Comparing E. B. Dubois And Booker T. Washington

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Different African American writers all had different approaches to equality; DuBois and Washington actively challenged each other’s ideals, but they both had a shared goal of uplifting the black community post-emancipation. One of the major differences in the ideology of Dubois and Washington was due to their differences in their educational backgrounds. Booker T. Washington had a very can do attitude when it came to achieving economic equality specifically. When Washington was given the opportunity to better himself through education, he proved his worth by sweeping the classroom. “I swept the recitation-room three times. Then I got a dusting-cloth and I dusted it four times. All the woodwork around the walls, every bench, table, and desk, …show more content…

Washington, W.E.B. DuBois believed that black people should be fighting for equality on all levels, not just economically. DuBois was a formally educated black man that was from a Northern family of free black people that had a history of formal education. DuBois wished to directly address the divide between the black and American identities, “He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face” (695). DuBois wished to see his fellow black man in positions of authority so that there would be equal opportunity for everyone despite their race. Washington and DuBois were in direct contact with one another and would often criticize one another. Economic equality was a talking point for both writers; however, DuBois would not place as great of importance on money as Washington. “To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships. He felt the weight of his ignorance,—not simply of letters, but of life, of business, of the humanities; the accumulated sloth and shirking and awkwardness of decades and centuries shackled his hands and feet” (DuBois

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