Debate: How Should African
Americans Achieve Equality?
In this activity you role play a debate among four African-American leaders at the turn of the century, about what strategy the
black community should adopt to achieve full equality in the twentieth century. You will research your roles by reading and
analyzing primary sources.
Objectives
You will understand how different African-American leaders proposed achieving equality, by pursuing
either economic or political equality first.
2. You will be able to describe four different perspectives on changing the conditions of the black
community in the early twentieth century.
1.
Instructions
Step 1: Analyzing the Documents
The class will divide into groups of four and give each group will get a packet of all the documents. Each
group member should choose ONE of the characters to play in the debate. (There are two documents for
Washington and Du Bois, so, if necessary, we can create groups of more than four and allow two people to
work on those characters.) The group members will debate the best strategy for change in the black
community from the perspective of the writer of his or her document.
2. Step 2: Preparing to Debate
You will prepare to debate from the perspectives of your characters by answering the questions on the
worksheet. You should be able to summarize and present your characters' views and anticipate what other
characters might say.
3. Step 3: Presenting the Views from the Documents
1.
Each group member, pretending to be the person who wrote their assigned document, should present that
person's view on the best strategy to the rest of the group. Each character has one minute for his or her
opening statement.
Step 4: Debate
When everyone has presented his or her view, the group should continue discussing and debating the best
strategy for African Americans to achieve equality in the twentieth century. Each group member should use
the documents and their authors as the basis for the debate; they should strive to STAY IN CHARACTER.
4.
Step 5: Reaching a Consensus
By the end of the debate, group members should try to reach a consensus--a compromise on which everyone
can agree--about what strategy African Americans should pursue to achieve equality. The group should then
refer to the worksheets, thinking about what your characters would and would not compromise on.
6. Step 6: Report to the Class
Each group will then share with their classmates what kind of consensus they reached. If the group was unable
to reach a consensus, they should explain why not.
5.
Historical Context
In the years after Reconstruction, African Americans debated the best course of action for ensuring their future
“progress.” At the end of the 19th century, many blacks were poor, uneducated tenant farmers in the South.
They also had to contend with the social and political burden of “Jim Crow” laws and the terror of lynching.
African Americans faced a major dilemma: which should they attack first, their economic problems or their
social and political problems? Four famous black advocates offered varying solutions to this question.
Strategies for Change:
A Debate Among Four African American Leaders
The Question: What method should African Americans employ to achieve equality
in the twentieth century?
Background Information: In the years after Reconstruction, African Americans
debated the best course of action for ensuring their future “progress.” At the end of the
19th century, many blacks were poor, uneducated tenant farmers in the South. They also
had to contend with the social and political burden of “Jim Crow” laws and the terror of
lynching. African Americans faced a major dilemma: which should they attack first,
their economic problems or their social and political problems? Four famous black
advocates offered varying solutions to this question.
Who is your character? (Circle one)



 Booker T. Washington, an educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute and
the national Negro Business League 
 W.E.B. DuBois, a Harvard-educated writer, educator, and founder of the NAACP 
 Marcus Garvey, black nationalist, entrepreneur and founder of the
Universal Negro Improvement Association 
 Mary Church Terrell, educator, women’s club organizer and suffragist 
Prepare Your Argument
In your own words, summarize the method that your character proposes for
African Americans to achieve equality in the twentieth century.
What evidence—current events of the time, past experiences of African Americans or other
groups, the character’s personal experiences—supports your character’s viewpoint?
Why do you think your character thinks the way he or she does? What would it take to
change his or her thinking somewhat?
Understand Your Opponents
What strategies do you anticipate the other debaters will suggest? How will you
try to convince them that your strategy is best?
Prepare to Compromise
If your character had to try to reach a consensus or compromise with others who
disagree, what kind of compromise would he or she be willing to accept? What would
he or she not be willing to compromise on?
Debate Format
I. Opening Statements: Each character has 1 minute to make opening remarks
that address the question.
II. Rebuttal: Each character has two minutes to rebut or agree with the
opening statements of the other characters. The character may also defend
his or her own position.
III. Consensus: All of the characters should try to reach a consensus—a
compromise on which everyone can agree—about what is the best strategy for
African Americans to achieve equality in the twentieth century.
Marcus Garvey Calls for Pan-Africanism and Race Pride
Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant, was the leader of the largest black mass movement in the nation's history. His Universal Negro
Improvement Association, which had chapters throughout the U.S., the Caribbean and Africa, promoted race pride, economic self-sufficiency in
the black community, and pan-Africanism. At its height, the U.N.I.A. boasted millions of members, a shipping line that connected North
America, the Caribbean and Africa, and a weekly newsletter. Garveyism was a welcome alternative to racism, assimilation, or colonialism for
black people in the United States and around the world.
FELLOW MEN OF THE NEGRO RACE, Greeting:
...I embrace this opportunity of writing to you to convey the hearty good wishes of the first International Convention of
Negroes...
We wrote fifty-four articles into the Declaration of Rights, and those articles we have given to the world with the warning, with
the understanding that four hundred million Negroes will sacrifice the last drop of their blood to see that every article comes
true. No more fear, no more cringing, no more sycophantic begging and pleading; but the Negro must strike straight from the
shoulder for manhood rights and for full liberty. Africa calls now more than ever...
You have made me President General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, a
social, industrial and commercial organization. This organization seeks no warfare; it seeks not to deprive others of what is
theirs; it seeks to build an economic base for the Negro wheresoever he lives. Please give to this organization all the help you
possibly can. Help it to become a power of commercial strength so that, as we and our children grow into older manhood, we
may be able to find a way by which to live so as to preserve our own existence.
Steamships must be bought and built. In countries like Liberia railroads must be built. Industrial plants must go up if the race is
to rise in greatness. Are you prepared to do your part? Men, can you be a commercial power by bowing at the footstools of
other races? Can you become and industrial power by giving all energy and wealth to other races? The answer is No. But you
can become a great commercial and industrial power by amassing and pooling your own industries and forming your own
commercial enterprises...
[Let] us also remember the Black Star Line Steamship Corporation. The command has gone forth, "Ships and more ships."
Africa must be linked to the United States of America. Africa must be linked to South and Central America. Africa must be
linked to the West Indies, so that there can be an unbroken intercourse between the four hundred million Negroes of the world...
SOURCE | Marcus Garvey, Editorial Letter, Negro World, 11 September 1920.
CREATOR | Marcus Garvey
ITEM TYPE | Newspaper/Magazine
An Activist Advocates for Women's Leadership in
Improving Black Life
Mary Church Terrell was one of the first African-American women to complete a college degree. Terrell, an educator and activist, also founded
the National Association of Colored Women. The National Association was organized into many local chapters. Members founded kindergartens,
orphanages and boarding houses and schools where young women could learn modern domestic science techniques. National Association clubs
also advocated for the right to vote, petitioned legislatures for the repeal of Jim Crow laws, and protested against the convict labor system.
Should anyone ask what special phase of the Negro's development makes me most hopeful of his ultimate triumph over present
obstacles, I should answer unhesitatingly, it is the magnificent work the women are doing to regenerate and uplift the race...
Believing that it is only through the home that a people can become really good and truly great the National Association has
entered that sacred domain. Homes, more homes, better homes, purer homes is the text upon which sermons have been and will
be preached. There has been a determined effort to have heart to heart talks with our women that we may strike at the root of
evils, many of which lie at the fireside... No people need ever despair whose women are fully aroused to the duties which rest
upon them...
Through the children of today we believe we can build the foundation of the next generation upon such a rock of morality,
intelligence and strength, that the floods of proscription, prejudice and persecution may descend upon it in torrents and yet it
will not be moved...
Carefully and conscientiously we shall study the questions which affect the race most deeply and directly. Against the convict
lease system, the Jim Crow car laws, lynchings and all other barbarities which degrade us, we shall protest with such force of
logic and intensity of soul that those who oppress us will either cease to disavow the inalienability and equality of human rights
or be ashamed to openly violate the very principles upon which this government was founded. By discharging our obligation to
the children, by coming into the closest possible touch with the masses of our people, by studying the labor question as it affects
the race, by establishing schools of domestic science, by setting a high moral standard and living up to it, by purifying the
home, colored women will render their race a service whose value it is not in my power to estimate or express...
With courage born of success achieved in the past and with a keen sense of responsibility which we must continue to assume,
we look forward to the future, large with promise and home. Seeking no favors because of our color or patronage because of
our needs, we knock the bar of justice and ask for an equal chance.
SOURCE | Mary Church Terrell, "What Role Is the Educated Negro Woman to Play in the Uplifting of Her Race?" in Twentieth Century Negro Literature, D.W.
Culp, ed., 1902.
CREATOR | Mary Church Terrell
ITEM TYPE | Article/Essay
W.E.B. Du Bois Defines "The Talented Tenth"
At the beginning of the twentieth century, as now, access to quality public education was uneven, and the problem disproportionately impacted
African-American children. W.E.B. DuBois, himself highly educated, was sharply critical of Booker T. Washington's model of technical and
industrial education for African Americans. DuBois argued that political and social equality would not happen without intellectual equality,
achieved through a traditional academic curriculum.
The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes
must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the mass
away from the contamination and death of the worst... If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop moneymakers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature,
men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work in the schools--intelligence, broad sympathy,
knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it--this is the curriculum of that higher education which
must underlie true life.
SOURCE | Booker T. Washington, et al., The Negro Problem: a series of articles by representative American Negroes of today, New York: James Pott
and Company, 1903
CREATOR | W.E.B. DuBois
ITEM TYPE | Article/Essa
W.E.B. Du Bois Critiques Racial Accommodation
The most influential public critique of Booker T. Washington’s policy of racial accommodation and gradualism came in 1903 when black leader
and intellectual W.E.B. DuBois published an essay in his collection The Souls of Black Folk with the title “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and
Others.” DuBois rejected Washington’s willingness to avoid rocking the racial boat, calling instead for political power, insistence on civil rights,
and the higher education of Negro youth.
Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and submission, but adjustment at such a peculiar
time as to make his program unique. This is an age of unusual economic development, and Mr. Washington's program naturally
takes an economic cast, becoming a gospel of Word and Money, to such an extent as apparently almost completely to
overshadow the higher aims of life... Mr. Washington's program practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races.
Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the present, three things. First, political power, Second,
insistence on civil rights, Third, higher education of Negro youth, and concentrate all their energies on industrial education, and
accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation of the South... As a result of this tender of the palm-branch, what has been the
return? In these years there have occurred:
1. The disenfranchisement of the Negro.
2. The legal creation of a distinct class of civil inferiority for the Negro.
3. The steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the Negro.
These movements are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr. Washington’s teachings; but his propaganda has, without a shadow of
a doubt, helped their speedier accomplishment. The question then comes: is it possible and probable, that nine millions of men
can make effective progress in economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile caste, and allowed only the
most meager chance for developing their exceptional men? If history and reason give any distinct answer to these questions, it
is an emphatic No.
Black Americans do not expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civil rights and to be educated will come in a moment; they
do not expect to see the bias and prejudices of years disappear at the blast of a trumpet, but they are absolutely certain that the
way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing them away and insisting that they do not want
them, that the way for a people to gain respect is not by continually belittling and ridiculing themselves; that, on the contrary,
Negroes must insist continually... that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that
black boys need education as well as white boys.
SOURCE | W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (Chicago, 1903); available from History Matters,http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/40.
CREATOR | W.E.B. DuBois
ITEM TYPE | Book (excerpt)
Booker T. Washington Puts Economic Advancement
Ahead of Political Rights
Booker T. Washington, born a slave in 1858, was the most influential black leader at the turn of the century. He had worked as a laborer and
domestic servant after the Civil War, eventually attending Virginia's Hampton Institute. In 1881, he founded Tuskegee Institute, training African
Americans to work with their hands, believing that if black workers remained unskilled, they would forever be discriminated against. In speeches
and writings, Washington advocated that African Americans accommodate to white political power as they pursued economic opportunity.
"The Negro should not be deprived by unfair means of the franchise, political agitation alone would not save him, and that to
back the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character, and that no race without these
elements could permanently succeed."
"Many of the Negroes in the South are hungry; and when a man is hungry, he cannot get his political rights... Property, brains
and character will settle the question of civil rights."
SOURCE | Booker T. Washington, Black Belt Diamonds, Gems from the Speeches, Addresses and Talks to the Students, Selected and Arranged by
Victoria Earle Matthews, (New York: Fortune and Scott, 1898).
CREATOR | Booker T. Washington
ITEM TYPE | Speech
Booker T. Washington Recommends that African
Americans "Cast Down Their Buckets"
In 1895, Booker T. Washington gave what later came to be known as the Atlanta Compromise speech before the Cotton States and International
Exposition in Atlanta. His address was one of the most important and influential speeches in American history, guiding African-American
resistance to white discrimination and establishing Washington as one of the leading black spokesmen in America. Washington’s speech stressed
accommodation rather than resistance to the racist order under which Southern African Americans lived.
Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of the bottom, that
a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill, that the political convention of
some teaching had more attraction than starting a dairy farm or a stockyard. A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a
friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: “Water, water. We die of thirst.” The answer from
the friendly vessel at once came back: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time, the signal, “Water, send us
water!” went up from the distressed vessel. And was answered: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A third and fourth
signal for water was answered: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the
injunction, cast down his bucket and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River.
To those of my race who...underestimate the importance of preservating friendly relations with the southern white man who is
their next door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down, making friends in every manly
way of the people of all races, by whom you are surrounded....
Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live
by the productions of our hands and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in the proportion as we learn to dignify and
glorify common labor, and put our brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn
to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper
till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress
is 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. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is
important and right that all privileges of the laws be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of
those privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar
in an opera house.
SOURCE | In Louis R. Harlan, ed., The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 3, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974), 583–587.
CREATOR | Booker T. Washington
ITEM TYPE | Speech