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Chapter XIII. Two Thousand Miles For A Five-Minute Speech
Soon after the opening of our boarding department, quite a number
of students who evidently were worthy, but who were so poor that
they did not have any money to pay even the small charges at the
school, began applying for admission. This class was composed of
both men and women. It was a great trial to refuse admission to
these applicants, and in 1884 we established a night-school to
accommodate a few of them.
The night-school was organized on a plan similar to the one which
I had helped to establish at Hampton. At first it was composed of
about a dozen students. They were admitted to the night-school
only when they had no money with which to pay any part of their
board in the regular day-school. It was further required that
they must work for ten hours during the day at some trade or
industry, and study academic branches for two hours during the
evening. This was the requirement for the first one or two years
of their stay. They were to be paid something above the cost of
their board, with the understanding that all of their earnings,
except a very small part, were to be reserved in the school's
treasury, to be used for paying their board in the regular
day-school after they had entered that department. The
night-school, started in this manner, has grown until there are
at present four hundred and fifty-seven students enrolled in it
alone.
There could hardly be a more severe test of a student's worth
than this branch of the Institute's worth. It is largely because
it furnishes such a good opportunity to test the backbone of a
student that I place such high value upon our night-school. Any
one who is willing to work ten hours a day at the brick-yard, or
in the laundry, through one or two years, in order that he or she
may have the privilege of studying academic branches for two
hours in the evening, has enough bottom to warrant being further
educated.
After the student has left the night-school he enters the
day-school, where he takes academic branches four days in a week,
and works at his trade two days. Besides this he usually works at
his trade during the three summer months. As a rule, after a
student has succeeded in going through the night-school test, he
finds a way to finish the regular course in industrial and
academic training. No student, no matter how much money he may be
able to command, is permitted to go through school without doing
manual labour. In fact, the industrial work is now as popular as
the academic branches. Some of the most successful men and women
who have graduated from the institution obtained their start in
the night-school.
While a great deal of stress is laid upon the industrial side of
the work at Tuskegee, we do not neglect or overlook in any degree
the religious and spiritual side. The school is strictly
undenominational, but it is thoroughly Christian, and the
spiritual training or the students is not neglected. Our
preaching service, prayer-meetings, Sunday-school, Christian
Endeavour Society, Young Men's Christian Association, and various
missionary organizations, testify to this.
In 1885, Miss Olivia Davidson, to whom I have already referred as
being largely responsible for the success of the school during
its early history, and I were married. During our married life
she continued to divide her time and strength between our home
and the work for the school. She not only continued to work in
the school at Tuskegee, but also kept up her habit of going North
to secure funds. In 1889 she died, after four years of happy
married life and eight years of hard and happy work for the
school. She literally wore herself out in her never ceasing
efforts in behalf of the work that she so dearly loved. During
our married life there were born to us two bright, beautiful
boys, Booker Taliaferro and Ernest Davidson. The older of these,
Booker, has already mastered the brick-maker's trade at Tuskegee.
I have often been asked how I began the practice of public
speaking. In answer I would say that I never planned to give any
large part of my life to speaking in public. I have always had
more of an ambition to DO things than merely to talk ABOUT doing
them. It seems that when I went North with General Armstrong to
speak at the series of public meetings to which I have referred,
the President of the National Educational Association, the Hon.
Thomas W. Bicknell, was present at one of those meetings and
heard me speak. A few days afterward he sent me an invitation to
deliver an address at the next meeting of the Educational
Association. This meeting was to be held in Madison, Wis. I
accepted the invitation. This was, in a sense, the beginning of
my public-speaking career.
On the evening that I spoke before the Association there must
have been not far from four thousand persons present. Without my
knowing it, there were a large number of people present from
Alabama, and some from the town of Tuskegee. These white people
afterward frankly told me that they went to this meeting
expecting to hear the South roundly abused, but were pleasantly
surprised to find that there was no word of abuse in my address.
On the contrary, the South was given credit for all the
praiseworthy things that it had done. A white lady who was
teacher in a college in Tuskegee wrote back to the local paper
that she was gratified, as well as surprised, to note the credit
which I gave the white people of Tuskegee for their help in
getting the school started. This address at Madison was the first
that I had delivered that in any large measure dealt with the
general problem of the races. Those who heard it seemed to be
pleased with what I said and with the general position that I
took.
When I first came to Tuskegee, I determined that I would make it
my home, that I would take as much pride in the right actions of
the people of the town as any white man could do, and that I
would, at the same time, deplore the wrong-doing of the people as
much as any white man. I determined never to say anything in a
public address in the North that I would not be willing to say in
the South. I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an
individual by abusing him, and that this is more often
accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions
performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done.
While pursuing this policy I have not failed, at the proper time
and in the proper manner, to call attention, in no uncertain
terms, to the wrongs which any part of the South has been guilty
of. I have found that there is a large element in the South that
is quick to respond to straightforward, honest criticism of any
wrong policy. As a rule, the place to criticise the South, when
criticism is necessary, is in the South--not in Boston. A Boston
man who came to Alabama to criticise Boston would not effect so
much good, I think, as one who had his word of criticism to say
in Boston.
In this address at Madison I took the ground that the policy to
be pursued with references to the races was, by every honourable
means, to bring them together and to encourage the cultivation of
friendly relations, instead of doing that which would embitter. I
further contended that, in relation to his vote, the Negro should
more and more consider the interests of the community in which he
lived, rather than seek alone to please some one who lived a
thousand miles away from him and from his interests.
In this address I said that the whole future of the Negro rested
largely upon the question as to whether or not he should make
himself, through his skill, intelligence, and character, of such
undeniable value to the community in which he lived that the
community could not dispense with his presence. I said that any
individual who learned to do something better than anybody
else--learned to do a common thing in an uncommon manner--had
solved his problem, regardless of the colour of his skin, and
that in proportion as the Negro learned to produce what other
people wanted and must have, in the same proportion would he be
respected.
I spoke of an instance where one of our graduates had produced
two hundred and sixty-six bushels of sweet potatoes from an acre
of ground, in a community where the average production had been
only forty-nine bushels to the acre. He had been able to do this
by reason of his knowledge of the chemistry of the soil and by
his knowledge of improved methods of agriculture. The white
farmers in the neighbourhood respected him, and came to him for
ideas regarding the raising of sweet potatoes. These white
farmers honoured and respected him because he, by his skill and
knowledge, had added something to the wealth and the comfort of
the community in which he lived. I explained that my theory of
education for the Negro would not, for example, confine him for
all time to farm life--to the production of the best and the most
sweet potatoes--but that, if he succeeded in this line of
industry, he could lay the foundations upon which his children
and grand-children could grow to higher and more important things
in life.
Such, in brief, were some of the views I advocated in this first
address dealing with the broad question of the relations of the
two races, and since that time I have not found any reason for
changing my views on any important point.
In my early life I used to cherish a feeling of ill will toward
any one who spoke in bitter terms against the Negro, or who
advocated measures that tended to oppress the black man or take
from him opportunities for growth in the most complete manner.
Now, whenever I hear any one advocating measures that are meant
to curtail the development of another, I pity the individual who
would do this. I know that the one who makes this mistake does so
because of his own lack of opportunity for the highest kind of
growth. I pity him because I know that he is trying to stop the
progress of the world, and because I know that in time the
development and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make him
ashamed of his weak and narrow position. One might as well try to
stop the progress of a mighty railroad train by throwing his body
across the track, as to try to stop the growth of the world in
the direction of giving mankind more intelligence, more culture,
more skill, more liberty, and in the direction of extending more
sympathy and more brotherly kindness.
The address which I delivered at Madison, before the National
Educational Association, gave me a rather wide introduction in
the North, and soon after that opportunities began offering
themselves for me to address audiences there.
I was anxious, however, that the way might also be opened for me
to speak directly to a representative Southern white audience. A
partial opportunity of this kind, one that seemed to me might
serve as an entering wedge, presented itself in 1893, when the
international meeting of Christian Workers was held at Atlanta,
Ga. When this invitation came to me, I had engagements in Boston
that seemed to make it impossible for me to speak in Atlanta.
Still, after looking over my list of dates and places carefully,
I found that I could take a train from Boston that would get me
into Atlanta about thirty minutes before my address was to be
delivered, and that I could remain in that city before taking
another train for Boston. My invitation to speak in Atlanta
stipulated that I was to confine my address to five minutes. The
question, then, was whether or not I could put enough into a
five-minute address to make it worth while for me to make such a
trip.
I knew that the audience would be largely composed of the most
influential class of white men and women, and that it would be a
rare opportunity for me to let them know what we were trying to
do at Tuskegee, as well as to speak to them about the relations
of the races. So I decided to make the trip. I spoke for five
minutes to an audience of two thousand people, composed mostly of
Southern and Northern whites. What I said seemed to be received
with favour and enthusiasm. The Atlanta papers of the next day
commented in friendly terms on my address, and a good deal was
said about it in different parts of the country. I felt that I
had in some degree accomplished my object--that of getting a
hearing from the dominant class of the South.
The demands made upon me for public addresses continued to
increase, coming in about equal numbers from my own people and
from Northern whites. I gave as much time to these addresses as I
could spare from the immediate work at Tuskegee. Most of the
addresses in the North were made for the direct purpose of
getting funds with which to support the school. Those delivered
before the coloured people had for their main object the
impressing upon them the importance of industrial and technical
education in addition to academic and religious training.
I now come to that one of the incidents in my life which seems to
have excited the greatest amount of interest, and which perhaps
went further than anything else in giving me a reputation that in
a sense might be called National. I refer to the address which I
delivered at the opening of the Atlanta Cotton states and
International Exposition, at Atlanta, Ga., September 18, 1895.
So much has been said and written about this incident, and so
many questions have been asked me concerning the address, that
perhaps I may be excused for taking up the matter with some
detail. The five-minute address in Atlanta, which I came from
Boston to deliver, was possibly the prime cause for an
opportunity being given me to make the second address there. In
the spring of 1895 I received a telegram from prominent citizens
in Atlanta asking me to accompany a committee from that city to
Washington for the purpose of appearing before a committee of
Congress in the interest of securing Government help for the
Exposition. The committee was composed of about twenty-five of
the most prominent and most influential white men of Georgia. All
the members of this committee were white men except Bishop Grant,
Bishop Gaines, and myself. The Mayor and several other city and
state officials spoke before the committee. They were followed by
the two coloured bishops. My name was the last on the list of
speakers. I had never before appeared before such a committee,
nor had I ever delivered any address in the capital of the
Nation. I had many misgivings as to what I ought to say, and as
to the impression that my address would make. While I cannot
recall in detail what I said, I remember that I tried to impress
upon the committee, with all the earnestness and plainness of any
language that I could command, that if Congress wanted to do
something which would assist in ridding the South of the race
question and making friends between the two races, it should, in
every proper way, encourage the material and intellectual growth
of both races. I said that the Atlanta Exposition would present
an opportunity for both races to show what advance they had made
since freedom, and would at the same time afford encouragement to
them to make still greater progress.
I tried to emphasize the fact that while the Negro should not be
deprived by unfair means of the franchise, political agitation
alone would not save him, and that back of the ballot he must
have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and
character, and that no race without these elements could
permanently succeed. I said that in granting the appropriation
Congress could do something that would prove to be of real and
lasting value to both races, and that it was the first great
opportunity of the kind that had been presented since the close
of the Civil War.
I spoke for fifteen or twenty minutes, and was surprised at the
close of my address to receive the hearty congratulations of the
Georgia committee and of the members of Congress who were
present. The Committee was unanimous in making a favourable
report, and in a few days the bill passed Congress. With the
passing of this bill the success of the Atlanta Exposition was
assured.
Soon after this trip to Washington the directors of the
Exposition decided that it would be a fitting recognition of the
coloured race to erect a large and attractive building which
should be devoted wholly to showing the progress of the Negro
since freedom. It was further decided to have the building
designed and erected wholly by Negro mechanics. This plan was
carried out. In design, beauty, and general finish the Negro
Building was equal to the others on the grounds.
After it was decided to have a separate Negro exhibit, the
question arose as to who should take care of it. The officials of
the Exposition were anxious that I should assume this
responsibility, but I declined to do so, on the plea that the
work at Tuskegee at that time demanded my time and strength.
Largely at my suggestion, Mr. I. Garland Penn, of Lynchburg, Va.,
was selected to be at the head of the Negro department. I gave
him all the aid that I could. The Negro exhibit, as a whole, was
large and creditable. The two exhibits in this department which
attracted the greatest amount of attention were those from the
Hampton Institute and the Tuskegee Institute. The people who
seemed to be the most surprised, as well as pleased, at what they
saw in the Negro Building were the Southern white people.
As the day for the opening of the Exposition drew near, the Board
of Directors began preparing the programme for the opening
exercises. In the discussion from day to day of the various
features of this programme, the question came up as to the
advisability of putting a member of the Negro race on for one of
the opening addresses, since the Negroes had been asked to take
such a prominent part in the Exposition. It was argued, further,
that such recognition would mark the good feeling prevailing
between the two races. Of course there were those who were
opposed to any such recognition of the rights of the Negro, but
the Board of Directors, composed of men who represented the best
and most progressive element in the South, had their way, and
voted to invite a black man to speak on the opening day. The next
thing was to decide upon the person who was thus to represent the
Negro race. After the question had been canvassed for several
days, the directors voted unanimously to ask me to deliver one of
the opening-day addresses, and in a few days after that I
received the official invitation.
The receiving of this invitation brought to me a sense of
responsibility that it would be hard for any one not placed in my
position to appreciate. What were my feelings when this
invitation came to me? I remembered that I had been a slave; that
my early years had been spent in the lowest depths of poverty and
ignorance, and that I had had little opportunity to prepare me
for such a responsibility as this. It was only a few years before
that time that any white man in the audience might have claimed
me as his slave; and it was easily possible that some of my
former owners might be present to hear me speak.
I knew, too, that this was the first time in the entire history
of the Negro that a member of my race had been asked to speak
from the same platform with white Southern men and women on any
important National occasion. I was asked now to speak to an
audience composed of the wealth and culture of the white South,
the representatives of my former masters. I knew, too, that while
the greater part of my audience would be composed of Southern
people, yet there would be present a large number of Northern
whites, as well as a great many men and women of my own race.
I was determined to say nothing that I did not feel from the
bottom of my heart to be true and right. When the invitation came
to me, there was not one word of intimation as to what I should
say or as to what I should omit. In this I felt that the Board of
Directors had paid a tribute to me. They knew that by one
sentence I could have blasted, in a large degree, the success of
the Exposition. I was also painfully conscious of the fact that,
while I must be true to my own race in my utterances, I had it in
my power to make such an ill-timed address as would result in
preventing any similar invitation being extended to a black man
again for years to come. I was equally determined to be true to
the North, as well as to the best element of the white South, in
what I had to say.
The papers, North and South, had taken up the discussion of my
coming speech, and as the time for it drew near this discussion
became more and more widespread. Not a few of the Southern white
papers were unfriendly to the idea of my speaking. From my own
race I received many suggestions as to what I ought to say. I
prepared myself as best I could for the address, but as the
eighteenth of September drew nearer, the heavier my heart became,
and the more I feared that my effort would prove a failure and a
disappointment.
The invitation had come at a time when I was very busy with my
school work, as it was the beginning of our school year. After
preparing my address, I went through it, as I usually do with
those utterances which I consider particularly important, with
Mrs. Washington, and she approved of what I intended to say. On
the sixteenth of September, the day before I was to start for
Atlanta, so many of the Tuskegee teachers expressed a desire to
hear my address that I consented to read it to them in a body.
When I had done so, and had heard their criticisms and comments,
I felt somewhat relieved, since they seemed to think well of what
I had to say.
On the morning of September 17, together with Mrs. Washington and
my three children, I started for Atlanta. I felt a good deal as I
suppose a man feels when he is on his way to the gallows. In
passing through the town of Tuskegee I met a white farmer who
lived some distance out in the country. In a jesting manner this
man said: "Washington, you have spoken before the Northern white
people, the Negroes in the South, and to us country white people
in the South; but Atlanta, to-morrow, you will have before you
the Northern whites, the Southern whites, and the Negroes all
together. I am afraid that you have got yourself in a tight
place." This farmer diagnosed the situation correctly, but his
frank words did not add anything to my comfort.
In the course of the journey from Tuskegee to Atlanta both
coloured and white people came to the train to point me out, and
discussed with perfect freedom, in my hearings, what was going to
take place the next day. We were met by a committee in Atlanta.
Almost the first thing that I heard when I got off the train in
that city was an expression something like this, from an old
coloured man near by: "Dat's de man of my race what's gwine to
make a speech at de Exposition to-morrow. I'se sho' gwine to hear
him."
Atlanta was literally packed, at the time, with people from all
parts of the country, and with representatives of foreign
governments, as well as with military and civic organizations.
The afternoon papers had forecasts of the next day's proceedings
in flaring headlines. All this tended to add to my burden. I did
not sleep much that night. The next morning, before day, I went
carefully over what I planned to say. I also kneeled down and
asked God's blessing upon my effort. Right here, perhaps, I ought
to add that I make it a rule never to go before an audience, on
any occasion, without asking the blessing of God upon what I want
to say.
I always make it a rule to make especial preparation for each
separate address. No two audiences are exactly alike. It is my
aim to reach and talk to the heart of each individual audience,
taking it into my confidence very much as I would a person. When
I am speaking to an audience, I care little for how what I am
saying is going to sound in the newspapers, or to another
audience, or to an individual. At the time, the audience before
me absorbs all my sympathy, thought, and energy.
Early in the morning a committee called to escort me to my place
in the procession which was to march to the Exposition grounds.
In this procession were prominent coloured citizens in carriages,
as well as several Negro military organizations. I noted that the
Exposition officials seemed to go out of their way to see that
all of the coloured people in the procession were properly placed
and properly treated. The procession was about three hours in
reaching the Exposition grounds, and during all of this time the
sun was shining down upon us disagreeably hot. When we reached
the grounds, the heat, together with my nervous anxiety, made me
feel as if I were about ready to collapse, and to feel that my
address was not going to be a success. When I entered the
audience-room, I found it packed with humanity from bottom to
top, and there were thousands outside who could not get in.
The room was very large, and well suited to public speaking. When
I entered the room, there were vigorous cheers from the coloured
portion of the audience, and faint cheers from some of the white
people. I had been told, while I had been in Atlanta, that while
many white people were going to be present to hear me speak,
simply out of curiosity, and that others who would be present
would be in full sympathy with me, there was a still larger
element of the audience which would consist of those who were
going to be present for the purpose of hearing me make a fool of
myself, or, at least, of hearing me say some foolish thing so
that they could say to the officials who had invited me to speak,
"I told you so!"
One of the trustees of the Tuskegee Institute, as well as my
personal friend, Mr. William H. Baldwin, Jr. was at the time
General Manager of the Southern Railroad, and happened to be in
Atlanta on that day. He was so nervous about the kind of
reception that I would have, and the effect that my speech would
produce, that he could not persuade himself to go into the
building, but walked back and forth in the grounds outside until
the opening exercises were over.
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