Essay On W. E. B. Dubois

Washington became the chief black advisor to President’s Roosevelt and Taft; moreover, Washington was the first African-American to ever be invited to the White House. Despite the fact that racism was rife within the whole country, both Presidents accepted Washington through his accommodating and submissive stance. Yet despite such advances Washington sill attracted many critics. Civil Right activist William Monroe Trotter contested Washington’s political dominance and vociferously opposed what he believed were Washington’s racially appeasing policies. He used the Boston Literary and Historical Association, an organisation he founded to attract likely adversaries of Washington, recruiting W.E.B. DuBois, to further this cause. So opposed was

The manner that he went about this was in stark contrast to that of his closest adversary W.E.B.DuBois and other black leaders. His Atlanta Compromise speech broadened his influence with captains of industry as funders for his work and it opened the door to the world of politics and political patronage. He promoted and successfully implemented the first all black educational institute that empowered black men and women in accessing the labour market and playing an important role in the economic recovery of the American South. However, the question remains, at what

Following his Atlanta Compromise speech his stock and influence was hailed by whites and blacks alike, and was further enhanced through the establishment of the National Negro Business League in 1900. On the strength of his autobiography he came to the notice of President’s Roosevelt and Taft and became the chief black advisor to both. Harlan asserts that Washington secured and nurtured his white following through his conservative policies and his restrained statements. Despite the fact that he faced opposition from black and white liberals both in the Niagara Movement and NAACP he still managed to withstand his critics. Harlan argues that he did this at times through “underhanded means”. Many American’s keenly followed the unfolding events of the 1912 “race war’ in Cuba, where, as in the American South, blacks and mulattoes were treated as second class citizens. Given the unrest in Cuba, white Southerners felt validated that the system of formal segregation in the American South was a justifiable concept. Interestingly Washington, some twelve years earlier, in an article entitled "Negro Leaders Have Kept Racial Peace," explained that African Americans had far more “reason to resort to physical violence” yet did not.