Why the End of the Nineteenth Century Is Called the Age of Washington and Du Bois - Essay Example

?Running head: THE AGE OF WASHINGTON AND DUBOIS Why the end of nineteenth century is termed as the age of Washington and Dubois Institution Name Why the end of nineteenth century is termed as the age of Washington and Dubois The end of the nineteenth century is a period which renowned historian Rayford W. Logan has subscribed to as the nadir of African-American history, but it is also referred to as the cornerstone for the first black cultural renaissance. The civil war was followed by a period called the Reconstruction which led up to New Negro Renaissance spanning 1865-1919. Two most prominent male literary people that influenced the renaissance era of Black Culture greatly especially during the New Negro Movement are Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B Du Bois. They both worked hard and offered solutions for the racial discrimination problem that was faced by the African Americans of that era. This paper is an attempt to analyze how these two artistic figures managed to create a niche for themselves in a period where White Americans dominated heavily in terms of culture, social status, literature-related sense, and overall stature, and how they managed to influence the African-American race. Importance of Washington and Dubois in the fight against Racism Although there were many Black Americans that dedicated their lives to fight racial discrimination, diminish poverty and illiteracy, and other stigmatic and desolate conditions that plagued the very existence of Blacks in America. However, at the turn of the century, due to their influential political appeal, it was Washington and Dubois, who garnered maximum attention and accolades from various segments of intelligence, mainly from European and American ethnic origin. They received such paramount acceptance from the Whites in America, that it became a lot easier for them to promote their message and support Negro Renaissance. It is no hidden fact that these two were the undoubted leaders of black community during the late 19th and early 20th century.  Most significant literary work from them during the New Negro Renaissance is the 1901 autobiography by Washington “Up from Slavery," and “Souls of Black Folks," written by Dubois in 1903. Their efforts were not just restricted to literature, but they actually went to a step forward and tried to materialize as their beliefs and philosophies practically, which were targeted towards the progress, and prosperity of the Blacks in America. The adopted racial label “Colored” during the 19th century was a dominant label accepted by both blacks and whites. According to Du Bois “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line" (Du Bois, 2008).  It was due to efforts from Du Bois and Washington that this was replaced with “Negro” (Loue & Sajatovic, 2005). During the early 20th century, this term gained great acceptance, and it portrayed grammatical versatility, social strength, and political growth. By 1930, the expression “Negro” was associated with the communal and governmental progress of the African Americans, Black aspiration, militancy, defiance, and assertion of racial honor (Loue & Sajatovic, 2005). They represented the first generation of Negros to collectively express the social, political, and educational aspirations of the black folk, or the New Negros. Washington and Du Bois were the true leaders for Negros, and proved with their works that few good leaders can change the status and perceptions of a whole community. This is why the period of the late 19th century is called the age of Washington and Dubois. Ideologies and contribution by Washington and Dubois It is a well-known fact that both Washington and Dubois rooted for the same cause, which was of protecting and freeing the black race from the subhuman conditions that the African-Americans were projected to in their time. They shared common beliefs on various essential uplifting tasks which the Black race in America direly needed, like they considered it necessary to create awareness about the importance of technological advancement for their evolution. Nevertheless, it is also a surprising factor that Washington and Dubois embraced diverse views and theories towards approaching this cause. They were the leading voices for the suppressed black race at the end of the 19th century, but endorsed two different schools of thoughts. Their ideas and strategies; regarding the social and economic progress of black community contradicted very sharply. To understand their beliefs and strategies, it is important to have an understanding of their ideals and the great efforts they made for the progress and prosperity of Negros in America. Booker T Washington: Washington was an educator, reformer, and a great leader for the African Americans during the trying times of the suppressive and oppressive social environment in the late 19th century. He was a slave by birth, and was born as Booker Taliaferro of African ethnicity on April 5, 1856 (Keller, 2005). He immediately became the property of James Burroughs, who owned the plantation where Washington’s parents worked. The surname Washington was added to his original name after his mother married a slave Washington Ferguson. At the end on 19th century, he observed that the blacks were only restricted to jobs like blacksmiths, tailors, barbers, hack-men and dray-men, caterers, and contractors, etc. The entrepreneur class depended largely upon White community. The worst part was that they were a common choice as domestic servants for the elite white Americans. This disturbed Washington, and he wanted them to achieve higher levels of skills to prove their worth in their country’s economy. He gained his ideals of enlightening the African Americans towards a better and more progressive future when he enrolled himself in the Hampton Institute for Blacks at the age 16. It was a vocational educational institution founded by General Samuel Champman Armstrong, for the sole purpose of providing manual training, and a Puritan work ethic. This is how Washington’s ideology shaped up, and he started believing that higher forms of academic proficiency would not be of any immediate help for the Blacks in America. Washington strictly believed that the Blacks should gain proficiency in industrial, farming, and crafts skills. For him, the main area where blacks lacked expertise was their trade skills and according to him for gaining respect among the Whites, it was indeed the best probable path. According to him, black education “should be so directed that the greatest proportion of the mental strength of the masses will be brought to bear upon the everyday practical things of life, upon something that is needed to be done, and something which they will be permitted to do in the community in which they reside” (Washington, 2009). There is a philosophy, which distinguishes his ideas with other contemporary leaders of the early 20th century, like Dubois. He believed; the Negros has to constantly be faithful to virtues like sacrifice, discipline, and economic salvation. He proposed the theory of self-help, racial solidarity, and always emphasized on this philosophy. “The wisest among my race understand that agitation of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges, which will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing” (Wintz, 1996). Progress in business and technology was, in his views, the only means for the prosperity of African Americans in the late 19th century. Cultural-education in his views had secondary importance, and he claimed that this could be acquired at any point in life. The main purpose behind his theory was that the subservient and repressive social status which the Negros in America held during his time could only be fought with if the Blacks acquire practical and industrial skills. Washington believed “Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom, we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands. We shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify conventional labor, and put brains and skills into the common labor of life. No race can prosper until it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem” (Dawson, 2003). He thought that it was only their professional prosperity that could garner equality based social stature in a country where Whites dominated them in every field of life.  As he very often claimed in his speeches, and his works that “The world cares little about what a man knows; it cares more about what a man can do” (St. Peter, 2012). To materialize as his philosophies, and help the native Black Americans of his time, he founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881. Here he practiced his beliefs by providing vocational skills to the Blacks, and also enlightened them to believe his ideals that in order to solve this race problem; they need to gain expertise in various crafts so that they become indispensable for the country’s economy. It was due to his hard work and leadership, that this Institute became an integral force in the advancement of Negros. Later, he developed and projected his views as a theory of Accomodationism and in September 1895, he delivered a speech which has been referred to as “The Atlanta Compromise Address." In this speech, he told White capitalists that black workers would accommodate their (i.e., rich whites) interests (Hopkins, 2011). He insisted in his speech that blacks should focus their energies on manual labor, and leave mental labor to well-off whites and their minions. He believed that this self-sufficiency would make Blacks and Whites interdependent economically, rather than Blacks solely dependent on Whites, and will allow them access to their full citizenship rights and integration in American society (Hopkins, 2011). This theory did manage to gain him respect and political influence among whites, but after a while proved to be the wrong approach for solving the problems of the black race. That was because Washington stressed upon accommodation and not resistance towards the racist order prevailing for the African Americans. It was realized that only vocational training, and no higher education might just not serve the purpose, and the Blacks will remain in subordinate roles, and get exploited by the southerners. For Northerners, it will provide a well-trained but low class labor whose skills will be utilized for the development of South’s economy but will keep the social position of the Black Race unchanged. This is why he is said to have contradictory views when compared to Du Bois, because the latter presented an entirely different philosophy in this regard. Nevertheless, his contribution cannot be overlooked. His self-written biography “Up from Slavery” (1901), proved to be a guiding force for the African Americans. He presented his life events in such a manner that convinced the readers to the possibility of reformation and change. With this book, he managed to enlighten the blacks who if he can contribute to the society, given the fact that he was born as a slave, so can they.  The book solidified his position as the most influential leader of the New Negro Renaissance era. W.E.B Du Bois:  He was an author, historian, civil rights activist, and a prominent figure during the Negro renaissance movement of the late 19th century. He was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1869, to White French father Alfred Du Bois and Black mother Mary Du Bois (Juguo, 2002).  He was a biracial or “mulatto." He was provided with great educational opportunities, and had stellar academic achievements. He received two BA degrees, initially from Fisk University in 1888, and the second from Harvard in 1890. He completed doctorate in 1895, and became the first ever Black American to gain a PhD. His thesis for a doctorate was titled “The suppression of African American slave trade in America” (Juguo, 2002). It remains until the date, a classical example of work done on this subject, and is a part of the first volume of Harvard’s historical series. He believed that a higher educational achievement and professional skill are the only answer to the racism problem prevailing in America during the late 19th century. He wrote in “The Souls of Black Folk," one of his classic works directed. It was towards diminishing the racialist attitude of the whites, about importance of education. “The function of the university is not simply to teach breadwinning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a centre of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment from which forms the secret of civilization” (Du Bois, 2008). He thought that Washington’s philosophy will only propagate this oppression. He was also against the social and racial injustice, but believed that only vocational skills cannot serve the purpose, and the Black community will not gain recognition and due respect in the American Society, unless they qualify themselves academically. Higher education, to him, was more important than occupational expertise. About his moral and ethical beliefs, Du Bois wrote on his work “Credo” (1904) that “I believe in God who made from one blood all races that dwell on earth. I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development” (White, 2002). Dubois began to dabble in the arts soon after completing his education, and by 1911, he managed to stir the black community by writing short stories, poems, and published his initial novel titled “The Quest of the Silver Fleece." He was among the first African American scholars who challenged the White American’s construction of “blackness as an absence," and made conscious efforts to “reconstruct blackness as a presence” (Rabaka, 2011). According to Reiland Rabaka, “unlike any of the other major African American post-reconstruction writers, such as Charles Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, Sutton E Griggs, and Paul Laurence Dunbar, Du Bois’s work had an impact on the overall Negro Movement” (Rabaka, 2011). Du Bois chastise those blacks who remained indifferent to the plight of others within their group and made every effort to convince them that the nature of racism in American society left little room for silence (Brown & Stentiford, 2008)? In “The Philadelphia Negro” (1899) and various articles in the “Southern Workman," “The Independent Nation," “ World’s Work” etc. in 1903, Du Bois criticized Southern cabins as crippling environments, even though this defined the living arrangements of most Southern Blacks. This way, he never refrained from denouncing the masses of Blacks in the South. In 1903, he presented the concept of the “Talented Tenth” (the small group of black elites), in which the focus was on the few highly educated dark people, and he stressed that only they as leaders can make amendments in the current friendly status of the Black race. He proposed that at least one individual on behalf of ten blacks should continue higher education, write books to enlighten the world about the injustices being done, become the leaders of their section of Negros, and make necessary contribution in the social development of black community.  He wrote about the talented tenth in his work “The Negro problem” that “The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, between Negroes must, first of all, deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races” (Jaycox, 2005). He believed that the “talented tenth” would work to positively increase the communal standing of the black people, by leading them in the right direction (Jaycox, 2005). His key concern was the social acceptance, and positive development of black people, which in his views, was only possible through seeking education and hard work.  According to Du Bois “To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships” (Du Bois, 2008).   In response, to Washington’s accomodationism theory; and the disdain that emerged among the masses against it, he, firstly, co-founded the Niagara movement, and then, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (Rabaka, 2011). The New Negro Movement sought to dialectically rupture African American’s relationship with the bondage of their past, and provide a bridge to their future (Rabaka, 2011). The New Negro agitation and activism gave way to an innovative and distinctly African American expressive culture, i.e., the aesthetic radicalism of the Harlem Renaissance. The Pan-African conferences marked Du Bois’s efforts to raise consciousness about the plight of the Blacks in America worldwide. At the fifth Pan-African conference, he gained the title “the Father of Pan-Africanism” (Brown & Stentiford, 2008). By the end to his life, Du Bois had written 16 non-fiction books, five historical novels, two autobiographies, and hordes of articles, in which he portrayed blacks as positive contributors to worldwide progress (Brown & Stentiford, 2008). Last Words: It is evident that these two admirable leaders did whatever was in their hands to promote equality, solidarity, prosperity, and progress of the black community. They presented contradictory views, but in actual, they gave two different solutions for the same problem. Education indeed was a necessity for the African Americans at that time, but without occupational skills, education cannot solve the racial discrimination problem, since not every person could afford higher education. Most people from black community were born as slaves or to freed slave parents. The New Negro Movement, during that period, meant many things to many various people. That is why there were two different conceptions. There was the Washington Conservative Conception which promoted the idea that to solve the “Negro Problem” African Americans should divert their attention to the employment and economic aspects. Then, there was the Du Boisian Liberal-Radical Conception, which persuaded the Black citizens of America, to not only attend the economic and employment aspects, but also the numerous social, political, legal, intellectual, and cultural issues inherent in the Negro Problem. Collectively, they fought for authentic African American, and Pan-African liberation. As a result of the increased unpopularity of Washington’s theory after his death in 1915, there continued to be a shortage of black entrepreneurs, and black’s consumerism and dependency on Whites increased in desegregation with an increase in voting and civil rights (Brown & Stentiford, 2008). Therefore, it is a fact that the efforts of Du Bois and his counterparts were successful, but only on a short-term basis. As a result of this approach; blacks failed to become more self-sufficient as Washington envisioned. References Brown, N. L. M., & Stentiford, B. M. (2008). The jim crow encyclopedia: Greenwood milestones in african american history. Greenwood Publishing Group. Dawson, M. C. (2003). Black visions: The roots of contemporary african-american political ideologies. University of Chicago Press. Du Bois, W. E. B. (2008). The souls of black folk. Arc Manor LLC. Hopkins, P. E. (2011). 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