nomic opportunity. A second response was to seek some kind of accommodation within the limited opportunities whites were offering. Du Bois proposed a third alternative. He attacked Washington's claim that with freedom, Negro leadership should have begun at the plow and not in the Senate.
             It is easy to see that all throughout Du Bois' life he was dealing with the struggles of racial discrimination. Just before he was born the Civil War was taking place. At the start of the American Civil War most white Americans in the North were not willing to fight to end Southern slavery. They fought instead to preserve the Union and prevent slavery from spreading into the Western territories. Many opposed expanding slave territory because they believed that slaves were unfair competition to free labor. African Americans hoped the Civil War would bring about the abolition of slavery.
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