Booker T. Washington’s 1895 Address to the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition is one of the most famous speeches in American history. The goal of the Atlanta Exposition was to showcase the economic progress of the South since the Civil War, to encourage international trade, and to attract investors to the region. Anxious to show there had been progress in race relations as well, the promoters invited Washington, who had a reputation as a conservative black leader, to speak at the opening ceremonies. Washington gave his address on September 18, 1895, before a predominantly white audience.
On the surface, Washington did not disappoint the Exposition’s white promoters. Stressing the importance of hard work and gradual progress for blacks, he argued that they should “cast down their buckets” where they were in agriculture rather than try to go into politics, and to make friends with whites who could help them. Indeed some blacks later dubbed the speech “The Atlanta Compromise” believing that Washington had compromised their civil rights unnecessarily. But to Washington, this was a compromise that cut both ways. He asked whites to also “cast down their buckets” and hire black workers, rather than immigrants. He argued that by helping blacks, whites were helping themselves, as African Americans made up one third of the South’s population and could do much to help with its economic growth. Conversely, if blacks failed, they would be a significant detriment to Southern progress. Thus when Washington said in the full speech “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,” he really saw himself as striking a bargain with whites to get their economic support in exchange for not challenging segregation. Moreover he firmly believed that blacks would eventually gain political and social equality based on their economic achievements.
The response to the speech in 1895 was overwhelmingly positive, among both blacks and whites. Recent Harvard Ph.D. recipient W.E.B. Du Bois, then teaching at Wilberforce University, congratulated Washington in a telegram, calling his speech “a word fitly spoken.” Washington was soon in high demand as a speaker and became one of the best known black men in America. He parlayed this success into fundraising efforts, raising millions of dollars for black education in the South and his industrial training school, Tuskegee Institute. White politicians began consulting Washington on “safe” appointees for traditionally black positions in the government, as a recommendation from the “Wizard of Tuskegee” was a guarantee to whites that the candidate would have similar conservative views. Washington’s influence was such that in 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited him to dine at the White House, and he became a key advisor to Roosevelt on racial matters.