Washington, educator, reformer and the most influentional black leader of his time preached a philosophy of self-help, racial solidarity and accomodation. He urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and concentrate on elevating themselves through hard work and material prosperity.
He believed in education in the crafts, industrial and farming skills and the cultivation of the virtues of patience, enterprise and thrift. This, he said, would win the respect of whites and lead to African Americans being fully accepted as citizens and integrated into all strata of society. However, the latter advocated withdrawal from the mainstream in the name of economic advancement. In the interview, Du Bois discusses Booker T. Here is the full text of this classic in the literature of civil rights.
It is a prophetic work anticipating and inspiring much of the black consciousness and activism of the s. In it Du Bois describes the magnitude of American racism and demands that it end. This site on Du Bois offers a lengthy biographical summary and a bilbiography of his writings and books. A summary of Booker T. In the speech he advocated black Americans accept for awhile the political and social status quo of segregation and discriminaton and concentrate instead on self-help and building economic and material success within the black community.
Washington was the first black to be invited to the White House for dinner with a President. Du Bois became the editor of the organization's monthly magazine, The Crisis , using his perch to draw attention to the still widespread practice of lynching, pushing for nationwide legislation that would outlaw the cruel extrajudicial killings.
A article in the journal gave a year-by-year list of more than 2, lynchings over the previous three decades. Du Bois, who considered himself a socialist, also published articles in favor of unionized labor, although he called out union leaders for barring Black membership.
Du Bois served as editor of The Crisis until , when he resigned following a rift with NAACP leadership over his controversial stance on segregation. He viewed the "separate but equal" status as an acceptable position for Blacks. In this role, he attended the founding convention for the United Nations, channeling his energies toward lobbying the global body to acknowledge the suffering of Black Americans.
Du Bois also turned a spotlight onto the injustices of colonialism, urging the United Nations to use its influence to take a stand against such exploitative regimes. He later organized a series of Pan-African Congress meetings around the world in , , , and , bringing together intellectuals from Africa, the West Indies, and the United States.
At the end of his life, Du Bois embarked on an ambitious project to create a new encyclopedia on the African diaspora, funded by the government of Ghana. The heavily used pass-through between Railroad Street and the Triplex Cinema parking lot will be called Du Bois Alley, after young artists from Railroad Street Youth Project unveil their new murals honoring the native son.
Richard Stanley, who owns the Triplex Cinema and the adjacent commercial building, said what is now a chalkboard "Courage Wall" created by the Youth Project will be replaced by two murals. Another mural panel will also go up in the alley around the corner, on the side of his Triplex Cinema building, he said. The fourth is planned for the alley between Main Street and the parking lot near Rubi's Cafe, in a building owned by Eric Bruun, who was the founding Youth Project board president.
The murals near Railroad Street will be unveiled in February, one event in the town's official celebration of Du Bois' th birthday on Feb. Du Bois was considered pivotal to the nation's political debates over race and class. But his ideas were controversial, and his radical thinking challenged mainstream thought. At age 93, he moved to Ghana and joined the Communist Party. Though the reasons are complex, according to those who study Du Bois, the communist label has stuck, even long after his death.
Many local town officials and residents have said that partly for this reason, local recognition of his work is late-in-coming. Du Bois Center donated framed prints of a Du Bois family photo and his birth certificate to the town. Both now have a prominent place in town hall, the first visible honors of Du Bois ever in the building.
Then a local group recently launched a web campaign for a statue of Du Bois, to go up in a prominent place in town. My town.
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