Two Great Black Leaders: Washington & Du Bois - Essay Sample

Introduction

In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, two great black leaders emerged to fight for civil rights for all African Americans. Despite their common goal, they sharply differed on the strategies to use for economic as well as social progress of the black. While Washington leadership focused on industrial as well as agricultural labor, Du Bois preferred using higher education to get the first-class citizens in the African American race. Washington, who was an educator and a reformer, leadership approach incorporated self-help philosophy to the people. He also preached racial solidarity as well as the accommodation by urging the black Americans to accept the discrimination for a moment and then focus on self-elevation. He would achieve this by encouraging them to work hard and attain prosperity in terms of material.

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Washington believed in cultivating the virtues of a patient, thrift, and enterprise. He intimated that Africa American might attain their rights of choice by presenting themselves useful to the whites. According to him, this style would ensure that the whites respect the blacks, which will make the African Americans to be accepted entirely as citizens (Washington, 234). Du Bois was a black intellectual, political thinker and a scholar. He sharply differed with Washington's style and said it would only perpetuate oppression by the whites. Instead, Du Bois integrated a political action as well as the agenda of civil rights. He argued that there would be a social change when college-educated groups of black develop. Washington approach led to the conservative group while Du Bois style and philosophy of agitation prompted the Civil Rights movement (Wintz, 146).

Blacks and Chinese During the 19th Century

Contrast

The blacks were mostly from Africa who was transported to America as slaves in the 19th century. The first group of Africans brought to Virginia colony. They then became indentured servants. The blacks who were the ancestors of the African didn't go to America to be slaves by choice. The black Africans were kidnaped from their lands and then shipped to America through the Middle Passage journey to Jamestown in Virginia. As slaves, the blacks offered labor in the production of rice, cotton, and tobacco.

In contrast, Chinese immigrants came to America from their own choice. Unlike the blacks, they were mostly men whose primary intention was to earn massive incomes to support their families back in China. Unlike blacks, the Chinese destination was the American West (Preuhs,530).

There was the Gold Rush in the American West where Chinese camped hence were hired in the construction of Transcontinental Railroad. They helped in completing to lay rails in the Sierra Nevada mountain which was very rugged. Whereas black's main area of work was in crop production, the leading Chinese area of specialization was construction. Where the reward of the Chinese action was with a pay, before Act of 1992, the blacks labor was with no compensation.

Comparison

Both the blacks and Chinese were subordinate groups of minorities hence not accepted by the larger society of the Native Americans. As a result, there was self-segregation and assimilation of the groups. Both suffered prejudice and discrimination. They were stigmatized, where the Africans were made slaves disadvantaged in most occasions, their children were automatically made slaves as were sold in line with livestock. The Chinese got threatened that they took the positions meant for the Natives, which made government enact stringent laws of immigration which made many Chinese stuck in America.

Work Cited

Preuhs, Robert R. "Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965/Twists of Fate: Multiracial Coalitions and Minority Representation in the US House of Representatives." Perspectives on Politics 16.2 (2018): 527-529.

Washington, Booker T. Up from slavery: With related documents. Macmillan Higher Education, 2019.

Wintz, Cary D. African American Political Thought, 1890-1930: Washington, Du Bois, Garvey, and Randolph. Routledge, 2015.