Discrimination
Discrimination The struggle for social and economic equality of Black people in America has been long and slow. It is sometimes amazing that any progress has been made in the racial equality arena at all; every tentative step forward seems to be diluted by losses elsewhere. For every "Stacey Koons" that is convicted, there seems to be a Texaco executive waiting to send Blacks back to the past. Throughout the struggle for equal rights, there have been courageous Black leaders at the forefront of each discrete movement. From early activists such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. DuBois, to 1960s civil rights leaders and radicals such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers, the progress that has been made toward full equality has resulted from the visionary leadership of these brave individuals. This does not imply, however, that there has ever been widespread agreement within the Black community on strategy or that the actions of prominent! Black leaders have met with strong support from those who would benefit from these actions. This report will examine the influence of two "early era" Black activists: Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. Through an analysis of the ideological differenc
" According to DuBois, Washington broke the mold set by his predecessors: "Here, led by Remond, Nell, Wells- Brown, and Douglass, a new period of self-assertion and self- development dawned. His main interest was in the education of 'the group leader, the man who sets the ideas of the community where he lives. Washington arose as essentially the leader not of one race but of two--a compromiser between the South, the North, and the Negro. es between these two men, the writer will argue that, although they disagreed over the direction of the struggle for equality, the differences between these two men actually enhanced the status of Black Americans in the struggle for racial equality. Indeed, Washington backed up his assertions by founding the Tuskeegee Institute as a trade school for young Black men. " However, it later turned out that DuBois was considered to be too extreme in the other direction. On the day Roosevelt took office, he invited Washington to the White House to advise him on political appointments of Negroes in the south. DuBois forwarded the argument that "The Negro problem was not and could not be kept distinct from other reform movements. The crux of the struggle for the ideological center of the racial equality movement is perhaps best exemplified in Mr. Washington, born a slave in 1856 in Franklin County, Virginia, could be described as a pragmatist. DuBois's influential The Souls of Black Folk. The paradox must have been maddening for both men, especially Mr.
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