No account of Black history in America is complete without an examination of the rivalry between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, which in the late 19th to early 20th centuries changed the course of the quest for equality in American society, and in the process helped give birth to the modern civil rights movement. Though Washington and Du Bois were born in the same era, both highly accomplished scholars and committed to the cause of civil rights for Black people in America, it was their differences in background and method that would have the greatest impact on the future.
