THREE STRANDS OF THE 20th CENTURY BLACK EXPERIENCE
ACCOMMODATION
INTEGRATION
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
W.E.B. DUBOIS
(1890s-1940s)
TENSION
SEPARATISM
LATER
(1905 and Beyond)
MARCUS GARVEY
LARGELY DISCREDITED BY
THE 1920s
(1920s and Beyond)
MARTIN LUTHER KING
(1950s and Beyond)
TENSION
MALCOLM X
(1960s and Beyond)
"I want to see my race live such high and useful lives that
they will not be merely tolerated, but they shall actually be
needed and wanted because of their usefulness to the
community."
-BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
“Not all black men are willing to commit race suicide and to
abhor their race for the companionship of another. There are
hundreds of millions of us black men who are proud of our
skins, and to us the African Empire will not be a Utopia, neither
will it be dangerous, nor fail to serve our best interests,
because we realize that, like the leopard, we cannot change
our skins, and so long as black is black, and white is white, the
black man shall occupy a position of inferiority depending
upon the justice of the great white race to lead and direct him.
No race in the world is so just as to give to others a square deal
in things economical, political, social and otherwise.”
-MARCUS GARVEY
“An individual who breaks a law that
conscience tells him is unjust, and who
willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment
in order to arouse the conscience of the
community over its injustice, is in reality
expressing the highest respect for the law.”
-MLK
RELEVANT QUOTES
ILLUSTRATING THE
THREE STRANDS
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest
fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light,
not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves,
'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?'
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your
playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing
enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure
around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God
that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And
when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from
our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
-W.E.B. DUBOIS
“It's just like when you've got some coffee that's too black,
which means it's too strong. What do you do? You integrate it
with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream
in it, you won't even know you ever had coffee. It used to be
hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It
used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.”
-MALCOLM X