W.E.B Du Bois And Booker T. Washington, Two Different Approches To Early The Civil Rights MovementEssay Preview: W.E.B Du Bois And Booker T. Washington, Two Different Approches To Early The Civil Rights MovementReport this essayIn the early history of the civil rights movement two men, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, offered solutions to the cold discrimination of blacks in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Washington taking the more incremental progressive approach was detested by Du Bois who took the radical approach of immediate and total equality both politically and economically. And although both views were needed for progress Washingtons “dont rock the boat” approach seemed to be the most appropriate for the time.
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W.E.B. Du Bois And Booker T Washington, Two Different Approches To Early The Civil Rights MovementAnd Booker T. Washington, Two Different Approches To Early The Civil Rights Movement
The ‘Blacks in America’
The Civil Rights movement came to be seen as the great experiment on how whites would respond under a unified nation-state. It started with a series of meetings in 1875 in New Orleans which called a large gathering in the upper echelons of the White House that included leaders of the leading churches and the white trade organizations. It was there that the two most important African-American leaders, the Rev. Martin A. McConkie and Rev. Thomas Paine, met to discuss possible options. To their credit, though, the conference leaders and local officials gave their best efforts in the years that followed. For all these years the White House, the press, and the general public were unaware and only two of these great leaders were to face their own trial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt8_M6C6h6k
While the Civil Rights movement did begin to take shape during the civil rights era at its peak in the ’70s, few of the leaders of the movement emerged from their political camps as leaders of any race or denomination.
During the Civil Rights period President Richard M. Nixon did not follow the example of W.E.B. Du Bois or Booker T. Washington by following them. Instead, he took the ‘African-American in America’ movement into the White House in 1975, when Congress passed the “Racism Reduction Act”.
The ‘Blacks in America’ was presented to Congress as a bill that would eliminate civil rights restrictions and impose a constitutional mandate on the White House as a whole to stop this discrimination. It would also be introduced as the “The Ten Must-Do’s For Race-Resident Law” or HB 1022. Although the plan to stop the segregation in this country had initially been proposed as a remedy for problems in the black community, it ended up being a plan that involved significant racial discrimination in many cities and states. It would not be as successful as those in other southern states, such as California or Rhode Island. The effort to abolish civil rights discrimination in the US was called the “Blacks in America Act of 1975”, and the bill was vetoed by Senator John McCain, a Democrat, who supported a “Blacks for President” amendment to bring forward a similar bill in Congress.
Despite this, Congress voted for the bill (which is currently in the President’s desk), and the bill passed the House of Representatives with a 24
In 1890 the percentage of 5-19 year olds enrolled in school for whites was approximately 60% while the percent of blacks was roughly half that, which was a vast improvement over just thirty years before when black enrollment hovered near zero. That same year the illiteracy rate of the white population was at 10% while the percentage of the black population unable to read spiked at 60%. Both Washington and Du Bois recognized the gap but took completely different approaches to achieve a remedy. Washington himself was educated in Hampton, a Freedmans Bureau school. Some called him “the champion of education” as he went on to form the Tuskegee Industrial School, for his view on education was very “practical”. “no time was wasted on dead languages or superfluous studies of any kind”. Such was the philosophy of Washington; teach the black skills that will improve them economically and the rest of equality will follow. Du Bois rejected this philosophy stating that Washington was “condemning their race to manual labor and perpetual inferiority”. Others however seemed appreciative of Washingtons work. One man stated, “It is impossible to estimate the value of such a man”. Still others agreed with Du Bois when they said that “he [blacks] knows by sad experience that industrial education will not stand him in place of political, civil and intellectual liberty”.
“Sad experience” however, is something that Washington knew all about. Growing up a slave collecting pennies under board walks to go to school, Washington knew and understood all too well how deep the prejudices against his race ran, noting that the number of blacks lynched in 1894 was at its highest at nearly 170 people he believed that perhaps some time apart (segregation) was what was best at that particular point. He stated accommodatingly to white southerners in his famous Atlanta Compromise speech “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”. In this speech he laid waste to fears of the “threat”