USA Africa Dialogue Series - THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

State of the Discipline
THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
W. E. B. Du Bois

The late Booker T. Washington may be considered in four aspects. First
there can be no doubt that his chief significance lies in the fact
that he cannot be considered simply as an individual but that he is so
inextricably woven into the national and even world movements of his
day that his death becomes historic. Again, most Colored men in
America are simply "Colored." They are submerged in a great
undifferentiated group; they are not considered as individuals but are
lumped together as a "race." Mr. Washington was more than "Colored."
He was an American, and the comments upon his career tend continually
to emphasize the fact that such a struggle upward against terrific
odds, such indomitable persistence and versatility of expedient was
peculiarly American. After Frederick Douglass, Mr. Washington was the
next great exemplification and revelation of problems of race and
labor in America, so significant as to go to the very core of our
democracy; and finally, there is to consider Mr. Washington's own
personality: the silent, watchful, cautious man, rugged, nervous,
popular but unsocial, slow but tireless.

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) was a pioneering sociologist, historian,
novelist, playwright, and cultural critic, who committed his life to a
relentless opposition to racial and social injustice. He was a
peerless organizer who helped to found both the Niagara Movement and
the NAACP, and who fostered several Pan African Congresses. For years,
he was editor of The Crisis and other progressive journals, and was an
international spokesperson for peace and the rights of oppressed
minorities.

http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1742058X11000403

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