Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois were two well educated African American men who became great leaders of the black community in the late 19th and 20th century. They both had different views about on how the black social and economic progress should be approached. Booker T. Washington born into slavery in 1856 and had bi racial parents. Booker believed in being educated and he sent out the message to students that “practical knowledg” was importain( page 602). He believed that African Americans could succeed if they worked hard and start at the bottom and work their way up the social latter and not make waves. When the white southerners impose the Jim Crow Law Booker wanted the African Americans men not to become social activist instead