ASSIGNMENT ON BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND W. E. B. DU BOIS

W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of
Black Folk (1903), Chapter III:
Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others

Citation
Instructions: Each paragraph is numbered. Follow this format: (Souls, chap. 3, para. 1).

 From birth till
death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned!
 . . . . . . . .

 Hereditary bondsmen! Know ye
not
 Who would be free themselves
must strike the blow?
 BYRON.

EASILY the most striking thing in the history of the American
Negro since 1876 is the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. It began at
the time when war memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of
astonishing commercial development was dawning; a sense of doubt and
hesitation overtook the freedmen’s sons,—then it was that his leading began.
Mr. Washington came, with a simple definite programme, at the psychological
moment when the nation was a little ashamed of having bestowed so much
sentiment on Negroes, and was concentrating its energies on Dollars. His
programme of industrial education, conciliation of the South, and submission
and silence as to civil and political rights, was not wholly original; the
Free Negroes from 1830 up to wartime had striven to build industrial schools,
and the American Missionary Association had from the first taught various
trades; and Price and others had sought a way of honorable alliance with the best
of the Southerners. But Mr. Washington first indissolubly linked these
things; he put enthusiasm, unlimited energy, and perfect faith into this
programme, and changed it from a by-path into a veritable Way of Life. And
the tale of the methods by which he did this is a fascinating study of human
life.

 1

It startled the nation to hear a Negro advocating such a
programme after many decades of bitter complaint; it startled and won the
applause of the South, it interested and won the admiration of the North; and
after a confused murmur of protest, it silenced if it did not convert the
Negroes themselves.

 2

To gain the sympathy and coöperation of the various elements
comprising the white South was Mr. Washington’s first task; and this, at the
time Tuskegee was founded, seemed, for a black man, well-nigh impossible. And
yet ten years later it was done in the word spoken at Atlanta: “In all things
purely social we can be as separate as the five fingers, and yet one as the
hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” This “Atlanta Compromise”
is by all odds the most notable thing in Mr. Washington’s career. The South
interpreted it in different ways: the radicals received it as a complete
surrender of the demand for civil and political equality; the conservatives,
as a generously conceived working basis for mutual understanding. So both
approved it, and to-day its author is certainly the most distinguished
Southerner since Jefferson Davis, and the one with the largest personal
following.

 3

Next to this achievement comes Mr. Washington’s work in gaining
place and consideration in the North. Others less shrewd and tactful had
formerly essayed to sit on these two stools and had fallen between them; but
as Mr. Washington knew the heart of the South from birth and training, so by
singular insight he intuitively grasped the spirit of the age which was
dominating the North. And so thoroughly did he learn the speech and thought
of triumphant commercialism, and the ideals of material prosperity, that the picture
of a lone black boy poring over a French grammar amid the weeds and dirt of a
neglected home soon seemed to him the acme of absurdities. One wonders what
Socrates and St. Francis of Assisi would say to this.

 4

And yet this very singleness of vision and thorough oneness with
his age is a mark of the successful man. It is as though Nature must needs
make men narrow in order to give them force. So Mr. Washington’s cult has
gained unquestioning followers, his work has wonderfully prospered, his friends
are legion, and his enemies are confounded. To-day he stands as the one
recognized spokesman of his ten million fellows, and one of the most notable
figures in a nation of seventy millions. One hesitates, therefore, to
criticise a life which, beginning with so little, has done so much. And yet
the time is come when one may speak in all sincerity and utter courtesy of
the mistakes and shortcomings of Mr. Washington’s career, as well as of his
triumphs, without being thought captious or envious, and without forgetting
that it is easier to do ill than well in the world.

 5

The criticism that has hitherto met Mr. Washington has not
always been of this broad character. In the South especially has he had to
walk warily to avoid the harshest judgments,—and naturally so, for he is
dealing with the one subject of deepest sensitiveness to that section.
Twice—once when at the Chicago celebration of the Spanish-American War he
alluded to the color-prejudice that is “eating away the vitals of the South,”
and once when he dined with President Roosevelt—has the resulting Southern
criticism been violent enough to threaten seriously his popularity. In the
North the feeling has several times forced itself into words, that Mr.
Washington’s counsels of submission overlooked certain elements of true
manhood, and that his educational programme was unnecessarily narrow.
Usually, however, such criticism has not found open expression, although,
too, the spiritual sons of the Abolitionists have not been prepared to
acknowledge that the schools founded before Tuskegee, by men of broad ideals
and self-sacrificing spirit, were wholly failures or worthy of ridicule.
While, then, criticism has not failed to follow Mr. Washington, yet the
prevailing public opinion of the land has been but too willing to deliver the
solution of a wearisome problem into his hands, and say, “If that is all you
and your race ask, take it.”

 6

Among his own people, however, Mr. Washington has encountered
the strongest and most lasting opposition, amounting at times to bitterness,
and even to-day continuing strong and insistent even though largely silenced
in outward expression by the public opinion of the nation. Some of this
opposition is, of course, mere envy; the disappointment of displaced
demagogues and the spite of narrow minds. But aside from this, there is among
educated and thoughtful colored men in all parts of the land a feeling of
deep regret, sorrow, and apprehension at the wide currency and ascendancy
which some of Mr. Washington’s theories have gained. These same men admire
his sincerity of purpose, and are willing to forgive much to honest endeavor
which is doing something worth the doing. They coöperate with Mr. Washington
as far as they conscientiously can; and, indeed, it is no ordinary tribute to
this man’s tact and power that, steering as he must between so many diverse
interests and opinions, he so largely retains the respect of all.

 7

But the hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a
dangerous thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate
silence and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so
passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. Honest and earnest
criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,—criticism of
writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those
led,—this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society. If
the best of the American Negroes receive by outer pressure a leader whom they
had not recognized before, manifestly there is here a certain palpable gain.
Yet there is also irreparable loss,—a loss of that peculiarly valuable
education which a group receives when by search and criticism it finds and
commissions its own leaders. The way in which this is done is at once the
most elementary and the nicest problem of social growth. History is but the
record of such group-leadership; and yet how infinitely changeful is its type
and character! And of all types and kinds, what can be more instructive than
the leadership of a group within a group?—that curious double movement where
real progress may be negative and actual advance be relative retrogression.
All this is the social student’s inspiration and despair.

 8

Now in the past the American Negro has had instructive experience
in the choosing of group leaders, founding thus a peculiar dynasty which in
the light of present conditions is worth while studying. When sticks and
stones and beasts form the sole environment of a people, their attitude is
largely one of determined opposition to and conquest of natural forces. But
when to earth and brute is added an environment of men and ideas, then the
attitude of the imprisoned group may take three main forms,—a feeling of
revolt and revenge; an attempt to adjust all thought and action to the will
of the greater group; or, finally, a determined effort at self-realization
and self-development despite environing opinion. The influence of all of
these attitudes at various times can be traced in the history of the American
Negro, and in the evolution of his successive leaders.

 9

Before 1750, while the fire of African freedom still burned in
the veins of the slaves, there was in all leadership or attempted leadership
but the one motive of revolt and revenge,—typified in the terrible Maroons,
the Danish blacks, and Cato of Stono, and veiling all the Americas in fear of
insurrection. The liberalizing tendencies of the latter half of the
eighteenth century brought, along with kindlier relations between black and
white, thoughts of ultimate adjustment and assimilation. Such aspiration was
especially voiced in the earnest songs of Phyllis, in the martyrdom of
Attucks, the fighting of Salem and Poor, the intellectual accomplishments of
Banneker and Derham, and the political demands of the Cuffes.

 10

Stern financial and social stress after the war cooled much of
the previous humanitarian ardor. The disappointment and impatience of the
Negroes at the persistence of slavery and serfdom voiced itself in two
movements. The slaves in the South, aroused undoubtedly by vague rumors of
the Haytian revolt, made three fierce attempts at insurrection,—in 1800 under
Gabriel in Virginia, in 1822 under Vesey in Carolina, and in 1831 again in
Virginia under the terrible Nat Turner. In the Free States, on the other
hand, a new and curious attempt at self-development was made. In Philadelphia
and New York color-prescription led to a withdrawal of Negro communicants
from white churches and the formation of a peculiar socio-religious
institution among the Negroes known as the African Church,—an organization
still living and controlling in its various branches over a million of men.

 11

Walker’s wild appeal against the trend of the times showed how
the world was changing after the coming of the cotton-gin. By 1830 slavery
seemed hopelessly fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly cowed into
submission. The free Negroes of the North, inspired by the mulatto immigrants
from the West Indies, began to change the basis of their demands; they
recognized the slavery of slaves, but insisted that they themselves were
freemen, and sought assimilation and amalgamation with the nation on the same
terms with other men. Thus, Forten and Purvis of Philadelphia, Shad of
Wilmington, Du Bois of New Haven, Barbadoes of Boston, and others, strove
singly and together as men, they said, not as slaves; as “people of color,”
not as “Negroes.” The trend of the times, however, refused them recognition
save in individual and exceptional cases, considered them as one with all the
despised blacks, and they soon found themselves striving to keep even the
rights they formerly had of voting and working and moving as freemen. Schemes
of migration and colonization arose among them; but these they refused to
entertain, and they eventually turned to the Abolition movement as a final
refuge.

 12

Here, led by Remond, Nell, Wells-Brown, and Douglass, a new
period of self-assertion and self-development dawned. To be sure, ultimate
freedom and assimilation was the ideal before the leaders, but the assertion
of the manhood rights of the Negro by himself was the main reliance, and John
Brown’s raid was the extreme of its logic. After the war and emancipation,
the great form of Frederick Douglass, the greatest of American Negro leaders,
still led the host. Self-assertion, especially in political lines, was the
main programme, and behind Douglass came Elliot, Bruce, and Langston, and the
Reconstruction politicians, and, less conspicuous but of greater social
significance Alexander Crummell and Bishop Daniel Payne.

 13

Then came the Revolution of 1876, the suppression of the Negro
votes, the changing and shifting of ideals, and the seeking of new lights in
the great night. Douglass, in his old age, still bravely stood for the ideals
of his early manhood,—ultimate assimilation through self-assertion,
and on no other terms. For a time Price arose as a new leader, destined, it
seemed, not to give up, but to re-state the old ideals in a form less
repugnant to the white South. But he passed away in his prime. Then came the
new leader. Nearly all the former ones had become leaders by the silent
suffrage of their fellows, had sought to lead their own people alone, and
were usually, save Douglass, little known outside their race. But Booker T.
Washington arose as essentially the leader not of one race but of two,—a
compromiser between the South, the North, and the Negro. Naturally the
Negroes resented, at first bitterly, signs of compromise which surrendered
their civil and political rights, even though this was to be exchanged for
larger chances of economic development. The rich and dominating North,
however, was not only weary of the race problem, but was investing largely in
Southern enterprises, and welcomed any method of peaceful coöperation. Thus,
by national opinion, the Negroes began to recognize Mr. Washington’s
leadership; and the voice of criticism was hushed.

 14

Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of
adjustment and submission; but adjustment at such a peculiar time as to make
his programme unique. This is an age of unusual economic development, and Mr.
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. Moreover, this is an age when the more
advanced races are coming in closer contact with the less developed races,
and the race-feeling is therefore intensified; and Mr. Washington’s programme
practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races. Again, in our
own land, the reaction from the sentiment of war time has given impetus to
race-prejudice against Negroes, and Mr. Washington withdraws many of the high
demands of Negroes as men and American citizens. In other periods of intensified
prejudice all the Negro’s tendency to self-assertion has been called forth;
at this period a policy of submission is advocated. In the history of nearly
all other races and peoples the doctrine preached at such crises has been
that manly self-respect is worth more than lands and houses, and that a
people who voluntarily surrender such respect, or cease striving for it, are
not worth civilizing.

 15

In answer to this, it has been claimed that the Negro can
survive only through submission. Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black
people give up, at least for the present, three things,—
 First, political power,
 Second, insistence on civil
rights,
 Third, higher education of
Negro youth,—
and concentrate all their energies on industrial education, the accumulation
of wealth, and the conciliation of the South. This policy has been
courageously and insistently advocated for over fifteen years, and has been
triumphant for perhaps ten years. As a result of this tender of the palm-branch,
what has been the return? In these years there have occurred:

1. The
   disfranchisement of the Negro.
2. The legal creation
   of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro.
3. The steady
   withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the
   Negro.

 16

These movements are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr.
Washington’s teachings; but his propaganda has, without a shadow of doubt,
helped their speedier accomplishment. The question then comes: Is it
possible, and probable, that nine millions of men can make effective progress
in economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile
caste, and allowed only the most meagre chance for developing their
exceptional men? If history and reason give any distinct answer to these questions,
it is an emphatic No. And Mr. Washington thus faces the triple paradox
of his career:

1. He is striving
   nobly to make Negro artisans business men and property-owners; but it is
   utterly impossible, under modern competitive methods, for workingmen and
   property-owners to defend their rights and exist without the right of
   suffrage.
2. He insists on
   thrift and self-respect, but at the same time counsels a silent
   submission to civic inferiority such as is bound to sap the manhood of
   any race in the long run.
3. He advocates
   common-school and industrial training, and depreciates institutions of
   higher learning; but neither the Negro common-schools, nor Tuskegee
   itself, could remain open a day were it not for teachers trained in
   Negro colleges, or trained by their graduates.

 17

This triple paradox in Mr. Washington’s position is the object
of criticism by two classes of colored Americans. One class is spiritually
descended from Toussaint the Savior, through Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner, and
they represent the attitude of revolt and revenge; they hate the white South
blindly and distrust the white race generally, and so far as they agree on
definite action, think that the Negro’s only hope lies in emigration beyond
the borders of the United States. And yet, by the irony of fate, nothing has
more effectually made this programme seem hopeless than the recent course of
the United States toward weaker and darker peoples in the West Indies,
Hawaii, and the Philippines,—for where in the world may we go and be safe
from lying and brute force?

 18

The other class of Negroes who cannot agree with Mr. Washington
has hitherto said little aloud. They deprecate the sight of scattered
counsels, of internal disagreement; and especially they dislike making their
just criticism of a useful and earnest man an excuse for a general discharge
of venom from small-minded opponents. Nevertheless, the questions involved
are so fundamental and serious that it is difficult to see how men like the
Grimkes, Kelly Miller, J. W. E. Bowen, and other repr