In the late 19th and 20th century two great leaders of the black community paved the way for an improvement of problems of poverty and discrimination that faced Black Americans. These two leaders were W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. Du Bois and Washington both shared similar ideas that blacks essentially needed a sense of unity and self-pride to rise from their low social status. Though their main ides were generally similar, their strategies for accomplishing these goals were completely different. Du bois' strategy consisted that education was most important for blacks to learn. On the contrary, Washington encouraged blacks to accept their status and work in agriculture and industry to obtain industrial wealth and give up on education. At the time, both ideas were influential and slowly progressing towards their goals, although one leader contained accurate ideas that are still used today. The influential...