How did leaders like Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, and W. E. B DuBois shape African American thought at the turn of the century? What were their...

Booker T. Washington,
Ida B. Wells, and W. E. B. Du Bois advocated different approaches to advancing African American
rights at the turn of the 20th century. Washington was born a slave in Virginia and witnessed
the emancipation of the slaves as a young boy. He was a proponent of blacks gaining jobs in
areas where whites would provide them with work in the Jim Crow South. In his famous
"Atlanta Compromise" speech, he suggested that blacks first gain economic power and
later address political rights.

W. E. B. Du Bois had a very different
upbringing than that of Washington. Du Bois was raised in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and
was the first African American person to earn a doctoral degree at Harvard. He proposed that
well-educated blacks, whom he called "the talented tenth," push for political gains
and rights right away, and he came to disagree with Washington's stance of gaining economic
power first.

Ida B. Wells was born into slavery in Mississippi. She later
became a journalist and launched an investigation into the lynching of African Americans. She
advocated both the advancement of civil rights and the advancement of women's rights. Her
position as a woman gave her a different perspective than that of other civil rights leaders at
the time.