Booker T. Washington
...le times and thoroughly impressed Mrs. Ruffner, earning him a place in Hampton Institute’s classes. He was then offered the position of janitor to help pay for his room and board, which he gladly accepted (Washington). All of this served to teach Washington the value of hard work as a method to obtain an education. Upon completion of the coursework at Hampton Institute, Washington accepted a position in charge of the education of Native American students at the institute. In the early months of 1881 Washington was approached to head the new normal school for Blacks at Tuskegee, Alabama. He accepted the position and headed to Alabama, expecting to receive the same fervor that he had experienced in Virginia. Upon his arrival at Tuskegee, he found no accommodations and only two-thousand dollars per year were allocated for the salaries of the teachers. No appropriations were made for supplies, land or buildings. Washington likened this to “…making bricks without straw.” (Washington). With the support of the local black community and most of the local white community, Washington set out to build one of the most notable and most recognizable symbols of education in the national black community. Building Tuskegee from an old church took some effort on the part of Washington and his first pupils, many of whom were school teachers themselves. Many of them did not see the wisdom of the Hampton model in the respect of clearing a field and planting crops on school grounds as a means of raising funds for the school. Washington, however, realized that income was necessary in order to continue the school and he realized that it served to educate the teachers on a different level. Pupils would spend part of the day performing community tasks, such as farming the crop, raising the structures on campus, and other necessary tasks. The rest of the day was spent on continuing their education (Washington). The motivation for this type of learning environment was two-fold. First, it instilled in future teachers the necessity for manual labor experience. The second and most important reason, for what some called undignified labor, was to instill in the students the character and values necessary to teach industrial skills to youth (Anderson, 34). While Washington gained widespread support for his instating of the Hampton model, he received some criticism as well. His main antagonist was a man named W. E. B. DuBois. Early in Washington’s tenure, he and DuBois shared many of the same views of moral improvement and self-help for the betterment of the black people, rather than focusing on the pursuit of civil and social rights. Both men theorized that rights would follow becoming an integral part of the nation’s economy, after earning the white citizen’s respect. DuBois opinion began to change with the dawn of the 20th century. He began to elevate the need for a liberal arts education and placed a new emphasis on social and civil rights (Gibson). DuBois and his supporters argued that the application of the Hampton model, the teaching of trades, worked to keep blacks in a socially subservient role to whites. This was accomplished by giving blacks an education that only enabled them to hold industry or servant based jobs. Calvin Chase, editor of the Washington Bee argued: It is a notorious fact, that the utterances of Mr. Washington are nothing more that to make himself rich by assuring the white people of this country that the negros [sic] place is in the machine shop, at the plow, in the washtub and not in the schools of legal and medical progressions; that he [the Negro] has no business to aspire to those places as they are reserved for the proud Caucasian. (Anderson, 65) While the leaders of this school of thought valued a higher, more liberal arts education, they did not reduce the requisite of a technical or vocational program. They did, however, argue that technical and vocational training should not be the main focus of the education of the Black youth, particularly in the South (Anderson, 65). DuBois believed that by instituting the Hampton model, Washington had help to create three distinct trends: The disenfranchisement of Blacks, the creation of a distinct, blue-collar/white collar cast system, and the reinforcement of the social stereotype of the racial inferiority of the Black population (Gibson). DuBois instead advocated “…persistent agitation, political action, and academic education” as a means of gaining the full citizenship rights of black Americans (Gibson). DuBois founded what became known as the ‘Niagara Movement.’ This “Talented Tenth,” DuBois thought would be what led the fight for social justice. This attempt, however, failed due to a lack of financial support. Undaunted by this failure, DuBois helped form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The stated purpose of the NAACP was to help remove the legal apparatus that was designed to limit the citizenship of Blacks in America. This is the method that DuBois used to derail the “Tuske...