The History of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois - Thesis Example

How Slavery Influenced Impressions of Black Men Two major black of the early 1900s are mostly responsible for founding the study of African Americans within the educational institutions of America. These two men were Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. Both struggled to achieve their high educations in an environment where most white people believed that a black man was incapable of intellectual thought. Although it may have been mostly true that the black people living in America in this time period were incapable of reading, these two men proved that the fault was not in the black mans mental ability but was instead found in his lack of opportunity. Du Bois, growing up mostly in the northern cities as a free man, won distinction as the first black man to achieve a Harvard degree. Washington, growing up more in the south and born into slavery, 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 educated the white American public about the true issues involved. However, each had different ideas about how best to help black people succeed. These differences were shaped, to a great degree, by their personal experience of slavery. 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, eventually 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. 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. 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. Print. Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999. Print. Lewis, David Levering. WEB DuBois: A Biography of a Race. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1993. Print. Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. Print. Wright, Elizabeth. “Booker T. Washington: Legacy Lost.” Issues and Views. Spring 1992. Print. Read More