Ruston Christian
Professor Smith
English 2020
25 November 2014
Du Bois’ and Washington: The Rivalry

Both W.E.B Dubois and Booker T. Washington were great African American leaders and writers during the beginning of the 20th century. Booker T. Washington’s “Up from Slavery” provides a great depiction of his experience with slavery and he also expresses his views on education and ways to enhance the citizenship of blacks in society. W.E.B Dubois’ Souls of Black Folk exemplifies the contradictions of the South during that time and he also criticizes Booker T. Washington’s views on racial uplifting and education concept. Now the question stands as follows: Was W.E.B Dubois’ criticism towards Washington unfair or accurate? Well, Dubois’ criticisms towards Washington was both accurate and unfair, but mostly accurate.
Up From Slavery depicts Booker T. Washington as both an accommodationist and a realist whom tries to strategize ways for blacks to make it out the struggle even though race relations were at its lowest point at the time. The autobiography also describes in detail his gradual and steady rise from a slave child during the Civil War, to the trials and tribulations he had to conquer to attain an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools such as the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and to helping black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up out of the gutter.
Washington was certainly a major figure in his time due to the fact that ideas for black civil rights was in need of a more driven approach. Most critiques of him mainly talk about his accommodationism, but his life outside of being an abolitionist was also targeted. The Atlanta Compromise represented Booker T. Washington's strategy for addressing the "Negroe problem" and has been