunities. W.E.B. DuBois wanted to use the “Niagara Movement.” It was big and unstoppable. DuBois believed that the longer they took and the more gradual they were, the longer it is going to take to get all of the rights they want. It appears that they want the same thing but want to go about it in completely different ways. Their methods were almost the opposite of each other, but still the same goal. W.E.B. DuBois was going for the big splash and the big change all at once. That would be a very large change in what the culture was before and most people would not like the big changes all at once. DuBois did not care about the repercussions, he wanted drastic change. Booker T. Washington looked more at the big picture of how people were going to react and how we could make the change as gradual as possible. If the blacks became good and hard workers who knew the ways of the middle class, the whites would want to treat them equally and will start gradually treating them with equality on their own. Both men saw their different methods as the correct method, and sometimes attacked the other