Masaryk University
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5.2 Du Bois’s commentsDu Bois thought about the approach differently. By taking look at parts written by Du Bois in his The Immediate Program of the American Negro, taken from The Crisis, p. 337, where Du Bois reveals his thought on what should African-Americans do, step by step, and how they should approach the uplift and what is important. Du Bois throughout the text more than twice highlights the importance of political power. He even mentions that economic power is also important. However, to have an economic power, you must first achieve the political power and that he would want to achieve through leadership and reformation of laws. Like Washington, he also mentions the need to increase the contact between African-American and white community, but he does not do it in such a submissive way like Washington does. Du Bois then highlight the importance of organization and unity which he sees as fundamental: We must first make American courts build up a set of legal decisions which will protect the plain legal rights of black American citizens. We must get legislatures and Congress to pass laws to give national aid to public school education, and to remove legal discriminations based simply on race and color. The human contact between white and black human beings must be increased. It is frightful that ten million black people are coming to believe that all white people are liars and thieves. The whites in turn are coming to believe that the chief industry of Negroes is bothering whites. The publication of the truth repeatedly can help change public opinion and correct these awful lies. To accomplish all these goals, we must organize. Organization among us has already gone far but it must go farther and higher. Organization is sacrifice. It is sacrifice of opinions, of time, of work, and of money. But it is, after all, the cheapest way of buying the most priceless of gifts—freedom and efficiency. Unlike Washington, who speaks to each and every individual to play his part on the uplift through progress and hard work, Du Bois suggest organizing as one and through suitable relationship press the issue, which then again shows Du Bois’s inclination to the notions of communism, or rather Marxism which was mentioned before in chapter 2 of this thesis. Also he is more aggressive in expressing what he wants for African-American society than Washington. Washington is suggesting, Du Bois is just stating how things should be / will be. In addition, Du Bois is not just encouraging whites to accept African-Americans, but he is also encouraging African-Americans to accept whites. The Niagara Movement speech is no different. More than anything, Du Bois again puts the right to vote (political power) first. What is interesting, is that Du Bois mentions that he wants to enhance rights just for African-Americans but for whites as well: In detail our demands are clear and unequivocal. First, we would vote; with the right to vote goes everything: Freedom, manhood, the honor of your wives, the chastity of your daughters, the right to work, and the chance to rise, and let no man listen to those who deny this. We want full manhood suffrage, and we want it now, henceforth and forever. Second. We want discrimination in public accommodation to cease. Separation in railway and street cars, based simply on race and color, is un-American, un-democratic, and silly. We protest against all such discrimination… Fourth. We want the laws enforced against rich as well as poor; against Capitalist as well as Laborer; against white as well as black. We are not more lawless than the white race, we are more often arrested, convicted, and mobbed. We want justice even for criminals and outlaws… The following comments of Du Bois are more or less highlighting the differences between the two oppositions in community (pro-Washington and pro-Du Bois camps). These differences, in my opinion, are the reason why the community was divided into two camps which have been mentioned before. These camps, or rather groups of followers, will be referred to as pro-Washington and pro-Du Bois in this thesis. Du Bois summarizes the traits that these two sides of the coin possessed. In this part he talks about pro-Washington group which was more popular with Southerners. He highlights Washington success, but he is not satisfied with his approach to inferiority of races. He then points out the three points of Washington’s strategy: (from W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk) 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. 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" By these three things that according to Washington were to be sacrificed in order to aim for the uplift were more popular with white community and Southerners. On the other hand, Du Bois’s approach was more appealing to Northerners and white abolitionists who have never have to endure the hardships of slavery. He highlights his dislikes towards Washington’s strategy and points out the utmost importance of his own ideas. In my opinion, this is where Du Bois’s personal aversion to Washington is shown the most: 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 representatives of this group, can much longer be silent. Such men feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation three things.
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