Anna Julia Cooper and W.E.B. Du Bois were two of the most prominent African-American educators of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this period, they both envisioned a broad education tailored specifically to the critical intellectual and vocational needs of the entire black community. In this essay, the author examines common themes in Cooper's and Du Bois's educational thought and shows how they adapted, merged, and reconciled the idealism of Victorianism, Civilizationism, and Progressivism with the realities of black life to forge educational ideas aimed at improving the social, economic, and political conditions of African Americans. Building on the thesis of historians Richard Hofstadter and Wilson Moses, who argue that conflict and reconciliation are common phenomena in the thinking of American intellectuals, the author contends that Cooper and Du Bois reconciled inherently contradictory views in the dominant ideologies of their day to construct educational ideas for black Americans. (Contains 75 footnotes.)