...of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois are quite different. Du Bois had a plan of action that went to ending discrimination but Booker T. Washington had different ideas ("W.E.B.," 2005). Washington's "Atlanta Compromise" speech had been given during the very same year that W.E.B. Du Bois would complete his Ph.D ("W.E.B.," 2005). It is inevitable that they would be compared. Washington claimed that if African Americans were to learn specific technical skills, they could attain financial independence ("W.E.B.," 2005). He thought that racial harmony and equality would actually come from economic independence ("W.E.B.," 2005). This is a rather conservative point of view. The idea that hard work would be able to compensate for inequities is one position.
W.E.B. Du Bois believed that Washington's ideas would have an unintended effect of discouraging African Americans from looking to higher educational opportunities ("W.E.B.," 2005). Du Bois advocates for "higher education and culture for African Americans an elite of culture and education to lead the illiterate and barely literate millions of 1903" (Hamilton, 2003). Washington would relate...