Booker T Washington and W E B Du Bois
Both Booker T Washington and W.E.B Du Bois felt that the only way minorities to succeed in post reconstruction American was by getting educated and gaining economic freedom. The two men wrote a book together detailing the views on how the southern minorities called “The negro in the South”. This work is a collection of four gathered lectures that were given by the two men. This encapsulates the commonalities and differences in the two mens approach to how they felt about what would be needed to bring the African American closer to equality in America.
The lectures from Booker T Washington dealt with the commercial and economic value of the Negro gained during the time of slavery. He detailed that there was a situation during the Tuskegee annual Negro conference where a man stood up to the floor and explained that in his community there was great progress being made. The man stated that he felt once everybody owned pigs then he would be able to sleep better at night because the community would be equal Booker T. Washington stated the economic element of slavery made it not only necessary that the Negro should be close but also that he be housed and taught the comforts to be found in a home. The three signs of Christianity are close homes and works. From an economic point of view it became clear that the Negro slave means become a skilled worker as well as an ordinary laborer, as a slave group and skilled he also was given increased amount of freedom. According to Booker T. Washington at the end of slavery the Negro race as a whole has led to wear clothes, the value of a home, to work with reasonable degree in a system, and a few had even learn to work with a high degree of skill. Booker T. Washington essentially felt that through the modicum of slavery the Negro was taught economic value and skilled labor which upon the end of slavery gave him more than adequate training in order to take his place in the society.
W.E.B Du Bois argued that slavery fundamentally hindered the industrial development of the South. He believed that the South would not be able to compete and less the African-American was fully integrated into the political landscape. He not only called attention to