120: From Atlanta to the NAACP, or Booker T. Washington v. W.E.B. Du Bois

History That Doesn't Suck is driven by a simple mission, to make learning legit, seriously researched history more accessible to entertaining stories. If you'd like to support the work we do and receive ad-free episodes, bonus content, and other exclusive perks, we invite you to join our membership program. Sign up today for a seven-day free trial at htdspodcast.com/membership or click the link in the Upset notes. Advisory. This episode contains accounts of racial violence and murder that some listeners might find disturbing. Further discretion is advised. It's October 16, 1901, just a few minutes before 7.30 p.m. A 46-year-old man with close cropped hair, olive skin, and dressed in a smart black suit is riding in a carriage through the streets of Washington, D.C. to the White House. He's a tad anxious. Not that this is his first visit. No, no. In the month since William McKinley was assassinated and Theodore Roosevelt took office, the new president has already made it clear to this educator, Southerner, and most influential black Americans that his counsel is very much desired. TR's already had him over, but this is different. Tonight, this gentleman, and Mr. Booker T. Washington, is going to the White House as the U.S. president's invited dinner guest. Turning up 1600 Pennsylvania's circular drive, the carriage comes to a stop under the White House's iconic, pillared pork co-chair. What thoughts must be going through Booker's mind? A natural diplomat, he frequently declines social invitations from white associates to avoid a possible misstep in this fraught, segregated era of Jim Crow. But one does not say no to the president of the United States. So the Tuskegee Institute principal acts like the honored presidential guest that he is. Thinking his colleague, Whitfield McKinley, for the ride, Booker then ascends the White House steps and walks past the black doorkeepers as he enters the executive mansion through its glass-paneled entrance. The Roosevelt's might be a blue-blooded American family, but there's nothing stuffy about this dinner table. Take First Lady, Edith Roosevelt. Per usual, Edith easily carries the conversation, even as she sits between and keeps an eye on her two young troublemakers. Seven-year-old Archie, and almost four-year-old Quentin. I wonder which small creatures they've brought to the table tonight. A mouse? A snake? Yeah, they're animal-loving Theodore Roosevelt's children, alright. Kermit and Ethel are also present, chatting it up, but Nolan talks through dinner quite like our bespectacled, mustachioed, roughrider president, Tiar. His speech may only slow down at the sight of servers with more of annual works cooking. I can just picture his toothy grin growing as he gets a whiff of her famous biscuits known as fat rascals. Oh, that smells good. And to either side of Tiar sits his two guests. His friend from Colorado, Phillip Stewart, and of course, Booker T. Washington. Details on tonight are sparse, but I imagine Booker's great sense of humor and conversational skills are coming to bear. His nerves have faded. It seems the food and company alike are exquisite. With dinner over, the children head off to bed and the gentlemen make their way to the red room. The subject of discussion soon turns to the very issue on which Booker serves as an advisor to the president. Southern politics. There's no doubt that they mention Teddy's recent victory, his recess appointment of former Alabama Governor Thomas G. Jones as a federal judge. Tom might be a former Confederate officer and a Democrat, but he's an honorable man, opposed to lynching and in favor of educating black Americans. Ah, that's why Booker recommended him. And now the South loves Tiar. Guided by Booker's counsel and his southern blood from his Georgia-born mother, Teddy, the half-southerner, as he likes to call himself, just might be the man to move the needle on race and break the Democratic Party's solid South. Or at least break Republican Party boss Mark Hanna's hold on the GOP's Southern delegates before the 1904 election. The men discuss their lofty dreams for the South until 10 p.m. then say goodnight so Booker can catch the last trained in New York. The next day, Booker is going about his business in the Big Apple when he notices a one-liner in the New York Tribune mentioning he dined with the president. Huh. Well, both he and Teddy knew last night was somewhat significant. It was, after all, the first time a black man, a former slave no less, dined with a president in the White House. Teddy had even questioned briefly if he should invite Booker, but the mere fact that he wondered filled him with shame and solidified his resolve to do so. Yet, as Booker carries on in New York City, and Teddy does so in Washington, D.C., it seems neither man fully grasps their dinners' significance. There are a few exceptions, but newspapers south of the Mason-Dixon line come after both men. Hard. In Virginia, the Richmond Dispatch proclaims, "Rosevelt dines a darky." In Georgia, the Atlanta Constitution complains that, "Both politically and socially, Roosevelt proposed to coddle the Sons of Ham." In North Carolina, the Gastonia Gazette and the North Carolinian both carry an editorial that shouts in all caps, "Away with Roosevelt and Negro equality, away with Republican ism, and all its abhorrent concomitants," but it isn't the death of his hoped-for revival of Republicanism in the South that worries Teddy the most. It's the death threats as South Carolina's Senator Benjamin Tillman announces, "The actions of President Roosevelt in entertaining that n**** will necessitate our killing a thousand n****s in the South before they will learn their place again," T.R. is baffled. Heartbroken. He tells a reporter, "I had no thought whatever of anything save of having a chance of showing some little respect to a man whom I cordially esteem as a good citizen and good American." Instead, Teddy has pandemonium, as vulgar cartoons of his wife Edith circulate, opposing newspapers slam each other, and, though a failure, a hired assassin goes after Booker. The president has learned a hard lesson. Though he'll continue to counsel with Booker, Teddy will never again break bread with the esteemed Tuskegee educator, or any black person for that matter, in the White House. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. As you can see from that opening, the early 20th century United States has a sharp line, a color line, as it's known, separating black and white citizens. The racial segregation of Jim Crow, made constitutional as we learned in Episode 101 by the Supreme Court's 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, is well-entrenched, and today our sojourn through the progressive era brings us to a new generation of black Americans facing these realities. We begin with the origins of our dinner guest, Booker T. Washington. We'll bear witness, as he grows, from slave to student to educator, to becoming the voice of black Americans after his 1895 Atlanta speech. Or is it an Atlanta compromise, accepting Jim Crow? That's how a younger black scholar named W. E. B. Dubois will see it. While both men want the best for black Americans, they'll hold drastically different views. We'll watch their ideas clash as black troops in Brownsville, Texas, are gravely mistreated and black Americans die in lynchings and race riots. Against this episode's advisory, again, heads up, this will get rough. We'll also hear about the Niagara Movement, the founding of the NAACP, and then lay Booker to rest. Alas, the Wizard of Tuskegee is not long for this world. Well, our path is set, so let's get to it by bidding a brief farewell to the progressive era and heading 36 years back in time to war-torn Virginia. It's an unspecified morning, April, 1865, and the sun is just rising over the Borough family's small plantation in Halesford, Virginia. Everyone enslaved here is up, alert, and excited as they walk toward the Borough family's residence, a.k.a. the Big House. Their excitement has been building for a while as it's become increasingly obvious that the Civil War will soon end with a Union victory, but last night, when word came around that the morning would bring a big announcement, oh, that was it. Hardly anyone slept a wink. Has it come? The war's end? Freedom! The adrenaline of hope has energized these sleepless enslaved Virginians. They walk with vigor as the morning's early rays light the fields. Arriving at the Big House, they find members of the Borough family standing or seated on the veranda. There's also an unknown man. He more than anything will later stand out in the memory of one nine-year-old enslaved child this morning. Standing with his mother, brother, and sister, the young, olive-skinned boy watches as this unknown gentleman starts reading a paper. It's the Emancipation Proclamation. Finishing the document, he then states plainly that all enslaved here are now free. The child's mother is overcome with joy. The later recall, my mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long-craying but fearing that she would never live to see. Yes, the morning's announcement was just what they were hoping for. Freedom. It's a day that the young child, named Booker, will long remember. Booker has lived his entire life on the borough plantation until that likely Union soldier arrived in 1865. Not the Booker knows how long that is. As the witty educator will put it in his future autobiography, I'm not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth. But at any rate, I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time. The Borough Family Bible will lead future scholars to conclude that he was born April 5th, 1856, and is thus nine years old at this point, but Booker doesn't know that. Just like he doesn't know anything about his biological father beyond rumors that he's a local white man. What the child does know is that his mother loves him, and her name is Jane. But with emancipation, Booker will leave this nebulous place of origin behind, literally. His mother is taking him and his siblings to join her husband, Washington Ferguson, out in West Virginia, in a small town that will later be known as Maldon. Hiking over mountainous terrain, Jane and her children travel for weeks to get to their new home. Her husband, Washington, or just Wash, for short, gladly welcomes them, and soon, little nine-year-old Booker is working right beside him, packing barrels and a salt furnace. Booker will have little good to say of these days. He'll recall filthy air, rough neighbors, and a cabin that he'll describe as no better than his old slave quarters. One positive thing jumps out at him, though, the number 18. That number is assigned to his father, and the illiterate child watches with wonder as the straight line and two circles are stamped on barrel after barrel. It was illegal for slaves to learn to read in Antebellum, Virginia, but that didn't stop Booker from craving education. Day after day, he'd carry the borough children's books and watch longingly as they entered the schoolhouse. To quote Booker, "I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise." Well, a salt furnace is no schoolhouse, but the eager child is ready for that paradise. And if he can pick out numbers, he can pick out words. Booker's mother, Jane, procures an old copy of Webster's spelling book. With no help, Booker teaches himself the alphabet over the next few weeks. Then, the town's black community decides to pool money to hire an educated black man to teach their children. Booker's family can't afford to have him leave work for school, though, so the determined youth studies with the instructor at night until, despite scheduling difficulties, he manages to go to work and to school. Finally in the classroom, Booker perceives something odd at roll call. I noticed that all the children had at least two names, and some of them indulged in what seemed to me the extravagance of having three. And so, when called on, Booker answers that he is Booker Washington. His choice appears to be a clear nod to his stepfather, but Booker will also attribute the selection to the names association with history, freedom, and greatness. Learning later that his mother originally named him Booker Tolliver, he decides that he too will indulge in the great extravagance of three names. Thus, he becomes Booker Tolliver Washington, or as we know him, Booker T. Washington. Years pass. Booker keeps studying as his work shifts from salt packing to a coal mine. Then in 1871, the mine's owner, General Lewis Ruffner and his wife, Viola Ruffner, hire him as their houseboy. The couple become crucial mentors to the studious teen, divining his values of education, hard work, and self-reliance. In his autobiography, Booker will describe Viola as a lifelong friend. But his thirst for knowledge leads him away from the Ruffners the following year. Booker's heard about a school back in Virginia that educates black Americans and trains them as teachers, called the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. He's determined to attend. Located near the mouth of Virginia's Chesapeake Bay, the Hampton Institute is 400 miles from Malden. Booker walks the distance, arriving penniless. For his entrance exam, he has to clean a room. No problem. Booker knows how to work. He prizes work. And with a white benefactor paying his tuition, he's able to commence his studies. As in Malden, Booker finds hard work and education go hand in hand. He absorbs the school's agricultural and industrial focus, particularly as the school's founder, former Union General Samuel C. Armstrong becomes his mentor. Three years later, in 1875, Booker graduates with honors and speaks at commencement. So, Booker's done it. He's a teacher. Over the next few years, he returns home to teach in Malden, West Virginia, then heads back to Chesapeake Bay to attend Washington D.C.'s Whalen Seminary and teach at his Alma Mater, the Hampton Institute. Not bad, Booker. His education and accomplishments today are impressive, especially for someone who was illiterate little more than a decade ago. Coming back, he's all the more convinced of the importance of hard work and self-reliance. But his big break is yet to come. In 1880, down in Alabama, former Confederate colonel turned state senator Wilbur F. Foster gets the state legislature to appropriate $2,000 for the maintenance and support of a school in Macon County. According to local legend, this is the result of a deal with formerly enslaved black community leader Lewis Adams, who secures the black vote for Wilbur in that year's election on the condition of state funds for local black education. I can't confirm the legend, but regardless, money is set aside and now there's a need to hire a principal who can get this school off the ground in the little town of Tuskegee. But where can they find a qualified candidate? In May, 1881, they write to the man already running a school for black students, General Samuel Armstrong of the Hampton Institute. Just if he can suggest a qualified white man, he writes back that he'd actually like to recommend a black gentleman, his young protege, Booker T. Washington. The response from Tuskegee is immediate. Send him. Booker arrives in June to find that, though he has a salary, the school doesn't exist. Literally. No matter. Booker believes in work and self-reliance. With access to the Butler-Chapton African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and what he calls a "nearby, quote-unquote, dilapidated shanty," Booker holds his first class with 30 students on July 4th, 1881. He even teaches on days when it rains and leaks through the roof. After all, he has an umbrella. These are truly humble beginnings. But the hardworking educator won't leave it at that. Borrowing funds from the Hampton Institute, Booker buys 100 acres of an old Tuskegee plantation. Considering practical and commercial skills as a crucial part of education, he has the students learn construction as they build the school. Fast forward to 1888, Booker has grown this school, called the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, into a 540-acre campus teaching practical trades and educating 400 students. Meanwhile, his Hampton Institute professor and mentor, General Samuel Armstrong, helps him to fundraise. But once he's learned the game, ever-self-reliant Booker is doing it on his own. Eventually, he'll draw major donors, including some people we've met in past episodes, like Central Pacific Railroad Tycoon, calls P. Huntington, and the Titan of Steel, Andrew Carnegie. Both will give generously to the Tuskegee Institute. It's becoming hard for the nation not to take note of Booker. This go-getter, this man, born enslaved, who has wrought such miracles in the soil of a former plantation that he's now called the Wizard of Tuskegee. How can he be ignored? Invitations to speak start to come. In 1884, he travels to Madison, Wisconsin, and addresses thousands at a meeting of the National Education Association. And more such gigs follow. In 1893, Booker hits a whole new level when he's asked to speak to an almost entirely white crowd at the International Meeting of Christian Workers in Atlanta, Georgia. He's only given five minutes, but he makes each of them count as he informs these elites of the work, education, and character building happening in Tuskegee. Then comes his biggest moment to date. An invitation to speak at the Cotton States and International Exposition. It's September 18th, 1895. Thousands are gathered at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. The Expo is a celebration of the South's progress since the end of the Civil War, a celebration that hopefully draws northern investment to this unofficial capital of the New South. And right now, the program includes a series of nationally known elite speakers. All are white, save one. Booker T. Washington. As another speaker drones, Booker, yet to speak, looks out on the crowd. His wife, Margaret, is here. He's his third wife, in fact, as the first two went to early graves. She and his three children are here to show their support. Numerous other black Americans are here to support him, too. And separately, the Tuskegeeans seize the larger white audience. Many of them wish him well, but Booker's also been told that some came hoping to see him, a black man, fail to meet the challenge of speaking to this mixed race audience in the Jim Crow South. Damn, that is a tall order. Suddenly, it's time. With an introduction from former Reconstruction-era Governor, Rufus Bullock, Booker takes the stage. The enthusiastic black section cheers as Booker begins to address this disparate audience. Mr. President and gentlemen of the Board of Directors and citizens, one third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. Booker's begun with an excellent point. If Southern leaders ignore the region's sizable black population, they do so to their own economic detriment. Further, it's immoral. As such, Booker's message to Southerners, "Why am black?" is to lift together where they are. He drives the point home with a metaphor of thirsty sailors on the water. The ship lost its sea for many days, suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel, we've seen a signal. Water, water, we die of thirst. The answer from the friend of the vessel had once came back, cast down your bucket where you are. A second day, the signal water, senders water, ran 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, the glass heating the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. Cast down your bucket where you are. Booker applies this to why am black Southerners differently. For white Southerners, he explains that this means investing in black Southerners. Hire them, train them, they're industrious people with a strong work ethic. For his fellow black Americans, this man of self-reliance and practical knowledge is urging a Tuskegee-style education, one that includes commercially viable skills. But how do they work together amid Jim Crow? Booker suggests that racial cooperation can happen amid segregation. He argues white and black Americans can maintain individual spheres yet connect economically and live peacefully, which he illustrates with a comparison to how fingers are individual yet connected to the hand. Indeed, Booker even calls social equality, and I quote, "extremist folly." He believes that economic betterment and education based in practical skills will do more for black Americans than fighting Jim Crow right now. Booker believes they should first improve their own position, and in doing so, that will prove their worth. This path says the Tuskegee-ian, quote, "will bring into our beloved south a new heaven and a new earth," close quote. The speech's end is met with a thunderous standing ovation. The former governor charges back out on stage to shake Booker's hand. It seems the Wizard of Tuskegee has again worked his magic. Speaking in a time when black Americans are getting lynched at record numbers, and only a year before the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson makes segregation the law of the land, Booker has laid out a vision of the south that appears to have threaded the racial needle. And as the nation's newspapers publish the speech, Booker soon finds himself the unofficial spokesman of black America. But that's only one perspective. In the years to come, other black leaders will question Booker's vision. But if the Wizard of Tuskegee isn't laying out the best, realistic, long-term strategy for black Americans to advance their interests, but is naively capitulating to Jim Crow segregation and disenfranchisement, soon enough, one young, up-and-coming black academic will mount such an argument and find himself billed as Booker T. Washington's nemesis, that scholar is W.E.B. Voice. W.E.B. Du Bois doesn't disagree with Booker T. Washington immediately. In fact, the young scholar celebrates Booker's national acclaim, writing to him only days after his speech on September 24th, 1895, "My dear Mr. Washington, let me heartily congratulate you upon your phenomenal success at Atlanta. It was a word fitly spoken, sincerely yours, W.E.B. Du Bois. But in the years to come, this maturing scholar will become less convinced of the 'fitly' nature of Booker's words." Before we get into this throwdown, though, who exactly is W.E.B. Du Bois? Let's get his backstory. William Edward Burkhart Du Bois, or Willie, as he's known as a child, so we'll use that just for the moment, was born on February 23rd, 1868, within the Berkshires of western Massachusetts in the small town of Great Barrington. His Haitian-born father, Alfred Du Bois, took off when he was only a child. This might have been due to friction between Alfred and his in-laws, but whatever the case, young Willie's mother, Mary, was left to raise him as a single parent with some help from her deeply rooted to the area Burkhart family. Fatherless in one of the area's very few black residents, Willie felt out of place growing up. But his mother taught him the values of hard work and education, and the intellectual child excelled in the town's integrated school system. As a teen, Willie's gift for writing came to bear as black newspapers published his work. In 1884, he graduated from high school at the top of his class. Willie aspired to go to Harvard, but the elite institution wasn't keen on Great Barrington's relatively new high school. Nor did the young graduate have the funds, so he applied to the finest institution of higher learning for black students in the nation, Nashville, Tennessee's Fisk University. With financial assistance from New England Congressional Churches, all was set. Willie started at Fisk in September, 1885. This was a time of happiness and sorrow for the 17-year-old collegian. His mother died that same year, yet the rural New Englander also gained a new sense of community living with other black Americans. To quote him, "I was thrilled to be for the first time among so many people of my own color or rather of such various and such extraordinary colors, which I had not seen before, but who seemed close bound to me by new and exciting ties." Willie excelled at his studies, edited the school newspaper, and developed his public-speaking abilities. But, to return to sorrow, the youth also saw prejudice and, quote, "a sort of violence that I had never realized in New England." Those potent experiences stuck with him after his 1888 graduation and subsequent acceptance at Harvard. Yes, Harvard! Du Bois' dream. And yes, Du Bois' now. No more Willie. Even Will is dropping from use. Developing into a very formal man, even his closest friends begin to call him Du Bois. I know, last names are not typical HTDS style, but Will embrace it as it only further highlights the difference between him and Booker T. Washington who does use his first name with friends. So anyhow, Du Bois has entered Harvard. But while a FISC degree got Du Bois in, the elite institution did not consider it good enough for him to start graduate work. He had to earn a second BA from Harvard first, which he did in 1890, followed by a master's in 1891. Du Bois missed the Black Society at FISC. He felt disconnected as he couldn't afford to live on campus and felt a second-class citizen - particularly when the University Glee Club rejected the gifted singer because they feared trying to tour nationally with him amid Jim Crow. So even though he stayed on for a PhD, Du Bois' happiest days as a Harvard student weren't on the Crimson campus. They were in Germany as he studied at the University of Berlin with funding from the John F. Slater Fund. Returning with a Kaiser Wilhelm II-style mustache in 1894, the short, handsome, dapper-dressed Germanophile took a teaching position in classics and modern languages at Ohio's Black Educating Wilberforce University. By the following year, 1895, Du Bois had completed his dissertation titled, "Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the United States of America, 1638 to 1871." Thus, the 27-year-old historian became the first Black person to earn a PhD from Harvard. He even spoke at commencement. So we've made it back to 1895, the year of Booker T. Washington's headline-making speech in Atlanta. It's clear that Booker and Du Bois have common ground in that both are educators and highly invested in the welfare of their fellow Black Americans. But we can also see a number of differences. One is a formerly enslaved Southerner who's learned to value education with a commercial focus. The other, a Reconstruction-era-born Northerner whose elite education is steeped in the liberal arts. Clearly, they are very different men, but again, their ideological clash on the best path forward for Black Americans isn't immediate. Du Bois and Booker are on good terms in 1895. In fact, last year, the Harvard man wrote to the wizard asking for a gig at Tuskegee. Even New Booker's wife, Margaret, they attended Fisk at the same time. The Tuskegeeian replied with a job offer but was too late. Du Bois had already taken the Wilberforce Professorship. The two men continued to write thereafter, as we saw with Du Bois's congratulatory note to Booker after his Atlanta speech. In fact, he doubles down on that. Hearing that some Black intellectuals are taking issue with Booker, the young professor defends him in the New York age, writing that the wizard of Tuskegee's words, quote, "might be the basis of a real settlement between whites and blacks in the South, if the South opened up to the Negroes the door of economic opportunity," close quote. Women in collaboration continues. Du Bois again asks about a job in 1896. This time Booker jumps. But no, the newly married scholar opts for the University of Pennsylvania instead. Once there, Du Bois goes less historian and more sociologist and pushes social science to a new level with the 2,500 household survey of Black residents in Philadelphia's Seventh Ward. He'll publish this meticulously detailed study of the Seventh Ward a few years later under the title, The Philadelphia Negro. More immediately though, his one-year gig at Penn is ending without renewal. Du Bois is back on the academic job market. His Harvard dissertation advisor writes to Booker, quote, "Have you no place for the best educated colored man available for college work?" close quote. But Booker doesn't bite. Du Bois goes to another Black institution, Atlanta University. Why did Booker pass? Could be pride. Du Bois has turned him down twice now. But it could also be that Booker doesn't like the political direction the increasingly vocal professor is going. Just this year, 1897, Du Bois published a piece in the Atlantic Monthly, contradicting the one and only late Frederick Douglass' belief that Black Americans should integrate with white society by arguing that Black Americans should look to their African heritage instead. Hmm. That's less Booker's direction, and he feels his path is working. I mean, in 1898, U.S. President William McKinley visits the Tuskegee Institute, and the donations are flowing. This looks like promising progress. Let's not overstate their growing differences, though. The two intellectual powerhouses come together again in 1899 as Du Bois hosts a meeting in Atlanta. The subject title? The Negro in Business. Ah, now that's Booker's language. The Wizard of Tuskegee attends, and next year, he'll launch the National Negro Business League. But more immediately, Booker makes a third invitation to Du Bois to join him at Tuskegee. Yet, the maturing scholar hedges. Why? Well, profound events are impacting Du Bois in 1899. Not far from his home in Georgia, a Black man accused of rape and murder, Sam Hoes, doesn't receive a fair trial. Instead, a white crowd of 2,000 captures him, slices off his fingers, ears and genitals, gouges out his eyes, chains him to a tree, soaks him in kerosene, then lights him on fire and keeps body parts as souvenirs. Though the word is generally associated with hangings, an outside-the-law killing such as this is called a lynching, and in the 1890s, approximately 100 Black Americans are getting lynched every year. Sam has been lynched, and sadder still, anti-lynching journalist Ida B. Wells and a private eye will later investigate and conclude that, one, Sam's rape charge was fabricated, two, he killed his employer in self-defense. This horrific murder has Du Bois rethinking things, as does watching his baby boy die of diphtheria after white doctors refused to see him. He can't help but wonder, did segregation just kill his son? Amid these traumatic experiences, Du Bois isn't sure Booker's vocation-focused curriculum is for him. Besides, there's an opening for superintendent of Negro schools in DC. Is that a better path? For the third time, Du Bois passes on Tuskegee, even as he and Booker collaborate on the Negro section of the upcoming Paris Exposition. In 1901, Booker publishes his autobiography, Up from Slavery. It's well-received, he's beloved by Americans of all colors. Well, until he dines with President Theodore Roosevelt that October, as we know from this episode's opening. Meanwhile, other black intellectuals and activists, or militants as they're called in this era, are challenging Booker's leadership and approach. And in the spring of 1903, Du Bois publishes a book that, in the eyes of the public, makes him Booker's number one opponent. The book is called The Souls of Black Folk. In it, Du Bois mixes styles and disciplines. Each of its fourteen chapters opens with a poem and a music score of a black spiritual. He dares to break the omniscient voice by writing in the first person, yet maintains a rigorous academic approach as he tackles African-American history, culture, and present issues. Famously, Du Bois opens the book with the forethought, arguing that, quote, "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line," close quote. Many influential ideas follow from there. Among these are, one, that black Americans live behind a metaphorical veil designed to keep them separate from white Americans and the highest spheres of influence. "It is," says Du Bois, quote, "a veil so thick that they shall not even think of breaking through," close quote. Two, that black Americans have a double consciousness, that is, the psychological duality of seeing themselves through in other's eyes, of being, quote, "an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder," close quote. Three, Du Bois presses the idea of "the talented tenth," basically, that college-educated black elites have a duty to uplift all other black Americans. And though not a noted idea, per se, I have to mention Chapter 11 of the passing of the firstborn. Here, he recounts his son's death. It hits me hard as he closes with these tender words, quote, "Sleep then, child, sleep till I sleep and waken to a baby voice and the ceaseless patter of little feet," above the veil, close quote. But most noted by many is the third chapter of Mr. Booker T. Washington and others. In it, Du Bois describes the Wizard of Atlanta speech as an Atlanta compromise, and he takes it to task. Du Bois argues that radical white Southerners didn't take to heart the part about uplifting their black neighbors. Instead, all they heard is that the status quo of Jim Crow is acceptable. Du Bois sees the Tuskegeean not as someone playing the long game, but rather as an accommodationist. The scholar goes on, asserting that Booker, quote, "represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and submission," close quote. He calls the Tuskegeeans' teachings, quote, "a gospel of work and money to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the higher aims of life," close quote. Du Bois further notes how still-expanding Jim Crow laws are taking the vote and civil rights from black Americans, and that funding for black Americans in higher education is disappearing. He then makes the following assertion, to quote one more time, "Those 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." Yeah, Du Bois isn't messing around here, and I think it's fair to say that his position has shifted since he wrote Booker that congratulatory letter after Atlanta. Booker takes the critique stoically, even welcoming Du Bois that year as a summer instructor at Tuskegee. But the wizard's unofficial position as the voice of black Americans is fading. This becomes abundantly clear to the nation that same summer. It's July 30th, 1903. The crowd of 2,000 is filtering into the pews at the gorgeous, red brick, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on Columbus Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. It's an exciting day. Booker T. Washington is speaking. Yet, despite the many loyal Bookerites here, including members of the National Negro Business League, trouble could be brewing. The black community in Boston is, after all, less favorable to Booker. His local detractor Monroe Trotter has quite the following. But that's fine. The church has 11 police officers on hand. The lawmen keep a sharp eye as everyone settles into the pews. Soon, a thin, bespectacled newspaper editor, T. Thomas Fortune, approaches the pulpit to introduce Booker T. Washington. As he begins to compliment the wizard of Tuskegee, pockets of disapproval roar from the audience. Thomas won't stand for this. He doubles down on his loyalty to Booker, waxing all the more eloquent on the Tuskegeeans' reactions. At this, an enraged man jumps up, screaming as he rushes at the speaker. Police officers grab and arrest him, but mayhem ensues as Booker's supporters and haters erupt on one another. Thomas tries to regain control of the media, but he can't stop sneezing. Suddenly, everyone on the platform is violently sneezing and coughing. Amid the ruckus, it seems that someone threw cayenne pepper on the speaker's platform. Booker goes to the pulpit and tries to reclaim the audience, only to have his local memesis Monroe Trotter jump up. He bellows at the wizard. Can a man make a successful educator and politician at the same time? Are the rope and the torch all the race is to get under your leadership? The yelling and fighting only grows louder, and two people are stabbed as the police arrest Monroe and three of his supporters. The meeting in the Boston church eventually regained some semblance of order. Though it's jarring to speak after such an incident, Booker T. Washington does his best to preach the gospel of thrift. But the Boston riot, as it's soon known, has done irreparable damage to Booker. The reality, or perhaps the myth, of black Americans being united under his banner is gone. It's becoming clear to all that W. E. B. Du Bois isn't part of a small fringe opposed to the wizard of Tuskegee's economic-focused, patient approach, but rather a part of a legitimate sizable break that wants to go faster, harder, a path described as radical or militant. And that break is only growing. In 1905, Du Bois reaches out to select black leaders, the talented 10th, if you will, who are disenchanted with Booker, not Bookerites. He proposes a conference, quote, "for organized determination and aggressive action on the part of men who believe in Negro freedom and growth, to oppose firmly present methods of strangling honest criticism, to organize intelligent and honest Negroes and to support organs of news and public opinion," close quote. Including himself and other organizers, 29 men from 14 states answer this call. They meet the next month, from July 11th through the 13th, 1905, at a lovely hotel on the Canadian side of Lake Erie. It's a busy few days, but most notably, they organize as a group, the Niagara Movement, and craft a declaration of principles. This declaration does not dither. It makes several unequivocal demands, including full manhood suffrage, civil liberty for, and I quote, "all American citizens," close quote. Next economic opportunity, the end of Jim Crow education for all American children, enforcement of the Constitution's Reconstruction-era amendments, and other basics of full American citizenship. In conclusion, the declaration expresses gratitude to our fellow men and from the abolitionists down. And finally, the document contains a list of duties they willingly take upon themselves. Let's take this in fully, giving us a chance to absorb it. And while we are demanding and ought to demand, and will continue to demand the rights enumerated above, God forbid that we should ever forget to urge corresponding duties upon our people, the duty to vote, the duty to respect the rights of others, the duty to work, the duty to obey the laws, the duty to be clean and orderly, the duty to send our children to school, the duty to respect ourselves even as we respect others, this statement complaint and prayer we submit to the American people and Almighty God. Rights and duties. Clearly, these are thoughtful men who understand the full meaning of citizenship in a republic. These Niagara Movement leaders never name Booker. Still, this declaration of principles is something of a declaration of war on him. He knows it, and with a sincere conviction that the far more aggressive Niagara Movement isn't helpful, but damaging, he opposes it, ardently, but his opposition doesn't stop its initial growth, particularly amid the injustices of next year. It's late in the evening, August 13th, 1906. All's quiet here in Brownsville, Texas, and what a welcome change that is. See, it's only been a few weeks since the U.S. Army garrisoned the 25th Infantry Regiment in this southern Texas, heavily Hispanic, U.S.-Mexican border town of 6,000. But that's upset many of the town's white citizens because the 25th is an African-American regiment, and now at least three men in the regiment, two of whom are known to be model soldiers, have reported false accusations, assault, or harassment from locals and customs officers. In fact, last night brought new, unsubstantiated accusations that a soldier attacked a white woman. Yet, all is quiet now, thanks to Mayor Frederick Combe and Major Charles Penrose imposing a curfew. Good call. Too bad that won't hold. Suddenly, pistol shots ring out in the dark of night. Mounted police rush toward the sound. They return fire. Gun's flash as an officer and his horse are both hit. The attackers continue, then advance on a local bar that strictly enforces the Jim Crow segregation color line. The terrified barkeep tries to lock up, but it's too late. He's hit and dies. During the gunshots, Fort Brown's sergeant of the guard calls the men to arms. As the 25th musters, they're sure it's the townspeople attacking the fort, yet no salt cons as gunfire beyond the fort walls dies out. The next morning, police return to the scene of the attack. They find Springfield 1903 rifle cartridges, the very same model used by the men of the 25th. Then 14 townspeople come forward as witnesses, swearing that the killers were black troops. But the men of the 25th all claim not to have participated in or know anything about the attack. US Army concludes it's a conspiracy that soldiers in the know are covering for the guilty. The matter rises through the ranks past Secretary of War William Howard Taft all the way to President Theodore Roosevelt. The commander-in-chief discharges all men of the 25th regiment stationed at Fort Brown that night. 167 men in total without honor. This without honor discharge enrages many Americans, particularly black Americans. They feel betrayed. How could Teddy, the rough writer who fought beside black troops in the Spanish-American war, who's appointed African Americans to office and broke bread with Booker T. Washington, treat you such a hasty, sweeping draconian punishment? Meanwhile, further investigations cast doubt on the regiment's assumed guilt. Major Charles Penrose not only stands by his men's integrity, but as a seasoned officer who knows his firearms is sure some shots fired didn't even come from Springfield rifles. He testifies to this during Senate hearings. "The first two shots I heard were undoubtedly pistols, sir, and I think they were fired with black powder." Further, when called to arms, all the men were accounted for. It's hard to imagine they sprinted through town and snuck into the fort undetected. Finally, when the guns were inspected in the morning, none showed evidence of use. Frankly, it sounds like a setup. In 1972, future President Richard Nixon will pardon the 25th regiment's convicted soldiers. To say nothing of lost careers, only two will be alive to hear the news. But that's over half a century from now. Here, in 1906, black Americans have just lost their nascent, abelink-like love of Teddy. This shakes their faith in his adviser, Booker T. Washington, too. Though Booker voices his frustrations within the administration, he doesn't do so publicly and his ideological opponents in the black community hold that against him. Worse still for Booker, the Brownsville Affair, as this incident comes to be known, isn't the only large-scale tragic event for black Americans in 1906. Only a month later, WEB Du Bois' town of residence for almost a decade, Atlanta, Georgia, becomes ground zero for horrific, gruesome racial violence known as a race riot. Tensions have been growing for years between Atlanta's black and white communities. The constitutional amendments and policies of the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era facilitated the rise of black businessmen and elites, and now Georgia's Jim Crow laws haven't entirely dislodged them. This is perhaps especially true among the 40,000 black Atlantans who make up nearly a third of the rapidly growing city's population. This concerns some white Atlantans, and it's in this social milieu that Georgia's 1906 gubernatorial candidates, Hoke Smith and Clark Howell, both Democrats and each individually influential with different Atlanta newspapers, vie for often. In the office, by painting the other as insufficiently committed to Jim Crow segregation. That background leads us to September 22, 1906. That Saturday, the city's Jim Crow-supporting newspapers publish a number of stories about black men allegedly attacking white women. For instance, the Atlanta Constitution's front page positively frames an account of "four or five hundred white men" trying to lynch a black man that's already in police custody and charged with attempting to attack a white woman. Papers sell quickly as Atlanta's newsboys holler out the sensational headlines, and a violent fury follows that night. Armed with pitchforks, blades and guns, the incensed mob starts in the city's five-points area around 10 p.m. Thousands of white men tear through Decatur Street, Pryor Street, Central Avenue, and more, attacking black Atlantans and businesses. In Peachtree Street, they smash up Alonso Hurden's barbershop. Thankfully, Alonso isn't there, but the black barbers across the street aren't so lucky. They're slaughtered. And so the terror continues. One 10-year-old white child, Evelyn Witherspoon, will recall well into her golden years the noises outside her Cane Street home that wake her around midnight. Going to the front window, she looks outside and sees, "Well," to quote her, "I saw a man strung up to the light pole. Men and boys on the street below were shooting him, until they riddled his body with bullets," close quote. The state militia and heavy rain calm the city around 2 a.m. on September 23. But it isn't entirely over until the 24th. Estimates of the dead range from 25 to 40, or even more, across these three September days in 1906. All the dead are black, saved too, one of whom was a white woman so terrified by what she was witnessing, she suffered a heart attack. The news travels across the nation, and even to Europe, as Le Petit Journal reports on Atlanta's "lunchage monstre," that is, "monster or massive lynching." In the eyes of the Niagara movement, the violence in Atlanta is only further proof that Booker T. Washington is wrong. Yet the movement struggles, financial difficulties, infighting, differences on politics. In 1908, W. E. B. Du Bois supports William Jennings' brine for president. That's a point of sharp disagreement. It's sacrilege for a black American to abandon the party of Lincoln for the Democrats, the party of slavery and former Confederates. Yet, the scholar argues that Republicans have come to take black Americans for granted and thinks W. J. B. deserves a chance. But even as the insolvent Niagara movement is collapsing, the more aggressive them Booker crowd within it is not. Further, continued lynchings and race riots are bringing them new support. That's especially true in 1908, when the North sees its first race riot in decades in Springfield, Illinois. Yes, the hometown of the great emancipator Abraham Lincoln. Eight black residents are left dead as 2,000 flee. In response, why activists, like suffragist Inez Millholland's father, John Elmer Millholland, and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison's grandson, Oswald Garrison-Villard, join with black leaders in 1909 to form the National Negro Committee. It isn't without drama, though. The anti-lynching journalist I mentioned earlier, Ida B. Wells, is shocked when Du Bois reads off the list of members and finds she's left off. Ida will later recall in her autobiography, "I confess, I was surprised, but I put the best face possible on the matter and turned to leave. Some on the committee hope to bridge the gap between the financially strapped Niagara movement and Bookerites. But the Wizard of Tuskegee doesn't trust them. He senses they'll be too radical for him. Thus, when the National Negro Committee reorganizes the following year as a permanent body, called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, it does so with far more Niagara movement influence. Indeed, Du Bois is soon named NAACP Director of Publications and Research. If not already, Booker and Du Bois are now truly undivergent paths. The gloves are off by 1912. The Du Bois-led NAACP newspaper, The Crisis, and the Bookerite-Leaning New York Age take shots at each other. Du Bois sees Booker as spineless, submissive, a "political dictator," whose opposition to the NAACP is a, to quote again, "dangerous illogical fallacy." Meanwhile, the Wizard of Tuskegee continues to view Du Bois and the NAACP as crazy, if not downright deceptive. Making demands forcefully protesting, Booker doesn't buy into this. To him, you build wealth, you prove your value to society, that, he contends, is how you move the needle. Full citizenship will come and do time after proving your medal. Booker does come to see some value in measured, cautious protest, and he and the NAACP will have occasional overtures, but they'll never see eye to eye, not before Booker breathes his last breath. And that day is not distant. After suffering from failing eyesight, headaches, and other miseries, the Wizard of Tuskegee passes away on November 14, 1915. He soon laid to rest in the soil over which he spent the better part of his life laboring. It's 12 noon, November 17, 1915. We're in Tuskegee, Alabama, inside the Institute's Chapel, a chapel whose 1,200,000 bricks were laid by countless, industrious student hands. And today, this house of God is packed to the rafters with 8,000 souls from every walk of life. National leaders, students, alumni, friends, family, black and white, business titans, and the simplest of country folk. This economically, racially diverse crowd is here to mourn and pay their respects to the man who, over 30 plus years, turned a single shanty in Tuskegee into a sprawling student-built 2,000-acre campus, Booker T. Washington. Chaplain John W. Whitaker and Dean G. L. Ims lead the service. Tears flow between the spoken word and music. Eventually, one of Booker's old teachers from the Hampton Institute, Dr. H. B. Frizzell, offers a prayer. After this, the choir sings another number. Swing low, sweet chariot. Tears fall like rain on the pews. Exiting the chapel, the crowd proceeds to a small nearby hill. On it is a vault, newly built especially for the wizard, by the skilled and loving hands of Tuskegee students. The bugle sounds, and then, as Tuskegee professor Isaac Fisher describes it, "a heavy-hearted crowd turns slowly and sadly away from the tomb of their prophet." Many across the nation mourn as well. Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Alabama Governor Charles Henderson, former President William Howard Taft, as well as the former president who shocked the nation by having Booker over for dinner all those years ago, Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy writes, "I am deeply shocked and grieved at the death of Dr. Washington." He was one of the distinguished citizens of the United States, a man who rendered greater service to his race than has ever been rendered by anyone else, and who, in so doing, also rendered great service to the whole country. Du Bois writes an obituary for Booker in the December issue of the crisis. He praises Booker as, "the greatest Negro leader since Frederick Douglass." But Du Bois can't help getting in the last word. No surprise, they've disagreed so thoroughly. He goes on to say that, "On the other hand, in stern justice, we must lay on the soul of this man a heavy responsibility for the consummation of Negro disenfranchisement." A southerner, a northerner, one a self-reliant pragmatist, the other a principled intellectual, one older and born into slavery, the other younger and a product of the Reconstruction Era. When we take stock of the differences between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, perhaps we should be less surprised that they ultimately clashed and more surprised that they didn't do so earlier. Yet, despite their different philosophies, both black educators were invested in the welfare of black Americans. The Tuskegee Institute will continue on. Soon, it will transform into a university, producing black leaders, entrepreneurs, and thinkers well into the indefinite future. As for Du Bois, he'll later joke about how many seem to think he died at the same time as Booker. In reality, he'll very much outlive the wizard, continuing his work as an activist and academic. He'll move to Ghana in his twilight years and pass away in 1963, just one day before another and future black American leader, named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., will tell an enormous crowd gathered in Washington D.C. at the Lincoln Memorial that he has a dream. And while the good doctor's story is one for another day, hinting at it is also indicative of our lack of closure for this episode. Yes, just as Tuskegee University and the NAACP live on, so do Jim Crow, Black Disenfranchisement, and lynchings. The Negro problem, as it's turned, will continue well past the Progressive Era. I'm glad to teach you kind souls providing the funding that helps us keep going. Thank you. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. The next one is a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them up to use your status. 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