The During The Civil War Era

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

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.

E. B. Du Bois agreed that self-improvement was a good idea, but that it should not happen at the expense of giving up immediate full citizenship rights. W. E. B. Du Bois was born in Massachusetts in 1868. He attended racially integrated elementary and high schools and went off to Fiske College in Tennessee at age 16 on a scholarship. Du Bois completed his formal education at Harvard with a Ph.D. in history. Du Bois briefly taught at a college in Ohio before he became the director of a major study on the social conditions of blacks in Philadelphia. He concluded from his research that white discrimination was what kept African Americans from good-paying jobs. In 1897, two years after Booker T. Washington's "Atlanta Address," Du Bois wrote, "We want to be Americans, full-fledged Americans, with all the rights of American citizens." He envisioned the creation of an elite group of educated black leaders, "The Talented Tenth," who would lead African Americans in securing equal rights and higher economic standards. Dubois attacked Washington's acceptance of racial segregation, arguing that this only encouraged whites to deny African-Americans the right to vote and to undermine black pride and progress. Du Bois also criticized Washington's Tuskegee approach as an attempt "to educate black boys and girls simply as servants and underlings."Lynchings and riots against blacks led to the formation in 1909 of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an

Washington and Frederick Douglass with their distinctive approach. Booker T. Washington recognized the importance of education for improving skills and economic enhancement, which urged blacks to get into American society, so he became the first principal of Tuskegee University for providing trainings and applicable program. Booker was well known because his speech and famous statement “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” (Roark et al. 572), influencing more blacks to devote in reaching equality. Frederick Douglass made addresses in England and North states for exposing slavery and causing huge public opinion, strongly put pressure on the American government. Frederick’s attempt was an inevitable factor for promoting the Emancipation

The school's name was later changed to Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). The school taught specific trades, such as carpentry, farming, and mechanics, and trained teachers. As it expanded, Washington spent much of his time raising funds. Under Washington's leadership, the institute became famous as a model of industrial education. The Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site, established in 1974, includes Washington's home, student-made college buildings, and the George Washington Carver Museum. Though Washington offered little that was innovative in industrial education, which both northern philanthropic foundations and southern leaders were already promoting, he became its chief black exemplar and spokesman. In his advocacy of Tuskegee Institute and its educational method, Washington revealed the political adroitness and accommodationist philosophy that were to characterize his career in the wider arena of race leadership. He convinced southern white employers and governors that Tuskegee offered an education that would keep blacks "down on the farm" and in the trades. To prospective northern donors and particularly the new self- made millionaires such as Rockefeller and Carnegie he promised the inculcation of the Protestant work ethic. To blacks living within the limited horizons of the post- Reconstruction South, Washington held out industrial education as the means of escape from the web of sharecropping and

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

Lastly, Du Bois and Washington's individual experiences are historical in the fight for black equality. The two men both lived very fulfilling lives dedicated to their life work of the black cause. Washington began his educational career at the age of 16 at the Hampton Institute while performing janitorial duties to pay his board. After graduating he returned back to West Virginia and taught adults and children. He then went away to study at the Wayland Seminary in Washington D.C. where upon his completion joined the staff at the Hampton Institute. Years later in 1881 he was asked to be the president of the Tuskegee Institution which promoted literacy among freed blacks. Here began the monument of his life work, for the rest of his days would be spent supporting the school. Then, the year 1895 marked a turning point in his life when he gave the Atlanta Compromise Address speech that would outline his beliefs for the rest of his days. Furthermore, in 1900 with help from T. Thomas Fortune the creation of the National Negro Business League happened with Washington the first president. He even accepts and invitation by Andrew Garrison to go to Europe and preach his words of wisdom. The book ends with a speech before a mixed crowd of black and white to the City Council of Richmond, Virginia, and Washington never feeling more hopeful for the African-American race. Like

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.

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.

According to Anderson (n.d.), the Reconstruction Era (1877) presented a unique problem for black professionals. Although more blacks were becoming qualified for educational and employment opportunities, the job demand shifted to industrial needs. For black leaders, having to get industrial training instead of a broader, more useful education was a beneficial short term answer for employment. The primary advocate for industrial training was Booker T. Washington. Washington, educated at the Tuskegee Institute located in Alabama, expressed publicly that manual labor will be more beneficial to individuals because that was the type of work available (Anderson, n.d.).

He worked his way through school, struggling to get a quality education, eventually enrolling in the Hampton Institute. Following his departure from Hampton, Washington gained the beliefs that for black Americans to succeed, they needed racial pride, become responsible citizens, and perform useful service. He later became a founder of Tuskegee University, where he emphasized labor and skilled trades.

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

"The crashing of the shots, the bursting of the shells, the falling of the walls, and the roar of the flames made pandemonium at the fort." Doubleday said after the battle at Fort Sumter. The confederates and the union were fighting over slavery, which took place in the United States of America during the 1800's. It ended well for one of them. The Civil War was a horrible event that started in 1861 and ended in 1865, we are still struggling with the effects of the Civil War today.

Post-Civil War, the American people began to focus their energies on settling the West. Encouraged by the government, which had passed “a series of laws dating to 1796 designed to facilitate the transfer of land from the public domain to private ownership”, many common people attempted to make a new start, picking everything up and moving out west–and I numbered among them (Brands 216). For us, the most useful of those laws was likely the Homestead Act of 1862. It promised “free land to ordinary people”, as long as we lived on the land for five years (Brands 215-216). Of course, the number of people who actually did this was low; many faked it, “erecting a flimsy structure, summoning a witness who then swore to the federal land agent that an