Between Washington and Du Bois: A Reinterpretation of This Historical Debate

• In Event: 61.021 - New Directions in Black Educational History

Abstract

In 1903 W. E. B. Du Bois published his seminal work Souls of Black Folk. Forwell over one hundred years historians have viewed the book as the work that facilitated a shift from black conservative leadership to a more “radical” approach to racial advancement. Inasmuch, a debate emanated from the third chapter of Souls entitled “Of Mr. Washington and Others,” in which Du Bois described Booker T. Washington’s address at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition in 1895 as the “Atlanta Compromise.” Du Bois argued that Washington openly advocated for industrial education --- a dangerous position because African Americans were by 1903 being limited to industrial and vocational education. Therefore, Du Bois believed that Washington’s advocacy for cooperation and black industriousness compromised African Americans ability to gain true liberty in America via classical education.

Interestingly, most black college presidents during the turn of the twentieth century found themselves straddling the fence “Between Washington and Du Bois’s” educational philosophy. For example, as early as 1895, Thomas Tucker, the first president of Florida State Normal School of Coloreds (present-day Florida A&M University) was openly attacked by William N. Sheats, the Florida State Superintendent of Public Instruction for not adhering to Booker T. Washington’s model of vocational and industrial education. Due to Tucker’s background as a native of Sierra Leone and being trained at the integrated liberal arts Oberlin College prior to the Civil War, he refused to disavow a solidly liberal arts curriculum at the all-black college in Tallahassee, Florida. Finally, in 1901 with the support of the governor of Florida, Sheats was able to push for Tucker’s removal simply on the basis of his refusal to openly support a vocational education curriculum.

Nine years later, however, in Durham, North Carolina James Edward Shepard, a young pharmacist opened the National Religious Training Institute and Chautauqua for the Negro Race, a liberal arts college for the training of black ministers. His objective was to provide a solid liberal arts curriculum for these ministers with the hopes that they would then return to their communities to not only feed the black masses spiritually, but also intellectually --- thus they would advance their race. Ironically, although Shepard was promoting liberal arts education in the “age of Washington,” he incorporated conservative methods to secure funding for his institution. Scholars for a generation have criticized Shepard for his gradualist approach to racial uplift but failed to realize what he gained through his politicking. Shepard maintained both his school’s liberal arts curriculum and his position as president after the state took over the institution in 1925.

As the head of a publicly funded black college, Shepard made many controversial decisions including blocking desegregation attempts in the state. In return for his obstruction, North Carolina repaid Shepard with graduate programs. Thus, North Carolina College, the city of Durham and the southeastern United States benefited from his strategic leadership. According to Du Bois: “Shepard’s school changed Durham from a migratory, slum filled town to a sprawling black metropolis.”

Author

• Reginald Ellis, Florida A&M University