Social and Economic Equality of African Americans in America Essay

Social and Economic Equality of African the Statesns in America The press for social and economic par of low people in America has been long and slow. It is sometimes amazing that any progress has been made in the racial equality arena at all for each one doubtful step forward seems to be diluted by losses elsewhere. For every Stacey Koons that is convicted, there seems to be a Texaco executive waiting to send obtuses thorn to the past. Through divulge the vie for equal rights, there have been courageous Black leaders at the forefront of each discrete movement. From early activists much(prenominal)(prenominal) as Frederick Douglass, booker T. cap, and W.E.B. DuBois, to 1960s civil rights leaders and radicals such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers, the progress that has been made toward dependable equality has resulted from the visionary leaders of these brave individuals. This does not imply, however, that there has ever been widespread agreement indoors the Black community on strategy or that the actions of prominent Black leaders have met with strong support from those who would benefit from these actions. This report depart examine the influence of two early era Black activists Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. Through an analysis of the ideological differences between these two men, the author will argue that, although they disagreed over the direction of the struggle for equality, the differences between these two men actually enhanced the status of Black Americans in the struggle for racial equality. We will look specifically at the events leading to and skirt the Atlanta Compromise in 1895. In order to understand the differences in the philosophies of Washington and Dubois, it is useful to know something about their backgrounds. Booker T. Washington, born a slave in 1856 in Franklin County, Virginia, could be described as a pragmatist. He was only able to attend drill three months out of the year, with the remaining nine months spent working in coal mines. He developed the idea of Blacks becoming skilled tradesmen as a useful stepping-st unrivaled toward respect by the white majority and eventual full equality. Washington worked his way through Hampton Institute and helped found the Tuskeegee Institute, a trade school for blacks. His essential strategy for the advancement of American Blacks was for them to achieve enha... ...ecame more mainstream, it became increasingly conservative, and this did not please DuBois, who left the organization in 1934. He returned afterwards but was eventually shunned by Black leadership both inside(a) and outside of the NAACP, especially after he voiced admiration for the USSR. In the political climate of the late 1940s and 1950s, any hint of a pro-communist attitude--black or white--was unwelcome in any group with a interior(a) political agenda. We can see, then, that neither Washingtons strategy of appeasement nor DuBoiss plan for an selected Bl ack intelligentsia was to become wholly successful in elevating American Blacks to a position of equality. However, perhaps it was more than the leadership of any one Black man that encouraged African Americans to demand a full measure of social and economic equality. Perhaps the fact that there was a public dialogue in itself did more to encourage Black equality than the philosophy of any one prominent Black man. After all, concepts such as equality are exactly that concepts. As such, it up to each of us to decide how we see ourselves in relation to others superior or inferior, equal or not equal, the choice is ultimately our own.