Comparing Booker T. Washington And W. E. B. Du Bois

For four years the country was split in half as brother fought brother in a bloody civil war that would become a defining moment in America’s short history. The abolishment of slavery dawned a reconstruction movement that would be anything but easy. As millions of African Americans fought for social, political, and economic equality they were met head on by a mass who wished the status quo and the continued suppression of newly freed slaves. This new movement, like all movements, would inevitably have it’s leaders, two of which being Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. It is the differences in both ideology and approach that separates these two men and their respective camps in the fight for equality.
Booker T. Washington was truly a rags

Similar to Washington he believed that African Americans needed to be economically independent and engaged members of their respective communities. In direct contrast however “Du Bois has been celebrated as a forerunner for the mid-20th-century black protest movement” (Dagbovie 2007, 253). Du Bois was outraged by the racial and social inequalities of the time. He stresses not only economic freedom but the right to vote, civic equality, and the education of youth according to ability (Oden 2013, 171). He wanted to construct American education in a way that would capitalize on each of the students interests and abilities, not simply labor based occupational training. W.E.B Du Bois and others spearheaded the Niagara movement in 1905 to serve as a platform for change. The Niagara Movements Declaration of Principles outlined eighteen demands, seventeen of which were social and political in nature while one was titled “Economic Opportunity” (Declaration of Principles). As you move down the list of demands far reaching topics of suffrage, Courts, Protests, and the Church are covered (Declaration of Principles). In Du Bois “Address to the Country” issued at Harpers Ferry in West Virginia 1906 he was even more harsh and critical of the establishment saying “We want full manhood suffrage, and we want it now, henceforth and forever” and outlines the failures of the Republican

Washington it is clear why has been called the great compromiser. He was willing to give up the fight of major reform in order to have more economic prosperity for his people. Its very difficult to blame someone for having this philosophy, especially given his slave related past. I don’t believe he envisioned being a national figurehead for the entire reconstruction movement. This can be seen in his descriptions of life after giving giving the Atlanta speech. We was embarrassed with the amount of attention he was getting and when he was offered high paying lecturing opportunities he turned them down in favor of staying as Tuskegee where he says his life work is (Oden 2013, 162). But Washington did become a powerful figure and had the ear of the President himself. Many argue that it is through this that he could have advocated for social and political equality and not just economic equality. Washington persisted with his formal approach of working within the socio-political environment to push his goals. It was his compromising ways in the first place that brought him to the level he and made him “ During the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s ... the only African American featured in white authored books about "great" American reformers, educators, and leaders” (Dagbovie 2007,