After Reconstruction, African American leaders proposed different programs for African American upliftment and advancement. Some leaders, like Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, encouraged African American southerners to leave the South. Others, like Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, encouraged African Americans to leave the country altogether, to go “back to Africa.” Jim Crow segregation, disenfranchisement, and various forms of discrimination and intimidation seemed too much to bear.
Not all African Americans shared these views.
Discuss W.E.B. DuBois’s and Booker T. Washington’s program for African American advancement. What were their strategies for dealing with Jim Crow segregation from 1895 to 1915? What aspects of their upbringing may have contributed to their differences of opinion and strategy for dealing with segregation?