Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois were the true initiators of the civil rights movement, which lasted until the 1960's. Washington was born in 1857 into slavery. His slave master's wife thought he was very smart and she began to tutor him. After slavery was abolished, he attended a university on a scholarship. He then went on to become a teacher and then a university professor at Tuskegee University. W.E.B. Dubois, on the other hand, was born a free man and attended Fisk University. After graduating from Fisk he went to Harvard and became the first African American to receive a PhD from Harvard. Dubois also wrote a book entitled The Souls of Black Folk in 1905. Both men were well educated and wanted the African American race to be successful. Although they were both fighting, for the same cause they had different paths to achieving this goal.
Washington believed in compromising with the white Americans.
Pie chart of religions of African Americans
Signing Peace Treaties, Washington (LOC)
Washington DCHis proposal was stated in the "Atlanta Compromise Address." He said, "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..." (Doc. D). Washington was proposing that the African Americans were willing to be segregated as long as they could still have jobs to advance the American economy. The strength of this idea was it was not a radical or aggressive view. The weakness was white Americans could take advantage of the compromising African Americans. Washington also believed in the industrial education of African Americans. He felt they should be trained in the skills that would benefit them in the future. "For the two hundred and fifty years, I believe the way for the redemption of the Negro was being prepared through industrial development..."...