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Chapter XIV. The Atlanta Exposition Address
The Atlanta Exposition, at which I had been asked to make an
address as a representative of the Negro race, as stated in the
last chapter, was opened with a short address from Governor
Bullock. After other interesting exercises, including an
invocation from Bishop Nelson, of Georgia, a dedicatory ode by
Albert Howell, Jr., and addresses by the President of the
Exposition and Mrs. Joseph Thompson, the President of the Woman's
Board, Governor Bullock introduce me with the words, "We have
with us to-day a representative of Negro enterprise and Negro
civilization."
When I arose to speak, there was considerable cheering,
especially from the coloured people. As I remember it now, the
thing that was uppermost in my mind was the desire to say
something that would cement the friendship of the races and bring
about hearty cooperation between them. So far as my outward
surroundings were concerned, the only thing that I recall
distinctly now is that when I got up, I saw thousands of eyes
looking intently into my face. The following is the address which
I delivered:--
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and
Citizens.
One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No
enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this
section can disregard this element of our population and reach
the highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and
Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that
in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been
more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of
this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress. It is
a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the
two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.
Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken
among us a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and
inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our
new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a
seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than
real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or
stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or
truck garden.
A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly
vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a
signal, "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the
friendly vessel at once came back, "Cast down your bucket where
you are." A second time the signal, "Water, water; send us
water!" ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered,
"Cast down your bucket where you are." And a third and fourth
signal for water was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you
are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heading the
injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh,
sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of
my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land
or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly
relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door
neighbour, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you
are"--cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the
people of all races by whom we are surrounded.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic
service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is
well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be
called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is
in the South that the Negro is given a man's chance in the
commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent
than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in
the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact
that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our
hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in
proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour and
put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall
prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the
superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life
and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is
as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at
the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should
we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of
foreign birth and strange tongue and habits of the prosperity of
the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own
race: "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down among
the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose
fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved
treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your
bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour
wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your
railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels
of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent
representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your
bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are
doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and
heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make
blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories.
While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past,
that you and your families will be surrounded by the most
patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the
world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past,
nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers
and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to
their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand
by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to
lay down our lives, if need be, in defence of yours, interlacing
our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours
in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all
things that are purely social we can be as separate as the
fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual
progress.
There is no defence or security for any of us except in the
highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there
are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro,
let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and
making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort or
means so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest. These
efforts will be twice blessed--"blessing him that gives and him
that takes."
There is no escape through law of man or God from the
inevitable:--
The laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;
And close as sin and suffering joined
We march to fate abreast.
Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load
upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall
constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the
South, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shall
contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of
the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death,
stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the
body politic.
Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humble
effort at an exhibition of our progress, you must not expect
overmuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there
in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered from
miscellaneous sources), remember the path that has led from these
to the inventions and production of agricultural implements,
buggies, steam-engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving,
paintings, the management of drug-stores and banks, has not been
trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we take
pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts,
we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition
would fall far short of your expectations but for the constant
help that has come to our education life, not only from the
Southern states, but especially from Northern philanthropists,
who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and
encouragement.
The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of
questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that
progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to
us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than
of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to
the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is
important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but
it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercises
of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a
factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to
spend a dollar in an opera-house.
In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has
given us more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to you
of the white race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition;
and here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the
results of the struggles of your race and mine, both starting
practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your
effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has
laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the
patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly
in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of
the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters,
and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material
benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will
come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial
animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer
absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the
mandates of law. This, this, coupled with our material
prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a
new earth.
The first thing that I remember, after I had finished speaking,
was that Governor Bullock rushed across the platform and took me
by the hand, and that others did the same. I received so many and
such hearty congratulations that I found it difficult to get out
of the building. I did not appreciate to any degree, however, the
impression which my address seemed to have made, until the next
morning, when I went into the business part of the city. As soon
as I was recognized, I was surprised to find myself pointed out
and surrounded by a crowd of men who wished to shake hands with
me. This was kept up on every street on to which I went, to an
extent which embarrassed me so much that I went back to my
boarding-place. The next morning I returned to Tuskegee. At the
station in Atlanta, and at almost all of the stations at which
the train stopped between that city and Tuskegee, I found a crowd
of people anxious to shake hands with me.
The papers in all parts of the United States published the
address in full, and for months afterward there were
complimentary editorial references to it. Mr. Clark Howell, the
editor of the Atlanta Constitution, telegraphed to a New York
paper, among other words, the following, "I do not exaggerate
when I say that Professor Booker T. Washington's address
yesterday was one of the most notable speeches, both as to
character and as to the warmth of its reception, ever delivered
to a Southern audience. The address was a revelation. The whole
speech is a platform upon which blacks and whites can stand with
full justice to each other."
The Boston Transcript said editorially: "The speech of Booker T.
Washington at the Atlanta Exposition, this week, seems to have
dwarfed all the other proceedings and the Exposition itself. The
sensation that it has caused in the press has never been
equalled."
I very soon began receiving all kinds of propositions from
lecture bureaus, and editors of magazines and papers, to take the
lecture platform, and to write articles. One lecture bureau
offered me fifty thousand dollars, or two hundred dollars a night
and expenses, if I would place my services at its disposal for a
given period. To all these communications I replied that my
life-work was at Tuskegee; and that whenever I spoke it must be
in the interests of Tuskegee school and my race, and that I would
enter into no arrangements that seemed to place a mere commercial
value upon my services.
Some days after its delivery I sent a copy of my address to the
President of the United States, the Hon. Grover Cleveland. I
received from him the following autograph reply:--
Gray Gables, Buzzard's Bay, Mass.,
October 6, 1895.
Booker T. Washington, Esq.:
My Dear Sir: I thank you for sending me a copy of your address
delivered at the Atlanta Exposition.
I thank you with much enthusiasm for making the address. I have
read it with intense interest, and I think the Exposition would
be fully justified if it did not do more than furnish the
opportunity for its delivery. Your words cannot fail to delight
and encourage all who wish well for your race; and if our
coloured fellow-citizens do not from your utterances gather new
hope and form new determinations to gain every valuable advantage
offered them by their citizenship, it will be strange indeed.
Yours very truly,
Grover Cleveland.
Later I met Mr. Cleveland, for the first time, when, as
President, he visited the Atlanta Exposition. At the request of
myself and others he consented to spend an hour in the Negro
Building, for the purpose of inspecting the Negro exhibit and of
giving the coloured people in attendance an opportunity to shake
hands with him. As soon as I met Mr. Cleveland I became impressed
with his simplicity, greatness, and rugged honesty. I have met
him many times since then, both at public functions and at his
private residence in Princeton, and the more I see of him the
more I admire him. When he visited the Negro Building in Atlanta
he seemed to give himself up wholly, for that hour, to the
coloured people. He seemed to be as careful to shake hands with
some old coloured "auntie" clad partially in rags, and to take as
much pleasure in doing so, as if he were greeting some
millionaire. Many of the coloured people took advantage of the
occasion to get him to write his name in a book or on a slip of
paper. He was as careful and patient in doing this as if he were
putting his signature to some great state document.
Mr. Cleveland has not only shown his friendship for me in many
personal ways, but has always consented to do anything I have
asked of him for our school. This he has done, whether it was to
make a personal donation or to use his influence in securing the
donations of others. Judging from my personal acquaintance with
Mr. Cleveland, I do not believe that he is conscious of
possessing any colour prejudice. He is too great for that. In my
contact with people I find that, as a rule, it is only the
little, narrow people who live for themselves, who never read
good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a
way to permit them to come into contact with other souls--with
the great outside world. No man whose vision is bounded by colour
can come into contact with what is highest and best in the world.
In meeting men, in many places, I have found that the happiest
people are those who do the most for others; the most miserable
are those who do the least. I have also found that few things, if
any, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race
prejudice. I often say to our students, in the course of my talks
to them on Sunday evenings in the chapel, that the longer I live
and the more experience I have of the world, the more I am
convinced that, after all, the one thing that is most worth
living for--and dying for, if need be--is the opportunity of
making some one else more happy and more useful.
The coloured people and the coloured newspapers at first seemed
to be greatly pleased with the character of my Atlanta address,
as well as with its reception. But after the first burst of
enthusiasm began to die away, and the coloured people began
reading the speech in cold type, some of them seemed to feel that
they had been hypnotized. They seemed to feel that I had been too
liberal in my remarks toward the Southern whites, and that I had
not spoken out strongly enough for what they termed the "rights"
of my race. For a while there was a reaction, so far as a certain
element of my own race was concerned, but later these reactionary
ones seemed to have been won over to my way of believing and
acting.
While speaking of changes in public sentiment, I recall that
about ten years after the school at Tuskegee was established, I
had an experience that I shall never forget. Dr. Lyman Abbott,
then the pastor of Plymouth Church, and also editor of the
Outlook (then the Christian Union), asked me to write a letter
for his paper giving my opinion of the exact condition, mental
and moral, of the coloured ministers in the South, as based upon
my observations. I wrote the letter, giving the exact facts as I
conceived them to be. The picture painted was a rather black
one--or, since I am black, shall I say "white"? It could not be
otherwise with a race but a few years out of slavery, a race
which had not had time or opportunity to produce a competent
ministry.
What I said soon reached every Negro minister in the country, I
think, and the letters of condemnation which I received from them
were not few. I think that for a year after the publication of
this article every association and every conference or religious
body of any kind, of my race, that met, did not fail before
adjourning to pass a resolution condemning me, or calling upon me
to retract or modify what I had said. Many of these organizations
went so far in their resolutions as to advise parents to cease
sending their children to Tuskegee. One association even
appointed a "missionary" whose duty it was to warn the people
against sending their children to Tuskegee. This missionary had a
son in the school, and I noticed that, whatever the "missionary"
might have said or done with regard to others, he was careful not
to take his son away from the institution. Many of the coloured
papers, especially those that were the organs of religious
bodies, joined in the general chorus of condemnation or demands
for retraction.
During the whole time of the excitement, and through all the
criticism, I did not utter a word of explanation of retraction. I
knew that I was right, and that time and the sober second thought
of the people would vindicate me. It was not long before the
bishops and other church leaders began to make careful
investigation of the conditions of the ministry, and they found
out that I was right. In fact, the oldest and most influential
bishop in one branch of the Methodist Church said that my words
were far too mild. Very soon public sentiment began making itself
felt, in demanding a purifying of the ministry. While this is not
yet complete by any means, I think I may say, without egotism,
and I have been told by many of our most influential ministers,
that my words had much to do with starting a demand for the
placing of a higher type of men in the pulpit. I have had the
satisfaction of having many who once condemned me thank me
heartily for my frank words.
The change of the attitude of the Negro ministry, so far as
regards myself, is so complete that at the present time I have no
warmer friends among any class than I have among the clergymen.
The improvement in the character and life of the Negro ministers
is one of the most gratifying evidences of the progress of the
race. My experience with them, as well as other events in my
life, convince me that the thing to do, when one feels sure that
he has said or done the right thing, and is condemned, is to
stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it.
In the midst of the discussion which was going on concerning my
Atlanta speech, I received the letter which I give below, from
Dr. Gilman, the President of Johns Hopkins University, who had
been made chairman of the judges of award in connection with the
Atlanta Exposition:--
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
President's Office, September 30, 1895.
Dear Mr. Washington: Would it be agreeable to you to be one of
the Judges of Award in the Department of Education at Atlanta? If
so, I shall be glad to place your name upon the list. A line by
telegraph will be welcomed.
Yours very truly,
D.C. Gilman
I think I was even more surprised to receive this invitation than
I had been to receive the invitation to speak at the opening of
the Exposition. It was to be a part of my duty, as one of the
jurors, to pass not only upon the exhibits of the coloured
schools, but also upon those of the white schools. I accepted the
position, and spent a month in Atlanta in performance of the
duties which it entailed. The board of jurors was a large one,
containing in all of sixty members. It was about equally divided
between Southern white people and Northern white people. Among
them were college presidents, leading scientists and men of
letters, and specialists in many subjects. When the group of
jurors to which I was assigned met for organization, Mr. Thomas
Nelson Page, who was one of the number, moved that I be made
secretary of that division, and the motion was unanimously
adopted. Nearly half of our division were Southern people. In
performing my duties in the inspection of the exhibits of white
schools I was in every case treated with respect, and at the
close of our labours I parted from my associates with regret.
I am often asked to express myself more freely than I do upon the
political condition and the political future of my race. These
recollections of my experience in Atlanta give me the opportunity
to do so briefly. My own belief is, although I have never before
said so in so many words, that the time will come when the Negro
in the South will be accorded all the political rights which his
ability, character, and material possessions entitle him to. I
think, though, that the opportunity to freely exercise such
political rights will not come in any large degree through
outside or artificial forcing, but will be accorded to the Negro
by the Southern white people themselves, and that they will
protect him in the exercise of those rights. Just as soon as the
South gets over the old feeling that it is being forced by
"foreigners," or "aliens," to do something which it does not want
to do, I believe that the change in the direction that I have
indicated is going to begin. In fact, there are indications that
it is already beginning in a slight degree.
Let me illustrate my meaning. Suppose that some months before the
opening of the Atlanta Exposition there had been a general demand
from the press and public platform outside the South that a Negro
be given a place on the opening programme, and that a Negro be
placed upon the board of jurors of award. Would any such
recognition of the race have taken place? I do not think so. The
Atlanta officials went as far as they did because they felt it to
be a pleasure, as well as a duty, to reward what they considered
merit in the Negro race. Say what we will, there is something in
human nature which we cannot blot out, which makes one man, in
the end, recognize and reward merit in another, regardless of
colour or race.
I believe it is the duty of the Negro--as the greater part of the
race is already doing--to deport himself modestly in regard to
political claims, depending upon the slow but sure influences
that proceed from the possession of property, intelligence, and
high character for the full recognition of his political rights.
I think that the according of the full exercise of political
rights is going to be a matter of natural, slow growth, not an
over-night, gourd-vine affair. I do not believe that the Negro
should cease voting, for a man cannot learn the exercise of
self-government by ceasing to vote, any more than a boy can learn
to swim by keeping out of the water, but I do believe that in his
voting he should more and more be influenced by those of
intelligence and character who are his next-door neighbours.
I know coloured men who, through the encouragement, help, and
advice of Southern white people, have accumulated thousands of
dollars' worth of property, but who, at the same time, would
never think of going to those same persons for advice concerning
the casting of their ballots. This, it seems to me, is unwise and
unreasonable, and should cease. In saying this I do not mean that
the Negro should truckle, or not vote from principle, for the
instant he ceases to vote from principle he loses the confidence
and respect of the Southern white man even.
I do not believe that any state should make a law that permits an
ignorant and poverty-stricken white man to vote, and prevents a
black man in the same condition from voting. Such a law is not
only unjust, but it will react, as all unjust laws do, in time;
for the effect of such a law is to encourage the Negro to secure
education and property, and at the same time it encourages the
white man to remain in ignorance and poverty. I believe that in
time, through the operation of intelligence and friendly race
relations, all cheating at the ballot-box in the South will
cease. It will become apparent that the white man who begins by
cheating a Negro out of his ballot soon learns to cheat a white
man out of his, and that the man who does this ends his career of
dishonesty by the theft of property or by some equally serious
crime. In my opinion, the time will come when the South will
encourage all of its citizens to vote. It will see that it pays
better, from every standpoint, to have healthy, vigorous life
than to have that political stagnation which always results when
one-half of the population has no share and no interest in the
Government.
As a rule, I believe in universal, free suffrage, but I believe
that in the South we are confronted with peculiar conditions that
justify the protection of the ballot in many of the states, for a
while at least, either by an education test, a property test, or
by both combined; but whatever tests are required, they should be
made to apply with equal and exact justice to both races.
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