Written By Washington And Du Bois example essay topic

When the slaves were freed at the end of the Civil War African-Americans sought leadership from other African-Americans. They were looking for direction in a time of chaos and confusion. They found this much-needed leadership in Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. While they were both outspoken leaders, Washington and Du Bois had very different views on how African-Americans should assimilate into society. In his book, Analysis of the Clash Over the Issues Between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, Thomas Harris argues that Washington and Du Bois both had very different views, but that each was right in his own way about how African-Americans should build a community. Through his study of these two men, Harris intends to explain the issues that separated the two men and to explain why they both played important roles in the plight of African-Americans today.

Harris begins by explaining the geographic, political, social and economic position of African-Americans in the post-Civil War period. Geographically, African-Americans were predominately located in the south, which isolated them from the rest of the country and consequently made it easier for the white southerners to do what they wanted. Politically, they were disfranchised, or not allowed to vote, either by law or for all practical reasons due to tests of property and literacy. Socially, a black man was "encouraged to find his place, and as a consequence race relations would improve" (p. 15).

Whites and African-Americans were legally segregated due to the Plassey vs. Ferguson verdict, which stated that separated, but equal was legal. African-Americans had separate schools and bathrooms and designated seats on the busses. Economically, African-Americans were very limited jobs that would provide beneficial economic gains. Harris then introduces the two leading black men of the early post-Civil War era. Harris describes Washington as a man who believed that the African-Americans should start at the bottom and work their way up. Washington argued that starting at the bottom would gain trust from the white community, and it would also lead to a self-made men, whose gains were self-determined and earned.

Du Bois, according to Harris, was more outspoken and opposed the ideas of Washington because the political, social and economical benefits that Washington envisioned were minuscule. A good portion of this book is spent describing the attitudes that Washington and Du Bois had in relation to popular issues of the time. Later in the book, Harris puts the two men's ideas together to create an artificial debate. One of Harris's main points was that Washington and Du Bois had differing - in fact opposite - views on African-American advancement. This is very true. Washington is at one end of the spectrum and Du Bois is at the opposite end from Washington.

Harris points out many key issues that the two men disagreed on, such as employment, education and political gains. Washington felt as though that African-Americans should work in the agrarian sector, whereas Du Bois felt that the southern blacks should move into the cities to get better jobs. Du Bois was in favor of higher education, college education, while Washington was in favor of industrial, hands-on training. In political matters Washington felt that African-Americans who were successful farmers would be allowed to vote. Du Bois was against disfranchisement, and felt that African-Americans should be allowed to vote because "it was vital to black progress" (p. 51). Just on these three issues alone it is clear that both men disagreed on the mode to success by the black community.

Harris does an excellent job in laying out exactly how the two men felt on all issues and making it clear to the reader. Even though the book was not very long, the reader is left with a very comprehensive understanding of the topic. Harris, for the most part, does not choose a side in the debate. In fact he states that both were right about some things, but it appeared as though he may have slightly favored Du Bois and his plan for the advancement of the African-American community. Harris does not directly mention that he preferred one particular side, but he does comment that Du Bois probably won the imaginary "debate". He also mentioned that Washington could have and should have been a little more aggressive for advancement once he gained a national reputation.

This would seem to imply that Harris was in favor of a more radical path for assembling a black community, and Du Bois was the more radical of the two. If thought of in a different light and without taking current sentiment into consideration, I think that Washington's approach may have been a little better given the time period. In the south, African-Americans were disfranchised by legal means, and violence towards African-Americans was common. Washington sought to shape a black community in the south that was completely controlled by white southerners. He was practical in that he realized how things really were and worked with that, instead of jumping ahead to how things should be and ignoring the effort it was going to take to get there peacefully. His plan potentially could have avoided a lot of violence, and progressively gained African-American rights and economical gains.

Harris uses a vast amount of sources in his book, which shows that it was well researched and planned out. The sources were also very credible. A large portion of his resources were primary sources including books, speeches and notes from both Washington and Du Bois. Other sources that were not written by Washington and Du Bois include Arthur L. Smith's Language, Communication, and Rhetoric in Black America, written in 1972, and C. Vann Woodward's Origins of the New South, written in 1951, to name a few.

Harris also uses books written by people who studied the lives of Washington and Du Bois including Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe's Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization, written in 1916 and Ed Washington's Selected Speeches of Booker T. Washington, written in 1932. Some sources that were written by Washington include his books Up From Slavery, A Negro for a Century, The Negro Problem and The Story of My Life and Work. A nine volume series of papers written by Washington were also include, entitled, The Booker T. Washington Papers, edited by Louis H. Harlan. Some of his speeches that were used include, Character Building: Being Addresses Delivered on Sunday Evenings to Students of Tuskegee Institute. Harris uses many sources written by Du Bois as well, including such books as An ABC of Color, Black Folk: Then and Now, The Negroes in the Making of America and The Souls of Black Folks. A collection of his papers, 125 papers in all, were compiled in The Schoenberg Collection of Negro Literature and History.

Philip Fone r created a two- volume set of speeches by Du Bois entitled W.E.B. Du Bois Speaks: Speeches and Addresses. Harris is able to organize his sources, as vast as they are, quite well. At the end of every chapter Harris lists his endnotes. He has about fifty endnotes per chapter, showing the depth of research that he did in preparation for this book. The sheer amount of sources gives his work credibility and reliability and results in this book becoming an invaluable resource for anyone interested in this topic. Not only are his sources well organized, but his chapters are organized in such a manner that allowed the reader to follow the sequence of them.

Before Harris begins the debate in his book he provides the reader with background information about the time period and a little information on the two major African-American leaders. His chapters are arranged in outline form, with a brief introduction of the material at the beginning of every chapter. When he changes topics, he indicated it with a large space and the title of the new topic printed in big print. His introduction clearly states his purpose and his theories and even lets the reader know what is contained in each chapter and how the book will progress. He even calls the book a "study" (p. 8), which is very appropriate since this book is almost written like a simple, concise scientific research paper. He begins with the introduction, in which he states his thesis.

Then he gives the background to set up the time period and the significance of his research. He details his source material in a separate section, similar to how scientists explain their methods. His "experiment" is the imaginary or created debate that never actually happened between the two men. He then concludes by summing up his arguments and the results of his research. This method of organization, while it might seem somewhat formal a different kind book or with another topic, works well for Harris. It makes the book very easy to understand and helps the reader follow the logic of the arguments presented.

Another reason that this book was easy to understand is that Harris's writing style is very simple. He gives the reader the information in such a manner that he takes all of the ambiguity out of following along. His explanation of the views of Washington and Du Bois were very clear and not steeped in the jargon and complicated sentences that seem to permeate some history books. This makes it easy to distinguish the differences between the two. Harris is rarely vague or unclear in presenting his message. He accomplishes this by not assuming that the reader is an expert on the subject.

This book really makes the reader think about the conditions in both the North and the South after the Civil War and Reconstruction. It makes the reader, absorb, analyze and answer the question of which man was right, Du Bois or Washington. The reader may form a definite opinion and take one side, or form the conclusion, like Harris does, that both men are were right and wrong in some ways and, despite their different approaches to assimilation, they both had the best interests of the African-American community at heart.