Kaylee Hoffman
The great hope that was brought about in 1866 by the passing of the 14th Amendment,
which promises that all citizens of the United States regardless of their race, ethnicity, or color
would have “equal protection under the law”, would quickly disappear as it proved unable to
protect and equalize African-Americans. Instead, blacks were stripped of their right to vote
through crafty laws like the “grandfather clause”. They were barred from jobs, stores,
neighborhoods, parks, and restaurants. Black men were lynched by violent mobs for no other
crime than that of existing. Such was the situation of blacks in the Jim Crow South, a land of
social and political segregation. Black leaders had to devise ideas on how to move forward and
achieve social, political, and economic advancement. But they often disagreed with each other
on how to accomplish this. Booker T. Washington, a former slave himself and co-founder of the
Tuskegee Institute, gave a speech in 1896 at the Cotton States and International Exposition in
Atlanta that would soon come to be known as “The Atlanta Compromise’. In this speech, he
advocated for the slow advancement of Blacks in society by earning the respect of their white
neighbors through their industrial workings, believing that an economic advancement would be
followed by a social and political one. W.E.B DU Bois, the first African-American to earn a
Ph.D. from Harvard and one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP), wrote an essay in 1903 titled “The Souls of Black Folk” which
criticized Washington’s ideas as justifying segregation and the denial of black rights. The one,
though, who had better ideas in making progress against racism was W.E.B Du Bois because
unlike Booker T. Washington, DU Bois recognized that the only way to achieve social and
political equality was through fighting for their political and civil rights.
1
First of all, DU Bois understood that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for
black to gain economic advancement if they did not first achieve political and social
advancement. He said, “Is it possible, and probable, that nine millions of men can make
effective progress in economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile caste,
and allowed only the most meagre chance for developing their exceptional men? If history and
reason give any distinct answer to these questions, it is an emphatic No.” How can one become
economically prosperous, when they can only work in low paying jobs? And even when they
did attain economic prosperity, how could they protect themselves from losing it all by jealous
neighbors when they have no legal means to do so. It is vital that political rights are secured if
economic rights are to be. Washington, though, did not seem to understand this. Instead, he says
that while “it is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours… it is vastly more
important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges”.
Secondly, Washington assumed that if blacks could gain the respect of white southerners
then they would also gain social and political equality. He stated, “No race that has anything to
contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized”. But does not the almost
250 year existence of slavery in America contradict that fact? Throughout this whole time
African-Americans had proven their ability to “contribute to the markets of the world”, yet their
slavery and ostracization only grew stronger. DU Bois, on the other hand, realized that “the way
for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing them away and
insisting and anisistinging they do not want them” instead they must” insist continually, in
season and out of season, that voting is necessary”.
Third, Washington seems to agree with segregation by saying that “in all things purely
social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual
2
progress”. Now Washington might have said this in order to ensure that his ideas would not be
rejected for its “radicalism” but when concessions are made it becomes all the more harder to
gain them back. DU Bois, however, is careful to make no distinction between the social and
economic. Neither does he attempt to ignore the injustice of the South. Instead he says that they
must “assert her better self and do her full duty to the race she has cruelly wronged and is still
wronging”.
In conclusion, then W.E.B. DU Bois’s ideas were better in making progress against
racism because he emphasized the importance of gaining social and political rights, not just
economic rights. This is not because Washington’s ideas were bad ones, indeed they are a great
stepping stone, it is merely that he did not seem to recognize that liberty and equality do not
come to you unless you fight for them as hard as you possibly can. DU Bois recognizes this and
finishes off his essay with these words: “By every civilized and peaceful method we must strive
for the rights which the world accords to men, clinging unwaveringly to those great words ethic
the sons of the Fathers would fain forget: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’”. It is this very sentiment that would
fuel Martin Luther King Jr. over 50 years later to lead the movement that would finally fulfill the
promise of the 14th Amendment.
3