Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois are with out a doubt two of the most prominent African American leaders to emerge after the civil war. Both Washington and Dubois were leaders who sought the advancement of black Americans after the civil war and the reconstruction period. While these two men were essentially struggling to achieve the same goal, of equal citizenship they had very different plans of action to accomplish this. The most significant debate between the followers of Washington and Dubois was on education of African Americans. Their different philosophies regarding education led them to form two very different movements in achieving equal citizenship. These differences are still a widely discussed topic today, and this paper will analyze these differences and also the similarities between Washington and Dubois, and show why they took two very different paths in struggling to achieve their goal.

In order to understand why these two men who sought the same goal, often contradicted each other, one must first look at the backgrounds of these men. Washington and Dubois were from contrasting backgrounds, which helped shape, their views on the advancement of African Americans, and especially education. Booker T. Washington was born a slave in the south, with a thirst to receive an education. However Washington soon discovered that receiving and education would prove a difficult task. Through saving his salary and help from the community Washington eventually was able to enroll at Hampton, a school for colored people more than 500 miles away from his family. It was at Hampton, that Washington began to develop his educational philosophy that would make him a national figure.

While Washington was a poor ex-slave from the south, W.E.B. Dubois was from the complete opposite. Dubois was born in the north and came from a family of wealth. Dubois did not have to struggle to receive an education, nor did he suffer the hardships of slavery like Washington. Du bois received and education from both Fisk University and Harvard University. These stark differences in their upbringing and educations that they received help explain why these two men did not see eye to eye when it came to choosing the appropriate path to achieve their goal.

Booker T. Washington's education philosophy was based upon an industrial education. Washington was taught the value of not only receiving an education but also in learning a trade. This feeling in part stems from two of Washington's personal experiences. The first is while Washington did recognize the importance of an education he also believed that learning a trade was of equal if not more important than "book learning". "When freedom came the slaves, were almost as well fitted to begin life a new as the master; except in the matter of book learning and property ownership. The slave owner and his sons had mastered no special industry"(Three Negro Classics pg 38). The realization that while slave owners were wealthy they could not be so with out the education of industry, which the slaves possessed, led Washington to believe that industrial education could help African Americans earn the respect of white people. This belief was confirmed again at Washington's time at Hampton. "General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, the principal of Hampton, had established a program of agricultural and industrial training and Christian piety for Negroes acceptable to southern whites" (http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1978/2/78.02.02.x.html). Armstrong was very influential in Washington as, he himself stated several times in his autobiography Up From Slavery. It was through Armstrong's influence and southern upbringing that Washington would incorporate his faith in industrial education, into a plan of action for African Americans to achieve equal citizenship. Washington believed that in African Americans learned a trade and were able to provide for themselves, they would become economically able and independent. It was Washington's beliefs that if blacks proved themselves "worthy" to whites, than eventually they would be accepted and would be granted the political and social equality that they sought.

The philosophy that Washington held was brought to national attention in his speech at the Atlanta exposition where during his speech Washington said, "In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress"( Three Negro Classics pg 148). This speech brought Washington to the national spotlight as a Negro leader, however not all African Americans were in favor of accepting an inferior status. The most famous critic of this philosophy is W.E.B. Dubois.

W.E.B. Dubois unlike Washington did not agree that blacks should