How Did Booker T. E. Du Dubois Impact On Society

The late 1800s and early 1900s found the United States in the midst of a dramatic shift. Not only was race-based discrimination the Consensus theory among whites, it was also legally enforced. Institutionalized racism left African Americans without citizenship, voting rights, civil liberties, and access to higher education. It also left them without justice, due process, and protection. Even though the ownership of humans had been eradicated by the 13th Amendment in 1865, the black community was in no way truly free; racial violence and black-oppression were as high as ever. As the Consensus grew darker and more menacing two major Conflict theorists, Booker T. Washington and William E. Du Bois, fought for equality from two very different angles.
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Du Bois’ approach was much more direct and immediate than the long-term plans of the moderates. He employed the power of complaint and agitation, believing that if people did not clamor ceaselessly for their freedom then they would show themselves to be “unworthy” of that freedom.20
The kinds of basic rights that the Niagara Movement’s Declaration of Principles demands paints a clear picture of the all-encompassing racial Consensus view: the right to have a clean home to raise their children in, the right to attend church, the right to be recognized for military work, the right to educate their children,21 and other “ordinary decencies”.22
It would be decades before the Conflict paradigm of racial equality would become the new Consensus. As the old Consensus climbed to a vicious crescendo, Conflict theorists like, Booker T. Washington and William E. Du Bois, though fighting different pieces of the problem, pressed for change. Changes in race relations, educational opportunities and policy came, but not without both compromise and