Two great leaders of the black community in the late 19th and 20th century were Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois. The men had many ideas; however, they sharply disagreed on the approaches to black education. Washington, committed to vocational education, trained blacks on low end jobs, and Du Bois believed in academic education in favor of trade school. Both Washington and Du Bois wanted the same thing for blacks, first-class citizenship, but their contrasting views in black education required different ways of obtaining it. Booker T. Washington’s commitment to agricultural and industrial educations was the basis of his approach. He was founder and principal of Tuskegee Institute, a normal and industrial school in Alabama. Students would receive instruction in thirty-three trades and industries, including carpentry, blacksmithing, printing, and machinery to name a few. His school aimed to train African-Americans in the skills that would help them the most in everyday practical things of life. “…the policy of industrial schools- fitting students for occupations which would be open to them in their home communities (Washington, 4).” For example, in the South there was a demand for men to operate dairies in a skillful, modern manner. This resulted in Washington adding a dairy department in connection with the school that instructed a number of young men in the latest and scientific methods of dairy work. He does not agree with the notion that many think industrial education is meant to make Negroes work as they did in the days of slavery. In fact, his school consists of teaching them how not to work, but how to make forces of nature work for them. Du Bois was different, he thought teaching them liberal arts and sciences would be the best way to address black education.
Du Bois wanted African Americans encouraged to succeed in liberal arts and