W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington were both black right activists. They both had received an education, they also believed in the importance of education and moving their race forward. Both being born in the U.S. they had both faced segregation and discrimination, but both had different approaches on how to go about fixing these problems.

Washington was born as a slave in Virginia. Although he had worked as a slave, he was determined to receive and education. Later in life, he was one of the most influential men for black rights and had founded Tuskegee University in Alabama. He believed that black people had to accomodate to the white people to receive respect and rights for his race; to be an accommodationist. His most famous speech "The Atlanta Compromise" had been a staple of his beliefs; 'Cast down your bucket where you are,' work behind the scenes, adjust to segregation, and abondon agitation. "It was about black people working but on white peoples terms" (Rivalry, 1:42).

One of those ways to 'accomodate' was for African Americans to get an education in agricultural farming. To learn normal farming skills rather than trying to become a doctor or lawyer. When Plessy V. Ferguson had deemed segregation constitutional the ruling "reinforced Washington's view that African Americans had best concentrate on economic progress, not legal and political equality. Frugality, intergrity, and job skills... would bring success in the only areas in which black Americans could control their destiny" (Carson, 326). Although Washington had been an accommodationist, when he died it was revealed that he had "secretly contributed to efforts challenging grandfather clauses,... met with industralists to improve conditions for black train travelers,... and donated money for court battles against segregation and disfranchisement (Carson 346-347). Like Du Bois,