DuBois's type of solidarity was
to be the platform from which to assert one's manhood even if it
meant personal deprivation:
"Surely then, in this period of frustration and disappointment,
we must turn from negation to affirmation, from the ever-lasting
'No' to the ever-lasting 'Yes.' Instead of sitting, sapped of all
initiative and independence; instead of drowning our originality
in imitation of mediocre white folks; instead of being afraid of
ourselves and cultivating the art of skulking to escape the
Color Line; we have got to renounce a program that always
involves humiliating self-stultifying scrambling to crawl
somewhere where we are not wanted; where we crouch panting like a
whipped dog. We have got to stop this and learn that on such a
program they cannot build manhood. No, by God, stand erect in a
mud-puddle and tell the white world to go to hell, rather than
lick boots in a parlor."
Both Walter White and James Weldon Johnson took on the task of
countering DuBois's position. Johnson argued that DuBois ended
where Washington began. He noted that the conflict between
integration into a biracial society and withdrawal into black
separatism had existed throughout American history.
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