Both Du Bois and Washington agree that there is nothing inherently different between blacks and whites. Washington notes in The Future of the American Negro that “The Negro is behind the white man because he has not had the same chance, and not from any inherent difference in his nature and desires” (27). Du Bois regards a similar mentality in his essay on art “Criteria of Negro Art” expounding that “art coming from black folk is going to be just as beautiful … as the art that comes from white folk” (163). The difference between black achievement and white perception is based on the propagandas myth of inferiority.
I also think both had a world view with an understanding that just as African-Americans were exploited in the US so they would be exploited else where only under the guise of superficial development. Washington notes that “It is with an ignorant race as it is with a child: it craves at first the superficial, the ornamental signs of progress rather than the reality” (24, 25) and this sentiment can be seen in Du Bois descriptions of Sierra Leone in his essay “The New Negro” where “Negroes themselves sometimes doubt the evidence of their own senses … The Negroes vote and hold office in Freetown … [but] it’s powers have been gradually absorbed by the autocratic white colonial government” (147). It would appear that Washington and Du Bois understood that African-Americans or the black population globally were completely capable to handle to the privileges and responsibilities of …show more content…
To shake the moniker of being essentially a nationalized slave, Washington felt that African-Americans needed to dig into their role as working class with an expansion of agricultural and industrial education, whereas Du Bois felt that higher education and the agitation of social and political ideals were better methods of attaining social
I also think both had a world view with an understanding that just as African-Americans were exploited in the US so they would be exploited else where only under the guise of superficial development. Washington notes that “It is with an ignorant race as it is with a child: it craves at first the superficial, the ornamental signs of progress rather than the reality” (24, 25) and this sentiment can be seen in Du Bois descriptions of Sierra Leone in his essay “The New Negro” where “Negroes themselves sometimes doubt the evidence of their own senses … The Negroes vote and hold office in Freetown … [but] it’s powers have been gradually absorbed by the autocratic white colonial government” (147). It would appear that Washington and Du Bois understood that African-Americans or the black population globally were completely capable to handle to the privileges and responsibilities of …show more content…
To shake the moniker of being essentially a nationalized slave, Washington felt that African-Americans needed to dig into their role as working class with an expansion of agricultural and industrial education, whereas Du Bois felt that higher education and the agitation of social and political ideals were better methods of attaining social