There was apartheid around every corner, including separate drinking fountains and bathrooms for blacks and whites. Therefore, training blacks for industrial jobs and educating them fit into society's viewpoint much better, and gave black people a better name in the long run. As T. Thomas Fortune said, in regards to Washington's school, "What is practical, what will best fit these young people for the work of life, that is taught (at the school), and that is aimed at It is impossible to estimate the value of such a man as Booker T. Washington.".
WEB Dubois was a mixture of African, French, Dutch and Indian blood, who demanded total equality for blacks. He was the first African-American to earn a PhD at Harvard, and started the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Dubois felt that educated black people should be given full access to all aspects of American life. "Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need education as well as white boys." If blacks demanded education and other rights, they would eventually be equal. Dubois believed strongly in agitation of the public and government to get what was needed. "We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complain, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong-this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty, and we must follow it." In demanding equal rights for black and white people, WEB Dubois was ahead of his time. He strongly believed that placing blacks at the low level of industrial workers would impede their potential to be full members of society. A large group of followers loved Dubois's opinions, and denounced Booker T. Washington's methods. Ida B. Wells Barnett agreed wholeheartedly with Dubois, saying "Does the Negro object to industrial education? By no means he knows by sad experience that industrial education will not stand him in place of political, civil and intellectual liberty, and he objects to being deprived of fundamental rights of American citizenship To him it seems like selling a race's birthright for a mess of pottage.
