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• 1 media/Booker T. Washington Atlanta Compromise.jpeg 2018-03-14T17:29:33-07:00 Racial Equality 18 image_header 2018-06-17T20:19:07-07:00 By 1895, many Northern blacks, along with several Southern blacks, grew impatient with the plodding, kowtowing nature of accommodationism. In 1895, Booker T. Washington gained national fame when he delivered his “Atlanta Compromise" speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. African Americans were honored that one of their own would address a predominantly white audience. With typical eloquence, Washington praised the accomplishments of his people yet conceded that Negroes had erred by seeking political office immediately after emancipation. He explained that African Americans should begin at the bottom and not the top of society, and that Negroes should earn white people's respect by gaining economic equity. Negroes, he explained, didn't want to mix with whites socially; instead they sought to provide industry and trade to improve the Southern economy. At first, black America cheered Washington's achievement, but soon well-educated Negroes like W.E.B Du Bois grew appalled that Washington had agreed segregation was acceptable. Washington's opponents accused him of selling out to whites by keeping his people subjugated so Washington could continue as their spokesman.  Du Bois argued that Negroes should not be relegated to trade, instead they should study the Classics such as Latin and Greek in white colleges. He encouraged Negroes to pursue a liberal arts education and become doctors, lawyers, and professors at universities such as Harvard and Princeton. According to Du Bois, industrial education was an insult to his race.
  In 1909, he helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization that would challenge discrimination, segregation, and disfranchisement through the court system and is still in effect today. It strategically selected cases that would promote African American equality.