Introduction

By 1905, two African American leaders dominated the debate over the best course for racial advancement in America. Booker T. Washington became the best-known spokesman following the death of Frederick Douglass in 1895. Foremost among those who rose to challenge Washington was W. E. B. Du Bois, who had a different plan. The two men became arch-rivals. Washington even hired spies to keep an eye on Du Bois.

Booker T. Washington did not think that social equality of the races was as important as economic equality. He said:

“The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.”

— Washington, Atlanta Exposition Address, 1895.

 

Du Bois later called Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Address the “Atlanta Compromise,” because it compromised social equality of the races in order to gain economic equality. But at the time, Du Bois wrote to Washington and said of the Atlanta Address:

“My Dear Mr. Washington: Let me heartily congratulate you upon your phenomenal success in Atlanta — it was a word fitly spoken.”

— Letter, Du Bois to Washington, Sept. 24, 1895.

 

You Decide: Who had the better vision for improving the conditions of African Americans in the early 1900s, Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. Du Bois?

Booker T. Washington: What if you knew that W. E. B. Du Bois believed in industrial education for most African Americans, just as Booker T. Washington did?

W. E. B. Du Bois: What if you knew that while Du Bois believed that higher education was essential for advancement, his plan called for college education for only a “Talented Tenth” of African Americans?

Education

Booker T. Washington was one of the leading promoters of what was called “industrial education.” He believed this was the best kind of education for most African Americans. In addition to basic skills like reading and writing, it was important to learn a trade that would lead to a real job.

“Many have had the thought that industrial training was meant to make the Negro work, much as he worked during the days of slavery. This is far from my idea of it. If this training has any value for the Negro, as it has for the white man, it consists in teaching the Negro how rather not to work, but how to make the forces of nature — air, water, horse-power, steam, and electric power — work for him…. There should be a more vital and practical connection between the Negro’s educated brain and his opportunity of earning his daily living.”

— Washington, The Future of the American Negro, 1899

“I am an earnest advocate of manual training and trade teaching for black boys, and for white boys, too. I believe that next to the founding of Negro colleges the most valuable addition to Negro education since the war, has been industrial training for black boys.”

— Du Bois, The Negro Problem, 1903

Du Bois emphasized the importance of higher education for African Americans.

“The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first be to deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races.”

— W. E. B. Du Bois, The Negro Problem, 1903

“There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen.”

— Washington, Atlanta Exposition Address, 1895