Progressive Era

Joseph Riccardi

History

2/18/2007

      The Progressive Era was a time in American history that began in the 1890’s and ended around the early 1920s.  During the Progressive era, people focused on social justice, legal reform and exposing and taking down the evils of corporate greed that continued to grow rapidly since the Reconstruction Era.  The Progressives were mainly middle class white males of a Protestant back round who lived in cities.  These men were focused on issues of politics and institutions and not with the rights and interests of that of women, ex slaves, and Indians.  Many minority organizations became nationwide and learned from the Progressive’s and fought for reforms to be able to meet their goals.  One group in particular was the African Americans.  There main goal was the fight to no longer be viewed and treated as slaves but as true American citizens.

        Overall, the African American leaders agreed that they needed to do something sooner rather than later they were just unsure of which road to take.  Many differed over how and if they even should pursue overall assimilation.  Frederick Douglass insisted on “ultimate assimilation through self assertion and on no other terms.” All did not favor what Douglass insisted on many favored separation completely by doing mass departure back to Africa or to establish all black communities in the South such as Kansas and Oklahoma. The ones that opposed both ideas encouraged fighting and dying so blacks after them would live as true citizens. Two men who were basically the more vocal at this time were W.E.B Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.  

          Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in 1856 in Virginia. At the age of 16 he was able to obtain education in 1872.  Nine years after, he founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.  At the institute is where Booker T. Washington developed a viewpoint that the black community’s best chance for assimilation was to temporarily accommodate whites. He voiced his opinions to other African Americans to work hard acquire property and to not be concerned about political issues. Washington felt by doing this was the quickest and best way to gain respect of the white community.  W.E.B. Du Bois was from the north born in New England.  He was both a Progressive and a member of the black elite.  W.E.B. Du Bois was first and foremost against Washington’s strategies.  Du Bois was able to treat Washington and his views courteously but was not going to accept white dominance again.  Du Bois urged the people to agitate for their rights and what they deserved.  In 1909 Du Bois organized the NAACP with white liberals who were not pleased with Washington’s views.  It is very easy to see that because of their different lifestyles and upbringings that both of these men would have their own ways of assimilation.  Du Bois was never a slave and never knew the full trauma and hardships Washington was put through. Du Bois most definitely was scrutiny to racism and persecution; it was nothing like Washington suffered through.  Though both Du Bois and Washington were fighting for the same their policies for effective assimilation were on the opposite page from one another.

             Booker T Washington voiced and promoted his views that the black community should be for now accommodating to whites.  In Washington’s 1895 Atlanta Compromise Speech, he stated “Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life…   Here, Washington knows that in the beginning years of their freedom some had the high hopes of holding a political seat or even obtaining higher education, but Washington had a different route he wanted to them to take.  He insisted that blacks work hard, acquire property and show they are worthy of respect.  Washington knew that respect wasn’t going to just be given to them that they had to earn it.  Washington believed that agitation to achieve respect was the biggest error of them all.  He stated “Agitation of questions of racial equality is the extremest folly.”  He knew that you nobody was going to give him anything that they had to earn it no matter how long.

              Returning to the aspects of Washington’s upbringing is the key on why he wants to work hard for assimilation instead of demanding rights.  Washington grew up having to please his white owners and in no doubt learned over the years how to gain at least some respect and the ways needed to follow to be equal.  One of Washington’s biggest points was for blacks to bring into play self- help. He believed the best way to gain equality and assimilation was to not expect anything from white society and to work hard towards prosperity. “Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service and in the professions”, Washington wants the black community to master all aspects of the commercial world then to worry about other liberties.  

             Du Bois on the other hand, his plan was for agitation. Du Bois was one of the most outspoken ones again Washington.  He stated “The way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing them away.  Clearly, Du Bois wasn’t going to follow the plan that Washington developed.  He stated that Washington wanted them to give up the right for political power, insistence on civil rights, and third the higher education of Negro youth and focus on industrial aspects.  Du Bois went on to say that “this policy has been courageously and insistently advocated for over fifteen years and has been triumphant for perhaps ten years.” Over those years he continued theses things have occurred; disfranchisement of the Negro, the legal creation of a distant staus of civil inferiority of the Negro and the steady withdrawal from institutions for the higher training.  Du Bois felt that because of Washington’s teachings that it sped up those accomplishments.  By not fighting right away for their rights and remaining hard working it gave the white community the opportunity to carry out these things.