DuBois and Garvey had plenty to say about each other. Although they usually did not confront each other directly, here’s what a conversation between them might look like (made of their quotes):

DuBois: [You] are the beloved leader of tens of thousands of poor and bewildered people who have been cheated all their lives. [Your] failure would mean a blow to their faith, and a loss of their little savings, which it would take generations to undo.

        Garvey: [African Americans need to] establish a country and absolute government of their own. We must give up the silly idea of folding our hands and waiting on God to do everything for us. If God had intended for that, then he would not have given us a mind. Whatever you want in life, you must make up your mind to do it for yourself.

DuBois: [The black American] does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa.  He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.

Garvey: Take advantage of every opportunity; where there is none, make it for yourself. [The NAACP] is the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America. [I was] unable to tell whether [I] was in a white office or that of the NAACP.

DuBois: It had been a mistake for [you] to try to bring Caribbean color politics to the United States… American Negroes recognized no color line in or out of the race and they will in the end punish the man who attempts to establish it.

Garvey: The great problem of the Negro for the last 500 years has been that of disunity. No one or no organization ever succeeded in uniting the Negro race. But within the last four years, the Universal Negro Improvement Association has worked wonders. It is bringing together in one fold four million organized Negroes who are scattered in all parts of the world.

DuBois: [Your] methods are bombastic, wasteful, illogical and ineffective and almost illegal. If [you] learn by experience, attract strong and capable friends and helpers instead of making needless enemies… and [are] willing to be a co-worker and not a czar, [you] may yet in time succeed in at least starting.

Garvey: If you believe that the Negro has a soul, if you believe that the Negro is a man, if you believe the Negro was endowed with the senses commonly given to other men by the Creator, then you must acknowledge that what other men have done, Negroes can do.