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Karen Arrington

English Katherine Oneil

22 July 2012

CRITICAL EVALUATION ESSAY

Introduction

In W.E.B. Du Bois’ “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” Du Bois criticized Washington’s policy of racial accommodation and gradualism. Du Bois rejected the latter’s willingness to avoid messing with the racial issues and pushed for his views on political power, the continuance of the civil rights fight, and higher education for all the Negro youth. Washington emphasized that education should be attained in order to get real jobs and played down on seeking equality
What critically differentiates one from the other is how Washington thinks that this could be done easily by the Negroes’ submission and adjustment to the dictates of the white American society.

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Cover Letter (Answers to the Questions)

1. This essay is written to present an example of how two clashing viewpoints of Black Americans in the past can still affect how society views race especially that of the African-Americans. Moreover, this essay aims at providing a bird’s eye view of how race issues decades ago have defined what the Negro means to America. The arguments presented here depict an understanding of why the Black Americans struggled for their rights.

2. Writing this essay gave me new insights to the plight of the Negros decades ago. I had to read other related articles about the Du Bois and Washington in order to understand their debate better. This activity provided me with a better understanding of the race issues then.

3. One difficulty is reading through some of the works of the debating personalities. Their works are quite extensive and serious. Writing this critical evaluation took some time because of the limitation of the number of words considering that there are too many things to discuss more.

4. Particularly, knowing more about Du Bois and