Booker T Washington And W. E. B Dubois Essay

Booker T Washington and W.E.B DuBois had contrasting views on how to attain racial equality, though the views of Du Bois sparked the Civil Rights Movement. Booker T Washington considered that social equality would come naturally when African Americas were economically powerful. W.E.B DuBois thought that political and social equality was necessary, so he created movements such as the Niagara movement to push for equality. Washington and DuBois were both African American leaders who wanted racial equality, though Washington believed that black people must work hard to gain respect from others, while DuBois believed that people should have been actively fighting for their rights. According to Booker T Washington, doing hard work and being meticulous …show more content…
He believed in higher education, but he did not agree with Washington’s idea that African Americans had to work for economic equality to be accepted socially. An example of this contradiction is when DuBois stated, “We ourselves are workers, but work is not necessarily education” (DuBois. Dolbeare and Cummings. “The Souls of Black Folk”. Pg 334). What W.E.B DuBois wanted was very clear. He outright said that he wanted equality rights and that African Americans had to fight and protest to achieve them. To work behind this idea of protest, DuBois founded the Niagara movement, and later assisted in finding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the NAACP (DuBois. Dolbeare and Cummings. “The Souls of Black Folk” pg. 329). The NAACP worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in the fight for Civil Rights. W.E.B DuBois also clearly states that he wanted voting rights for African Americans. DuBois started, “With the right to vote goes everything: freedom, manhood, the honor of our wives, the chastity of our daughters, the right to work, and the chance to rise, and let no man listen to those who deny this” (DuBois. Dolbeare and Cummings. “The Souls of Black Folk” pg. 338). He, along with many others, thought that voting rights were very important to political and social …show more content…
Washington’s philosophy, though not the one carried out in the end, was one of the most revolutionary and well-conceived plans for racial equality America has ever come upon. Many African American people at the time were jobless and poor, but being hired by white businessmen. Washington’s plan created businesses run by African Americans where African Americans could find work, and under his schooling, they could find an education. Washington stated himself that, “The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing” (Atlanta Exposition Address. Pg. 948). The right to vote would not be put first, so political and social rights would not be addressed until African Americans were as economically powerful as White people, persuading them to have respect. Today, many African Americans have worked hard to become economically successful. These people include Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan for example. Oprah Winfrey started her career as a talk show host who now owns her own TV station and is known for her generosity when it comes to giving back to the public. Michael Jordan, the former Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards basketball player, started from being cut from his high