Essay Question 3: “A War between the Minds”
The Post-Reconstruction era was a rough time for the African-American race. As a whole the race had to endure the constant belittlement from whites, and in addition to this, the african-americans had to endure self-hate and arguments between each other. Even today, our people will argue over the smallest or largest topics, one of the larger being education. That is one constant similarity, education has and will always be important to our people for the purpose of our advancement. The greatest contenders in the debate of the education during this period were W.E.B DuBois and Booker T. Washington, and these two individuals of different backgrounds fought the same battle from opposing sides. However, …show more content…
Actually Booker T. Washington was a hard-working child. Once the Emancipation Proclamation was passed and Washington found himself working in a Salt mine to help support his family. Truthfully we can trace the beginnings of his central philosophy to experiences like these. “One day, while at work in the coal-mine, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for colored people somewhere in Virginia...more pretentious than the little coloured school in our town.” (Washington 51) Here we see another beginning into Washington’s Industrialized-education philosophy, and having worked all of his life there is a lack of surprise. It genuinely makes sense that he champions the thought of helping society through hard work, because that is all he knows. For example in the text Up From Slavery, Washington states, “After some hours had passed , the head teacher said to me, ‘The adjoining-recitation room needs sweeping. Take a broom and sweep it.’...I was one of the happiest souls on Earth.”(Washington 57) This shows Washington’s love of subservience and earning his place in the world through work. Booker T. Washington is the type of guy that doesn’t want anything handed to him, and that is a good ideal to
The Post-Reconstruction era was a rough time for the African-American race. As a whole the race had to endure the constant belittlement from whites, and in addition to this, the african-americans had to endure self-hate and arguments between each other. Even today, our people will argue over the smallest or largest topics, one of the larger being education. That is one constant similarity, education has and will always be important to our people for the purpose of our advancement. The greatest contenders in the debate of the education during this period were W.E.B DuBois and Booker T. Washington, and these two individuals of different backgrounds fought the same battle from opposing sides. However, …show more content…
Actually Booker T. Washington was a hard-working child. Once the Emancipation Proclamation was passed and Washington found himself working in a Salt mine to help support his family. Truthfully we can trace the beginnings of his central philosophy to experiences like these. “One day, while at work in the coal-mine, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for colored people somewhere in Virginia...more pretentious than the little coloured school in our town.” (Washington 51) Here we see another beginning into Washington’s Industrialized-education philosophy, and having worked all of his life there is a lack of surprise. It genuinely makes sense that he champions the thought of helping society through hard work, because that is all he knows. For example in the text Up From Slavery, Washington states, “After some hours had passed , the head teacher said to me, ‘The adjoining-recitation room needs sweeping. Take a broom and sweep it.’...I was one of the happiest souls on Earth.”(Washington 57) This shows Washington’s love of subservience and earning his place in the world through work. Booker T. Washington is the type of guy that doesn’t want anything handed to him, and that is a good ideal to