Comparing and Contrasting the Ideolodies of Booker T....

William Edward Burghard Du Bois and Booker Taliaferro Washington were both civil rights leaders of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Du Bois was born as a freeman in Massachusetts, he studied at Harvard University and became the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard. . Washington was born as a slave in Virginia, he worked in the salt mines while attending school, and later attended the Hampton Institute to learn trade skills. Although Du bois and Washington had the same goal of achiving equality, they sharply disagreed on strategies concerning voting rights, social change, education, and the role of the black man in the South, Washington had a gradual approach as opposed to Du Bois who wanted immediate equality.†¦show more content†¦Whereas Du Bois preferred African Americans to get an education, Washington preferred African Americans to learn trade skills. Du Bois and Washingtons approaches towards the role of the Black Man in the South differed sign ificantly. Du Bois believes that the role of the black man in the South was to archive higher education and gain as stated in The Negro Problem, intelligence, board sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it. Du Bois furthermore believed that an African American should achieve greater education through college to become one the Talented Tenth that will lead African Americans to equality. Unlike Washington who believes that, the role of the black man in the South was to learn a trade skill that could be used to contribute to the economy. He also stated in The Atlanta Compromise Speech that, we began at the top instead of the bottom (Document 7) referring to the