Booker T. Washington stressed education and entrepreneurship over direct confrontation. In many areas this was working. (Building wealth within a minority group is a much more solid course towards equality than state handouts. This is readily evident in the Catholic, Asian and Gay communities.). Following the ideaology of W.E.B. Du Bois was a mistake in the long run and helped to create an African-American community far too dependent on government hand outs and lacking a motivated population of self made business owners.
Here's what happened to African-Americans who became middle-class business owners. The path of confrontation was chosen for them - by the whites - before Du Bois ever wrote a word.
On the topic of the OP, I'd argue that the best-case outcome for African-Americans, short of a full federal commitment to Reconstruction, is a continuation of the equilibrium of the 1880s - i.e., after the Redeemer takeover but before full-scale disenfranchisement. During this period there were black members of Congress and state legislators (more of them in some states than during the 1870s, in fact), biracial fusion politics in a few states, middle-class black neighborhoods, black banks, etc. It wasn't necessarily preordained that race relations would continue from there to the nadir, although the Bourbon Democrats would have to see the black middle class as a potential ally against populism rather than a threat, which in turn would require a significant black Democratic organization in the lowland Carolinas or the Black Belt. Alternatively, coalitions like the Virginia Readjusters and the North Carolina populists, which relied in part on black support, could continue the 1880s racial status quo if they managed to stay in power.
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