Brother AACOOLDRE : Garvey Vs Dubois

[abdurratln]

I have always LOVED this poem!

However, I see the oppositional stances of Booker T/DuBois as being reflective of every other 2 leadership sides in the history of Black Civil Rights.

A. Philip Randolph and Garvey are another example of Booker T and DuBois, just as Malcolm and Martin were.

Actually, Booker T and DuBois BOTH had wonderful ideas for Black empowerment....It's just that, sadly, as usual with Black folks, they couldn't come to a consensus between their ideologies.

Moreover, there is a "Time and Season" to everything.

So, IMO, Garvey, Booker T, DuBois, Randolph, Malcolm and Martin ALL provided parts of what Black people in America needed in their "Times and Seasons."

Booker T advocated personal/financial empowerment through vocational and agricultural studies. He thought those things would help Black people out of our abject poverty, in that "Time and Season" and enable us to have some "ownership" of land and property while working for/around White people and not forfeiting our Right but just postponing them a while.

DuBois advocated an immediate fighting for Civil Rights and social change by demanding what the Constitution says Black people are guaranteed and that a higher education was needed for this, i.e. "The Talented 10th," and NOT domestic/ vocational work and farming.

Booker T received a lot of negativity from DuBois and others for his speech given in 1895 in Atlanta, GA.

Because of this speech, Washington was called an "Accommodadist" and berated for his downplaying of Black Rights and uplifting working/serving White people.

But, we also should remember that this speech was given only 30 years after the end of slavery.....Of course, the White people LOVED his speech and many of the Blacks heard him encouraging Black men having LIVING WAGE JOBS. (However, we also know that didn't happen in the South or North for a loooong time.) .



And I still see his words today in how too many of us place more importance on the "superficial" versus the "substantial."----Just because we, now, CAN do things we once couldn't do and go places we once couldn't go and buy what we want, we BUY either BUY a lot of it or we BUY what we WANT before we BUY what we NEED....still caught up in the "ornamental gewgaws" instead of the "USEFUL.".

And 8 years after Washington gave his speech, in 1903, DuBois wrote "The Talented Tenth.


So, again, Booker T and DuBois both worked from their sides of the street.

But, again, sadly, many African Americans have ridiculed both, still separating ourselves with labels of "Field N!gg3r" and "House N!gg3r."

Dubois was a highly educated intellectual. I will not berate him here. But, we need to see him for what he was.

Washington was also highly educated. Most do not know that he was a PHD. Thus, it is proper to call both Africans "Doctor", Dr. Dubois and Dr. Washington. What annoys me is the fact that people generally do not give Dr. Washington his props.

Now, one of the Africans was educated in the soft sciences, the arts and liberal studies sort of stuff. He is the Father of Sociology in the USA. The other was educated in more hands on, practical matters. If memory seves me, Dr. Washington was educated in education. Dr. Dubois did a lot in terms of literary work and the socila sciences. His history of the slave trade is still the best work on the subject. But, Washington did it in concrete implementation of ideas and thought.

Here is the key for those who sincerely want an answer to this matter.

Dubois picked up the reins of the Pan-African Congress Movement. But, he kept it in the arena of elite intellectuals. Thus, after decades of big meetuings and long discussions, Pan-Africanism pretty much fittered out.

In 1945, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah took Dubois' high fallooting theories and ideas and merged them with Washington's practicality. Thus, a Fifth Pan-African Congrees was called and Nkrumah and George Padmore became the leaders of the Movement.

The merger of the two approaches gave way to the African Revolution in which first Egypt, then Ghana and Guinea became independent. (Another important note is that the Garvey Movement which had been inspired to a large extent by Islam had an impact in terms of the Liberation of Egypt under the Muslim Abdel-Nasser. Thus, the Christians found common ground with the Muslims. Nkrumah spells this out in his book, Consciencism: Philosopy and Ideology fro decolonization. Read it.)

So, the key is Nkrumahism. Nkrumahism contains the best thought and actions of both Dubois and Washington. But, Nkrumah's government was overthrown early on. And, it was Ahmed Sekou Toure who implememtned Nkrumahism in a much more practical manner. Thus, Nkrumahism-Toureism is the ideological framwork that we discovered nearly 20 years ago to carry the African Revolution to its next stage.