Jacqueline M. Moore's Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift breathes new life into the old Washington–Du Bois debate. Moore's narrative and accompanying documents underscore the complexity of the ideological conflict between Washington and Du Bois. Her book will empower students to analyze the issues and enable them to draw their own conclusions. This is ... Read morean excellent teaching tool.
John David Smith, professor, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte; author of Black Judas This is the first book of its kind. It will work nicely as a supplementary text for American and African American history courses as well as for African American and Black Studies courses. The added dimension of the documents brings a human face to the debate over racial uplift between Washington and Du Bois, allowing readers to feel like active participants in the debate.
Wilbert Jenkins, Temple University, author of Climbing Up to Glory This sensitive, balanced, and amazingly comprehensive study provides rich insight into the ideas, methods, and motives of two remarkable men whose influence is still evident in discussions of racial uplift strategies in the twenty-first century. Written in lean, graceful prose, it places the Washington–Du Bois struggle in a broad historical context and explains how differences in the origins, experiences, and personalities of the two men shaped their disparate approaches to racial uplift. By any standard this is a first-rate book, one that deftly probes beneath the surface of the public debate to reveal the complexity of the struggle between black America's most influential power broker and its most renowned intellectual. In addition to appealing to both specialists and general readers, this book can be used with great profit in the classroom.
Willard B. Gatewood, University of Arkansas, author of Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880-1920 Show Less