The Education of the Black Man - Research Paper Example

 The Education of the Black Man Two major black writers of the early 1900s are largely responsible for founding the study of the African American as a serious issue to the educational institutions of America. These two men were known as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. Both of these men struggled to achieve their hard-won but high educations in a world where most white people believed that a black man was incapable of the same level of intellectual thought expected of a white man. Although it may have been mostly true that the black people living in America in this time period were incapable of reading or of discussing the finer points of Shakespeare, these two men proved that the fault was not in the capacity of the black man but was instead found in his lack of opportunity. Du Bois, growing up mostly in the northern cities, won distinction as the first black man to achieve a Harvard degree. Washington, growing up more in the south, focused his education on becoming a teacher as he studied at what is now Hampton University. He eventually received an honorary Masters degree from Harvard as well as an honorary Doctorate from Dartmouth College. Both DuBois and Washington wrote a great deal about the limited role of the black man in post-Civil War America, yet they had widely different opinions regarding what should be done to change this. Their writings served to educate the white American public about the true issues involved in improving the lives of their darker brothers and both played a strong role in creating educational opportunity for black children while offering advocacy groups for the adults. In his autobiography Up From Slavery, Washington argues that the best course of action in helping the black man was to give him excellent education in ‘industrial’ type jobs that would lead to immediate work. Du Bois, on the other hand, reveals in his chapter “Of the Training of Black Men” found in The Souls of Black Folk that the more appropriate course of action would be to provide black children with the same kind of classical education received by white children, allowing each individual to determine his or her best course from a wider field of possibilities. Washington’s life provided an example to black and white people of what could be accomplished when the individual was not prisoner to the whims of white oppression. He was born as a slave, proving that this simple fact was not sufficient cause to render him incapable of advanced thought. There was nothing about his birth or his position in life that singled him out as being an exceptional example of the race and thus he was representative of the race in general. At no point in his life was he given any kind of privileged access to education over the other slaves. As a child, he worked on a plantation with his mother as a slave. Later, after he’d been freed, he worked with his father in the salt mines. However, he was determined to learn how to read and fought to attend night school as a means of furthering his education (Beck, 1996). Throughout his young adulthood, Washington continued to work hard to support himself on meager earnings and study harder at night, knowing it was his only chance to break the cycle. He consistently encouraged the black people around him to study with him learning the skills and knowledge of the white man so that they would be less dependent on white people for their overall welfare. Washington knew, even then, that an education meant he would be less likely to be taken advantage of by white people, would be able to command some semblance of respect and could foster greater opportunity to secure wealth and financial security. In keeping with these ideals, Washington became dedicated to helping the Tuskagee Institute, an experimental school for black people, become a tremendous success (Wright, 1992). As part of their tuition, he encouraged students to help construct the physical buildings of the school at the same time that he focused their attention on learning the necessary skills for various industrial trades. The intention behind this was not to belittle their abilities, but instead to ensure they were able to secure immediate, well-paying employment in a marketplace saturated by white men determined to keep black men ‘in their place’. Because of his personal experience of life, Washington felt that the best way for the black man to escape the restrictions imposed on them by the white man was through economic independence performing tasks that the white man was not sufficiently knowledgeable to undertake. Most of these types of jobs were in the industrial sector and thus, this is the area where Washington focused his attention. Although he strongly encouraged technological skills at the institute, he also encouraged his students to learn about the more academic knowledge conveyed through classical education. Those individuals who excelled at it were encouraged to continue study to become teachers for the future generations. Toward this end, he also developed so-called ‘rolling schools’ that would travel through the country to the remote black communities to teach students who could not otherwise attend classes (Wright, 1992). Through his efforts, black people throughout the south were energized and encouraged to help each other as a community to pull themselves out of the poverty and slavery of their past through education and gaining freedom by obtaining good jobs. Written in 1901, Washington’s autobiography Up From Slavery traces the author’s steps as he rose from the low ranks of slavery to the exalted position of a degreed professor and university director. Throughout this story, one can trace the various reasons why Washington felt that the industrial education was the most practical course of action for most black men and women at that time. Writing in an easy, flowing style, Washington devotes himself to communicating his ideas as clearly as possible so that will appeal to the majority of his readers black or white. He writes in a way that makes it easy to understand the major events that shaped his life without making it seem like he is trying to solicit sympathy. Instead, he makes it clear that his experience wasn’t that much different from thousands of other black people his age. At the same time, his telling of his story enables the reader, whether white or black, to understand how he developed the founding principles on which he built the rest of his life and his educational philosophy. For example, it is possible to trace how Washington developed his ideas of emphasizing education in the technical trades in combination with the ‘book’ learning of classical education from his experience at the Hampton school. As Washington reveals, the students at Hampton were always encouraged to increase their academic knowledge at the same time that they were expected to retain a connection to their rural heritage. As he explained, it was felt that if students retained connections to their heritage, they would be more inclined to reinvest their newly learned skills back into the community of their childhood, contributing to the further elevation of the entire race. “We wanted to give them such a practical knowledge of some one industry, together with the spirit of industry, thrift and economy, that they would be sure of knowing how to make a living after they had left us. We wanted to teach them to study actual things instead of mere books alone” (Washington, 1996, p. 60). Washington understood at a fundamental level that knowing to read could help him progress in life but that it would not necessarily put food on his table that night. It might be difficult to understand just why the teaching of technical skills played such a significant role in Washington’s philosophy without having the background knowledge of his tremendous struggle to first obtain an education of his own and then to help other black people escape the shackles of ignorance and poverty as well. The Reconstruction period freed the slaves but provided no transition benefits to help them achieve true independence. In addition to their freedom, they acquired the need to pay for their housing, food and other needs while also finding it difficult to earn a living wage. Few, if any, black families at this time had access to or even experience of facilities for daily bathing, brushing teeth or even tableware for family meals. In a time when it was difficult for any black person to achieve gainful employment, technical knowledge could mean the difference between a man who could support his family with pride versus one reduced to begging and borrowing as a means of mere subsistence. The value placed on technical knowledge by the white community is illustrated in his description of the school’s brick-making industry: “Many white people who had had no contact with the school, and perhaps no sympathy with it, came to us to buy bricks because they found out that ours were good bricks. They discovered that we were supplying a real want in the community. The making of these bricks caused many of the white residents of the neighborhood to begin to feel that the education of the Negro was not making him worthless, but that in educating our students we were adding something to the wealth and comfort of the community” (p. 71). Although he acknowledges the need for a more academic education for the future needs of his community, Washington clearly feels that a technical education is what’s most important for his contemporary generation both to give black people a means of bettering their living conditions and to improve their status within the white community. William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) DuBois had a vastly different experience from that of Washington which subsequently led him to different conclusions about the best way to educate his race. He was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on February 23, 1868. Although he was reportedly a happy and outgoing child, the racist attitudes of the people in his mostly white neighborhood deeply affected him causing him to become withdrawn and sullen (Lewis, 1993). This disappointment was reinforced throughout his life as he continued to encounter real discrimination against his race. By the time he reached high school, he had become dedicated to helping black people achieve something better than white people seemed to expect. To do this, he became a writer and paper boy for the New York Globe by the age of 15 as a means of broadcasting his thoughts to the greater community. He used his earnings to buy his own set of books written by Thomas Babington McCauley, one of his earliest influences “whose phrases, spliced by commas, would swell in his inner ear decades after GBHS” (Lewis, 1993, p. 38). Family and friends added to a scholarship he received after high school enabling him to attend Fisk College in Nashville. In spite of all his experience with racism in his childhood, it was during his three years at Fisk, both learning and teaching, that he learned about true racism in America. Finally, he earned enough scholarships to attend Harvard and he targeted his studies to philosophy, history, economics and social issues. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1890 and went on to achieve a master’s in 1891. Only then did he challenge Rutherford B. Hayes, who claimed no black person could be found worthy of a scholarship for training abroad. DuBois then spent two years in Berlin, returning when his scholarship was revoked to finish his doctoral degree at Harvard. After achieving the highest education he could acquire, DuBois worked as a teacher to support himself and conducted research in the social sciences fields. He became known as the father of social science due to his scientific approach in studying the problems faced by black people in America. Throughout his career, he accomplished a number of things including being a founding member of the NAACP, organizing the Universal Negro Improvement Association, writing numerous articles regarding the plight of the black race and holding stupendous and often very public disagreements with famous figures including Booker T. Washington. After years of dedicated effort in his writing, speaking and teaching careers to try to change conditions for the better for black people in America, DuBois finally decided that he would not be able to change the world and he retired to Ghana where he died in 1963. In his writing, DuBois argues vehemently that the lives of black people can only made better through the encouragement of higher, more classical educational goals. DuBois felt black people should be pursuing the same educational goals as white men so that they would be able to compete at the same level. He acknowledged that Washington’s plan regarding an industrial education seemed like sound reasoning for the present day: “The industrial school springing to notice in this decade, but coming to full recognition in the decade beginning with 1895, was the proffered answer to this combined educational and economic crisis, and an answer of singular wisdom and timeliness” (Du Bois, 1999, p. 65). In referring to the combined educational and economic crisis, DuBois recognizes the crisis of black people in the south facing both the changing economic system as the region transitioned into the industrial revolution and the legislative constraints placed on them by prejudiced white men intending to severely restrict the movements and opportunities available to their former slaves. Despite these terrible conditions, though, Du Bois argues that Washington’s emphasis on technological education is nothing more than a means to a temporary end. Once the basic elements of a livelihood were obtained, DuBois suggests that the natural condition of man is to pursue the kind of higher education he has been advocating. He even points out that a classical academic education is necessary in order to prepare black people for the industrial jobs. In order to learn the technical skills required, they need to be able to read and write and participate in abstract thought. They must have institutions of higher education available to them in order to learn what is necessary and that requires teachers who have been educated in classical subjects. In addition, teachers must be trained to prepare younger students in the lower schools. “They must first have the common schools to teach them to read, write and cipher; and they must have higher schools to teach teachers for the common schools … Southern whites would not teach them; Northern whites in sufficient numbers could not be had. If the Negro was to learn, he must teach himself, and the most effective help that could be given him was the establishment of schools to train Negro teachers” (p. 66-67). DuBois supports his argument by pointing to a study of 2500 black graduates from classical universities. The study was conducted in 1900 on approximately two thirds of the graduating classes. The final third could not be located. However, of the more than 1600 students who could be located, all were gainfully employed, most as teachers, principals, doctors, lawyers, artisans, merchants, clergymen and farmers. All were working to give back to their community and help the future generation of black students accomplish more. “Comparing them as a class with my fellow students in New England and in Europe, I cannot hesitate in saying that nowhere have I met men and women with a broader spirit of helpfulness, with deeper devotion to their life-work, or with more consecrated determination to succeed in the face of bitter difficulties than among Negro college-bred men” (p. 70). Thus, DuBois’ argument takes on a classical structure. He begins by acknowledging the successes of Washington’s system for meeting the immediate need and then urges the need for taking the next step in bringing the race in line with white expectations for themselves. This concept is supported by the need to improve and expand the school system to reach all black students rather than just those who live within easy traveling distance to the schools which requires the training of black teachers to fill these positions. He finally concludes his argument by pointing to hard research that supports the idea that proves black students classically educated do come back to help better their communities in a way that white teachers and the white community do not do. Through this argument and its organization, DuBois illustrates how higher education has already done a great deal to bring about more sweeping and positive change for the black communities through a focus on classical education which benefits each individual black person, giving them plenty of choices in vocation, as well as benefiting the black race overall in their service to the community – helping them much more than a simple industrial education could have done. Both Washington and Du Bois agree that it is vital for black people to have access to a decent education and both worked diligently to advocate education for the black person. However, they disagreed strongly regarding the focus of the education which would be most beneficial to the black community – as individuals and as a group. Washington acknowledged that the traditional ‘book’ learning taught to white students in the white colleges was important because it turned out students who strove for something better in life and gave them access to careers in a variety of fields, he argued that this approach wasn’t practical for the black man restricted as he was by the legislation and prejudice of these same white men. Better by far to teach the black man skills that the white community would support, allowing each individual to secure home and health for himself and his family. Du Bois argued against this, indicating that a classical education was required in order to turn out students who were capable of serving their community by providing more professional services such as doctors and lawyers and serving as role models for later generations. The individual benefited by gaining access to a variety of well-paying vocations; the community benefited through the services these individuals had to offer and from the role models they acquired; and the white community was forced to acknowledge a greater level of equality between the races rather than keeping the black race in the position of a servant class. Works Cited Beck, Sanderson. “Booker T. Washington and Character Education at Tuskegee Institute 1881-1915.” Beck Index. 1996. Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999. Lewis, David Levering. WEB DuBois: A Biography of a Race. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1993. Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. Wright, Elizabeth. “Booker T. Washington: Legacy Lost.” Issues and Views. Spring 1992. Read More