Washington Vs Dubois Analysis

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Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois were black leaders who held similar ideals. They both believed that whites should eventually see blacks as their equals and give blacks rights such as suffrage and economic freedom. They also acknowledge that blacks were at a disadvantage to whites because of their lack of education and prosperity, so blacks needed whites to “arouse and encourage” them to attain success. However, they held different stances on how blacks should attain these ideals. Washington believes that blacks should flatter the whites and reason to their self-interest. The best way to do this is to campaign for economic freedom and industrial education, things that can help whites, rather than focus on removing social segregation …show more content…
However, never in American history did a majority of whites see blacks and equal to them. Even presidents who advocated for better treatment of blacks and ability for them to capitalize on their labor, such as Abraham Lincoln, saw them as inferior and not deserving of social and political equality. At the start of the abolitionist movement, blacks did exactly what DuBois preached, arguing that they were human as whites were, differing only in skin color, so they should be freed and receive equal rights. But this resulted in white southerners tightening slave laws because they feared that these abolitionists would spark slave …show more content…
Washington relies too heavily on the premise that whites will follow their self interest, which will be to help blacks gain economic freedom and eventually political equality. But the path to attain equal rights is more complicated than that. First off, it is not always in the self-interest for all whites to help blacks. Even though it can help Northern factory owners receive more labor, blacks can pose a threat to workingmen. And eventually, it might not even be worth it for any Northerner to continue helping blacks. After the Reconstruction, once the northerner realized that his economic situation was not getting better (partly because he had to pay extra taxes to fund the Reconstruction and because of the Depression), he did little to counter the Southerners’ attack against the blacks. He only interfered when the Southerners enacted the Black Codes because these would reimplement the old slave power. But eventually, all whites started to get irritated at the blacks because they believed that they provided blacks everything they needed, but blacks were just being
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