Assess the View That Booker T Washington Was the Most Important Leader in the Development of African American Civil Rights in the Period from 1865-1997?

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Assess the view that Booker T Washington was the most important leader in the development of African American Civil Rights in the period from 1865-1997? (60 marks) Booker T. Washington made a large impact in the development of African American Civil Rights from 1890 to 1915. However other leaders, including W E B Dubois, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X also made a large impact on these years. However they all faced different problems during these times, with Booker T. Washington facing the hardest issues of the 1890’s, including the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the making of Jim Crow Laws, Social Darwinism and the establishment of the Klu Klux Klan. Booker T. Washington was one of the first to be promoting African American Capitalisation and the first Black Leader in Civil Rights since the decline of Fredrick Douglas. This is very important as his position and ideas would affect the position of African Americans and the future of the Civil Rights Movement. The accommodationist approach was Washington’s approach to Civil Rights which would was outline in his famous Atlanta Compromise, here he suggested a compromise socially but economic equality of opportunity believing that social equality would come later. This can be compared to the most famous speech related to Civil Rights which was the “I have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King. This speech came much later than the Atlanta Compromise around the time of the decline of the Civil Rights Movement and thus seemed as if it represented a huge turning point for Civil Rights. Booker T’s idea of racial uplift and separate but equal helped to inspire Marcus Garvey in the 1920’s and ultimately lead to the Black Power Movement of Malcolm X and Stockely Carmicheal. Arguably WEB DuBois was also first inspired by Washington’s success and his aim to achieve equality. However, DuBois would later begin to
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