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INSTRUCTIONS FOR WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND W. E. B. DU BOIS
This assignment is not to write an essay. Instead, it is a set of five questions
regarding Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois in which you will compare
the two men and the solutions they offered for the difficulties faced by African
Americans at the time. You are to type out the five questions listed at the bottom
of this page, numbering each one and giving your answer to it.
Your main source for this assignment is Up From Slavery by Booker T.
Washington. In addition to it, I have provided you with several articles and
excerpts as resources. In addition to Up From Slavery, you must also use and
cite “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” which is the title of chapter three
of The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois; and “The Talented Tenth,” a brief
article also by Du Bois. In the following pages you will find these writings by Du
Bois along with three other articles that will be helpful to you.
You must give (cite) the source of your information, whether quoting or putting it
in your own words. For the book, give the page number where you found the
information. For the article titled “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,”
which is a chapter in Du Bois’s book, The Souls of Black Folk, the word “Souls”
plus the paragraph number (listed in the upper right-hand corner of each
paragraph) will suffice.
Cite all information in parentheses immediately after giving the information. For
example:
Washington gained insights on race relations from working with Indian
boys at Hampton (Washington, 87).
To cite material from Up From Slavery (quoted or paraphrased), use the model
given above.
To cite material from “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” which is chapter
three of The Souls of Black Folk, use the following model:
Du Bois states that by the 1830s the South as whole was slave country
(Souls, chap. 3, para. 12).
To cite material from Du Bois’s article, “The Talented Tenth,” use the following
model:
Du Bois argued that the race’s “exceptional men” would save African
Americans (“Talented Tenth”).
Note that because “The Talented Tenth” is a brief article, it is not necessary to
give the page number(s).
To cite material from the one-page Du Bois biography, use the following model:
Du Bois believed that the white children at his school regarded him as
inferior to them (Du Bois bio.)
Note that because the Du Bois biography is a brief article, it is not necessary to
give the page number(s).
To cite material from the Britannica article, use the following model:
Du Bois received a doctorate from Harvard University (Britannica article).
Note that because the Britannica article is brief, it is not necessary to give a page
number.
It will take at least two or three paragraphs to fully answer each question. Your
submission should be between four and eight pages, printed and double-spaced.
The information should be specific, not generalizations.
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER:
1. Compare how Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois were raised.
What kind of education did they have? Did these things affect their view of
the world and if so, how?
2. What was the name of the institution that Washington headed in
Alabama? What kind of education did it offer African Americans, and why?
3. What was Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Address?
4. How did Du Bois disagree with Washington over the education of African
Americans? What kind of education for them did Du Bois advocate?
5. Besides the education of African Americans, over what other issues did
Du Bois and Washington disagree?
Format for Writing Assignment on Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois
Use the following as a model to get started on your assignment:
History 106.[Section number], Spring 2013
[Your name] [Date submitted]
Writing Assignment on Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois
1. Compare how Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois were raised.
What kind of education did they have? Did these things affect their view of
the world and if so, how?
Washington was born a slave in the South and Du Bois was born free in the
North (Washington, 7; Du Bois bio).
[Some of the information came from Washington’s book and some of it from the
Du Bois biographical sketch, which is why I cited both sources.]
THE PRECEDING IS AN EXAMPLE. DO NOT COPY MY ANSWER.
TIPS:
1. WRITE COMPLETE SENTENCES WITH A SUBJECT AND A VERB.
2. DO NOT USE CONTRACTIONS.
3. DO NOT USE CASUAL LANGUAGE. REFER TO WASHINGTON AS
“WASHINGTON,” NOT “BOOKER” OR “BOOKER T.”
W.E.B Du Bois
Biographical Information
[If you quote or cite from the following indicate it by inserting “(Du Bois Bio)” after
the material. Since it is a brief article no page number is necessary.]
W.E.B. Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington,
Massachusetts. He was one of twenty-five to fifty African American residents out
of a population of about 5,000 in the town. Although he saw few outward signs of
racism, as a child Du Bois suffered discrimination at the hands of white children
who treated him as inferior because of his color. As a result, his outgoing
personality became sullen and introspective.
While in high school Du Bois showed a keen concern for the development of his
race. At age fifteen he became the local correspondent for the New York Globe.
He conceived it his duty to push his race forward by lectures and editorials on the
need for Black people to use the political system to advance their position in
American society.
Intellectually gifted, Du Bois stood out academically from took his fellow students.
He hoped to attend Harvard University after graduating from high school, but
could not afford the tuition. However, he was awarded a scholarship to Fisk
College (now University), an African-American institution in Nashville,
Tennessee.
His three years at Fisk, 1885-1888, exposed Du Bois to the depth of the race
problem in this country. He became more determined than before to speed up
the development of his people.
Du Bois spent two summers teaching at a school where learned more about the
South and his people. He saw their poverty and the prejudice they endured, but
he also saw their desire for knowledge.
Upon graduating from Fisk Du Bois received scholarships that allowed him to at
last enter Harvard. The attainment of this long-sought goal did not give him
satisfaction. Years later he commented, “I was in Harvard but not of it,”
suggesting that he continued to deeply resent any sign of condescension. He
focused on the study of philosophy and history, and after receiving a bachelor’s
degree in 1890 continued at Harvard where eventually he would earn a master’s
and a doctor’s degree.
After completing his master’s degree in the spring of 1891, Du Bois read that
former president Rutherford B. Hayes was heading a fund program to educate
Negroes, but had been quoted by a newspaper as saying that no suitable
candidate had been found to undertake advanced study in another country. Du
Bois applied for the grant and complained to Hayes for his statement. Hayes
replied that he had been misquoted. Du Bois received the grant and used it to
study at the University of Berlin, among the best universities in the world.
In Berlin, Du Bois came to believe that the race problem for Africans was not
limited to one country or continent. His studies there increasingly turned toward
social research.
Du Bois returned to Harvard to complete his Ph. D. degree. His doctoral
dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in America, is
considered a classic work of history and continues to be studied by scholars.
Britannica Article on W.E.B. Du Bois
[If you cite or quote from this article do so in this format: (Britannica article). No
page number is necessary.
b. Feb. 23, 1868, Great Barrington, Mass.
d. Aug. 27, 1963, Accra, Ghana.
American sociologist, the most important black protest leader in the United
States during the first half of the 20th century. He shared in the creation of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909
and edited The Crisis, its magazine, from 1910 to 1934. Late in life he became
identified with Communist causes.
Early career
Du Bois was graduated from Fisk University, a black institution at Nashville,
Tenn., in 1888. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895. His
doctoral dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United
States of America, 1638-1870, was published in 1896. Although Du Bois took an
advanced degree in history, he was broadly trained in the social sciences; and at
a time when sociologists were theorizing about race relations, he was conducting
empirical inquiries into the condition of blacks. For more than a decade he
devoted himself to sociological investigations of blacks in America, producing 16
research monographs published between 1897 and 1914 at Atlanta (Ga.)
University, where he was a professor, as well as The Philadelphia Negro; A
Social Study (1899), the first case study of a black community in the United
States. Although Du Bois had originally believed that social science could provide
the knowledge to solve the race problem, he gradually came to the conclusion
that in a climate of virulent racism, expressed in such evils as lynching, peonage,
disfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation laws, and race riots, social change
could be accomplished only through agitation and protest. In this view, he
clashed with the most influential black leader of the period, Booker T.
Washington, who, preaching a philosophy of accommodation, urged blacks to
accept discrimination for the time being and elevate themselves through hard
work and economic gain, thus winning the respect of the whites. In 1903, in his
famous book The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois charged that Washington's
strategy, rather than freeing the black man from oppression, would serve only to
perpetuate it. This attack crystallized the opposition to Booker T. Washington
among many black intellectuals, polarizing the leaders of the black community
into two wings--the "conservative" supporters of Washington and his "radical"
critics. Two years later, in 1905, Du Bois took the lead in founding the Niagara
Movement, which was dedicated chiefly to attacking the platform of Booker T.
Washington. The small organization, which met annually until 1909, was
seriously weakened by internal squabbles and Washington's opposition. But it
was significant as an ideological forerunner and direct inspiration for the
interracial NAACP, founded in 1909. Du Bois played a prominent part in the
creation of the NAACP and became the association's director of research and
editor of its magazine, The Crisis. In this role he wielded an unequaled influence
among middle-class blacks and progressive whites as the propagandist for the
black protest from 1910 until 1934.Both in the Niagara Movement and in the
NAACP, Du Bois acted mainly as an integrationist, but his thinking always
exhibited, to varying degrees, separatist-nationalist tendencies. In The Souls of
Black Folk he had expressed the characteristic dualism of black Americans: One
ever feels his twoness--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two
unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged
strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. . . . He simply wishes to make it
possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed
and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed
roughly in his face.
Copyright © 1994-2000 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Chapter III:
Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others
Citation Instructions: Each paragraph is numbered. Follow this format: (Souls,
chap. 3, para. 1).
From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned!
. . . . . . . .
Hereditary bondsmen! Know ye not
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
BYRON.
EASILY the most striking thing in the history of the American Negro since 1876
is the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. It began at the time when war
memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of astonishing commercial
development was dawning; a sense of doubt and hesitation overtook the
freedmen’s sons,—then it was that his leading began. Mr. Washington came,
with a simple definite programme, at the psychological moment when the nation
was a little ashamed of having bestowed so much sentiment on Negroes, and
was concentrating its energies on Dollars. His programme of industrial
education, conciliation of the South, and submission and silence as to civil and
political rights, was not wholly original; the Free Negroes from 1830 up to
wartime had striven to build industrial schools, and the American Missionary
Association had from the first taught various trades; and Price and others had
sought a way of honorable alliance with the best of the Southerners. But Mr.
Washington first indissolubly linked these things; he put enthusiasm, unlimited
energy, and perfect faith into this programme, and changed it from a by-path
into a veritable Way of Life. And the tale of the methods by which he did this is a
fascinating study of human life.
1
2
It startled the nation to hear a Negro advocating such a programme after many
decades of bitter complaint; it startled and won the applause of the South, it
interested and won the admiration of the North; and after a confused murmur of
protest, it silenced if it did not convert the Negroes themselves.
3
To gain the sympathy and coöperation of the various elements comprising the
white South was Mr. Washington’s first task; and this, at the time Tuskegee was
founded, seemed, for a black man, well-nigh impossible. And yet ten years later
it was done in the word spoken at Atlanta: “In all things purely social we can be
as separate as the five fingers, and yet one as the hand in all things essential to
mutual progress.” This “Atlanta Compromise” is by all odds the most notable
thing in Mr. Washington’s career. The South interpreted it in different ways: the
radicals received it as a complete surrender of the demand for civil and political
equality; the conservatives, as a generously conceived working basis for mutual
understanding. So both approved it, and to-day its author is certainly the most
distinguished Southerner since Jefferson Davis, and the one with the largest
personal following.
4
Next to this achievement comes Mr. Washington’s work in gaining place and
consideration in the North. Others less shrewd and tactful had formerly essayed
to sit on these two stools and had fallen between them; but as Mr. Washington
knew the heart of the South from birth and training, so by singular insight he
intuitively grasped the spirit of the age which was dominating the North. And so
thoroughly did he learn the speech and thought of triumphant commercialism,
and the ideals of material prosperity, that the picture of a lone black boy poring
over a French grammar amid the weeds and dirt of a neglected home soon
seemed to him the acme of absurdities. One wonders what Socrates and St.
Francis of Assisi would say to this.
5
And yet this very singleness of vision and thorough oneness with his age is a
mark of the successful man. It is as though Nature must needs make men
narrow in order to give them force. So Mr. Washington’s cult has gained
unquestioning followers, his work has wonderfully prospered, his friends are
legion, and his enemies are confounded. To-day he stands as the one
recognized spokesman of his ten million fellows, and one of the most notable
figures in a nation of seventy millions. One hesitates, therefore, to criticise a life
which, beginning with so little, has done so much. And yet the time is come
when one may speak in all sincerity and utter courtesy of the mistakes and
shortcomings of Mr. Washington’s career, as well as of his triumphs, without
being thought captious or envious, and without forgetting that it is easier to do ill
than well in the world.
6
The criticism that has hitherto met Mr. Washington has not always been of this
broad character. In the South especially has he had to walk warily to avoid the
harshest judgments,—and naturally so, for he is dealing with the one subject of
deepest sensitiveness to that section. Twice—once when at the Chicago
celebration of the Spanish-American War he alluded to the color-prejudice that
is “eating away the vitals of the South,” and once when he dined with President
Roosevelt—has the resulting Southern criticism been violent enough to threaten
seriously his popularity. In the North the feeling has several times forced itself
into words, that Mr. Washington’s counsels of submission overlooked certain
elements of true manhood, and that his educational programme was
unnecessarily narrow. Usually, however, such criticism has not found open
expression, although, too, the spiritual sons of the Abolitionists have not been
prepared to acknowledge that the schools founded before Tuskegee, by men of
broad ideals and self-sacrificing spirit, were wholly failures or worthy of ridicule.
While, then, criticism has not failed to follow Mr. Washington, yet the prevailing
public opinion of the land has been but too willing to deliver the solution of a
wearisome problem into his hands, and say, “If that is all you and your race ask,
take it.”
7
Among his own people, however, Mr. Washington has encountered the
strongest and most lasting opposition, amounting at times to bitterness, and
even to-day continuing strong and insistent even though largely silenced in
outward expression by the public opinion of the nation. Some of this opposition
is, of course, mere envy; the disappointment of displaced demagogues and the
spite of narrow minds. But aside from this, there is among educated and
thoughtful colored men in all parts of the land a feeling of deep regret, sorrow,
and apprehension at the wide currency and ascendancy which some of Mr.
Washington’s theories have gained. These same men admire his sincerity of
purpose, and are willing to forgive much to honest endeavor which is doing
something worth the doing. They coöperate with Mr. Washington as far as they
conscientiously can; and, indeed, it is no ordinary tribute to this man’s tact and
power that, steering as he must between so many diverse interests and
opinions, he so largely retains the respect of all.
8
But the hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It
leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of
effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to
lose listeners. Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most
nearly touched,—criticism of writers by readers, of government by those
governed, of leaders by those led,—this is the soul of democracy and the
safeguard of modern society. If the best of the American Negroes receive by
outer pressure a leader whom they had not recognized before, manifestly there
is here a certain palpable gain. Yet there is also irreparable loss,—a loss of that
peculiarly valuable education which a group receives when by search and
criticism it finds and commissions its own leaders. The way in which this is done
is at once the most elementary and the nicest problem of social growth. History
is but the record of such group-leadership; and yet how infinitely changeful is its
type and character! And of all types and kinds, what can be more instructive
than the leadership of a group within a group?—that curious double movement
where real progress may be negative and actual advance be relative
retrogression. All this is the social student’s inspiration and despair.
9
Now in the past the American Negro has had instructive experience in the
choosing of group leaders, founding thus a peculiar dynasty which in the light of
present conditions is worth while studying. When sticks and stones and beasts
form the sole environment of a people, their attitude is largely one of determined
opposition to and conquest of natural forces. But when to earth and brute is
added an environment of men and ideas, then the attitude of the imprisoned
group may take three main forms,—a feeling of revolt and revenge; an attempt
to adjust all thought and action to the will of the greater group; or, finally, a
determined effort at self-realization and self-development despite environing
opinion. The influence of all of these attitudes at various times can be traced in
the history of the American Negro, and in the evolution of his successive
leaders.
10
Before 1750, while the fire of African freedom still burned in the veins of the
slaves, there was in all leadership or attempted leadership but the one motive of
revolt and revenge,—typified in the terrible Maroons, the Danish blacks, and
Cato of Stono, and veiling all the Americas in fear of insurrection. The
liberalizing tendencies of the latter half of the eighteenth century brought, along
with kindlier relations between black and white, thoughts of ultimate adjustment
and assimilation. Such aspiration was especially voiced in the earnest songs of
Phyllis, in the martyrdom of Attucks, the fighting of Salem and Poor, the
intellectual accomplishments of Banneker and Derham, and the political
demands of the Cuffes.
11
Stern financial and social stress after the war cooled much of the previous
humanitarian ardor. The disappointment and impatience of the Negroes at the
persistence of slavery and serfdom voiced itself in two movements. The slaves
in the South, aroused undoubtedly by vague rumors of the Haytian revolt, made
three fierce attempts at insurrection,—in 1800 under Gabriel in Virginia, in 1822
under Vesey in Carolina, and in 1831 again in Virginia under the terrible Nat
Turner. In the Free States, on the other hand, a new and curious attempt at selfdevelopment was made. In Philadelphia and New York color-prescription led to
a withdrawal of Negro communicants from white churches and the formation of
a peculiar socio-religious institution among the Negroes known as the African
Church,—an organization still living and controlling in its various branches over
a million of men.
12
Walker’s wild appeal against the trend of the times showed how the world was
changing after the coming of the cotton-gin. By 1830 slavery seemed hopelessly
fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly cowed into submission. The
free Negroes of the North, inspired by the mulatto immigrants from the West
Indies, began to change the basis of their demands; they recognized the slavery
of slaves, but insisted that they themselves were freemen, and sought
assimilation and amalgamation with the nation on the same terms with other
men. Thus, Forten and Purvis of Philadelphia, Shad of Wilmington, Du Bois of
New Haven, Barbadoes of Boston, and others, strove singly and together as
men, they said, not as slaves; as “people of color,” not as “Negroes.” The trend
of the times, however, refused them recognition save in individual and
exceptional cases, considered them as one with all the despised blacks, and
they soon found themselves striving to keep even the rights they formerly had of
voting and working and moving as freemen. Schemes of migration and
colonization arose among them; but these they refused to entertain, and they
eventually turned to the Abolition movement as a final refuge.
13
Here, led by Remond, Nell, Wells-Brown, and Douglass, a new period of selfassertion and self-development dawned. To be sure, ultimate freedom and
assimilation was the ideal before the leaders, but the assertion of the manhood
rights of the Negro by himself was the main reliance, and John Brown’s raid was
the extreme of its logic. After the war and emancipation, the great form of
Frederick Douglass, the greatest of American Negro leaders, still led the host.
Self-assertion, especially in political lines, was the main programme, and behind
Douglass came Elliot, Bruce, and Langston, and the Reconstruction politicians,
and, less conspicuous but of greater social significance Alexander Crummell
and Bishop Daniel Payne.
14
Then came the Revolution of 1876, the suppression of the Negro votes, the
changing and shifting of ideals, and the seeking of new lights in the great night.
Douglass, in his old age, still bravely stood for the ideals of his early
manhood,—ultimate assimilation through self-assertion, and on no other terms.
For a time Price arose as a new leader, destined, it seemed, not to give up, but
to re-state the old ideals in a form less repugnant to the white South. But he
passed away in his prime. Then came the new leader. Nearly all the former
ones had become leaders by the silent suffrage of their fellows, had sought to
lead their own people alone, and were usually, save Douglass, little known
outside their race. But Booker T. Washington arose as essentially the leader not
of one race but of two,—a compromiser between the South, the North, and the
Negro. Naturally the Negroes resented, at first bitterly, signs of compromise
which surrendered their civil and political rights, even though this was to be
exchanged for larger chances of economic development. The rich and
dominating North, however, was not only weary of the race problem, but was
investing largely in Southern enterprises, and welcomed any method of peaceful
coöperation. Thus, by national opinion, the Negroes began to recognize Mr.
Washington’s leadership; and the voice of criticism was hushed.
15
Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and
submission; but adjustment at such a peculiar time as to make his programme
unique. This is an age of unusual economic development, and Mr. Washington’s
programme naturally takes an economic cast, becoming a gospel of Work and
Money to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the
higher aims of life. Moreover, this is an age when the more advanced races are
coming in closer contact with the less developed races, and the race-feeling is
therefore intensified; and Mr. Washington’s programme practically accepts the
alleged inferiority of the Negro races. Again, in our own land, the reaction from
the sentiment of war time has given impetus to race-prejudice against Negroes,
and Mr. Washington withdraws many of the high demands of Negroes as men
and American citizens. In other periods of intensified prejudice all the Negro’s
tendency to self-assertion has been called forth; at this period a policy of
submission is advocated. In the history of nearly all other races and peoples the
doctrine preached at such crises has been that manly self-respect is worth more
than lands and houses, and that a people who voluntarily surrender such
respect, or cease striving for it, are not worth civilizing.
16
In answer to this, it has been claimed that the Negro can survive only through
submission. Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least
for the present, three things,—
First, political power,
Second, insistence on civil rights,
Third, higher education of Negro youth,—
and concentrate all their energies on industrial education, the accumulation of
wealth, and the conciliation of the South. This policy has been courageously
and insistently advocated for over fifteen years, and has been triumphant for
perhaps ten years. As a result of this tender of the palm-branch, what has been
the return? In these years there have occurred:
1. The disfranchisement of the Negro.
2. The legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro.
3. The steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the
Negro.
These movements are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr. Washington’s
teachings; but his propaganda has, without a shadow of doubt, helped their
speedier accomplishment. The question then comes: 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.
And Mr. Washington thus faces the triple paradox of his career:
17
1. He is striving nobly to make Negro artisans business men and propertyowners; but it is utterly impossible, under modern competitive methods,
for workingmen and property-owners to defend their rights and exist
without the right of suffrage.
2. He insists on thrift and self-respect, but at the same time counsels a
silent submission to civic inferiority such as is bound to sap the manhood
of any race in the long run.
3. He advocates common-school and industrial training, and depreciates
institutions of higher learning; but neither the Negro common-schools,
nor Tuskegee itself, could remain open a day were it not for teachers
trained in Negro colleges, or trained by their graduates.
This triple paradox in Mr. Washington’s position is the object of criticism by two 18
classes of colored Americans. One class is spiritually descended from Toussaint
the Savior, through Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner, and they represent the attitude
of revolt and revenge; they hate the white South blindly and distrust the white
race generally, and so far as they agree on definite action, think that the Negro’s
only hope lies in emigration beyond the borders of the United States. And yet,
by the irony of fate, nothing has more effectually made this programme seem
hopeless than the recent course of the United States toward weaker and darker
peoples in the West Indies, Hawaii, and the Philippines,—for where in the world
may we go and be safe from lying and brute force?
19
The other class of Negroes who cannot agree with Mr. Washington has hitherto
said little aloud. They deprecate the sight of scattered counsels, of internal
disagreement; and especially they dislike making their just criticism of a useful
and earnest man an excuse for a general discharge of venom from smallminded opponents. Nevertheless, the questions involved are so fundamental
and serious that it is difficult to see how men like the Grimkes, Kelly Miller, J. W.
E. Bowen, and other representatives of this group, can much longer be silent.
Such men feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation three things:
1. The right to vote.
2. Civic equality.
3. The education of youth according to ability.
They acknowledge Mr. Washington’s invaluable service in counselling patience
and courtesy in such demands; they do not ask that ignorant black men vote
when ignorant whites are debarred, or that any reasonable restrictions in the
suffrage should not be applied; they know that the low social level of the mass
of the race is responsible for much discrimination against it, but they also know,
and the nation knows, that relentless color-prejudice is more often a cause than
a result of the Negro’s degradation; they seek the abatement of this relic of
barbarism, and not its systematic encouragement and pampering by all
agencies of social power from the Associated Press to the Church of Christ.
They advocate, with Mr. Washington, a broad system of Negro common schools
supplemented by thorough industrial training; but they are surprised that a man
of Mr. Washington’s insight cannot see that no such educational system ever
has rested or can rest on any other basis than that of the well-equipped college
and university, and they insist that there is a demand for a few such institutions
throughout the South to train the best of the Negro youth as teachers,
professional men, and leaders.
20
This group of men honor Mr. Washington for his attitude of conciliation toward
the white South; they accept the “Atlanta Compromise” in its broadest
interpretation; they recognize, with him, many signs of promise, many men of
high purpose and fair judgment, in this section; they know that no easy task has
been laid upon a region already tottering under heavy burdens. But,
nevertheless, they insist that the way to truth and right lies in straightforward
honesty, not in indiscriminate flattery; in praising those of the South who do well
and criticising uncompromisingly those who do ill; in taking advantage of the
opportunities at hand and urging their fellows to do the same, but at the same
time in remembering that only a firm adherence to their higher ideals and
aspirations will ever keep those ideals within the realm of possibility. They do
not expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civic rights, and to be educated,
will come in a moment; they do not expect to see the bias and prejudices of
years disappear at the blast of a trumpet; but they are absolutely certain that the
way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing
them away and insisting that they do not want them; that the way for a people to
gain respect is not by continually belittling and ridiculing themselves; that, on the
contrary, Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that
voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism,
and that black boys need education as well as white boys.
21
In failing thus to state plainly and unequivocally the legitimate demands of their
people, even at the cost of opposing an honored leader, the thinking classes of
American Negroes would shirk a heavy responsibility,—a responsibility to
themselves, a responsibility to the struggling masses, a responsibility to the
darker races of men whose future depends so largely on this American
experiment, but especially a responsibility to this nation,—this common
Fatherland. It is wrong to encourage a man or a people in evil-doing; it is wrong
to aid and abet a national crime simply because it is unpopular not to do so. The
growing spirit of kindliness and reconciliation between the North and South after
the frightful differences of a generation ago ought to be a source of deep
congratulation to all, and especially to those whose mistreatment caused the
war; but if that reconciliation is to be marked by the industrial slavery and civic
death of those same black men, with permanent legislation into a position of
inferiority, then those black men, if they are really men, are called upon by every
consideration of patriotism and loyalty to oppose such a course by all civilized
methods, even though such opposition involves disagreement with Mr. Booker
T. Washington. We have no right to sit silently by while the inevitable seeds are
sown for a harvest of disaster to our children, black and white.
22
First, it is the duty of black men to judge the South discriminatingly. The present
generation of Southerners are not responsible for the past, and they should not
be blindly hated or blamed for it. Furthermore, to no class is the indiscriminate
endorsement of the recent course of the South toward Negroes more
nauseating than to the best thought of the South. The South is not “solid”; it is a
land in the ferment of social change, wherein forces of all kinds are fighting for
supremacy; and to praise the ill the South is to-day perpetrating is just as wrong
as to condemn the good. Discriminating and broad-minded criticism is what the
South needs,—needs it for the sake of her own white sons and daughters, and
for the insurance of robust, healthy mental and moral development.
23
To-day even the attitude of the Southern whites toward the blacks is not, as so
many assume, in all cases the same; the ignorant Southerner hates the Negro,
the workingmen fear his competition, the money-makers wish to use him as a
laborer, some of the educated see a menace in his upward development, while
others—usually the sons of the masters—wish to help him to rise. National
opinion has enabled this last class to maintain the Negro common schools, and
to protect the Negro partially in property, life, and limb. Through the pressure of
the money-makers, the Negro is in danger of being reduced to semi-slavery,
especially in the country districts; the workingmen, and those of the educated
who fear the Negro, have united to disfranchise him, and some have urged his
deportation; while the passions of the ignorant are easily aroused to lynch and
abuse any black man. To praise this intricate whirl of thought and prejudice is
nonsense; to inveigh indiscriminately against “the South” is unjust; but to use
the same breath in praising Governor Aycock, exposing Senator Morgan,
arguing with Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, and denouncing Senator Ben Tillman, is
not only sane, but the imperative duty of thinking black men.
24
It would be unjust to Mr. Washington not to acknowledge that in several
instances he has opposed movements in the South which were unjust to the
Negro; he sent memorials to the Louisiana and Alabama constitutional
conventions, he has spoken against lynching, and in other ways has openly or
silently set his influence against sinister schemes and unfortunate happenings.
Notwithstanding this, it is equally true to assert that on the whole the distinct
impression left by Mr. Washington’s propaganda is, first, that the South is
justified in its present attitude toward the Negro because of the Negro’s
degradation; secondly, that the prime cause of the Negro’s failure to rise more
quickly is his wrong education in the past; and, thirdly, that his future rise
depends primarily on his own efforts. Each of these propositions is a dangerous
half-truth. The supplementary truths must never be lost sight of: first, slavery
and race-prejudice are potent if not sufficient causes of the Negro’s position;
second, industrial and common-school training were necessarily slow in planting
because they had to await the black teachers trained by higher institutions,—it
being extremely doubtful if any essentially different development was possible,
and certainly a Tuskegee was unthinkable before 1880; and, third, while it is a
great truth to say that the Negro must strive and strive mightily to help himself, it
is equally true that unless his striving be not simply seconded, but rather
aroused and encouraged, by the initiative of the richer and wiser environing
group, he cannot hope for great success.
25
In his failure to realize and impress this last point, Mr. Washington is especially
to be criticised. His doctrine has tended to make the whites, North and South,
shift the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro’s shoulders and stand aside
as critical and rather pessimistic spectators; when in fact the burden belongs to
the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to
righting these great wrongs.
26
The South ought to be led, by candid and honest criticism, to assert her better
self and do her full duty to the race she has cruelly wronged and is still
wronging. The North—her co-partner in guilt—cannot salve her conscience by
plastering it with gold. We cannot settle this problem by diplomacy and
suaveness, by “policy” alone. If worse come to worst, can the moral fibre of this
country survive the slow throttling and murder of nine millions of men?
27
The black men of America have a duty to perform, a duty stern and delicate,—a
forward movement to oppose a part of the work of their greatest leader. So far
as Mr. Washington preaches Thrift, Patience, and Industrial Training for the
masses, we must hold up his hands and strive with him, rejoicing in his honors
and glorying in the strength of this Joshua called of God and of man to lead the
headless host. But so far as Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, North or
South, does not rightly value the privilege and duty of voting, belittles the
emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and
ambition of our brighter minds,—so far as he, the South, or the Nation, does
this,—we must unceasingly and firmly oppose them. By every civilized and
peaceful method we must strive for the rights which the world accords to men,
clinging unwaveringly to those great words which 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.”
The Talented Tenth
W.E.B. Du Bois
September 1903
In this article Du Bois spells out his objections to Booker T. Washington’s
emphasis on manual and industrial training for African Americans, and makes a
case that a “Talented Tenth” of black youth ought to receive a college or
university education. Follow this format in citing from this work: (Talented Tenth).
Since it is a brief article, no page number is necessary.
The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The
problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the
Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may
guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own
and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. . . . If we
make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not
necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may
possess artisans but not, in nature, men. . . .
From the very first it has been the educated and intelligent of the Negro people
that have led and elevated the mass, and the sole obstacles that nullified and
retarded their efforts were slavery and race prejudice; for what is slavery but the
legalized survival of the unfit and the nullification of the work of natural internal
leadership? Negro leadership therefore sought from the first to rid the race of this
awful incubus that it might make way for natural selection and the survival of the
fittest. . . .
Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised
than by the effort and example of this aristocracy of talent and character? Was
there ever a nation on God’s fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never;
it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters. The
Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage
ground. This is the history of human progress . . . .
How then shall the leaders of a struggling people be trained and the hands of the
risen few strengthened? There can be but one answer: The best and most
capable of their youth must be schooled in the colleges and universities of the
land. . . .
All men cannot go to college but some men must; every isolated group or nation
must have its yeast, must have for the talented few centers of training where men
are not so mystified and befuddled by the hard and necessary toil of earning a
living, as to have no aims higher than their bellies, and no God greater than Gold.
...
The college-bred Negro . . . is, as he ought to be, the group leader, the man who
sets the ideals of the community where he lives, directs its thoughts and heads
its social movements. It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social
leadership more than most groups; that they have no traditions to fall back upon,
no long established customs, no strong family ties, no well defined social
classes. All these things must be slowly and painfully evolved. The preacher was,
even before the war, the group leader of the Negroes, and the church their
greatest social institution. Naturally this preacher was ignorant and often
immoral, and the problem of replacing the older type by better educated men has
been a difficult one. Both by direct work and by direct influence on other
preachers, and on congregations, the college-bred preacher has an opportunity
for reformatory work and moral inspiration, the value of which cannot be
overestimated.
It has, however, been in the furnishing of teachers that the Negro college has
found its peculiar function. Few persons realize how vast a work, how mighty a
revolution has been thus accomplished. To furnish five millions and more of
ignorant people with teachers of their own race and blood, in one generation,
was not only a very difficult undertaking, but very important one, in that, it placed
before the eyes of almost every Negro child an attainable ideal. It brought the
masses of the blacks in contact with modern civilization, made black men the
leaders of their communities and trainers of the new generation. In this work
college-bred Negroes were first teachers, and then teachers of teachers. And
here it is that the broad culture of college work has been of peculiar value.
Knowledge of life and its wider meaning, has been the point of the Negro’s
deepest ignorance, and the sending out of teachers whose training has not been
simply for bread winning, but also for human culture, has been of inestimable
value in the training of these men. . . .
There must be teachers, and teachers of teachers, and to attempt to establish
any sort of a system of common and industrial school training, without first . . .
providing for the higher training of the very best teachers, is simply throwing your
money to the winds. School houses do not teach themselves - piles of brick and
mortar and machinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living human soul,
cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real
breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black
or white, Greek, Russian or American. . . .
I would not deny, or for a moment seem to deny, the paramount necessity of
teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully; or seem to
depreciate in the slightest degree the important part industrial schools must play
in the accomplishment of these ends, but I do say, and insist upon it, that it is
industrialism drunk with its vision of success, to imagine that its own work can be
accomplished without providing for the training of broadly cultured men and
women to teach its own teachers, and to teach the teachers of the public
schools.
But I have already said that human education is not simply a matter of schools; it
is much more a matter of family and group life - the training of one’s home, of
one’s daily companions, of one’s social class. Now the black boy of the South
moves in a black world - a world with its own leaders, its own thoughts, its own
ideals. In this world he gets by far the larger part of his life training, and through
the eyes of this dark world he peers into the veiled world beyond. Who guides
and determines the education which he receives in his world? His teachers here
are the group-leaders of the Negro people---the physicians and clergymen, the
trained fathers and mothers, the influential and forceful men about him of all
kinds; here it is, if at all, that the culture of the surrounding world trickles through
and is handed on by the graduates of the higher schools. Can such culture
training of group leaders be neglected? Can we afford to ignore it? Do you think
that if the leaders of thought among Negroes are not trained and educated
thinkers, that they will have no leaders? On the contrary a hundred half-trained
demagogues will still hold the places they so largely occupy now, and hundreds
of vociferous busy-bodies will multiply. You have no choice; either you must help
furnish this race from within its own ranks with thoughtful men of trained
leadership, or you must suffer the evil consequences of a headless misguided
rabble.
I am an earnest advocate of manual training and trade teaching for black boys,
and for white boys, too. I believe that next to the founding of Negro colleges the
most valuable addition to Negro education since the war has been industrial
training for black boys. Nevertheless, I insist that the object of all true education
is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men; there are two
means of making the carpenter a man, each equally important: the first is to give
the group and community in which he works, liberally trained teachers and
leaders to teach him and his family what life means; the second is to give him
sufficient intelligence and technical skill to make him an efficient workman; the
first object demands the Negro college and college-bred men--not a quantity of
such colleges, but a few of excellent quality; not too many college-bred men, but
enough to leaven the lump, to inspire the masses, to raise the Talented Tenth to
leadership; the second object demands a good system of common schools, welltaught, conveniently located and properly equipped. . . .
What is the chief need for the building up of the Negro public school in the
South? The Negro race in the South needs teachers to-day above all else. This
is the concurrent testimony of all who know the situation. For the supply of this
great demand two things are needed - institutions of higher education and money
for school houses and salaries. . . .
Thus, again, in the manning of trade schools and manual training schools we are
thrown back upon the higher training as its source and chief support. There was
a time when any aged and worn-out carpenter could teach in a trade school. But
not so to-day. Indeed the demand for college-bred men by a school like
Tuskegee ought to make Mr. Booker T. Washington the firmest friend of higher
training. Here he has as helpers the son of a Negro senator, trained in Greek and
the humanities, and graduated at Harvard; the son of a Negro congressman and
lawyer, trained in Latin and mathematics, and graduated at Oberlin; he has as his
wife, a woman who read Virgil and Homer in the same class room with me; he
has as college chaplain, a classical graduate of Atlanta University; as teacher of
science, a graduate of Fisk; as teacher of history, a graduate of Smith,--indeed
some thirty of his chief teachers are college graduates, and instead of studying
French grammars in the midst of weeds, or buying pianos for dirty cabins, they
are at Mr. Washington’s right hand helping him in a noble work. And yet one of
the effects of Mr. Washington’s propaganda has been to throw doubt upon the
expediency of such training for Negroes, as these persons have had.
Men of America, the problem is plain before you. Here is a race transplanted
through the criminal foolishness of your fathers. Whether you like it or not the
millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will
pull you down. Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone
will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence.
Education must not simply teach work--it must teach Life. The Talented Tenth of
the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture
among their people. No others can do this work and Negro colleges must train
men for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its
exceptional men.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=174
PBS Program on Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois
The following is from the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) program, “The Two
Nations of Black America: Booker T. and W. E. B., The Debate between W.E.B.
Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.” If you cite it, do so thus: (PBS handout).
There is no need to give the page number since there is only one page.
Two great leaders of the black community in the late 19th and 20th century were
W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. However, they sharply disagreed on
strategies for black social and economic progress. Their opposing philosophies
can be found in much of today's discussions over how to end class and racial
injustice, what is the role of black leadership, and what do the 'haves' owe the
'have-nots' in the black community.
Booker T. Washington, educator, reformer and the most influential black leader
of his time (1856-1915) preached a philosophy of self-help, racial solidarity and
accommodation. He urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and
concentrate on elevating themselves through hard work and material prosperity.
He believed in education in the crafts, industrial and farming skills and the
cultivation of the virtues of patience, enterprise and thrift. This, he said, would win
the respect of whites and lead to African Americans being fully accepted as
citizens and integrated into all strata of society.
W.E.B. Du Bois, a towering black intellectual, scholar and political thinker (18681963) said no--Washington's strategy would serve only to perpetuate white
oppression. Du Bois advocated political action and a civil rights agenda (he
helped found the NAACP). In addition, he argued that social change could be
accomplished by developing the small group of college-educated blacks he
called "the Talented Tenth:"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/etc/road.html
INSTRUCTIONS FOR WRITING ASSIGNMENT ON
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND W. E. B. DU BOIS
This assignment is not to write an essay. Instead, it is a set of five questions
regarding Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois in which you will compare
the two men and the solutions they offered for the difficulties faced by African
Americans at the time. You are to type out the five questions listed at the bottom
of this page, numbering each one and giving your answer to it.
Your main source for this assignment is Up From Slavery by Booker T.
Washington. In addition to it, I have provided you with several articles and
excerpts as resources. In addition to Up From Slavery, you must also use and
cite “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” which is the title of chapter three
of The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois; and “The Talented Tenth,” a brief
article also by Du Bois. In the following pages you will find these writings by Du
Bois along with three other articles that will be helpful to you.
You must give (cite) the source of your information, whether quoting or putting it
in your own words. For the book, give the page number where you found the
information. For the article titled “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,”
which is a chapter in Du Bois’s book, The Souls of Black Folk, the word “Souls”
plus the paragraph number (listed in the upper right-hand corner of each
paragraph) will suffice.
Cite all information in parentheses immediately after giving the information. For
example:
Washington gained insights on race relations from working with Indian
boys at Hampton (Washington, 87).
To cite material from Up From Slavery (quoted or paraphrased), use the model
given above.
To cite material from “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” which is chapter
three of The Souls of Black Folk, use the following model:
Du Bois states that by the 1830s the South as whole was slave country
(Souls, chap. 3, para. 12).
To cite material from Du Bois’s article, “The Talented Tenth,” use the following
model:
Du Bois argued that the race’s “exceptional men” would save African
Americans (“Talented Tenth”).
Note that because “The Talented Tenth” is a brief article, it is not necessary to
give the page number(s).
To cite material from the one-page Du Bois biography, use the following model:
Du Bois believed that the white children at his school regarded him as
inferior to them (Du Bois bio.)
Note that because the Du Bois biography is a brief article, it is not necessary to
give the page number(s).
To cite material from the Britannica article, use the following model:
Du Bois received a doctorate from Harvard University (Britannica article).
Note that because the Britannica article is brief, it is not necessary to give a page
number.
It will take at least two or three paragraphs to fully answer each question. Your
submission should be between four and eight pages, printed and double-spaced.
The information should be specific, not generalizations.
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER:
1. Compare how Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois were raised.
What kind of education did they have? Did these things affect their view of
the world and if so, how?
2. What was the name of the institution that Washington headed in
Alabama? What kind of education did it offer African Americans, and why?
3. What was Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Address?
4. How did Du Bois disagree with Washington over the education of African
Americans? What kind of education for them did Du Bois advocate?
5. Besides the education of African Americans, over what other issues did
Du Bois and Washington disagree?
Format for Writing Assignment on Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois
Use the following as a model to get started on your assignment:
History 106.[Section number], Spring 2013
[Your name] [Date submitted]
Writing Assignment on Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois
1. Compare how Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois were raised.
What kind of education did they have? Did these things affect their view of
the world and if so, how?
Washington was born a slave in the South and Du Bois was born free in the
North (Washington, 7; Du Bois bio).
[Some of the information came from Washington’s book and some of it from the
Du Bois biographical sketch, which is why I cited both sources.]
THE PRECEDING IS AN EXAMPLE. DO NOT COPY MY ANSWER.
TIPS:
1. WRITE COMPLETE SENTENCES WITH A SUBJECT AND A VERB.
2. DO NOT USE CONTRACTIONS.
3. DO NOT USE CASUAL LANGUAGE. REFER TO WASHINGTON AS
“WASHINGTON,” NOT “BOOKER” OR “BOOKER T.”
W.E.B Du Bois
Biographical Information
[If you quote or cite from the following indicate it by inserting “(Du Bois Bio)” after
the material. Since it is a brief article no page number is necessary.]
W.E.B. Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington,
Massachusetts. He was one of twenty-five to fifty African American residents out
of a population of about 5,000 in the town. Although he saw few outward signs of
racism, as a child Du Bois suffered discrimination at the hands of white children
who treated him as inferior because of his color. As a result, his outgoing
personality became sullen and introspective.
While in high school Du Bois showed a keen concern for the development of his
race. At age fifteen he became the local correspondent for the New York Globe.
He conceived it his duty to push his race forward by lectures and editorials on the
need for Black people to use the political system to advance their position in
American society.
Intellectually gifted, Du Bois stood out academically from took his fellow students.
He hoped to attend Harvard University after graduating from high school, but
could not afford the tuition. However, he was awarded a scholarship to Fisk
College (now University), an African-American institution in Nashville,
Tennessee.
His three years at Fisk, 1885-1888, exposed Du Bois to the depth of the race
problem in this country. He became more determined than before to speed up
the development of his people.
Du Bois spent two summers teaching at a school where learned more about the
South and his people. He saw their poverty and the prejudice they endured, but
he also saw their desire for knowledge.
Upon graduating from Fisk Du Bois received scholarships that allowed him to at
last enter Harvard. The attainment of this long-sought goal did not give him
satisfaction. Years later he commented, “I was in Harvard but not of it,”
suggesting that he continued to deeply resent any sign of condescension. He
focused on the study of philosophy and history, and after receiving a bachelor’s
degree in 1890 continued at Harvard where eventually he would earn a master’s
and a doctor’s degree.
After completing his master’s degree in the spring of 1891, Du Bois read that
former president Rutherford B. Hayes was heading a fund program to educate
Negroes, but had been quoted by a newspaper as saying that no suitable
candidate had been found to undertake advanced study in another country. Du
Bois applied for the grant and complained to Hayes for his statement. Hayes
replied that he had been misquoted. Du Bois received the grant and used it to
study at the University of Berlin, among the best universities in the world.
In Berlin, Du Bois came to believe that the race problem for Africans was not
limited to one country or continent. His studies there increasingly turned toward
social research.
Du Bois returned to Harvard to complete his Ph. D. degree. His doctoral
dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in America, is
considered a classic work of history and continues to be studied by scholars.
Britannica Article on W.E.B. Du Bois
[If you cite or quote from this article do so in this format: (Britannica article). No
page number is necessary.
b. Feb. 23, 1868, Great Barrington, Mass.
d. Aug. 27, 1963, Accra, Ghana.
American sociologist, the most important black protest leader in the United
States during the first half of the 20th century. He shared in the creation of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909
and edited The Crisis, its magazine, from 1910 to 1934. Late in life he became
identified with Communist causes.
Early career
Du Bois was graduated from Fisk University, a black institution at Nashville,
Tenn., in 1888. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895. His
doctoral dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United
States of America, 1638-1870, was published in 1896. Although Du Bois took an
advanced degree in history, he was broadly trained in the social sciences; and at
a time when sociologists were theorizing about race relations, he was conducting
empirical inquiries into the condition of blacks. For more than a decade he
devoted himself to sociological investigations of blacks in America, producing 16
research monographs published between 1897 and 1914 at Atlanta (Ga.)
University, where he was a professor, as well as The Philadelphia Negro; A
Social Study (1899), the first case study of a black community in the United
States. Although Du Bois had originally believed that social science could provide
the knowledge to solve the race problem, he gradually came to the conclusion
that in a climate of virulent racism, expressed in such evils as lynching, peonage,
disfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation laws, and race riots, social change
could be accomplished only through agitation and protest. In this view, he
clashed with the most influential black leader of the period, Booker T.
Washington, who, preaching a philosophy of accommodation, urged blacks to
accept discrimination for the time being and elevate themselves through hard
work and economic gain, thus winning the respect of the whites. In 1903, in his
famous book The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois charged that Washington's
strategy, rather than freeing the black man from oppression, would serve only to
perpetuate it. This attack crystallized the opposition to Booker T. Washington
among many black intellectuals, polarizing the leaders of the black community
into two wings--the "conservative" supporters of Washington and his "radical"
critics. Two years later, in 1905, Du Bois took the lead in founding the Niagara
Movement, which was dedicated chiefly to attacking the platform of Booker T.
Washington. The small organization, which met annually until 1909, was
seriously weakened by internal squabbles and Washington's opposition. But it
was significant as an ideological forerunner and direct inspiration for the
interracial NAACP, founded in 1909. Du Bois played a prominent part in the
creation of the NAACP and became the association's director of research and
editor of its magazine, The Crisis. In this role he wielded an unequaled influence
among middle-class blacks and progressive whites as the propagandist for the
black protest from 1910 until 1934.Both in the Niagara Movement and in the
NAACP, Du Bois acted mainly as an integrationist, but his thinking always
exhibited, to varying degrees, separatist-nationalist tendencies. In The Souls of
Black Folk he had expressed the characteristic dualism of black Americans: One
ever feels his twoness--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two
unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged
strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. . . . He simply wishes to make it
possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed
and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed
roughly in his face.
Copyright © 1994-2000 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Chapter III:
Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others
Citation Instructions: Each paragraph is numbered. Follow this format: (Souls,
chap. 3, para. 1).
From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned!
. . . . . . . .
Hereditary bondsmen! Know ye not
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
BYRON.
EASILY the most striking thing in the history of the American Negro since 1876
is the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. It began at the time when war
memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of astonishing commercial
development was dawning; a sense of doubt and hesitation overtook the
freedmen’s sons,—then it was that his leading began. Mr. Washington came,
with a simple definite programme, at the psychological moment when the nation
was a little ashamed of having bestowed so much sentiment on Negroes, and
was concentrating its energies on Dollars. His programme of industrial
education, conciliation of the South, and submission and silence as to civil and
political rights, was not wholly original; the Free Negroes from 1830 up to
wartime had striven to build industrial schools, and the American Missionary
Association had from the first taught various trades; and Price and others had
sought a way of honorable alliance with the best of the Southerners. But Mr.
Washington first indissolubly linked these things; he put enthusiasm, unlimited
energy, and perfect faith into this programme, and changed it from a by-path
into a veritable Way of Life. And the tale of the methods by which he did this is a
fascinating study of human life.
1
2
It startled the nation to hear a Negro advocating such a programme after many
decades of bitter complaint; it startled and won the applause of the South, it
interested and won the admiration of the North; and after a confused murmur of
protest, it silenced if it did not convert the Negroes themselves.
3
To gain the sympathy and coöperation of the various elements comprising the
white South was Mr. Washington’s first task; and this, at the time Tuskegee was
founded, seemed, for a black man, well-nigh impossible. And yet ten years later
it was done in the word spoken at Atlanta: “In all things purely social we can be
as separate as the five fingers, and yet one as the hand in all things essential to
mutual progress.” This “Atlanta Compromise” is by all odds the most notable
thing in Mr. Washington’s career. The South interpreted it in different ways: the
radicals received it as a complete surrender of the demand for civil and political
equality; the conservatives, as a generously conceived working basis for mutual
understanding. So both approved it, and to-day its author is certainly the most
distinguished Southerner since Jefferson Davis, and the one with the largest
personal following.
4
Next to this achievement comes Mr. Washington’s work in gaining place and
consideration in the North. Others less shrewd and tactful had formerly essayed
to sit on these two stools and had fallen between them; but as Mr. Washington
knew the heart of the South from birth and training, so by singular insight he
intuitively grasped the spirit of the age which was dominating the North. And so
thoroughly did he learn the speech and thought of triumphant commercialism,
and the ideals of material prosperity, that the picture of a lone black boy poring
over a French grammar amid the weeds and dirt of a neglected home soon
seemed to him the acme of absurdities. One wonders what Socrates and St.
Francis of Assisi would say to this.
5
And yet this very singleness of vision and thorough oneness with his age is a
mark of the successful man. It is as though Nature must needs make men
narrow in order to give them force. So Mr. Washington’s cult has gained
unquestioning followers, his work has wonderfully prospered, his friends are
legion, and his enemies are confounded. To-day he stands as the one
recognized spokesman of his ten million fellows, and one of the most notable
figures in a nation of seventy millions. One hesitates, therefore, to criticise a life
which, beginning with so little, has done so much. And yet the time is come
when one may speak in all sincerity and utter courtesy of the mistakes and
shortcomings of Mr. Washington’s career, as well as of his triumphs, without
being thought captious or envious, and without forgetting that it is easier to do ill
than well in the world.
6
The criticism that has hitherto met Mr. Washington has not always been of this
broad character. In the South especially has he had to walk warily to avoid the
harshest judgments,—and naturally so, for he is dealing with the one subject of
deepest sensitiveness to that section. Twice—once when at the Chicago
celebration of the Spanish-American War he alluded to the color-prejudice that
is “eating away the vitals of the South,” and once when he dined with President
Roosevelt—has the resulting Southern criticism been violent enough to threaten
seriously his popularity. In the North the feeling has several times forced itself
into words, that Mr. Washington’s counsels of submission overlooked certain
elements of true manhood, and that his educational programme was
unnecessarily narrow. Usually, however, such criticism has not found open
expression, although, too, the spiritual sons of the Abolitionists have not been
prepared to acknowledge that the schools founded before Tuskegee, by men of
broad ideals and self-sacrificing spirit, were wholly failures or worthy of ridicule.
While, then, criticism has not failed to follow Mr. Washington, yet the prevailing
public opinion of the land has been but too willing to deliver the solution of a
wearisome problem into his hands, and say, “If that is all you and your race ask,
take it.”
7
Among his own people, however, Mr. Washington has encountered the
strongest and most lasting opposition, amounting at times to bitterness, and
even to-day continuing strong and insistent even though largely silenced in
outward expression by the public opinion of the nation. Some of this opposition
is, of course, mere envy; the disappointment of displaced demagogues and the
spite of narrow minds. But aside from this, there is among educated and
thoughtful colored men in all parts of the land a feeling of deep regret, sorrow,
and apprehension at the wide currency and ascendancy which some of Mr.
Washington’s theories have gained. These same men admire his sincerity of
purpose, and are willing to forgive much to honest endeavor which is doing
something worth the doing. They coöperate with Mr. Washington as far as they
conscientiously can; and, indeed, it is no ordinary tribute to this man’s tact and
power that, steering as he must between so many diverse interests and
opinions, he so largely retains the respect of all.
8
But the hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It
leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of
effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to
lose listeners. Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most
nearly touched,—criticism of writers by readers, of government by those
governed, of leaders by those led,—this is the soul of democracy and the
safeguard of modern society. If the best of the American Negroes receive by
outer pressure a leader whom they had not recognized before, manifestly there
is here a certain palpable gain. Yet there is also irreparable loss,—a loss of that
peculiarly valuable education which a group receives when by search and
criticism it finds and commissions its own leaders. The way in which this is done
is at once the most elementary and the nicest problem of social growth. History
is but the record of such group-leadership; and yet how infinitely changeful is its
type and character! And of all types and kinds, what can be more instructive
than the leadership of a group within a group?—that curious double movement
where real progress may be negative and actual advance be relative
retrogression. All this is the social student’s inspiration and despair.
9
Now in the past the American Negro has had instructive experience in the
choosing of group leaders, founding thus a peculiar dynasty which in the light of
present conditions is worth while studying. When sticks and stones and beasts
form the sole environment of a people, their attitude is largely one of determined
opposition to and conquest of natural forces. But when to earth and brute is
added an environment of men and ideas, then the attitude of the imprisoned
group may take three main forms,—a feeling of revolt and revenge; an attempt
to adjust all thought and action to the will of the greater group; or, finally, a
determined effort at self-realization and self-development despite environing
opinion. The influence of all of these attitudes at various times can be traced in
the history of the American Negro, and in the evolution of his successive
leaders.
10
Before 1750, while the fire of African freedom still burned in the veins of the
slaves, there was in all leadership or attempted leadership but the one motive of
revolt and revenge,—typified in the terrible Maroons, the Danish blacks, and
Cato of Stono, and veiling all the Americas in fear of insurrection. The
liberalizing tendencies of the latter half of the eighteenth century brought, along
with kindlier relations between black and white, thoughts of ultimate adjustment
and assimilation. Such aspiration was especially voiced in the earnest songs of
Phyllis, in the martyrdom of Attucks, the fighting of Salem and Poor, the
intellectual accomplishments of Banneker and Derham, and the political
demands of the Cuffes.
11
Stern financial and social stress after the war cooled much of the previous
humanitarian ardor. The disappointment and impatience of the Negroes at the
persistence of slavery and serfdom voiced itself in two movements. The slaves
in the South, aroused undoubtedly by vague rumors of the Haytian revolt, made
three fierce attempts at insurrection,—in 1800 under Gabriel in Virginia, in 1822
under Vesey in Carolina, and in 1831 again in Virginia under the terrible Nat
Turner. In the Free States, on the other hand, a new and curious attempt at selfdevelopment was made. In Philadelphia and New York color-prescription led to
a withdrawal of Negro communicants from white churches and the formation of
a peculiar socio-religious institution among the Negroes known as the African
Church,—an organization still living and controlling in its various branches over
a million of men.
12
Walker’s wild appeal against the trend of the times showed how the world was
changing after the coming of the cotton-gin. By 1830 slavery seemed hopelessly
fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly cowed into submission. The
free Negroes of the North, inspired by the mulatto immigrants from the West
Indies, began to change the basis of their demands; they recognized the slavery
of slaves, but insisted that they themselves were freemen, and sought
assimilation and amalgamation with the nation on the same terms with other
men. Thus, Forten and Purvis of Philadelphia, Shad of Wilmington, Du Bois of
New Haven, Barbadoes of Boston, and others, strove singly and together as
men, they said, not as slaves; as “people of color,” not as “Negroes.” The trend
of the times, however, refused them recognition save in individual and
exceptional cases, considered them as one with all the despised blacks, and
they soon found themselves striving to keep even the rights they formerly had of
voting and working and moving as freemen. Schemes of migration and
colonization arose among them; but these they refused to entertain, and they
eventually turned to the Abolition movement as a final refuge.
13
Here, led by Remond, Nell, Wells-Brown, and Douglass, a new period of selfassertion and self-development dawned. To be sure, ultimate freedom and
assimilation was the ideal before the leaders, but the assertion of the manhood
rights of the Negro by himself was the main reliance, and John Brown’s raid was
the extreme of its logic. After the war and emancipation, the great form of
Frederick Douglass, the greatest of American Negro leaders, still led the host.
Self-assertion, especially in political lines, was the main programme, and behind
Douglass came Elliot, Bruce, and Langston, and the Reconstruction politicians,
and, less conspicuous but of greater social significance Alexander Crummell
and Bishop Daniel Payne.
14
Then came the Revolution of 1876, the suppression of the Negro votes, the
changing and shifting of ideals, and the seeking of new lights in the great night.
Douglass, in his old age, still bravely stood for the ideals of his early
manhood,—ultimate assimilation through self-assertion, and on no other terms.
For a time Price arose as a new leader, destined, it seemed, not to give up, but
to re-state the old ideals in a form less repugnant to the white South. But he
passed away in his prime. Then came the new leader. Nearly all the former
ones had become leaders by the silent suffrage of their fellows, had sought to
lead their own people alone, and were usually, save Douglass, little known
outside their race. But Booker T. Washington arose as essentially the leader not
of one race but of two,—a compromiser between the South, the North, and the
Negro. Naturally the Negroes resented, at first bitterly, signs of compromise
which surrendered their civil and political rights, even though this was to be
exchanged for larger chances of economic development. The rich and
dominating North, however, was not only weary of the race problem, but was
investing largely in Southern enterprises, and welcomed any method of peaceful
coöperation. Thus, by national opinion, the Negroes began to recognize Mr.
Washington’s leadership; and the voice of criticism was hushed.
15
Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and
submission; but adjustment at such a peculiar time as to make his programme
unique. This is an age of unusual economic development, and Mr. Washington’s
programme naturally takes an economic cast, becoming a gospel of Work and
Money to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the
higher aims of life. Moreover, this is an age when the more advanced races are
coming in closer contact with the less developed races, and the race-feeling is
therefore intensified; and Mr. Washington’s programme practically accepts the
alleged inferiority of the Negro races. Again, in our own land, the reaction from
the sentiment of war time has given impetus to race-prejudice against Negroes,
and Mr. Washington withdraws many of the high demands of Negroes as men
and American citizens. In other periods of intensified prejudice all the Negro’s
tendency to self-assertion has been called forth; at this period a policy of
submission is advocated. In the history of nearly all other races and peoples the
doctrine preached at such crises has been that manly self-respect is worth more
than lands and houses, and that a people who voluntarily surrender such
respect, or cease striving for it, are not worth civilizing.
16
In answer to this, it has been claimed that the Negro can survive only through
submission. Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least
for the present, three things,—
First, political power,
Second, insistence on civil rights,
Third, higher education of Negro youth,—
and concentrate all their energies on industrial education, the accumulation of
wealth, and the conciliation of the South. This policy has been courageously
and insistently advocated for over fifteen years, and has been triumphant for
perhaps ten years. As a result of this tender of the palm-branch, what has been
the return? In these years there have occurred:
1. The disfranchisement of the Negro.
2. The legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro.
3. The steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the
Negro.
These movements are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr. Washington’s
teachings; but his propaganda has, without a shadow of doubt, helped their
speedier accomplishment. The question then comes: 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.
And Mr. Washington thus faces the triple paradox of his career:
17
1. He is striving nobly to make Negro artisans business men and propertyowners; but it is utterly impossible, under modern competitive methods,
for workingmen and property-owners to defend their rights and exist
without the right of suffrage.
2. He insists on thrift and self-respect, but at the same time counsels a
silent submission to civic inferiority such as is bound to sap the manhood
of any race in the long run.
3. He advocates common-school and industrial training, and depreciates
institutions of higher learning; but neither the Negro common-schools,
nor Tuskegee itself, could remain open a day were it not for teachers
trained in Negro colleges, or trained by their graduates.
This triple paradox in Mr. Washington’s position is the object of criticism by two 18
classes of colored Americans. One class is spiritually descended from Toussaint
the Savior, through Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner, and they represent the attitude
of revolt and revenge; they hate the white South blindly and distrust the white
race generally, and so far as they agree on definite action, think that the Negro’s
only hope lies in emigration beyond the borders of the United States. And yet,
by the irony of fate, nothing has more effectually made this programme seem
hopeless than the recent course of the United States toward weaker and darker
peoples in the West Indies, Hawaii, and the Philippines,—for where in the world
may we go and be safe from lying and brute force?
19
The other class of Negroes who cannot agree with Mr. Washington has hitherto
said little aloud. They deprecate the sight of scattered counsels, of internal
disagreement; and especially they dislike making their just criticism of a useful
and earnest man an excuse for a general discharge of venom from smallminded opponents. Nevertheless, the questions involved are so fundamental
and serious that it is difficult to see how men like the Grimkes, Kelly Miller, J. W.
E. Bowen, and other representatives of this group, can much longer be silent.
Such men feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation three things:
1. The right to vote.
2. Civic equality.
3. The education of youth according to ability.
They acknowledge Mr. Washington’s invaluable service in counselling patience
and courtesy in such demands; they do not ask that ignorant black men vote
when ignorant whites are debarred, or that any reasonable restrictions in the
suffrage should not be applied; they know that the low social level of the mass
of the race is responsible for much discrimination against it, but they also know,
and the nation knows, that relentless color-prejudice is more often a cause than
a result of the Negro’s degradation; they seek the abatement of this relic of
barbarism, and not its systematic encouragement and pampering by all
agencies of social power from the Associated Press to the Church of Christ.
They advocate, with Mr. Washington, a broad system of Negro common schools
supplemented by thorough industrial training; but they are surprised that a man
of Mr. Washington’s insight cannot see that no such educational system ever
has rested or can rest on any other basis than that of the well-equipped college
and university, and they insist that there is a demand for a few such institutions
throughout the South to train the best of the Negro youth as teachers,
professional men, and leaders.
20
This group of men honor Mr. Washington for his attitude of conciliation toward
the white South; they accept the “Atlanta Compromise” in its broadest
interpretation; they recognize, with him, many signs of promise, many men of
high purpose and fair judgment, in this section; they know that no easy task has
been laid upon a region already tottering under heavy burdens. But,
nevertheless, they insist that the way to truth and right lies in straightforward
honesty, not in indiscriminate flattery; in praising those of the South who do well
and criticising uncompromisingly those who do ill; in taking advantage of the
opportunities at hand and urging their fellows to do the same, but at the same
time in remembering that only a firm adherence to their higher ideals and
aspirations will ever keep those ideals within the realm of possibility. They do
not expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civic rights, and to be educated,
will come in a moment; they do not expect to see the bias and prejudices of
years disappear at the blast of a trumpet; but they are absolutely certain that the
way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing
them away and insisting that they do not want them; that the way for a people to
gain respect is not by continually belittling and ridiculing themselves; that, on the
contrary, Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that
voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism,
and that black boys need education as well as white boys.
21
In failing thus to state plainly and unequivocally the legitimate demands of their
people, even at the cost of opposing an honored leader, the thinking classes of
American Negroes would shirk a heavy responsibility,—a responsibility to
themselves, a responsibility to the struggling masses, a responsibility to the
darker races of men whose future depends so largely on this American
experiment, but especially a responsibility to this nation,—this common
Fatherland. It is wrong to encourage a man or a people in evil-doing; it is wrong
to aid and abet a national crime simply because it is unpopular not to do so. The
growing spirit of kindliness and reconciliation between the North and South after
the frightful differences of a generation ago ought to be a source of deep
congratulation to all, and especially to those whose mistreatment caused the
war; but if that reconciliation is to be marked by the industrial slavery and civic
death of those same black men, with permanent legislation into a position of
inferiority, then those black men, if they are really men, are called upon by every
consideration of patriotism and loyalty to oppose such a course by all civilized
methods, even though such opposition involves disagreement with Mr. Booker
T. Washington. We have no right to sit silently by while the inevitable seeds are
sown for a harvest of disaster to our children, black and white.
22
First, it is the duty of black men to judge the South discriminatingly. The present
generation of Southerners are not responsible for the past, and they should not
be blindly hated or blamed for it. Furthermore, to no class is the indiscriminate
endorsement of the recent course of the South toward Negroes more
nauseating than to the best thought of the South. The South is not “solid”; it is a
land in the ferment of social change, wherein forces of all kinds are fighting for
supremacy; and to praise the ill the South is to-day perpetrating is just as wrong
as to condemn the good. Discriminating and broad-minded criticism is what the
South needs,—needs it for the sake of her own white sons and daughters, and
for the insurance of robust, healthy mental and moral development.
23
To-day even the attitude of the Southern whites toward the blacks is not, as so
many assume, in all cases the same; the ignorant Southerner hates the Negro,
the workingmen fear his competition, the money-makers wish to use him as a
laborer, some of the educated see a menace in his upward development, while
others—usually the sons of the masters—wish to help him to rise. National
opinion has enabled this last class to maintain the Negro common schools, and
to protect the Negro partially in property, life, and limb. Through the pressure of
the money-makers, the Negro is in danger of being reduced to semi-slavery,
especially in the country districts; the workingmen, and those of the educated
who fear the Negro, have united to disfranchise him, and some have urged his
deportation; while the passions of the ignorant are easily aroused to lynch and
abuse any black man. To praise this intricate whirl of thought and prejudice is
nonsense; to inveigh indiscriminately against “the South” is unjust; but to use
the same breath in praising Governor Aycock, exposing Senator Morgan,
arguing with Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, and denouncing Senator Ben Tillman, is
not only sane, but the imperative duty of thinking black men.
24
It would be unjust to Mr. Washington not to acknowledge that in several
instances he has opposed movements in the South which were unjust to the
Negro; he sent memorials to the Louisiana and Alabama constitutional
conventions, he has spoken against lynching, and in other ways has openly or
silently set his influence against sinister schemes and unfortunate happenings.
Notwithstanding this, it is equally true to assert that on the whole the distinct
impression left by Mr. Washington’s propaganda is, first, that the South is
justified in its present attitude toward the Negro because of the Negro’s
degradation; secondly, that the prime cause of the Negro’s failure to rise more
quickly is his wrong education in the past; and, thirdly, that his future rise
depends primarily on his own efforts. Each of these propositions is a dangerous
half-truth. The supplementary truths must never be lost sight of: first, slavery
and race-prejudice are potent if not sufficient causes of the Negro’s position;
second, industrial and common-school training were necessarily slow in planting
because they had to await the black teachers trained by higher institutions,—it
being extremely doubtful if any essentially different development was possible,
and certainly a Tuskegee was unthinkable before 1880; and, third, while it is a
great truth to say that the Negro must strive and strive mightily to help himself, it
is equally true that unless his striving be not simply seconded, but rather
aroused and encouraged, by the initiative of the richer and wiser environing
group, he cannot hope for great success.
25
In his failure to realize and impress this last point, Mr. Washington is especially
to be criticised. His doctrine has tended to make the whites, North and South,
shift the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro’s shoulders and stand aside
as critical and rather pessimistic spectators; when in fact the burden belongs to
the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to
righting these great wrongs.
26
The South ought to be led, by candid and honest criticism, to assert her better
self and do her full duty to the race she has cruelly wronged and is still
wronging. The North—her co-partner in guilt—cannot salve her conscience by
plastering it with gold. We cannot settle this problem by diplomacy and
suaveness, by “policy” alone. If worse come to worst, can the moral fibre of this
country survive the slow throttling and murder of nine millions of men?
27
The black men of America have a duty to perform, a duty stern and delicate,—a
forward movement to oppose a part of the work of their greatest leader. So far
as Mr. Washington preaches Thrift, Patience, and Industrial Training for the
masses, we must hold up his hands and strive with him, rejoicing in his honors
and glorying in the strength of this Joshua called of God and of man to lead the
headless host. But so far as Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, North or
South, does not rightly value the privilege and duty of voting, belittles the
emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and
ambition of our brighter minds,—so far as he, the South, or the Nation, does
this,—we must unceasingly and firmly oppose them. By every civilized and
peaceful method we must strive for the rights which the world accords to men,
clinging unwaveringly to those great words which 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.”
The Talented Tenth
W.E.B. Du Bois
September 1903
In this article Du Bois spells out his objections to Booker T. Washington’s
emphasis on manual and industrial training for African Americans, and makes a
case that a “Talented Tenth” of black youth ought to receive a college or
university education. Follow this format in citing from this work: (Talented Tenth).
Since it is a brief article, no page number is necessary.
The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The
problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the
Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may
guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own
and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. . . . If we
make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not
necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may
possess artisans but not, in nature, men. . . .
From the very first it has been the educated and intelligent of the Negro people
that have led and elevated the mass, and the sole obstacles that nullified and
retarded their efforts were slavery and race prejudice; for what is slavery but the
legalized survival of the unfit and the nullification of the work of natural internal
leadership? Negro leadership therefore sought from the first to rid the race of this
awful incubus that it might make way for natural selection and the survival of the
fittest. . . .
Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised
than by the effort and example of this aristocracy of talent and character? Was
there ever a nation on God’s fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never;
it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters. The
Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage
ground. This is the history of human progress . . . .
How then shall the leaders of a struggling people be trained and the hands of the
risen few strengthened? There can be but one answer: The best and most
capable of their youth must be schooled in the colleges and universities of the
land. . . .
All men cannot go to college but some men must; every isolated group or nation
must have its yeast, must have for the talented few centers of training where men
are not so mystified and befuddled by the hard and necessary toil of earning a
living, as to have no aims higher than their bellies, and no God greater than Gold.
...
The college-bred Negro . . . is, as he ought to be, the group leader, the man who
sets the ideals of the community where he lives, directs its thoughts and heads
its social movements. It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social
leadership more than most groups; that they have no traditions to fall back upon,
no long established customs, no strong family ties, no well defined social
classes. All these things must be slowly and painfully evolved. The preacher was,
even before the war, the group leader of the Negroes, and the church their
greatest social institution. Naturally this preacher was ignorant and often
immoral, and the problem of replacing the older type by better educated men has
been a difficult one. Both by direct work and by direct influence on other
preachers, and on congregations, the college-bred preacher has an opportunity
for reformatory work and moral inspiration, the value of which cannot be
overestimated.
It has, however, been in the furnishing of teachers that the Negro college has
found its peculiar function. Few persons realize how vast a work, how mighty a
revolution has been thus accomplished. To furnish five millions and more of
ignorant people with teachers of their own race and blood, in one generation,
was not only a very difficult undertaking, but very important one, in that, it placed
before the eyes of almost every Negro child an attainable ideal. It brought the
masses of the blacks in contact with modern civilization, made black men the
leaders of their communities and trainers of the new generation. In this work
college-bred Negroes were first teachers, and then teachers of teachers. And
here it is that the broad culture of college work has been of peculiar value.
Knowledge of life and its wider meaning, has been the point of the Negro’s
deepest ignorance, and the sending out of teachers whose training has not been
simply for bread winning, but also for human culture, has been of inestimable
value in the training of these men. . . .
There must be teachers, and teachers of teachers, and to attempt to establish
any sort of a system of common and industrial school training, without first . . .
providing for the higher training of the very best teachers, is simply throwing your
money to the winds. School houses do not teach themselves - piles of brick and
mortar and machinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living human soul,
cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real
breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black
or white, Greek, Russian or American. . . .
I would not deny, or for a moment seem to deny, the paramount necessity of
teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully; or seem to
depreciate in the slightest degree the important part industrial schools must play
in the accomplishment of these ends, but I do say, and insist upon it, that it is
industrialism drunk with its vision of success, to imagine that its own work can be
accomplished without providing for the training of broadly cultured men and
women to teach its own teachers, and to teach the teachers of the public
schools.
But I have already said that human education is not simply a matter of schools; it
is much more a matter of family and group life - the training of one’s home, of
one’s daily companions, of one’s social class. Now the black boy of the South
moves in a black world - a world with its own leaders, its own thoughts, its own
ideals. In this world he gets by far the larger part of his life training, and through
the eyes of this dark world he peers into the veiled world beyond. Who guides
and determi...