Excerpt from W. E. B. Du Bois Jon Reese 3 Du Bois wrote numerous books, and it is this enormous literary output on such a wide variety of themes which offers the most convincing testimony to Du Bois's lifetime position that it was vital for blacks to cultivate their own aesthetic and cultural values even as they made valuable strides toward social emancipation. In this he was opposed by Booker T. Washington, who felt that black people should concentrate on developing technical and mechanical skills before all else. Booker T. Washington probably disagreed with Du Bois because A) Washington believed that blacks did not need to develop their cultural values. B) Du Bois was insensitive to the economic inequalities blacks were suffering. C) Washington believed that economic independence was the most crucial need. D) Washington did not respect the academic work Du Bois had published.