Comparing W. E. B. Du Bois And Booker T. Washington

W.E.B Du Bois and Booker T. Washington were intelligent men that wanted equality for black Americans, however the paths they wanted to take were polar opposites. Washington was against agitating the South, government, and white people as a whole. Washington believed that the South would not find a better workforce or grateful workers than that of former slaves. He called upon on black and white Americans to ‘cast down your bucket where you are (Washington 25). He wanted black Americans to look for employment in places where they were and already experts, such as in agriculture and servitude positions. Washington wanted white Americans to employ black Americans, thereby assisting the transition from slavery to freedom. Du Bois knew that through the struggles of agitation, black voices would be hear and their words would eventually have to be heeded. According to du Bois, with human nature we do not always make the right choices, and wrong choices can create evil. There are two options, ‘either we must let the evil alone and refuse to hear of it or listen to it or we must try and right it’ (Du Bois 31). An agitator’s job is to fight so that the world will acknowledge to the injustices.
Booker T.
Washington’s plan offered a more immediate peace. The South was slow to change and Booker T. Washington catered to that. Instead of pushing for complete integration he suggested that ‘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’ (Washington 22). W.E.B. Du Bois’s path was long and uncomfortable, at best. However, without agitation and resistance history shows that nothing would change for the better. I agree fully with Du Bois’s statement: so it is with all great movements. They must be preceded by agitation (Du Bois 32). Change does not occur by itself. True liberation cannot be granted to those who choose to remain
inferior.
Booker T. Washington’s approach to helping black Americans was not always received positively. His criticisms include being called a black slave driver by Donald Spivey. Some saw him as working to keep black Americans from becoming more than lower class citizens. Regardless of his praise or criticism, there is a fact that one cannot ignore; in his time, white people had all the power and with that power they could practically do whatever they pleased. Washington realized that black people did not have power in this society so maneuvered in whatever way he could in this treacherous time to get what he thought was best for the black population.
As W.E.B. Du Bois wrote ‘all great reform movements, we remember that they have been preceded by agitation’ (32). To call out racism, oppression, and segregation was the only proper solution in abolishing Jim Crow laws. While I can understand Washington’s fear of angering white people, especially after founding the Tuskegee Institute, I still stand with the fact that true liberation cannot be granted to those who choose to remain inferior. Washington’s complacency to white supremacy and his thinking ‘that blacks should be taught to remain in their place’ (Spivey 48) are essentially the core of his failure.