Booker T Washington and W.E.B Du Bois lived during a similar time period. During that time period they were fighting the injustices towards African American’s in the United States. They had vastly different approaches towards the same common goal.
Mr. Washington is more known for wanting African American’s to accept the discrimination but to work hard to eventually overcome the hate and be accepted by white Americans. Mr. Du Bois believed in aggravating the system. He wanted political and civil actions. He created the NAACP and believed that the best of the best of African American’s would rise and save the race.
“I used at first to hope, but hope is past and gone” (Dunbar 897). Paul Laurence Dunbar was born into a more privileged life than some of his peers. He was an African American at an all-white school, he graduated top of his class and still he ended in a hopeless job. When reading “Worn Out” By Dunbar I couldn’t help but feel a level of depression seeping through the pages, those of a long rough life.
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I feel that Dunbar had two different personas while writing. One to fit each, Washington and Du Bois. He seems to be fighting two different ideals in his poetry.
In “The Colored Soldiers” Dunbar repeats, “Of the gallant colored soldiers who fought for Uncle Sam” (900). That statement goes more with Du Bois who believed in great African American people standing up and fighting for their rights. Dunbar seems to go between having great African American dialect in his poems to a whiter washed version tone. His poem, “A Negro Love Song” doesn’t completely full into the argument of how to fight for African American rights, but it seems important to mention because of its tone. The tone seems light, fun, and full of love. The poem speaks like a fun first date and uses jazz undertones, which was a predominantly African American genera of music. Because he decided to write in that tone, I feel like that falls under Du Bois idea of aggravating the system. He was deciding to identify with the African American arts.
The works of Dunbar that pull me in are more related with Booker T Washington’s ideal of dealing with oppression and eventually, one day, white America will accept the African Americans. “Worn Out” is my favorite piece by Dunbar because I think it speaks for how most African American’s felt at the time. They had been fighting an uphill battle, yet nothing was being achieved. He speaks of the sun leaving his life and how there is no hope left. With Washington’s ideals of dealing with oppression, it is easy to see how one might feel worn out. I feel like a big part of Washington’s ideals was to work from within. Work hard, get into the room, and impress the room.
I think often then and now in order to get in the room you had to wear a specific mask. Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” is about exactly Washington’s ideals. Pretending to fit in to just get your foot in the door. “With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,” says to me that while dealing with the negative things that come with being born African American, he and others weren’t allowed to show that sadness, they had to smile and pretend all was okay (906). I think Dunbar really believed in trying to work with the system and be excellent but along the way it broke his spirit. Both poems also use a standard English dialect, they don’t have the fun African American vernacular mentioned in his other two poems.
Booker T Washington and W.E.B Du Bois wanted the same thing, freedom for their people. They just had different ideas on how to achieve it. Paul Larence Dunbar seemed to capture both sides. He used African American dialect in certain poems to not lose that heritage. I think his life as being an outstanding student in a white school hurt his spirit along the way. He tried to follow Washington’s idea to fight racism and oppression by being excellent but in the end it didn’t work. Because of wanting to fit in and impress the whites to hopefully be accepted we get to enjoy great works of his. Overall, I feel that Dunbar relates more with Washington’s ideals.
