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Booker T. Washington 's Philosophy And Actions

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African Americans were freed after the Civil War with the thirteenth amendment, which emancipated all slaves in the United States. Even though they were free, African Americans were not treated as equals because of the Jim Crow Laws, sharecropping, and segregation. Two African American leaders in the late 19th and 20th century – Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois – both longed for black equality and civil rights, yet each had a very different method to achieve this. Booker T. Washington intended for African Americans to eventually obtain equality, but his plan of racial accommodation betrayed their interests. However, W.E.B Du Bois had a better method for bringing social equality to the African Americans, since he made gaining equality one of his main focuses; therefore, he was right between the two. Booker T. Washington’s philosophy and actions betrayed the interests of African Americans because he was more interested on the blacks getting educated and getting the respect of the white authorities, instead of worrying on getting their political and social equality right away, which was the main interest of the African Americans. In “The Atlanta Exposition Address”, Washington said that blacks would sacrifice their civil rights and social equality for the time being, as long as whites guaranteed that they would receive industrial education and jobs because he believed that in order to fully obtain equality, the blacks should improve themselves. “It is at the bottom of

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