ABSTRACT
The best known and most written about development in African American history at the turn of the century was the conflict between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois over the appropriate strategy for blacks to employ in their efforts to achieve racial justice. Washington's principal biographer, Louis R. Harlan, essentially agreed with the assessment of David Levering Lewis and Manning Marable. One difference that does appear after 1900 is that Du Bois begins to acknowledge and participate in criticism of Washington, although through the summer of 1903, this criticism is rather mild. Were Washington and Du Bois fundamentally incompatible? Was the conflict between them inevitable? While their methods differed, and while Du Bois became increasingly radical in the decade prior to World War I, there was nothing in their racial thought or commitment to racial justice that precluded compromise or an alliance.
