W.E.B. DuBois’s Thoughts on Education The Souls of Black Folk, written by W.E.B DuBois is a collection of autobiographical and historical essays containing many themes. DuBois introduced the notion of “twoness”, a divided awareness of one’s identity. “One ever feels his two-ness – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled stirrings: two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keep it from being torn asunder” (215). There are many underlying themes in this collection of essays. One of the themes that DuBois speaks on extensively is education. DuBois stresses the importance of education amongst the black race. He believes that African Americans should be educated in order to guide and teach the uneducated blacks. DuBois stresses the fact that there is a need for higher education, the importance of role models, and the concept of self-motivation for the African American race. DuBois wrote an essay in The Souls of Black Folk, which gives his opinion on Booker T. Washington’s views on education. Booker T. Washington stresses individual education as the way for blacks to gain upward mobility. DuBois disagrees with this. He feels as though blacks first have to gain “the right to vote, civic equality, and education of youth according to ability” (248). Both Washington and DuBois want the same thing for blacks – first class citizenship but their methods for obtaining it is different. Because of the interest in immedi...
DuBois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1868, where the African-American community was small, but for the time, very well respected (McKissack 17). Segregation did not exist (McKissack 17). Economically, DuBois felt "the contrast between the well-to do and the poor was not great. Living was cheap and there was little real poverty" (DuBois 79). His family, while not rich, was not destitute compared to other African-American families during this period. However, DuBois wrote that he "can see that we must have been near the edge of poverty. Yet I was not hungry or in lack of suitable clothing or made to feel unfortunate" (qtd. in Sterne, 3). DuBois’s father, Alfred, left when DuBois was very young and he was raised by his mother, Mary (McKissack 16). Mary emphasized education and hard work as they key to wealth and success (McKissack 16). DuBois inherited this belief, graduating from his high school as the only African-American in his class and...
During the late 19th and early 20th century, racial injustice was very prominent and even wildly accepted in the South. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois were two of the most renowned “pioneers in the [search] for African-American equality in America” (Washington, DuBois, and the Black Future). Washington was “born a slave” who highly believed in the concept of “separate but equal,” meaning that “we can be as [distant] as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress” (Washington 1042). DuBois was a victim of many “racial problems before his years as a student” and disagreed with Washington’s point of view, which led
Education is an ideological mechanism African-Americans used to enhance their social standing in the United States soon after liberation. During the period of W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington, the sort of education explored by African- Americans was the focus of intense discussion. Washington was an enthusiastic supporter of industrial/vocational education while DuBois supported both higher and industrial education, but greatly emphasized on the higher education (Ogbu 23). A lot of people in the Black society accepted DuBois’s stand on higher education remained the better proposal because it was thought to uplift the community. They thought that Washington’s approach was inefficient and left the whole race exposed to violation by White Americans.
Booker T. Washington indicates equivocal descriptions to explain the importance of education for the black
Booker T. Washington's legacy is a troubled one. Dubois was right to say, "When Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, he does not rightly value the privilege and duty of voting, belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and ambition of our higher minds" (afro 1). But can we really fault Booker T. for being misguided and flat-out wrong? Washington is not the first successful, insufferable man in America who rose from abject poverty to a life of bourgeois comfort, who then assumed that everyone else could too, if only they did as he did. This is not sycophancy. This is a classic case of projection and denial: myopic projection of his own experience, and flagrant denial of the horrors of white supremacy. To accuse Booker T. Washington of complacency is an insult to a good man's efforts in working ceaselessly for the betterment of several million newly freed, unemployed, African American slaves, of which he was one. The post-Civil War problems facing the nation were intractable and myriad. This was uncharted territory. In his defense, Washington founded a college made of mortar and brick which still stands today that has educated celebrated alumni like Eli Whitney, Ralph Ellison, and Damon Wayans. He opened a much-needed dialogue between the black community and the ruling (racist) white class in America. He paved the road for better thinkers, like Dubois, who saw the danger in Booker T's faulty reasoning.
Washington was able to attend Hampton Institute, which allowed him to work as a janitor to pay for his attendance. By receiving an education from the institution he was able to teach other colored people, and become this great leader among the black community. He felt, as colored people should only attend trade or industrial schools, and that is the type of school he opened in Tuskegee. Booker T. Washington was criticized by many pertaining to his views on education among his fellow colored people. W.E.B Du Bios was one of those critics; in his novel souls of black folks he talks about how Booker T. Washington was being submissive to the white people. Du Bios felt as Washington “surrender their civil and political rights”; Mr. Washington was okay with accepting an inferior position in order to gain economic status in the long run. Although Du Bios felt that Mr. Washington was submissive, Du Bios also called his program unique. Although Washington does want the colored people to advance, the things he asked of colored people contradict his motives. Du Bios challenges the things that Mr. Washington asked of them, which were to give up political power, insistence on civil rights, and higher education of the youth. Du Bios says that with this being asked of the colored people would lead to the disfranchisement of the Negro, a legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro, and a steady withdraw of aid from institution for higher education of the Negro. What Washington called for would help black gain economic status short term, but the lack of equal opportunity with blacks ' education would keep them in an inferior place. Colored people should be able to learn everything the white people learn. Black people should not be subjected to just trade and industrial
Booker T. Washington was one of the most well-known African American educators of all time. Lessons from his life recordings and novelistic writings are still being talked and learned about today. His ideas of the accommodation of the Negro people and the instillation of a good work ethic into every student are opposed, though, by some well-known critics of both past and current times. They state their cases by claiming the Negro’s should not have stayed quiet and worked their way to wear they did, they should have demanded equal treatment from the southern whites and claimed what was previously promised to them. Also, they state that Washington did not really care about equality or respect, but about a status boost in his own life. Both arguments presented by Washington and his critics are equally valid when looked at in context, but When Mr. Booker gave his speech at the Atlanta Acquisition, he was more-so correct in his belief of accommodation. His opinions concerning that hard work achieved success and respect and that demanding requests does not give immediate results were more rational, practical, and realistic than others outcries of immediate gratification and popularity contests.
During his lifetime, Booker T. Washington was a national leader for the betterment of African Americans in the post-Reconstruction South. He advocated for economic and industrial improvement of Blacks while accommodating Whites on voting rights and social equality. Washington traces his life from his being born a slave to an educator. His writings and speeches, though initially was very influential for his race, later in his life began to be challenged by the new generation of African Americans and died as he did in 1915 with him. In this autobiography of his life, Washington’s generalizations and accommodations of the treatment and disregard for the African American by people of the White race was nonchalant, as though he felt that for some reason it was okay or necessary for African Americans to be treated as second class.
DuBois presents the question “[h]ow does it feel to be a problem?”, introducing the attitude towards African-Americans upon their emancipation (DuBois 3). The idea of freedom for slaves meant equality, but “the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land […] the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people” (6). The challenge faced during this time was how to deal with the now freed slaves who once had no rights. DuBois states that African-Americans merely wish “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 i...
DuBois believes that in a time of such social and economic inequality in the Nation the only way for African Americans to take their deserved rights, and overcome the daily injustices of the Gilded Age and racism is through thorough education.
In 1903 black leader and intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois wrote an essay in his collection The Souls of Black Folk with the title “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others.” Both Washington and Du Bois were leaders of the black community in the 19th and 20th century, even though they both wanted to see the same outcome for black Americans, they disagreed on strategies to help achieve black social and economic progress. History shows that W.E.B Du Bois was correct in racial equality would only be achieved through politics and higher education of the African American youth.
Booker T. Washington was an African American leader who established an African-American college in 1181. Then in 1895 delivered the Atlanta Compromise Speech to an audience of mainly Southerners, but some Northerners were present. In his speech he made a few points. He said, “No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.” Washington believed that the African American race needed to learn first that manual labor was just as important as the work of intellects. He thought that until they learned this they were not worthy of becoming intellects themselves. The color line is thus important in teaching them this lesson. He also said, “It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges.” His opinion was that one day blacks would deserve to have equal rights with the whites, but right now in 1895 the blacks needed to be...
When it all comes down to it, one of the greatest intellectual battles U.S. history was the legendary disagreement between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. This intellectual debate sparked the interest of the Northerners as well as the racist whites that occupied the south. This debate was simply about how the blacks, who just gained freedom from slavery, should exist in America with the white majority. Even though Washington and DuBois stood on opposite sides of the fence they both agreed on one thing, that it was a time for a change in the treatment of African Americans. I chose his topic to write about because I strongly agree with both of the men’s ideas but there is some things about their views that I don’t agree with. Their ideas and views are the things that will be addressed in this essay.
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Dubois is a influential work in African American literature and is an American classic. In this book Dubois proposes that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." His concepts of life behind the veil of race and the resulting "double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others," have become touchstones for thinking about race in America. In addition to these lasting concepts, Souls offers an evaluation of the progress of the races and the possibilities for future progress as the nation entered the twentieth century.
The first argument Booker T. Washington makes is that blacks should seek an education that provides them with the opportunity to gain employment by meeting the sp...