After the Civil War African Americans faced much segregation and discrimination from their white counterparts. From this hate emerged several black orators, who passionately attempted to progress the condition and status of blacks. Two very famous orators of this time were Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, both of whom wanted equality for blacks, but had very different ideas in how to get that equality. Washington, in his Atlanta Compromise speech, gave the idea that equality needed to be earned. He said that blacks believed they would simply start at the top, which, obviously, wasn't the case. He advised the blacks to not be ignorant of the fact that they needed to start from the bottom, and live by their own hands, in order to rise to the top and hold high positions in fields such as politics. …show more content…
Du Bois had a completely different idea on how to gain equality. In his Of the Training of Black Men speech, he clearly dictated that in order for blacks to rise among the ranks of inferiority and become more closely connected to whites, blacks needed their own colleges and universities- places for higher education. These academies, moreover, could not be inferior to white colleges, and must “maintain the standards of popular education” if blacks were to ever contribute to society and industry. Both these orators, however, shared one common idea: whites needed to cooperate with blacks, to encourage them and not discriminate against them, if America was to leave behind its past of slavery and modernize