After reading both, Booker T. Washington's "Atlanta Compromise" speech and W.E.B. DuBois' "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others" essay, I was able to slightly agree with Dubois more than Washington.The main problem I had with Washington's speech was the it was too submissive. He made it seem like the only way for black people to make any social, economic, and/or political gains was to willingly start from the bottom. A quote from his speech that I think best shows this is "The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing." I cannot agree with this just because I do not believe that you must suffer in order to prosper at all. I do believe it is certainly possible to struggle and work hard to bring yourself to a prosperous life, and in most cases this the most self-fulfilling, but I do not believe that an entire race should have to settle for this lifestyle. And this is where I think that DuBois and I would agree. Washington makes it seem like it is just best to agree and accept that black people are inferior and need to prove themselves to be equal. In Dubois's essay he states,"In the history of nearly all other races and peoples the doctrine preached at such crises has been that manly self-respect is worth more than lands and houses, and that a people who voluntarily surrender such respect, or cease striving for it, are not worth civilizing." Therefore, being submissive or "voluntarily surrendering such respect" is probably not the best solution.

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