A Comparison Between Booker T. Washington (19th century) and Martin Luther King Jr. (20th century)

When he was 25, Washington was recommended for the position of the first President at a new school for blacks called the Tuskegee Institute. He received this recommendation through the President of the Hampton Institute, which was the school that Washington attended. Even though such a position was usually held by whites, Washington was given the job in 1881 (Moore 25). Washington bought the grounds of a former plantation, and through student labor, the Institute was built. And on this plantation is where the current campus is located. The Tuskegee Institute became a platform for Washington’s success. As the Institute grew, so did Washington’s popularity. Washington was the first President at Tuskegee, and remained President until his death in 1915. His position as President would later help him when his views and methods of achieving racial equality were attacked by W.E.B Du Bois.

Washington left home destined for more knowledge in 1872. Taking various jobs along the way, Booker walked 500 miles to Hampton Normal Agricultural Institute in Virginia. We have to remember there were no official roads or GPS in these days, this was a grueling long walk, and nonetheless Booker pushed through it. Once he reached the school Booker didn’t have a “pot to piss in” as my grandmother would say, he convinced the administrators to let him go to the school and to give him as a janitor to help pay for his tuition. Seeing his hard work and dedication, the school’s founder, and headmaster: General Samuel C. Armstrong offered him a scholarship sponsored by a white man. Armstrong was a commander for the Union in the Civil War and a strong advocator of giving newly freed slaves an education, he became a mentor to

Washington was one of the greatest African American teachers of his time. Most of Booker T. Washington’s admiration was due to many of his personal achievements. Washington was the leader of the Tuskegee Institute and also began the National Business League. He believed that if blacks could live to maintain financial progress and religious development, they would only be able to do that if they endured the limits of the Jim Crow laws. He also believed that blacks should not have kept their mouths closed, as an alternative they should have

W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington were two very influential leaders in the black community during the late 19th century, early 20th century. However, they both had different views on improvement of social and economic standing for blacks. Booker T. Washington, an ex-slave, put into practice his educational ideas at Tuskegee, which opened in 1881. Washington stressed patience, manual training, and hard work. He believed that blacks should go to school, learn skills, and work their way up the ladder. Washington also urged blacks to accept racial discrimination for the time being, and once they worked their way up, they would gain the respect of whites and be fully accepted as citizens. W.E.B. Du Bois on the other hand, wanted a more

Washington had three jobs before becoming a teacher, which consisted of carrying sacks of grains to a plantation mill, working in a salt mine with his step-father, and he was also a houseboy for Viola Ruffner in 1866. Viola saw the determination of wanting to learn in Booker’s face, in two years she grew to understand him. Eventually she allowed him to attend school for an hour a day during winter. When Booker T. Washington’s became a teacher, he taught African- Americans how to make themselves even more valuable to their community than they were recognized for. The name of the school was Tuskegee University, he was recommended by General Armstrong to run the school. Washington took on that responsibility and help raise money and promote the school, while doing that he reassured whites that the programs within this school would not threaten white supremacy or pose any economic competition to whites.

* In this text, W.E.B. Du Bois analyzes Booker T. Washington’s views on race in America. Du Bois acknowledges many of Washington’s accomplishments, such as how Washington began Tuskegee University and how Washington could cater to both the Northerners and the Southerners. On the contrary to praising him, Du Bois also subtly criticizes how Washington approaches dealing with racism. Washington believes that Blacks should be submissive rather than challenge the White people. Washington asks the Blacks to give up three things, political power, insistence on civil rights, and higher education of Negro youth. Du Bois then goes on to show the results of Washington’s ideals, such as the

Booker T. Washington rose up from slavery and illiteracy to become the foremost educator and leader of black Americans at the turn of the century. He was born on April 5, 1856 in Franklin County, Virginia. As a child he worked in the salt mines but always found time for education. Washington constantly dreamed of college but as an African American this dream was nearly impossible. His scrupulous working habits from the mines set him out for college at the Hampton Institute. He graduated in 1876 and became a teacher at a rural school. After 2 years of teaching, he went back to the Hampton Institute and was a “professor” here for 2 more years. His next challenge would be at a new all black college, Tuskegee Institute where he would become president. Under Washington's leadership (1881-1915), Tuskegee Institute became an important force in black education. Washington won a Harvard honorary degree in 1891.

Washington went to school at Tuskegee Institute; it is a historically black college in Alabama. He spoke on the lynching that was going on in his speech “Atlanta Compromise”. He really was recognized from that speech. Booker T. mastered the nuances of the political arena in the late 19th century, which enabled him to manipulate the media, raise money, strategize, network, pressure, reward friends and distribute funds while punishing those who opposed his plans for uplifting blacks. He was trying to end disenfranchisement. People never knew but he worked in salt furnaces and coal mines to earn money for school. He went to Hampton Institute and Wayland Seminary but did not stay long. He went all over sharing his knowledge with others. Some people criticized how he did things. Booker was generally perceived as a supporter of education for freedmen and their descendants in the post-Reconstruction. He felt that support from whites would help segregation in the long run. He believed that by providing needed skills to society, black would play their part, leading to acceptance by white Americans. Everything that he knew about history and everything that is going on was brought to him by his own knowledge. He taught himself majority of the things he knew. He then created many different funds to support those who needed it and other foundations that could benefit in any way

In Chapter three of The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B Du Bois discusses Booker T. Washington and some of his accomplishments for African Americans and also criticizes some of his lack of understanding in his propaganda that he could have done more in his position to progress African Americans status instead of trying to be accepted by the white community. Washington has been criticized by Du Bois because of his “submission” to the white view on African Americans and their rights Du Bois calling him “the most distinguished Southerner since Jefferson Davis” (Du Bois, 1903).

In one site, Booker T. Washington, the most influential lieder of his period (1856-1915), who was born as a slave in 1856 (Virginia), who because of studying in the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Learned the skills he needed to be respected by the withes society and gain considerable influence over the black people. Washington philosophy was based on self-improvement, education, accommodation and others. He preaches that African American rather than concentrate their effort in combating segregation, they should be focus in self-improvement, education and wealth. He encourages Young African American develop patience, commercial agricultural skills and others instead of instead of

Washington’s speech in Atlanta, Georgia is what made his career really take off for being an African American activist. His speech was directed towards both white and black races. He told them that both the races need to surround each other with one another and to try and overcome this inequality. In Clashes of Will it states, “Specifically Washington reminded the blacks in his audience that they must be prepared to start at the bottom as workers, not executives, as grade school teachers, not university professors; that they would have to earn the respect of whites rather than demand it as a right guaranteed by law….” Another accomplishment he set out for was creating the National Negro Business League. The organization promoted the businesses that were owned by African Americans and to help them feel that they were supported and protected. The main goal of the National Negro Business League was to advocate the sales of the Negro community businesses. Booker T. Washington’s baby was the Tuskegee Institution, a black college. Washington even offered DuBois a job three times to teach at the institution but he denied them all three times because he did not believe in the same morals as Washington. Washington was quite clever. When he had his hand in the businesses he managed to become familiar with wealthy white businessman that generously donated to the funds of the black education. One of the contributors was Andrew Carnegie, leading entrepreneur for the steel

Born a slave on a Virginia farm, Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856-1915) rose to become one of the most influential African-American intellectuals of the late 19th century. He was nine years old when the Civil War ended. He worked hard as a young child and at 16, he left home to attend Hampton Institute. One of the few black high schools in the South, it focused on industrial and agricultural training while maintaining an extremely structured curriculum that stressed discipline and high moral character. Washington thrived in that environment. He eventually went on to head a new school in Tuskegee, Alabama. The Tuskegee Institute was devoted to the training of black teachers, farmers, and skilled workers. Under his

In his 1901 autobiography Up From Slavery author, educator, and orator Booker T. Washington chronicles his rise from Virginia slave to President of Tuskegee Institute. The work outlines Washington’s roadmap for racial uplift which is centered on agricultural and industrial education. Washington argued that hard work and virtuous living — traits instilled African Americans during slavery— would demonstrate the value African Americans possessed to the South and the nation. Operating within the political realities of the time, Washington was able to mobilize a coalition of middle-class blacks, church leaders, white philanthropists, and politicians from the North and South to build Tuskegee Institute and his vision for the African American community. However, Washington’s strategy asked for African Americans to put aside immediate demands for voting and the end of racial segregation. Washington’s willingness to publicly side step these civil rights issues to advocate for slow progress towards true equality earned him powerful critics such as NAACP president W.E.B. DuBois and journalist William Trotter. By the time of Washington’s death in 1915, Jim Crow laws entrenched segregation throughout the South. Washington’s plan for racial uplift was pragmatic and realistic. However, his advocacy for dignity in labor played into white stereotypes that black men and women were made solely for labor.

Booker T. Washington, a former slave and the founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, believed that African Americans needed to accept segregation and discrimination for the time being and concentrate on elevating themselves through hard work and material prosperity. The eventual acquisition of wealth and culture by African Americans would gradually win for them the respect and acceptance of the white community. This

Booker T. Washington was persuaded early on of the economic irrationality of discrimination. Educational advancement, trades and skill acquisition, capital accumulation: these goals, not agenda political protests, was Booker T. Washington's pathway to African American progress in the U.S. Yet, later research that was later conducted has found that Tuskegee University, and Booker T. Washington himself indirectly financed some of the most notary court cases on segregation during the late 1890s and the 1900s. Washington had to work in secret because of the need to protect Tuskegee University from threats and violent danger that was purely derived from bitter hate of another human's skin color. Washington had a complicated choice at that time to