Theu.s. B. Du Bois

Same Ideas, Different Results For more than a hundred years, important African-American leaders such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois have been both acclaimed and cherished in our society’s history books for their individual efforts in the struggle for the civil and political advancement of African-Americans. These two seem to be the main advocates for the advancement of African-Americans in the United States of American after the Civil War, but both had a different approach to it. Although both remarkable advocates for African-Americans after the Civil War and have worked diligently for their accomplishments, it seems that W.E.B. Du Bois was accurate on his ideas of the advancement of African-American. Respected and beloved during his time for his notorious proposal of African Americans and Caucasian Americans on the idea of working together to a better future; civil rights activist Booker T. Washington came to be known as the voice of African-Americans after the address at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895. In his address, under the pressure to say something that would unite the races, Washington encouraged Caucasian Americans to “cast down their buckets” and allow African-Americans to do the following: work in the lowest level jobs like agriculture and domestic services; to appreciate the privileges that was given and don’t allow to expect more; and earn the opportunity of acquiring civil and political rights (454). Therefore, giving up all hope of ever being