Booker T. Washington v. W.E.B. Du Bois (short summary)
...d to get to the same place; Du Bois just wanted to get there faster. Washington realized that blacks would not get total equality overnight, so he campaigned for economic independence, which he believed would ultimately be the ticket to black political and civil rights. During this troubling time period, many Southern whites completely rejected the novel notion that blacks could and should be equal to whites. This idea was so unique because only a few years earlier, their supposed “equals” were their slaves. Whites in the South were used to ordering blacks around and punishing them when they did not heed to their directions. Many blacks also could not fathom the idea that they were to be equals to their former masters. Despite this, Du Bois demanded that blacks be treated with the same respect that whites were. He figured that since blacks were equal to whites legally, that they were automatically equal to them socially. Washington realized that blacks could not simply become equals to their former masters overnight. It would take time and hard work on the part of blacks to earn the respect of whites and gradually become equals. If blacks became skilled laborers, Washington believed, they could gain self-respect and the respect of whites, and also economic security. Although Southern whites were furious about the social implications of the outcome of the Civil War, the economic ramifications would hit their plantations even harder. Without slavery, they would be without a steady workforce and would most assuredly lose large sums of money. Because of this, many whites hired their former slaves to perform the same tasks as they were accustomed to, with one exception; they would be paid for their work. Because many blacks became sharecroppers and did not vastly improve their economic or social well being, many whites still looked at them as slaves. Washington wanted blacks to become skilled laborers so that they could escape from the plantations that had bound them to the land for centuries. Many blacks became factory workers in the post-Industrial Revolution era. Because of this, they improved their economic standing with their steady wages. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proc...