Booker T. Washington was a former slave who rose to become one of the most influential African-Americans intellectuals of the 19th century. Washington believed in vocational education to survive and in the importance in building a strong economic base rather than equal rights. He was among the most prominent African-American educator, power broker, and institution builder of his time. Washington offered the Atlantic Exposition Address, a doctrine of accommodation to Jim Crow willingly giving in to social and political inequality for African-Americans while preparing them for economic self- determination in the industrial arts. He encouraged Africa-Americans to be self- reliant and urged them to launch businesses and success without causing trouble towards whites. Some African- Americans followed the ideas of Booker T. Washington. Many Southern whites also supported Washington because it commendably disarmed any immediate threat posed by African- Americans toward segregation.
William Du Bois 1868-1963
William Du Boise geared toward equal treatment of African-American and evidence to debunk the idea of racial inferiority (second-class citizen mindset). He was a leading African-American Sociologist, writer, and activist. From 1910 to 1934, William served the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as a director of publicity and research, a member of the board of directors, and editor of the Crisis, its monthly magazine. In the Crisis he publicized his disdain for Washington and was influential in the creation of the “Niagara Movement,” which became the NAACP. The decade following World War l, the NAACP was the leading protest organization with William as their leading figure. Du Bois felt African-Americans had to take strong action to protest murders and other illegal actions. He believed that instant “ceaseless agitation” was the only way to truly attain equal rights. Eventually he grew weary of the slow pace of racial equality in the United States and renounced his citizenship and movement to Ghana in 1961. (William Du Bois served as an important role models for later leaders of the civil right movement.)
Marcus Garvey 1887-1940
Marcus Garvey structured groups of African-American areas in New York, which would later become the first major African-American organization in the United States to gain active support from large numbers. He was not from the U.S., but from the Caribbean Island of Jamaica who moved to New York in 1916.His message was that blacks should not trust whites, and instead be proud and help each other. He advised African-Americans to leave the United States and move to Africa to start their own nation. Marcus recognized that his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) would gain support in the United States. The UNIA, committed to notions of racial purity and separatism, insisted that salvation for African American meant building an autonomous. Marcus Gravy organized several plans to help African-Americans become economically liberated of whites. One of his biggest efforts was a shipping company to trade goods among African-American's all over the world, his idea failed due to little funding. In 1925, government officials arrested Garvey for unlawfully collecting money and in 1927 President Coolidge demanded Garvey out of the country.