Booker T. Washington Vs Dubois

Booker T. Washington focused on having education for real life jobs and not asking for equality from the whites. He just focused on getting help from the whites and accepting their place as blacks on earth. WEB Dubois focused on the exact opposite things that of Booker T. Washington. Dubois focused on a strategy called the gradualist political strategy. The gradualist political strategy tells that Dubois was very focused on blacks being book smart to get any where in life. Back in the days when racism was a huge problem there were two main leaders that stepped into play to help control the issues. Even though they were completely opposite both of them made huge changes in the segregation of the United States of America, their names will never be forgotten, Booker T. Washington and WEB Dubois.

The first leader that came along was Booker T. Washington. Booker T. Washington wanted the good to show in all of black people. He believed that the blacks should work for themselves. Booker T. Washington asked the white people for help not equality. Booker T. Washington believed that they would not make it any where in society if they focused on just equality. Booker T. Washington wanted to have blacks trained for society and real life situations, he believed that was way more important than being book smart and not being able to use anything you learned outside. He wanted job education for blacks so they could learn how to do their jobs and do it properly. Booker T. Washington was known as being a great public speaker, but not only did Booker T. Washington focus on speaking to blacks he also spoke to whites as well. When talking to the whites he focused on how blacks are stereotyped. When he spoke to the blacks though he talked to them about how they should not hide in the whites shadows, they should break out of the box and be who they want to be. Booker T. Washington all in all though focused on all blacks getting economic equality.

The next main leader was WEB Dubois, he focused on the exact opposite things that of Booker T. Washington. Dubois focused on a strategy called the gradualist political strategy. The gradualist political strategy tells that Dubois was very focused on blacks being book smart to get any where in life. He believed that they should be just like whites, with high education and IQ’s which all comes from reading, writing, and organized education. He wanted the blacks to have intellectual advances in their race. The smarter the blacks got, the more equal they were to the whites is what Dubois believed. Dubois asserted that economic security was not enough and blacks should become educated. Dubois mainly took Booker T. Washington’s ideas and took them a step further. While Booker T. Washington just wanted the blacks to have opportunities without equally, Dubois wanted the full package. He wanted blacks to have the opportunities as well as being equal to the whites. Back in the time the leader that was the most realistic was Booker T. Washington.

Booker T. Washington understood that blacks would never be equal to whites and instead of fighting with it he accepted it. By understanding that the blacks would never be equal it prevented them from wasting anytime trying to become better individuals. Booker T. Washington took the idea of never getting past racism and preached about it. Instead of preaching that one day the blacks would have equality and preaching wrong, Booker T. Washington preached to them that being equal is not what it is all about. He did this so the blacks would not lose faith and eventually give their hopes up on being equal. They ended up focusing on themselves and their brothers and dealt with the system. They accepted themselves as blacks into this nation. In today’s day and age for example, there are people who are still racist, people who don’t accept blacks because of their color and culture, but today blacks understand that and accept it. This is what happened exactly back in the day, so in a way Booker T. Washington

Works Cited

1. Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk. A.C. McClurg & Co.
2. Giddings, P. (2009). Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching. HarperCollins.
3. Harlan, L. R. (1993). Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915. Oxford University Press.
4. Lewis, D. L. (1993). W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919. Holt Paperbacks.
5. Meier, A., & Rudwick, E. M. (1976). From Plantation to Ghetto. Hill and Wang.
6. Norrell, R. J. (2009). Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington. Belknap Press.
7. Rudwick, E. M. (1967). W. E. B. Du Bois: Propagandist of the Negro Protest. Atheneum.
8. Scott, E. B. (1985). Booker T. Washington and the Negro's Place in American Life. Little, Brown.
9. Sundquist, E. (1993). To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature. Harvard University Press.
10. Washington, B. T. (1901). Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. Doubleday.