Education of Black Folk

Education of Black Folk. March Route for Education. Black leaders debated how best to educate their children to live in a racially segregated society. Former slave Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute, was America's leading Black spokesman at the turn of the 20th century and promoted vocational education. He preferred an education that focused on construction, farming and other trade skills that would help Blacks get jobs and start businesses. His philosophy appealed to Whites because it did not threaten their notion of racial superiority. But other leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois, the Harvard-educated writer and civil rights activist, strongly disagreed. Du Bois believed that a "Talented Tenth" of highly educated Negroes could use their intellectual skills to uplift the race and achieve equality., Paired marker , April 1930 , To give their children the best chances of success, Black leaders in Birmingham embraced both vocational education and a liberal arts education. Educators taught student's job and business skills such as cooking, sewing, carpentry and leather-working, much like the students pictured in this (sewing/cooking) class. Teachers also sharpened their students' academic skills in history (including African history), mathematics, literature and the sciences to prepare them for college. These students could attend only historically Black colleges and universities – including Alabama institutions such as Tuskegee, Talladega College, Alabama A&M or Alabama State University – since major public universities or colleges were for "Whites only." , "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is we are powerful beyond imagination." , W.E.B. Du Bois , African American Intellectual, historian, activist and author , Lesson D4: What are the benefits of an industrial education that focuses on job skills and a liberal arts education to focuses on college preparation?