Chapter XIV. The Atlanta Exposition Address

by Booker T. Washington

　　The Atlanta Exposition, at which I had been asked to make anaddress as a representative of the Negro race, as stated in thelast chapter, was opened with a short address from GovernorBullock. After other interesting exercises, including aninvocation from Bishop Nelson, of Georgia, a dedicatory ode byAlbert Howell, Jr., and addresses by the President of theExposition and Mrs. Joseph Thompson, the President of the Woman'sBoard, Governor Bullock introduce me with the words, "We havewith us to-day a representative of Negro enterprise and Negrocivilization."When I arose to speak, there was considerable cheering,especially from the coloured people. As I remember it now, thething that was uppermost in my mind was the desire to saysomething that would cement the friendship of the races and bringabout hearty cooperation between them. So far as my outwardsurroundings were concerned, the only thing that I recalldistinctly now is that when I got up, I saw thousands of eyeslooking intently into my face. The following is the address whichI delivered:--Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors andCitizens.One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. Noenterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of thissection can disregard this element of our population and reachthe highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President andDirectors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say thatin no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro beenmore fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers ofthis magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress. It isa recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of thetwo races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awakenamong us a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant andinexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of ournew life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that aseat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought thanreal estate or industrial skill; that the political convention orstump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm ortruck garden.A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendlyvessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen asignal, "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from thefriendly vessel at once came back, "Cast down your bucket whereyou are." A second time the signal, "Water, water; send uswater!" ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered,"Cast down your bucket where you are." And a third and fourthsignal for water was answered, "Cast down your bucket where youare." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heading theinjunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh,sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those ofmy race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign landor who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendlyrelations with the Southern white man, who is their next-doorneighbour, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where youare"--cast it down in making friends in every manly way of thepeople of all races by whom we are surrounded.Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domesticservice, and in the professions. And in this connection it iswell to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may becalled to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it isin the South that the Negro is given a man's chance in thecommercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquentthan in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that inthe great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the factthat the masses of us are to live by the productions of ourhands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper inproportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour andput brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shallprosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between thesuperficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of lifeand the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there isas much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is atthe bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor shouldwe permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those offoreign birth and strange tongue and habits of the prosperity ofthe South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my ownrace: "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down amongthe eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whosefidelity and love you have tested in days when to have provedtreacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down yourbucket among these people who have, without strikes and labourwars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded yourrailroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowelsof the earth, and helped make possible this magnificentrepresentation of the progress of the South. Casting down yourbucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you aredoing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, andheart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, makeblossom 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 mostpatient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that theworld has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past,nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothersand fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes totheir graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall standby you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready tolay down our lives, if need be, in defence of yours, interlacingour industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yoursin a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In allthings that are purely social we can be as separate as thefingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutualprogress.There is no defence or security for any of us except in thehighest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere thereare efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro,let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, andmaking him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort ormeans so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest. Theseefforts will be twice blessed--"blessing him that gives and himthat takes."There is no escape through law of man or God from theinevitable:--The laws of changeless justice bindOppressor with oppressed;And close as sin and suffering joinedWe march to fate abreast.Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the loadupward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shallconstitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of theSouth, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shallcontribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity ofthe South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death,stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance thebody politic.Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humbleeffort at an exhibition of our progress, you must not expectovermuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and therein a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered frommiscellaneous sources), remember the path that has led from theseto the inventions and production of agricultural implements,buggies, steam-engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving,paintings, the management of drug-stores and banks, has not beentrodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we takepride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts,we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibitionwould fall far short of your expectations but for the constanthelp that has come to our education life, not only from theSouthern states, but especially from Northern philanthropists,who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing andencouragement.The wisest among my race understand that the agitation ofquestions of social equality is the extremest folly, and thatprogress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come tous must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather thanof artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute tothe markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It isimportant and right that all privileges of the law be ours, butit is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercisesof these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in afactory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity tospend a dollar in an opera-house.In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years hasgiven us more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to youof the white race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition;and here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents theresults of the struggles of your race and mine, both startingpractically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in youreffort to work out the great and intricate problem which God haslaid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times thepatient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantlyin mind, that, while from representations in these buildings ofthe product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters,and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond materialbenefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, willcome, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racialanimosities and suspicions, in a determination to administerabsolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to themandates of law. This, this, coupled with our materialprosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and anew earth.The first thing that I remember, after I had finished speaking,was that Governor Bullock rushed across the platform and took meby the hand, and that others did the same. I received so many andsuch hearty congratulations that I found it difficult to get outof the building. I did not appreciate to any degree, however, theimpression which my address seemed to have made, until the nextmorning, when I went into the business part of the city. As soonas I was recognized, I was surprised to find myself pointed outand surrounded by a crowd of men who wished to shake hands withme. This was kept up on every street on to which I went, to anextent which embarrassed me so much that I went back to myboarding-place. The next morning I returned to Tuskegee. At thestation in Atlanta, and at almost all of the stations at whichthe train stopped between that city and Tuskegee, I found a crowdof people anxious to shake hands with me.The papers in all parts of the United States published theaddress in full, and for months afterward there werecomplimentary editorial references to it. Mr. Clark Howell, theeditor of the Atlanta Constitution, telegraphed to a New Yorkpaper, among other words, the following, "I do not exaggeratewhen I say that Professor Booker T. Washington's addressyesterday was one of the most notable speeches, both as tocharacter and as to the warmth of its reception, ever deliveredto a Southern audience. The address was a revelation. The wholespeech is a platform upon which blacks and whites can stand withfull justice to each other."The Boston Transcript said editorially: "The speech of Booker T.Washington at the Atlanta Exposition, this week, seems to havedwarfed all the other proceedings and the Exposition itself. Thesensation that it has caused in the press has never beenequalled."I very soon began receiving all kinds of propositions fromlecture bureaus, and editors of magazines and papers, to take thelecture platform, and to write articles. One lecture bureauoffered me fifty thousand dollars, or two hundred dollars a nightand expenses, if I would place my services at its disposal for agiven period. To all these communications I replied that mylife-work was at Tuskegee; and that whenever I spoke it must bein the interests of Tuskegee school and my race, and that I wouldenter into no arrangements that seemed to place a mere commercialvalue upon my services.Some days after its delivery I sent a copy of my address to thePresident of the United States, the Hon. Grover Cleveland. Ireceived 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 addressdelivered at the Atlanta Exposition.I thank you with much enthusiasm for making the address. I haveread it with intense interest, and I think the Exposition wouldbe fully justified if it did not do more than furnish theopportunity for its delivery. Your words cannot fail to delightand encourage all who wish well for your race; and if ourcoloured fellow-citizens do not from your utterances gather newhope and form new determinations to gain every valuable advantageoffered them by their citizenship, it will be strange indeed.Yours very truly,Grover Cleveland.Later I met Mr. Cleveland, for the first time, when, asPresident, he visited the Atlanta Exposition. At the request ofmyself and others he consented to spend an hour in the NegroBuilding, for the purpose of inspecting the Negro exhibit and ofgiving the coloured people in attendance an opportunity to shakehands with him. As soon as I met Mr. Cleveland I became impressedwith his simplicity, greatness, and rugged honesty. I have methim many times since then, both at public functions and at hisprivate residence in Princeton, and the more I see of him themore I admire him. When he visited the Negro Building in Atlantahe seemed to give himself up wholly, for that hour, to thecoloured people. He seemed to be as careful to shake hands withsome old coloured "auntie" clad partially in rags, and to take asmuch pleasure in doing so, as if he were greeting somemillionaire. Many of the coloured people took advantage of theoccasion to get him to write his name in a book or on a slip ofpaper. He was as careful and patient in doing this as if he wereputting his signature to some great state document.Mr. Cleveland has not only shown his friendship for me in manypersonal ways, but has always consented to do anything I haveasked of him for our school. This he has done, whether it was tomake a personal donation or to use his influence in securing thedonations of others. Judging from my personal acquaintance withMr. Cleveland, I do not believe that he is conscious ofpossessing any colour prejudice. He is too great for that. In mycontact with people I find that, as a rule, it is only thelittle, narrow people who live for themselves, who never readgood books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in away to permit them to come into contact with other souls--withthe great outside world. No man whose vision is bounded by colourcan come into contact with what is highest and best in the world.In meeting men, in many places, I have found that the happiestpeople are those who do the most for others; the most miserableare those who do the least. I have also found that few things, ifany, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as raceprejudice. I often say to our students, in the course of my talksto them on Sunday evenings in the chapel, that the longer I liveand the more experience I have of the world, the more I amconvinced that, after all, the one thing that is most worthliving for--and dying for, if need be--is the opportunity ofmaking some one else more happy and more useful.The coloured people and the coloured newspapers at first seemedto be greatly pleased with the character of my Atlanta address,as well as with its reception. But after the first burst ofenthusiasm began to die away, and the coloured people beganreading the speech in cold type, some of them seemed to feel thatthey had been hypnotized. They seemed to feel that I had been tooliberal in my remarks toward the Southern whites, and that I hadnot spoken out strongly enough for what they termed the "rights"of my race. For a while there was a reaction, so far as a certainelement of my own race was concerned, but later these reactionaryones seemed to have been won over to my way of believing andacting.While speaking of changes in public sentiment, I recall thatabout ten years after the school at Tuskegee was established, Ihad an experience that I shall never forget. Dr. Lyman Abbott,then the pastor of Plymouth Church, and also editor of theOutlook (then the Christian Union), asked me to write a letterfor his paper giving my opinion of the exact condition, mentaland moral, of the coloured ministers in the South, as based uponmy observations. I wrote the letter, giving the exact facts as Iconceived them to be. The picture painted was a rather blackone--or, since I am black, shall I say "white"? It could not beotherwise with a race but a few years out of slavery, a racewhich had not had time or opportunity to produce a competentministry.What I said soon reached every Negro minister in the country, Ithink, and the letters of condemnation which I received from themwere not few. I think that for a year after the publication ofthis article every association and every conference or religiousbody of any kind, of my race, that met, did not fail beforeadjourning to pass a resolution condemning me, or calling upon meto retract or modify what I had said. Many of these organizationswent so far in their resolutions as to advise parents to ceasesending their children to Tuskegee. One association evenappointed a "missionary" whose duty it was to warn the peopleagainst sending their children to Tuskegee. This missionary had ason in the school, and I noticed that, whatever the "missionary"might have said or done with regard to others, he was careful notto take his son away from the institution. Many of the colouredpapers, especially those that were the organs of religiousbodies, joined in the general chorus of condemnation or demandsfor retraction.During the whole time of the excitement, and through all thecriticism, I did not utter a word of explanation of retraction. Iknew that I was right, and that time and the sober second thoughtof the people would vindicate me. It was not long before thebishops and other church leaders began to make carefulinvestigation of the conditions of the ministry, and they foundout that I was right. In fact, the oldest and most influentialbishop in one branch of the Methodist Church said that my wordswere far too mild. Very soon public sentiment began making itselffelt, in demanding a purifying of the ministry. While this is notyet 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 theplacing of a higher type of men in the pulpit. I have had thesatisfaction of having many who once condemned me thank meheartily for my frank words.The change of the attitude of the Negro ministry, so far asregards myself, is so complete that at the present time I have nowarmer friends among any class than I have among the clergymen.The improvement in the character and life of the Negro ministersis one of the most gratifying evidences of the progress of therace. My experience with them, as well as other events in mylife, convince me that the thing to do, when one feels sure thathe has said or done the right thing, and is condemned, is tostand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it.In the midst of the discussion which was going on concerning myAtlanta speech, I received the letter which I give below, fromDr. Gilman, the President of Johns Hopkins University, who hadbeen made chairman of the judges of award in connection with theAtlanta Exposition:--Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,President's Office, September 30, 1895.Dear Mr. Washington: Would it be agreeable to you to be one ofthe Judges of Award in the Department of Education at Atlanta? Ifso, I shall be glad to place your name upon the list. A line bytelegraph will be welcomed.Yours very truly,D.C. GilmanI think I was even more surprised to receive this invitation thanI had been to receive the invitation to speak at the opening ofthe Exposition. It was to be a part of my duty, as one of thejurors, to pass not only upon the exhibits of the colouredschools, but also upon those of the white schools. I accepted theposition, and spent a month in Atlanta in performance of theduties which it entailed. The board of jurors was a large one,containing in all of sixty members. It was about equally dividedbetween Southern white people and Northern white people. Amongthem were college presidents, leading scientists and men ofletters, and specialists in many subjects. When the group ofjurors to which I was assigned met for organization, Mr. ThomasNelson Page, who was one of the number, moved that I be madesecretary of that division, and the motion was unanimouslyadopted. Nearly half of our division were Southern people. Inperforming my duties in the inspection of the exhibits of whiteschools I was in every case treated with respect, and at theclose of our labours I parted from my associates with regret.I am often asked to express myself more freely than I do upon thepolitical condition and the political future of my race. Theserecollections of my experience in Atlanta give me the opportunityto do so briefly. My own belief is, although I have never beforesaid so in so many words, that the time will come when the Negroin the South will be accorded all the political rights which hisability, character, and material possessions entitle him to. Ithink, though, that the opportunity to freely exercise suchpolitical rights will not come in any large degree throughoutside or artificial forcing, but will be accorded to the Negroby the Southern white people themselves, and that they willprotect him in the exercise of those rights. Just as soon as theSouth gets over the old feeling that it is being forced by"foreigners," or "aliens," to do something which it does not wantto do, I believe that the change in the direction that I haveindicated is going to begin. In fact, there are indications thatit is already beginning in a slight degree.Let me illustrate my meaning. Suppose that some months before theopening of the Atlanta Exposition there had been a general demandfrom the press and public platform outside the South that a Negrobe given a place on the opening programme, and that a Negro beplaced upon the board of jurors of award. Would any suchrecognition of the race have taken place? I do not think so. TheAtlanta officials went as far as they did because they felt it tobe a pleasure, as well as a duty, to reward what they consideredmerit in the Negro race. Say what we will, there is something inhuman nature which we cannot blot out, which makes one man, inthe end, recognize and reward merit in another, regardless ofcolour or race.I believe it is the duty of the Negro--as the greater part of therace is already doing--to deport himself modestly in regard topolitical claims, depending upon the slow but sure influencesthat proceed from the possession of property, intelligence, andhigh character for the full recognition of his political rights.I think that the according of the full exercise of politicalrights is going to be a matter of natural, slow growth, not anover-night, gourd-vine affair. I do not believe that the Negroshould cease voting, for a man cannot learn the exercise ofself-government by ceasing to vote, any more than a boy can learnto swim by keeping out of the water, but I do believe that in hisvoting he should more and more be influenced by those ofintelligence and character who are his next-door neighbours.I know coloured men who, through the encouragement, help, andadvice of Southern white people, have accumulated thousands ofdollars' worth of property, but who, at the same time, wouldnever think of going to those same persons for advice concerningthe casting of their ballots. This, it seems to me, is unwise andunreasonable, and should cease. In saying this I do not mean thatthe Negro should truckle, or not vote from principle, for theinstant he ceases to vote from principle he loses the confidenceand respect of the Southern white man even.I do not believe that any state should make a law that permits anignorant and poverty-stricken white man to vote, and prevents ablack man in the same condition from voting. Such a law is notonly 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 secureeducation and property, and at the same time it encourages thewhite man to remain in ignorance and poverty. I believe that intime, through the operation of intelligence and friendly racerelations, all cheating at the ballot-box in the South willcease. It will become apparent that the white man who begins bycheating a Negro out of his ballot soon learns to cheat a whiteman out of his, and that the man who does this ends his career ofdishonesty by the theft of property or by some equally seriouscrime. In my opinion, the time will come when the South willencourage all of its citizens to vote. It will see that it paysbetter, from every standpoint, to have healthy, vigorous lifethan to have that political stagnation which always results whenone-half of the population has no share and no interest in theGovernment.As a rule, I believe in universal, free suffrage, but I believethat in the South we are confronted with peculiar conditions thatjustify the protection of the ballot in many of the states, for awhile at least, either by an education test, a property test, orby both combined; but whatever tests are required, they should bemade to apply with equal and exact justice to both races.