Yes, an important book. Legend says that when Harriet Beacher Stowe met President Lincoln, he remarked to her: “So, you are the lady that started this damned war”
The book was read and enraged many by its depiction of slavery and its abuses and Uncle Tom, a slave, played an important part in the book. He is truly a Christ-like character because of his Christian charity and forgiving spirit, much like Christ forgave those that killed and tortured him, so did Tom.
That is why it is an insult to the book, to Uncle Tom, to drag down his spirituality and turn it into some sort of terrible racial turn-coat.
Uncle Tom was a Christ figure, in his great charity refusing to hate his oppressors, let alone those (like little Eva or George) who tried to be good and help him within the system as it existed.
Washington promoted negotiation, practical forgiveness, and treatment of the white majority as individuals who could be persuaded to help African-Americans.
DuBois not only rejected forgiveness of the oppressor, but in a racist fashion identified the "oppressors" as an unredeemable, monolithic group that must be overcome with resistance and even violence.
They are in the ascendancy and have been for some time. That's why Washington himself is regarded as a quisling and an "Uncle Tom" -- and why that term has become one of abuse.