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08, 2005
Du Bois vs. Washington
Washington was a great man who, during a time period when no one was speaking out, wanted equality.
"I said that any individual who learned to do something better than anybody else—learned to do a common thing in an uncommon manner—had solved his problem, regardless of the colour of his skin, and that in proportion as the Negro learned to produce what other people wanted and must have, in the same proportion would he be respected."
He spoke in a room of all white men, and knew excactly what to say so that they wouldn't boo him off the stage, or hang him. It was a scary time, so he spoke in a more gentle manner than Du Bois.
Du Bois wanted change and he wanted it right then and there. But niether he or Washington would ever SEE change.
"To be sure, behind the thought lurks the afterthought,—suppose, after all, the World is right and we are less than men? Suppose this mad impulse within is all wrong, some mock mirage from the untrue?"
Think about that for just a minute. They thought, even if just for a moment, that they didn't deserve the right to live as free men and women. What is it that you and I can do DAILY to make sure no one ever has that thought again?
Posted by LeahDavis at 8, 2005 10:37