Discrimination

Indeed, Washington backed up his assertions by founding the Tuskeegee Institute as a trade school for young Black men. From our perspective of over 100 years, we must admit that he may have been right. Washington enjoyed access to the power elite of his time, but one must wonder whether President Roosevelt, for example, in his interactions with Mr. In the political climate of the late 1940s and 1950s, any hint of a pro-communist attitude--black or white--was unwelcome in any group with a national political agenda. 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. " After all, he did not become a popular president by being oblivious to such political maneuvering. Though he preached appeasement and a "hands off" attitude toward politics, Washington has been accused of wielding imperious power over "his people" and of consorting with the white elite. Before Washington's conciliatory stance gained a foothold, "the assertion of the manhood rights of the Negro by himself was the main reliance. Moreover, DuBois understood that equality would not be earned through appeasement. Washington] was ‘intimate' with Roosevelt from 1901 to 1908. DuBois's influential The Souls of Black Folk.