Tracing the contribution of Booker T Washington and W E B Du Bois in the Civil Rights Movement.

Aishwarya Mukhopadhyay

When it came to the African American civil rights movement of the late 19th and early 20th century, two leaders
exemplified two divergent strategies: Booker T. Washington and William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. Washington's
accommodationist policies reflected his willingness to not rock the boat too much with regard to civil rights. Du Bois
pursued a more aggressive tack through the Niagara movement and the NAACP. In this essay, we shall study the
philosophies of the two leaders followed by their differences and the course of the early civil rights movement.

Early Black Protests

In antebellum South, the Blacks found their own ways of protest. This would range from slaves resorting to outright physical
resistance to feigning illness, stupidity or neglect of crops and arson. As a form of protest, the slaves created their own
distinct slave culture, which was partially drawn from their African roots. There were also individual acts of protest like by
Gabriel Posser, who created a guerrilla force of 200 men to overthrow slavery. Though these ended as failures, it showed the
capacity of the Blacks to plan uprisings against the institution.

Free Blacks in the South occupied their own distinct place in society, and to demarcate their status from the enslaved they
created their own institutions. However, with time, it was increasingly difficult to be manumitted and repression and
discrimination steadily increased. Free Blacks were aware that their survival gradually depended on the Whites, and there
were distinct efforts taken to shun themselves from their enslaved counterparts by the free Blacks.

It was the Civil War which saw the growth of radical leadership. In the 1850s, leaders like Martin R. Delany and Alexander
Crummel rejected their earlier support for continuing racial injustice and advocated emigration and colonisation for blacks.
Delany went on to advocate the establishment of an autonomous black state in East Africa. People like W. E. B. Du Bois
would later draw on such sentiments and convictions for the “formulations of black nationalist ideology.”

The leading abolitionist was Frederick Douglass, who became a spokesperson for the Blacks. A former slave himself,
Douglass protested against slavery and racial discrimination. During the Civil War (1861–65) Douglass became a consultant
to President Abraham Lincoln, that the Civil War be made a direct confrontation against slavery. In 1868, the 14 th
Amendment to the Constitution gave blacks equal protection under the law. In 1870, the 15 th Amendment granted blacks the
right to vote. Throughout Reconstruction (1865–77), Douglass fought for full civil rights for freedmen and vigorously
supported the women’s rights movement. Significantly, during the 1850s, he had advocated for and found an Industrial
College for Negroes. Booker T. Washington significantly drew from Douglass’ ideas and merged as his ideological disciple.

Socio-Political Background of Post-Bellum South

The end of Reconstruction was the withdrawal of troops from the South in 1877. By the Compromise of 1877, the Northern
Republicans had abandoned their support for the freemen and the Redeemer governments had taken their place. Soon, legal
and extra-legal measures which deprived blacks of the franchise and the right to hold public office or engage in public
protest. The ‘Black Codes’ began to reappear in the state legislatures from the 1870s and 1880s which replaced slavery with
different forms of involuntary servitude for the Southern Blacks. The crop-lien system exploited the black farmers as they
were kept in a “state of peonage”1 and were unable to clear themselves of debt.

This was also the period of the increasing separation of races, and saw the establishment of Jim Crow Laws, applied
especially in public accommodations, hospitals, prisons etc. Segregation was a full-blown law and custom by the 1890s. The
achievement of the Congressional Reconstruction in the South, according to John White was to secure segregation for the
blacks in place of exclusion. The Redeemer government continued this policy further, however, these separate facilities were
seldom equal.

During the Reconstruction, most Southern Blacks had their hopes for better facilities for them, rather than integrated
institutions. During the Populist Movement, the People’s Party were interested in producing an alliance with black and white
farmers, led by Tom Watson of Georgia. Throughout the South, the Populist Party denounced black lynching and supported
political rights for the Blacks. However, the party soon reversed their policy and in the 1890s. Southern whites of all political
fronts were uniting under the banner of white supremacy. With the election of 1868 and the growth of factionalism and
liberal Republicans demanding an end to military rule in the South, the cause of the free Black man was soon abandoned. On
top of that, the Supreme Court with a series of decisions aided segregation practices, especially by the Plessy v. Fergusson
case which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were
equal in quality – a doctrine that came to be known as “separate but equal”. During the 1880s and 1890s, there were on an
average, 150 lynching of blacks in a year and Blacks became increasingly disillusioned with political activity. It is in this
background that we see the growth of the black movement significantly through Booker T. Washington.

1
John White, Black Leadership in America: From Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson (Studies in Modern History)
(Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education, 1990), 24
Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington, born in 1856, had spent nine years in slavery. During the Reconstruction, he studied in the
Hampton Institute, run by General Samuel Armstrong since 1868. Armstrong believed that education of the freeman was the
best transition from slavery to freedom and advocated that blacks should remain in the South with the Southern Whites and
engage in agriculture and involve themselves in collective and self-help. Education was thus a moral and conservative force,
and it appealed to both, Southern whites and Northern industrialists, who realised they could create a more trained labour
force. This greatly influenced Washington, and when he became Director of the Tuskegee Institute, he followed the lines laid
down by Armstrong, with particular emphasis on religious training.2

As Washington’s success grew, he had the opportunity to be part of fund-raising drives led by industrial philanthropists like
John D Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry C Rogers and the like. Washington directed their financial support towards not
only Tuskegee but other schools of a similar kind which had sprung up.

On 18 September 1895, Washington was invited to speak at the opening of the Cotton States and International Exposition,
held in Atlanta, Georgia. He announced a pragmatic compromise which would resolve the antagonism between the Southern
and Northern Whites and the Blacks. He urged Blacks to stay in the South, and accept white supremacy. The blacks should
be content with common occupations and focus on economic cooperation amongst themselves. Washington emphasised how
black had no interest in attaining social equality, and that the Whites could be guaranteed of the Blacks’ support and loyalty.

This address caused a sensation and the Southern press hailed Washington as the most ‘sensible and progressive negro’. W E
B Du Bois also hailed this speech to be a ‘phenomenal success’. However, later estimates of the speech have viewed it as a
surrender to white supremacy or an exercise in interracial diplomacy. However, this speech made Washington the recognised
leader of the Blacks in America.

In his book ‘Up from Slavery’, Washington reinforced ideas of how blacks should eschew politics, cultivate habits of thrift
and honesty, concentrate on achieving skills, property, be industrious and inculcate a Christian character. Heavily stressing
on Puritan ethics, ‘Up from Slavery’ became an instant hit and appealed to blacks who identified themselves with
Washington’s trials and victories.

In the last few years of his life, Washington had a dual character as an educator and an administrator. In 1900 he founded the
National Negro Business League to promote black entrepreneurship and advertise the economic successes some blacks had
achieved. The League reflected Washington’s view of black advancement anf also increased the base of Washington in the
North.

In 1901, Washington was invited by Theodore Roosevelt for dinner at the White House. Yet, Washington was unable to do
anything against the Plessy v. Fergusson or when Roosevelt in a racist act dismissed three companies of black troops from
Brownsville, Texas. Similarly, Taft’s policy of removing Southern black office-holders indicated the limits of Washington’s
political influence.

Washington also faced racism himself. He understood that segregation which was imposed on blacks which guaranteed
“separate but equal” facilities were decidedly unequal. He secretly sponsored legal suits against exclusion of blacks from
jury service, Jim Crow facilities on railroads, various devices used to deny black suffrage and the persistence of involuntary
servitude in the South. In the last few years of his life, he became increasingly more outspoken about racial extremism. He
criticised conditions of the cars and waiting rooms for blacks, the lynching and the racism in D W Griffith’s Birth of a
Nation. Washington’s strongest criticism was his posthumously published article “My view of the segregation laws.” Where
he pointed how unjust, unnecessary it is, and harms the black community greatly.

Washington was greatly criticised during his life, especially for deprecating political actions. His portrayal of race relations,
his critics argued were “travesties of the truth” 3. John Hope, the black president of the Atlanta University criticised how
Washington negated the black struggle for equality, while Julius F Taylor, a black editor of the Chicago Broad Axe, called
Washington “the Great Beggar of Tuskegee” and the “greatest white man’s nigger in the world”. It was William Monroe
Trotter who deplored Washington’s rise to fame and charged him with being equanimous with the disenfranchisement of the
blacks. W E B Du Bois charged Washington in his book ‘The Souls of Black Folk’ by citing that it was Washington’s
policies that had led to Black disenfranchisement. It was impossible for blacks to work or be part of business without
political rights, he is submissive to the whites and that the Tuskegee institute he runs itself is run by unqualified people. Du
Bois critiqued Washington’s view calling it narrow and crass and went on to establish the Niagara Movement of 1905
against Washington.

2
Ibid.,31
3
John White, Black Leadership in America: From Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson (Studies in Modern History)
(Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education, 1990), 38
Washington’s close relations with powerful whites certainly helped him, yet it was his outlook which strongly appealed to
the black community. His philosophy is what Eric Foner calls “the politics of survival” 4- the idea of economic progress was
tied to self-sufficiency of the Black community. August Meier points out that Washington drew support from a rising black
middle class who had achieved some level of economic success and enjoyed a black clientele, and thus, this new class was
interested in business first. Thus, it was the businessmen who wholeheartedly supported Washington. He stressed on how to
be accepted in society, one must follow the values followed by the Whites, and the basis of judging another individual in
America was race. However, according to C Van Woodward, Washington’s idea of industrial jobs and crafts was becoming
obsolete and threatened by increasing focus on mechanised agriculture and industrialisation.

Between the 1890s and 1920s, we see a growing migration especially in the urban areas, where segregation in reality helped
create a unique community of the black petit bourgeois of professional and business men who depended on black lives for
sustenance. It was especially this growing moneyed class who were indifferent to the idea of racial solidarity and preferred
success in business. Thus, the very idea of self-help and racial solidarity of Washington appealed to the masses and the ideas
became symbols of American individualism according to August Meier.

In the circumstances of his time and place, Washington was thus able to create a programme which appealed to both
Northerners and Southerners. One of Washington’s main aim was to supplant the plantation ethic with an achievement ethic
according to White. His idea of industrial education was infused with the idea of self-help and self-reliance, reconciled the
Southern whites to the idea of blacks being educated. Above all, Washington was the master tactician and interracial
diplomat, who tried his best to contain economic exploitation of blacks.

W E B Du Bois

By the time of Washington’s death, there was a change in the leaders and philosophies of the Black movement and William
Edward Burghardt Du Bois was responsible for most of the part. His new ideas of different outlooks, militant integrationism,
pan-Africanism, a separate black economy and finally, revolutionary socialism was a fresh outlook to the black movement.
Born in 1868, in Great Barrington, a mulatto, he faced racial prejudice as a child, which he described as a “vast veil” which
differentiated him from his white companions.5 He went on to study at Fisk University, followed by Harvard, and it was in
both these universities that he faced racism, rural black poverty and was convinced that education was the hope that could
lift blacks out of their misery.

At Harvard, Du Bois was greatly influenced by the philosophers William James, Josiah Royce and George Santayana. He
then left for the University of Berlin, where he became a great admirer of Bismarck who unified the German state “through
the force of his personality”. Du Bios’ later idea of pan-Africanism, argues White was derived from his exposure to German
national consciousness. On his return to America, Du Bois was convinced that it was indeed culture that was the highest
human aim and by being “educated and cultured”, the Black could successfully seek their own advancement through self-
help and assistance of the goodwill of the whites. The exposure to social problems was the key to the upliftment of the
blacks and that prejudice was the result of ignorance.

Du Bois in 1899 published an intensive sociological survey of Philadelphia’s black community, detailing the inadequate
housing, health and educational facilities and the effect of white prejudice and isolation, lack of social consciousness of the
city’s black leadership. He was given the offer to teach mathematics at the Tuskegee Institute, but he turned it down and
from 1897 to 1910, he was the Professor of Sociology and History at the Atlanta University, where he directed the
preparation and publication of a series of studies which documented the existence of segregation in labour unions, business
and industry. This became the first intensive statistical study of the blacks of the United States.

Du Bois by this time had already created the idea of what historian Vincent Harding called ‘black messianism’. Du Bois
defined racial groups as important elements of world history, where blacks as a race could redeem western civilisation from
the decadence it had fallen into. This was thus a “spiritual message” of the Black race, where the black race to achieve their
destiny thus had to assert their “race identity” and establish human brotherhood. This concept was coupled with the idea of
cultural spiritualism where each ethnic group should enjoy equal opportunities and rights, while maintaining their distinct
identity. This was the time when Du Bois espoused ‘voluntary segregation’ and viewed it as a unifying force in black life.
These ideas coalesced in a book The Souls of Black Folk which focused on what the Blacks could contribute to the world
civilisation. The publication of the Souls of the Black Folk, his criticism of Washington, his role in the Niagara Movement
and the founder of NAACP, signify his transition from an academician to a propogandist. In the following paragraphs we
will thus study this transition.

In the late 19th century, there were several attempts at the formation of Negro organisations to protest against discrimination
and the Washington accommodation. Timothy Thomas Fortune founded the National Afro-American League in 1890 and it
was supported by Washington. However, by 1893, the League became defunct. In 1898 the League was revived as the
National Afro-American Council with an aim to be a comprehensive civil rights organisation. Washington exercised great
4
Eric Foner, Americas Black past a Reader in Afro-American History (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 264
5
John White, Black Leadership in America: From Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson (Studies in Modern History)
(Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education, 1990), 50
influence in this Council, and when Du Bois was made a director of a black business league promoted by the Council
Washignton sensed a challenge to his own leadership. Washington then broke off and formed the National Negro Business
League, with the help of a listing of black businessmen which was given by Du Bois.

Meanwhile, a group of 29 radicals led by Du Bois met on the Canadian side pf the Niagara Falls in July 1905, to form an
opposing organisation to Washington, which coalesced to the Niagara Movement. The meeting placed the responsibility of
racial problems on the whites and the demands included, freedom of speech, a call for suffrage, eradication of colour-based
distinction and an end to segregation in schools. Washington was opposed to the Niagara Movement from its inception and
his tactics undermined the movement which could never take off or gain white support. It was also unable to gain enough
support among the Blacks who saw it as a simply another protest organisation. By 1903, the Niagara Movement was no
longer effective and gave way to the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), a more
serious challenge to Washington’s leadership.

Following a race riot in Springfield, Illinois, a conference was held in 1909 at the National Negro Committee Conference,
where Du Bois was giving a speech and Washington refused to come. Du Bois emphasised on the interrelatedness between
politics and economy, though he avoided attacking Washington directly. At its 1910 conference, the National Negro
Committee changed its name to the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, with the white
Progressive lawyer Moorfield Storey as its president. The organisation aimed to physically free 11,000,000 Americans free
from “peonage, mentally free from ignorance, politically free from disenfranchisement, and socially free from insult”. 6 Its
first judicial victory came in 1915 when the Supreme Court ruled that the Oklahoma’s “grandfather clause” aimed at
withholding the black vote was unconstitutional.by 1914, there were 6,000 members in 50 branches and its magazine Crisis
had a circulation of over 30,000. While Washington remained opposed to the NAACP, Du Bois accepted the position of
Director of Publishing and Research for the NAACP.

Du Bois used the platform of Crisis to set forth facts and arguments which demonstrated the dangers of racial prejudice. His
main aim was the literate middle-class black public. Crisis advocated black self-defence against white vigilante mobs and
described that the “real tragedy of the Negro in America…the inner degradation…(was) the upturning of values”. In 1919,
the NAACP published Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918. Which estimated that 3224 black men and
women were lynched during this period. After the lynching of Jesse Washignton, they established an Anti-Lynching Fund.

Du Bois’ editorship was marked by constant friction between himself and the NAACP board. The disagreement was
primarily between the journal and the Association was at first over how Crisis never mentioned the NAACP, and later, on
how Du Bois attacked the black press, asserting that they did not publish true facts about the race situation. Du Bois’
statements often diverged from the NAACP. He broke the principle pf cooperative and concerted black protest agreed upon
at the Amenia conference and went on to criticise the principle of industrial education, the policy advocated by Washington.
During the Great War, Du Bois urged blacks to join the war efforts and radical black groups denounced Du Bois as going
against his stand. His 1919 editorial called ‘Returning Soldiers’ which led to the investigation of Crisis by the United States
Department of Justice.

During the time of 1918-1928, Du Bois travelled to Europe and Africa, and these journeys had a profound impact on him.
Du Bois became increasingly aware of a universal problem he termed as ‘colour line’. In 1924, he suggested that the
NAACP, the American Federation of Labour and the Railroad Brotherhoods should organise an interracial commission with
the aim of creating integrated labour unions. However, Du Bois himself soon abandoned his earlier tolerant attitude towards
organising labour. With the Great Depression Du Bois advocated the blacks to develop a separate economy and advocated
‘self-segregation’ as the ultimate path to black political and economic power.

Du Bois differentiated between segregation and discrimination, unlike the NAACP. Du Bois urged the NAACP and the
black community to turn segregation to their favour. “Members of the Talented Tenth should become planners of producer
and consumer cooperatives which would form ‘a Negro nation within a nation’.” 7 Du Bois believed in the leadership by
college -educated elite, and was opposed to the idea of common industrial schools. He believed that liberal higher education
would result in intelligent black leadership. Industrial education led to the preparation of the black in obsolete crafts and it
would be the intelligent, cultivated “Talented Tenth” of the society who would lead the blacks. All races he opined had been
civilised by their exceptional men, and thus, it would have to be these elite blacks who could reform the race status. By
doing so, the “Negroes can develop in United States and economic nation within a nation”. Du Bois was running against the
tide of dominant black ideology amd to his critics, this idea of “a Negro nation within a nation” was unique compared to
Washington’s accommodationist policy.

However, this also led to Du Bois being criticised, for according to his contemporary Francis Grimke, Du Bois’ acceptance
of Jim Crow signalled the end of his role as a black leader and the Chicago black press labelled Du Bois as a “quitter”.

6
John White, Black Leadership in America: From Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson (Studies in Modern History)
(Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education, 1990), 48
7
John White, Black Leadership in America: From Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson (Studies in Modern History)
(Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education, 1990), 57
Following a rift between the Association and Du Bois (who had again criticised the NAACP in Crisis), Du Bois resigned
from the NAACP in 1934 and returned to Atlanta University.

The other significant contribution that Du Bois made to the civil rights movement was the idea of ‘Pan-Africanism’. After
his experience at Fisk, he discovered his ‘African racial feeling’ and felt he was both, an African by race and an American by
birth. Concern with Africa, the ancestry and culture of Afro-Americans became the central theme of his work. He precited
the emergence of a pan-African movement uniting blacks everywhere against the universal harsh treatment meted out by the
whites to the blacks. A romantic racialist, Du Bois painted idyllic pictures of the African village and tribal life to awaken
black American pride about their African roots. Du Bois actively participated in the Pan-African Congresses and African
nationalists like Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta acknowledged Du Bois as the founding father of pan-Africanism.
(colour and democracy 1945)

However, despite all his contributions, John White describes Du Bois as a leader without followers, especially from 1934-63.
His breakoff from the NAACP left him isolated and embittered. He significantly remained estranged from the Talented
Tenth, because of Du Bois’ support for socialism and voluntary self-segregation. Du Bois viewed all workers, white and
black as being exploited by the white capitalists and predicted that the exploited of all races would unite and overthrow white
capital, their common oppressor. Most of the ‘Talented Tenth’ supported the capitalist ventures of the state and Du Bois was
critiqued for his denial of interracial cooperation.

Dusk of Dawn, Du Bois’ biography was the work where Du Bois chiefly reviewed his controversy with Washington. While
Washington had put his faith in industrial education and common labour, Du Bois advocated for the supremacy of the
Talented Tenth. While he admits that the two ideas could be complimentary, it was the attitude of the Washignton, Du Bois
blames that led to their differences. He found Washington’s policies paradoxical for he decried political activities among the
blacks, but dictated black political objectives himself. Washignton paid little heed to the idea of others opined Du Bois. Du
Bois maintained how the Washington had not fought desperately enough for the right to vote, gain civil rights and social
education. In 1961, Du Bois applied for membership in the American Communist Party, which further isolated him from the
black community. He became a Ghanaian citizen in the last few months of his life and died there.

Du Bois was able to bring out the fundamental dilemma in the lives of the American black, what he described to be the
feeling of being Negro and American at the same time. Du Bois as the editor of Crisis was the astounding agitator and
propagandist of the Negro protest movement which arose in opposition to Washington’s power and politics. He developed
the role of the college educated elite, who would later dominate the world and combine with white workers and secure social
justice under socialism.

According to _ Du Bois was able to recognise that the “economic foundation of the modern world was based on the
recognition and preservation of the so-called racial bias.” 8 Du Bois influenced the black intelligentsia and contributed to
black consciousness which flowered in Black Renaissance, and was key to the growing awareness of the blacks to their
African roots.

Conclusion

As can be seen, Washington and Du Bois had to some degree very opposing views on how to handle and progress the
African-American race. Washington put great emphasis on vocational education that would give practical skills to African-
American’s living in the South. Rather than focus on social and political equality, Washington stressed the importance of
economic advancement, believing that once the average African-American had the power of wealth that political and social
freedoms and powers would follow. Washington felt there was great importance in appeasing the white majority, for the
economic and political power it affording him in furthering the African-American cause and because he lived in the turbulent
South, where it was dangerous to be a radical black man. Du Bois’ political ideas contrasted with Washington’s idea of
“appeasement” and he had a far more radical approach to civil rights. Du Bois did not think that it was possible for African-
American’s to achieve economic equality before they had achieved social and political equality. Du Bois also put more
emphasis on academic teaching and did not feel that Washington’s vocational education would be useful in helping the
progress of African-Americans.

However, both Washington and Du Bois wanted the same thing for blacks—first-class citizenship—but their methods for
obtaining it differed. Because of the interest in immediate goals contained in Washington’s economic approach, whites did
not realize that he anticipated the complete acceptance and integration of Negroes into American life. He believed blacks,
starting with so little, would have to begin at the bottom and work up gradually to achieve positions of power and
responsibility before they could demand equal citizenship—even if it meant temporarily assuming a position of inferiority.
DuBois understood Washington’s programme, but believed that it was not the solution to the “race problem.” Blacks should
study the liberal arts, and have the same rights as white citizens. Blacks, DuBois believed, should not have to sacrifice their
constitutional rights in order to achieve a status that was already guaranteed. Thus, though they differed significantly in their
approach, their views were important for the growth of discourse and activism of the civil rights movement.
8
Dan S. Green and Earl Smith, W.E.B. DuBois and the Concepts of Race and Class, Phylon (1960-), Vol. 44, No. 4 (4th
Qtr., 1983), pp. 262-272
Bibliography

 Foner, Eric. Americas Black past a Reader in Afro-American History. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
 Fox, Oliver, C., The Leadership of Booker T Washington, Social Forces, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Oct., 1951), pp. 91-97

 Green, Dan S., Smith, Earl,, W.E.B. DuBois and the Concepts of Race and Class, Phylon (1960-), Vol. 44, No. 4
(4th Qtr., 1983), pp. 262-272
 White, John. Black Leadership in America: From Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson. (Studies In Modern
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