Reconstruction Dbq

Washington believes that reconstruction is doomed for failure since the beginning of the period because the people looked to the government on how to act, people being not educated so they wouldn’t be ready for the duties of citizen ship, and the ignorance of the African Americans and their dependence on the government for everything. It was also because of how early it was after the age of slavery but Washington still attempted many different ways to help promote the reconstruction in hopes that one day that African Americans would be considered equals and not just the lower tier of the spectrum. There were too many factors that would hinder the reconstruction as a whole so that it would never be successful.
Due to being born a slave, Washington

was doomed to being in a resistance state where he doesn’t believe that things can change so fast. Most of his early life was being a slave and working every day. “I was asked not long ago to tell something about the sports and pastimes that I engaged in during my youth. Until that question was asked it had never occurred to me that there was no period of my life that was devoted to play. From the time that I can remember anything, almost every day of my life had been occupied in some kind of labour;” (Up From Slavery) From going to be treated as a slave for years to becoming accommodated to now being considered equals to former slave owners was too big of a jump.
Washington believed that education of the masses was important.

He truly wanted for the better good of all of the African Americans in the South because of the knowledge of his past life and how horrible it was. He spoke about it through his Atlanta Compromise which talked about the communities in the South who were switching the focus from the political activities to economic activities, namely land ownership, education, and self-sufficiency. (B T Washington 41) While it’s too early for reconstruction to be perfect, it’s a good start to attempt to make segregation a thing of the past. He urged blacks to stay in the south which is the opposite of what Ida B. Wells suggested. She suggest that if blacks were to face segregation, then they should move to the North to boycott any segregated processes, jobs, and just places in general for being a segregated zone. Washington attempted to have blacks stay in the South and become a mandatory part of the economy. This would mean that if blacks were suddenly gone, the economy would collapse. He believed by staying long enough, they would eventually earn their constitutional rights. He believed that African Americans should eventually be

equal.
Even though Washington did many things “over the table”, he also secretly helped with racism under the table with his money.

He mentioned that the masses should earn themselves the respect that they deserve if they deserve it. However, he gave money to individuals and organizations that were fighting against discrimination at the time. Washington helped to advance the rights of African Americans with 4000 dollars of his own money which is a fortune back then compared to today’s money. He helped pay against the legislations laws that were intended to degrade African Americans and show inferiority. An example of this would be in the disenfranchisement legislations in Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama. Washington failed those cases however. He funded lawyers that were fighting against racial exclusion from the juries in Alabama and Texas. He also paid ex-senator Henry W. Blake of New Hampshire to fight against the amendment to the Hepburn railway that supported segregation in interstate travel through the railroads. Washington helped WEB Du Bois’ case against the Southern Railway before the Interstate Commerce for its refusal to sell him a sleeping berth because of his race which is a directly illegal due to the 15th amendment. His biggest success would be the hard-fought and infamous case involving Alonzo Baily. They were a poor farmer that was forced to return to their landowner’s farm after leaving while owing 20 dollars. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was

unconstitutional to enslave people by contract and was absolutely a huge victory. (Washington v Du Bois 14-21) That is also directly related to the 14th amendment.
Washington firmly believed that for blacks to establish themselves, they had to be informed and educated. Lewis Adams, a black political leader at the time in Macom County, agreed to help two Democratic Party candidates win a local election in return for the building of the Tuskegee institute. After both men were elected, they used their influence to secure approval for the building of the school. (B T Washington 32) “But Tuskegee is, nevertheless, a brand-new chapter in the history of the Negro, and in the history of the knottiest problem we have ever faced. It not only makes “a carpenter of a man; it makes a man of a carpenter.” In one sense, therefore, it is of greater value than any other institution for the training of men and women that we have, from Cambridge to Palo Alto. It is almost the only one of which it may be said that it points the way to a new epoch in a large area of our national life.” (Up From Slavery Introduction) Tuskegee was a good place to start a school. “Tuskegee seemed an ideal place for the school. It was in the midst of the great bulk of the Negro population” (Up From Slavery Chapter 7) Samuel Armstrong, principal of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, was asked to recommend a white teacher to take charge of the institute. However, he suggested that it’d be a better idea to employ one of his African American teachers instead. That teacher was Washington. Washington truly believed that Tuskegee was a great step in the right direction. Washington’s conserved leadership of the school made it acceptable to the white-controlled Macon County Alabama. ( B T Washington 33-35) He wanted Du Bois, whom Washington thought of as an intellectual individual, to teach at his school. Du Bois denied this offer though and it wasn’t the first time he had to decline either.
WEB E. Du Bois was another individual who was growing up in the time of Washington. Du Bois and Washington had conflicting views on many different things. On the subject of education, both Washington and Du Bois thought that education was important. Du Bois on the other hand hasn’t experience racial prejudice to its fullest since he was born in the North after the Civil War had already happened. Du Bois does talk about double-consciousness though. He attempted to view himself through the eyes of a white man and see what other people see in him and through their eyes. This is important in seeing how white people would view him. This unfortunately doesn’t allow him to experience the true harshness of things like the Ku Klux Klan which is very hard to experience through double conciseness. Du Bois was an individual that knew of play at a young age. People encouraged him and to do well in school. This was the opposite of Washington who was born in slavery. Du Bois didn’t know of the African Americans in the South that were entrapped by the new method of slavery named sharecropping. Oblivious to this fact, he thought that African Americans were on an equal footing. They both did believe in education that was important however. Du Bois thought that economically that if blacks were to try their best and work hard, they would earn recognition. He thought this about political rights also. He believed that working hard will earn recognition and places higher up on the system. He wanted to show that African Americans were equal in creativity to Europeans and their creativity could enrich American culture and complement the aggressive commercialism of the twentieth century America. (Washington v Du Bois 79) “The Negro farmer started behind,--started in debt. This was not his choosing, but the crime of this happy-go-lucky nation which goes blundering along with its Reconstruction tragedies” (Souls of Black Folk Chapter 8) That was just relating to the tragedies of the Reconstruction though. Du Bois felt that had Reconstruction continued, it might have formed a school of progressive citizenship for blacks. The Freemen’s Bureau, with a national system of Negro schools, expenditure of money and brains might have formed a great school of progressive black citizenship which would have solved most of the roots of the problems of blacks. Because of the reluctance of Northern Republicans to continue financing the Bureau and Southern Whites continued fierce opposition, it was terminated. (Washington v Du Bois 109) It was a good way to start things off however.
Washington believed that due to no education of the his people, the reconstruction period would be a failure. In terms of education, Du Bois believes that Reconstruction was a good thing though and that if it had kept going for a bit longer, then blacks would’ve seen change. Overall, Washing and Du bois have similar ideas regarding educational, economic, and political rights with similar views on leadership in the African American communities.
“While Washington’s compromise was attractive to rural African Americans, sharecroppers, and former slaves, it was not attractive to the small number of mostly northern, urban and college educated men and women who at first were willing to see it as a temporary strategy due to the dramatic increase in violence directed against southern rural blacks via bulldozing or lynching. In a public appearance of Washington in Boston, William Monroe Trotter publicly denounced Washington for failing to face segregation. He proposed that since “the policy of compromise has failed…the policy of resistance and aggressions and deserves a trial.” This episode became known as the Boston Riot and Washington had Trotter arrested. At this point, Du Bois gave his support to Trotter who is forced to serve a 30 day jail sentence. (Washington v Du Bois 30-32) After that, Du Bois stopped supporting Washington. In response, Washington said “Dubois is a snob. He favors the “talented tenth” at the expense of the Negro masses. He does not know about the sharecroppers. Nor does he know about the fears of the Negroes in the South where the majority of Negroes live. However, this (the south) is my land. These are my people. “” (Washington v Du Bois 34-36) The general opinion of the middle class negro simply didn’t agree with the views of Washington. Washington’s beliefs were mostly only closely related to the blacks of the South who lived a different life than the blacks of the north and middle class Negroes in the South.
In 1905, Du Bois and 58 other black men started the Niagara Movement to oppose Washington’s approach and confront discrimination head on. “Mr. Washington leading the way backward,” Du Bois wrote adding that vocational training meant “every energy is being used to put black men back into slavery.” Washington had a spy in the Niagara movement however and punished its members. His retaliation to the movement was so effective that blacks were afraid to join. The movement died in a few years but it established relationships between important militants. Du Bois and Washington continued to oppose each other until Washington’s death in 1915 when Du Bois would become the most respected African American. Du Bois went on to help find the NAACP for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The cause of this finding was during the August of 14 and 15 of 1908 in which whites burned and rioted, killing and injuring many blacks. The town was Springfield that was also the hometown of Lincoln, the person who made the Emancipation Proclamation. Another person in the NAACP was Mary White Ovington. She grew up in a family of abolitionists and a settlement worker among African Americans in New York. The riots in Springfield led to a change in her life convincing her to fight racism. Ovington, William English Walling whom was a millionaire and many other sympathetic whites led to the formation of the NAACP, The person funding the organization was William English Walling. This person, through the connections of Du Bois, was able to fund such a big organization with Du Bois as a leader. (Washington v Du Bois 152-158)
Overall, Washington predicted that the Reconstruction was doomed from the start and it’s true because Reconstruction ended before race relations become better. It’s almost a century before race relations become better for African Americans and Washington was right. Both Du Bois and Washington were right in that education, hard work, and generations of time had to go by before race relations would finally become equal.