Weblog IV

Author and answer an essay question based on Chapter 3 in Spring's Book


Compare Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois and give your opinion on each and their strategies...

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois were similar because they were both advocates for the education and advancement of blacks. However, their solutions to this issue were completely different. Washington believed the way to social acceptance was to slowly gain the approval from whites. He believed that if blacks were educated, they could prove to be very useful in society. He opened the Tuskegee Institute where black students would be taught morals and work habits. Washington did not feel it was necessary to teach such subjects as French, or history. He felt that this knowledge would not be beneficial to them, but he thought it was important that they learn good work habits because this would help them in their daily lives. He also was an advocate for segregated schools and was quoted in the text saying: “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” He felt that once the blacks were seen as valuable to society and trustworthy, acceptance would follow.
W.E.B. Du Bois had a completely different strategy to gain education rights and acceptance. Du Bois felt that Washington’s strategy was giving up. Du Bois established the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and had earned a Ph.D. from Harvard. Du Bois wanted higher education for blacks and hoped that this education would help them to become so unhappy with their treatment that they would all demand a change. He thought that segregated schools would only continue to make them inferior because of their poor funding and instruction.
I feel that Du Bois had a better strategy. Washington’s idea was not necessarily horrible; I do believe that educating them in work habits and morals would be more beneficial than teaching French and such subjects. However, I agree with Du Bois that Washington’s strategy sells the blacks short and almost seems as though he accepts that blacks are inferior. I feel that Du Bois had the right idea in demanding equality and that schools be desegregated. It may not be the easy route, but at least he never abandoned his beliefs.