Who Is Better?


panpareil
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To be honest, I'm unsure.

Washington, IMHO, was a bit of a sell-out. The Atlanta Compromise he brokered may have done SOME good for the African American community, but it set dangerous precedent for civil rights that didn't begin to get corrected until the '70s (and even then we didn't see any real progress until recently).

DuBois, on the other hand, vehemently opposed the Compromise, and he wasn't the only one, either. Beyond that, they both fought for African American Civil Rights, so the only major difference is tactics.

So the real question is WHOSE TACTICS WERE BETTER?

And, to answer that, I'm inclined to say DuBois, but there's no denying the fact that Washington achieved results, regardless of continued danger the Compromise set up.

I suppose it's a case of "Potato, Rutabaga.".

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The Atlanta Compromise is what DuBois called it. And it was his denigration of Washington's position that eventually won the day. It is also the DuBois position that steered the black community from the party of their liberators in to the party of their former masters. The real compromise was the welfare of the majority of the black community for the creation of a ruling black elite.

To quote Washington, "There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public."

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