Washington were both extremely influential black leaders, who were remembered for their beliefs, on the lives and freedoms that were deserved by the freedman during the late eighteen hundreds. Booker T. Washington was born four years before the civil war had begun, Dubois was born three years after the civil war had come to an end. Washington had been exposed to slavery and the troubles of the black man during and prior to the dilemma of the freedman at an early age. Dubois was not exposed to the daily problems that slaves endured until his early teenage years. Dubois's and Washington's slightly different backgrounds caused them to have different views on the future of freedman in the United States. .
The question that plagued many politicians and leaders in the years that followed the civil war was how to treat the newly freed slaves. Although a large amount of people believed that African Americans did not deserve to be slaves, they did not believe that African Americans were the average white man's equal. Dubois and Washington being two very prominent African American leaders both had their own individual ideas on how to solve the freedman's problem. Washington worried about the high tensions that existed between the conservative white man and the newly freed black man. Therefore he believed that by giving up specific freedoms such as an open education to gain economic opportunities and still keeping tensions to a minimum was a more sufficient way of getting equal rights accomplished. Washington was also more concerned with the newly freedman having quick results even if they were only short term. He believed that by giving blacks small economic opportunities quickly rather than education first, they would be able to better themselves in many different areas in the future. First they would become economically stable, then once they were sufficient in that area they could become educated and eventually become equal with the white man.