Two prominent African American leaders, Booker T. Washington and W. E. B.
Du Bois arose to accomplish one goal: education for all African Americans. During the turn of the century (between 1895 and 1915), there were many theories on how African Americans would achieve first-class citizenship. With two separate views on how to accomplish this goal, the African American community was split in half on who to support. Booker T. Washington believed in industrial and agricultural labor, while W. E. B. Du Bois advocated for higher education.
B. Du Bois proposed a strategy of pursuing higher education to gain first-class citizenship for the African American race. Born as the son of a slave, Booker Taliaferro Washington was considered, during his time, to be the spokesman of the African American race. Washington believed that if African Americans focused on striving economically, they would eventually be given the rights they were owed. With this in mind, he encouraged blacks to attend trade schools where they could learn to work either industrially or agriculturally. At his famous Atlanta Exposition Address, he declared, Our greatest danger is that, in the great leap from slavery to freedom, we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life.”
His suggestion was one that the Negro race was familiar with. The Southern and Northern whites accepted his plan because it acknowledged the inferiority of the black race.
The Negro approved it” because it was a better way of life than being stuck in the stagnation of sharecropping. With this statement, Washington emphasized that “the opportunity provided here will awaken a new era of industrial progress among us.” He made the point that as African Americans, we can achieve the rights we desire if we prove ourselves useful to the white race.
Washington stated, No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the laws be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of those privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house.” Along with this came the conclusion that you had to befriend the southern white man.
Washington made it known that befriending the white man was imperative to ending the black man’s struggle. He said, “To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: Cast down your bucket where you are; cast it down in making friends, in every manly way, of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.” All this and more was said in Atlanta, Georgia, the first time in history where a black man had ever spoken in front of so many white people. It was apparent to every African American who did not totally agree with Washington’s idea that this was a sign of submission for the black race. The submissive part, if none else, was where the conflict came in.
Washington sent the message that if African Americans were going to succeed, they would have to continue using their hands as a means of productivity in a white society. Some saw this as the only way to fit into society, while others saw it as a failure and supported another leader. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, labeled as a radical, had a solid idea for African American progression. He was described as the most outspoken civil rights activist in America” and “the undisputed intellectual leader of a new generation of African-Americans.” Du Bois was considered the inspiration for the literary movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. In his essay, he mentions the “Talented Tenth,” a small group of black individuals who, if they attained a college education, would become leaders of the race and encourage others to do the same, reaching a higher level of education.
