In early 1901, W.E.B. Du Bois approached Booker T. Washington with the account of how he
had been harassed by officials of the Southern Railway. Du Bois was en route to the 1900 Paris
Exposition where he was to organize the Negro Pavilion. He booked a sleeper berth to carry
him from Atlanta to Savannah and, when he presented himself for boarding, he was turned away.
The Southern Railway had suddenly begun to segregate sleeper cars. Upon learning of the
offense suffered by Du Bois, and the similar indignities inflicted upon other members of his
circle in the wake of Plessy v. Ferguson, Washington decided to fight back thus beginning a private assault against
Jim Crow. Washington and Du Bois immediately began planning a court fight against railway segregation.
Du Bois was to be the plaintiff and for two years they strategized. The project failed due
both to financial constraints and both men's inability to cooperate. This was a lost opportunity
for collaboration, one that tells us as much about Du Bois's and Washington's relationship as it
does the institutional obstacles within the African American community.
Using the story of this failed collaboration as a starting point, my paper
will examine African Americans' earliest efforts to combat Jim Crow. What black southerners
did not have was an organization to lead a resistance effort. Instead, they relied on
personalities (Washington, Du Bois, etc.) and that was a formula for defeat. Spontaneous,
localized battles weren’t going to win the war. It took African American leaders a decade to
realize that fact and to act upon that knowledge. Ultimately, the NAACP emerged to lead the
struggle but only after a fifteen-year-long succession of failures.
See more of: Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
See more of: Affiliated Society Sessions