Blog #10

 

          When Washington became principal at Alabama’s Tuskegee Training Institute in 1881, he began to develop his own educational philosophy. Washington was raised as a slave during his childhood in Virginia and had been educated at Hampton Institute under his White mentor Samuel Armstrong. Therefore Washington was an avid supporter of the virtues of manual and industrial training. Within a decade he was the nation’s leading supporter of industrial education for African Americans. With his influence it gained a fresh new importance. Washington really emphasized practical lessons imparted through manual labor, declaring “we wanted to teach them to study actual things instead of mere books alone.” Washington’s ideas of education for Blacks conformed closely to what the Whites would agree with, for they believed that schooling only made African Americans less willing to perform menial labor. Therefore it is no wonder why Washington was more popular and recognized among White leaders, and not so much among African Americans. When Washington was extolled in the White press, many Blacks naturally felt pride, but other came to resent his statements regarding a limited form of education and acceptance of segregation. There is no doubt that up until his death in 1915 Washington was the most famous and powerful Black man in the United States who spread the gospel of industrial education through Black high school and teacher training institutes. But it was not enduring. DuBois’s experience was quite different however, he was born free in the North. DuBois was educated in the Great Barrington, Massachusetts, public schools before attending Fisk University in Nashville and pursued graduate studies in Europe. He became the first African American at the Harvard University and to have received a PhD in 1895. DuBois was a great supported of classical education. No different than his own education, he promoted advanced academic preparation for African Americans. He truly felt that if Blacks wanted to protest the injustices they faced and to form useful strategies to improve the Black community they needed thoughtful articulate leaders, thus academic education for African Americans was the way to go. He published a book called The Souls of Black Folks, which was in direct opposition to Washington’s views. DuBois argued that higher education was the most pressing task facing African Americans. Without higher education there would be no advanced learning, and no prospect of general improvement of the Black population, in other words they would be no better than their original position as slaves. Frustrated by Washington’s views, Dubois and other reform –minded African Americans formed the Niagara Movement in 1909, conducting a series of meetings to discuss the problems of race and inequality and also potential solutions. Thus the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was born. Therefore, although he was not as well-known as Washington, Dubois certainly won the great debate over Black education and its advancement.