Brief Opening On February 23, 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He was a civil rights activist, sociologist, and writer, who opposed racism and fought for equality for African Americans. He was raised in a white town where he encountered little overt racism and developed a passion for knowledge. As Du Bois embarked on his educational journey, he received his bachelor degree from Fisk University. When Du Bois applied to Harvard University, they would not accept his course credits from Fisk University. Du Bois enrolled in Harvard College and received his bachelor’s degree in history. After graduation, he received a Slater Fund fellowship to attend the University of Berlin, which is among the most prestigious universities in Europe. In 1895, Du Bois became the first African American to earn a doctorate degree from Harvard University. His dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, was published as number one in the Harvard Historical Series. In 1896, Du Bois accepted a research job at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He went from house to house in African American neighborhoods conducting personal interviews that analyze the social and economic …show more content…
“He was convinced that the advancement of black people was the responsibility of the black elite, those he called the Talented Tenth, meaning the upper 10 percent of black Americans” (Hines et al., 2014, p. 347). Since black people were oppressed by white people, Du Bois stressed the importance of education among the black race and believed that African Americans should be educated in order to guide and teach the uneducated blacks. Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which is an
Alridge, Derrick P. The Educational Thought of W.E.B. Du Bois: An Intellectual History. New York: Teachers College, 2008. Print.
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois are two incredibly famous civil rights activists in United States history. Although they both sought to uplift blacks socially and economically across the country, they clashed over the best strategy for doing so. Coming from vastly different backgrounds, it’s understandable as to why they disagreed. However, as is evident by our current societal problems, Du Bois was the one who had the correct plan. That doesn’t mean that Washington’s ideas were wrong, but they were a temporary solution to a permanent and systematic problem.
Du Bois graduated from Fisk in 1888, and entered Harvard as a junior. During college he preferred the company of Black students and Black Bostonians. He graduated from Harvard in 1890. Yet he felt that he needed further preparation and study in order to be able to apply "philosophy to an historical interpretation of race relations." He decided to spend another two years at the University of Berlin on a Slater Fund Fellowship.
He did not experience the harsh conditions of slavery. Dubois was raised in a majority white community, and at Harvard University became the first African American to attain a doctorate degree. Like Washington, Dubois agreed that “blacks” needed to become economically independent and find civil equality. However, W.E.B Dubois was offended at racial injustice and inequality. Du Bois understood Washington’s program, but believed this wasn’t the solution Unlike Washington, he demanded that African Americans should immediately have the right to vote, equal rights, and be granted more equal educational opportunities to. WEB Dubois wanted educational reform in a way that fulfilled requirements for African American students. WEB Du Bois declared African American demands through his “Declaration of the Principles of the Niagara Movement,” in which he demanded social equality. This movement led to the creation of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The leaders of NAACP often criticized Washington. WEB Dubois opposed Washington’s methods regarding black discrimination. Washington believed the only way to end racial segregation against blacks in the long run was to gain support and cooperation with Whites. Dubois wanted full equality
Du Bois was another highly educated African American thought leader, holding a degree from Harvard University and the University of Berlin. A civil rights leader, scholar, and political thinker, Du Bois believed in the importance of scholarly education to achieve racial progress. The Souls of Black Folk is a collection of W.E.B. Du Bois essays, that clearly defined his personal opinions on education, and his disapproval of Booker T. Washington’s point of view. In his third essay, Du Bois explained the flaws in Booker T. Washington’s opinions and the negative impact they would have on the African American community. Du Bois’ wrote; “Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and submission.” His essay indicated that Washington’s plan would hold back the African American community, and that the plan wasn’t what the African American people
When talking about the history of African-Americans at the turn of the twentieth century, two notable names cannot be left out; Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois. They were both African-American leaders in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, fighting for social justice, education and civil rights for slaves, and both stressed education. This was a time when blacks were segregated and discriminated against. Both these men had a vision to free blacks from this oppression. While they came from different backgrounds, Washington coming from a plantation in Virginia where he was a slave, and Du Bois coming from a free home in Massachusetts, they both experienced the heavy oppression blacks were under in this Post-Civil War society. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois were both pioneers in striving to obtain equality for blacks, yet their ways of achieving this equality were completely different. W.E.B Du Bois is the more celebrated figure today since he had the better method because it didn’t give the whites any power, and his method was intended to achieve a more noble goal than Washington’s.
Du Bois wanted civil rights as well, but in contrast, he believe the only way to get it was through political action and demanding for equal rights. He also believed education would get the black race somewhere. “The South believed an educated Negro to be a dangerous Negro. And the South was not wholly wrong; for education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent. Nevertheless, men strive to know” (Du Bois Page) as W.E.B. Du Bois said. This quote explains how Du Bois felt about education, he thought education would put him at the top because the whites would fear the knowledge of educated African Americans. His main focus when writing was racial discrimination and the advancement of black people. His work was very broad and he combines history with proposals on how to change, like in this work “The Souls of Black Folks.” This is just a collection of autobiographies on the African American life. He mentions things like the “talented tenth” in The Negro Problem, which describes one out of ten blacks becoming leaders. He also coined several terms, including the “veil.” He says “the Negro is like the seventh son, born with a veil” (Du Bois 887). Du Bois believed a veil was being placed over African Americans so that they are not seen as they are. They are true Americans, but whites do not see that and blacks start to lose sight of that. Another important term,
However, because of the dominant, male white culture, this very learned man and his ideas have been neglected. Even to this day, people know of him as an individual who studied marginalized black societies and an activist fighting for justice on behalf of these minorities. However, society fails to recognize the enormous contributions he made to the practices of sociology. Furthermore, in the rare times Du Bois is mentioned as a sociologist, he is mentioned as a “black sociologist” rather than just simply a sociologist (Green 528). By putting a race description in Du Bois’s title, one is simply saying that he was different from all the rest of the sociologists at the time because of his skin color. The research Du Bois and other black sociologists did focused on racial discrimination, inequality and black lives. However, their work was mostly ignored because it was the study of blacks studying black lives, which was unpopular at the time. Although Du Bois was a well educated man and an impressive sociologist, a significant amount of his work was discredited because he was a black man studying the lives of marginalized black people and the dominant culture did not want to pay heed to his field work in the early
Web Du Bois was an american sociologist. He was the first african american to get a
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, both early advocates of the civil rights movement, offered solutions to the discrimination experienced by black men and women in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Despite having that in common, the two men had polar approaches to that goal. Washington, a man condoning economic efficiency had a more gradual approach as opposed to Du Bois, whose course involved immediate and total equality both politically and economically. For the time period, Washington overall offers a more effective and appropriate proposition for the time whereas Du Bois's approach is precedent to movements in the future. Both have equal influence over African Americans in politics. Washington's proposal excels in reference to education while Du Bois can be noted for achieving true respect from white Americans.
W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington were two very influential leaders in the black community during the late 19th century, early 20th century. However, they both had different views on improvement of social and economic standing for blacks. Booker T. Washington, an ex-slave, put into practice his educational ideas at Tuskegee, which opened in 1881. Washington stressed patience, manual training, and hard work. He believed that blacks should go to school, learn skills, and work their way up the ladder. Washington also urged blacks to accept racial discrimination for the time being, and once they worked their way up, they would gain the respect of whites and be fully accepted as citizens. W.E.B. Du Bois on the other hand, wanted a more aggressive strategy. He studied at Fisk University in Tennessee and the University of Berlin before he went on to study at Harvard. He then took a low paying research job at the University of Pennsylvania, using a new discipline of sociology which emphasized factual observation in the field to study the condition of blacks. The first study of the effect of urban life on blacks, it cited a wealth of statistics, all suggesting that crime in the ward stemmed not from inborn degeneracy but from the environment in which blacks lived. Change the environment, and people would change too; education was a good way to go about it. The different strategies offered by W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington in dealing with the problems of poverty and discrimination faced by Black Americans were education, developing economic skills, and insisting on things continually such as the right to vote. ...
W.E.B Du Bois strategy can be evaluated as ceaseless agitation as stated in The Niagara Movement "If we expect to gain our rights by nerveless acquiescence in wrong, then we expect to do what no other nation ever did. What must we do then? We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complain, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong- this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty, and we must follow it." For this time period, this strategy is inefficient because he only thought about a small percentage of the Black race. As like Washington, he to wanted them to go to top colleges, get a great education, and in some way he thought that they were going to become the intelligence whole Black nation.
Du Bois was a scholar activist who proposed lots of solutions for the issue of racism and discrimination. Du Bois was sort of an opposition to Washington’s ideology, as he strongly believes that it can only help to disseminate white’s oppression towards blacks. We can see his dissatisfaction based on his writing with a title On Booker T. Washington and Others. He wrote that Washington’s philosophy was really not a good idea because the white extremists from the south will perceived this idea as blacks’ complete surrender for the request of civil rights and political equality. Du Bois had a different view on this issue if compared to Washington because of their different early lifestyles. Unlike Washington, Du Bois was born free in the North and he did not receive any harsh experienced as a slave himself and was also grew up in a predominantly white area. In his writings, it is obvious that he thought that the most important thing that the black should gain was to have the equality with whites. Regarding the issue of the voting rights, Du Bois strongly believed that it is important for black people to agitate to get the right to vote. He also believed that the disfranchisement of poor men could mean the catastrophe of South’s democracy (Painter 157). In his writing with a title Of Our Spiritual Strivings, he wrote that it was significant for blacks to exercise the right to vote because there were whites that wanted to put them back in their inferior position—and it was
W.E.B. DuBois (1868 - 1963) had been a well educated man; earning numerous degrees, one of which was earned from Fisk University and another, a doctoral degree, earned from the prestigious Harvard University; it is important to note that W.E.B. DuBois was the first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard. DuBois, had also been well traveled, having spent time in numerous parts of the United States, as well as time in Germany to complete studies sociology and economics at the University of Berlin. W.E.B. Dubois accomplished a great deal, despite living during a time where African Americans where afforded very little. The Book, W.E.B. DuBois, American Prophet: Politics and Culture in Modern America by Edward Blum diverts away from a chronological
W.E.B Du Bois had a very prominent role, when it came to changing the lives African American people in the United States. He had many positions; he was a writer, an editor, a historian, a civil right activist, and the father of sociology. African Americans in the United States would not have the advantages and privileges they have today, if it wasn’t for the works of Du Bois. He constantly fought for the rights of African Americans. Du Bois used his incredible mind, to change the lives of many people. He not only changed people lives, he changed the country as a whole.