How could African Americans pursue economic and social improvement in the New South?
African-American leaders differed sharply over how– and whether– to pursue assimilation. In the wake of emancipation, ex-slave Frederick Douglass urged “ultimate assimilation through self-assertion, and on no other terms.” Those who favored separation from white society supported migration to Africa or the establishment of all-black communities in Oklahoma Territory and Kansas. Most blacks, however, could neither escape nor conquer white society. They had to find other routes to economic and social improvement. Self-help, a strategy articulated by educator Booker T. Washington, was one popular alternative. Born to slave parents in 1856, Washington worked his way through school and in 1881 founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a vocational school for blacks. There he developed a philosophy about assimilation. While whites welcomed Washington’s opinion, many blacks disagreed with his theory. One of Washington’s strongest opponents was W.E.B. DuBois. A native of Massachusetts and the s
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