In the Library of Congress, on the walls of the Current Events Gallery, a well-traveled corridor in the Madison Building, hangs an exhibition of the Cotton States International Exposition held in Atlanta in September of 1895. What makes this exposition special is the speech given on opening day by Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), who, as a consequence of this speech, went on to become a powerful and controversial figure in the history of America's race relations.
Through the use of original letters, maps, photos, drawings and newspaper clippings interlaced with written narrative, "Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Address Revisited: A Centennial Exhibition and Reflection" attempts to transport the modern viewer into the America of the late 1800s, with a focus on race. All but one of the items exhibited are from from the extensive collection of the Library of Congress. Washington was among the first of outstanding African Americans to have his papers deposited at the Library.
Booker Taliaferro Washington, the son of a slave, was born before the Civil War on a plantation in Virginia. He moved with his family to West Virginia after emancipation in 1865 and worked in the salt mines and coal furnaces. In 1872 he enrolled at the Hampton Institute in Virginia and worked his way through school as a janitor, graduating in 1875. He then taught at other institutions and was appointed an instructor at Hampton in 1879. He organized the night school and ran a training program for Indians. So successful was he as an innovative educator that in 1881 he was chosen to found and lead the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
There, he followed the example set at Hampton and created a program for his students that combined academic curriculum with vocational training. Not only out of necessity but also to teach self-reliance, Washington had his students build their own buildings and grow their own food. His methods worked and became models for other schools.
Washington's accomplishments were acknowledged, and in October 1894 he was appointed to take "charge of the work of collecting, forwarding and installing the exhibits of the Colored People of Alabama" at an upcoming Southern agricultural exposition. The "colored" exhibits were to be housed on the fairgrounds in a separate "Negro Building" apart from the "white" exposition hall.
Less than a month before the opening, the directors of the exposition again called upon Washington, this time to invite him to be a principal speaker at the opening ceremony on Sept. 18, 1895. This was most unusual for a time when the races were kept at a distance. Even more unusual, however, was the fact that "a part of the auditorium [was] to be set apart for the use of Colored People."
The invitation presented and opportunity as well as a challenge to Washington. The press made much of the fact that a black man had been asked to speak at a national forum. Before Washington left Tuskegee for Atlanta, a white farmer cautioned: "In Atlanta you will have to speak before Northern white people, Southern white people and Negroes all together. I fear they have got you into a pretty tight place."
Such a diverse audience as well as the nature of the occasion was daunting, but Washington was prepared. A magnificent orator, according to all accounts, he kept his composure and gave an extraordinary address that is remembered to this day. As one observer noted: "By and by there was more applause and louder ... and when the Negro finished, such an ovation followed as I had never seen before and never expect to see again."
A triumph for Washington, the speech was reprinted in newspapers throughout the nation and even abroad. The Atlanta Constitution (a clipping in the exhibit) wrote: "Not a superfluous word in it," "the very best taste" and "not a jarring note in it."
Such a positive response especially from whites both in the North and the South was perhaps the result of the conciliatory tone of the speech and its nonthreatening character, as well as its summons to African Americans to help themselves. The most remembered words of Washington's speech are, "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" -- a tacit recognition and acceptance of segregation.
He also said, "No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem." He used the phrase "cast down your bucket" as a metaphor to urge the races to work together for the betterment of the whole nation, and in that context he admonished his listeners not to forsake loyal and trustworthy black laborers for recently arriving European immigrants.
Among the black community, W.E.B. Du Bois, a Harvard- educated historian, praised the speech, writing in a letter (in the exhibit) to Washington: "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver" (Proverbs 25:2).
The speech brought instantaneous fame, and Booker T. Washington was lionized. A curator of the exhibition, Debra Newman Ham, compares the popular reaction to the response and instant acclaim for Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech.
Washington's address was considered so remarkable that every line was analyzed and praised or debated and damned. However, despite its strong plea for economic equality and opportunity for African Americans, because of its conciliatory tone and outward acquiescence to social and political segregation, the speech was dubbed the "Atlanta Compromise."
As Washington catapulted into celebrity, he became a potent black voice and acted as an adviser on racial matters and patronage assignments to Presidents Cleveland and McKinley (who paid a visit to Tuskegee), and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Taft.
The "Atlanta Compromise" caused Washington to be admired by white society and many conservative blacks who believed in the correctness of his approach, such as George Washington Carver. However, other influential African Americans who were considered more radical, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, were critical of Washington's calls for conciliation and accommodation, especially his supposed reluctance to fight black disenfranchisement. Du Bois believed in social equality as well as economic justice and felt that blacks should confront whites at every level of injustice. Du Bois also opposed Washington's educational policy emphasizing vocational training. Both men used the black press to voice their views. It is indicative that Washington established the National Negro Business League, while Du Bois founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Although their strategies and tactics may have differed, both fought for the betterment of African Americans. A strong conservative, Washington's politics and views on race have been compared to those of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas by Dr. Ham.
Despite this conservative outlook, in 1898, when Washington addressed an audience of 16,000 commemorating the end of the Spanish American War, he said: Americans "have succeeded in every conflict except the effort to conquer ourselves in the blotting out of racial prejudices. ... Until we thus conquer ourselves, I make no empty statement when I say that we shall have a cancer gnawing at the heart of this republic that shall some day prove to be as dangerous as an attack from an army within or without."
These remarks were widely criticized by the Southern press, and Washington qualified his words but he never retracted them.
"Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Address Revisited: A Centennial Exhibition and Reflection" is a collaborative venture by the Library of Congress and the Tuskegee University Archives, made possible by a grant from Tuskegee University. The exhibition first opened at Tuskegee University on Sept. 18, 1995, in conjunction with a symposium as part of the 100th anniversary celebration of the Atlanta speech.
The exhibit was curated by Debra Newman Ham, an African American studies specialist at the Library of Congress before she joined the faculty of Morgan State University, in Maryland, and Andrew J. Cosentino of the Library's Interpretative Program Office.
The exhibit will remain on display in the Madison Building through Feb. 29. Hours are Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. and Saturday 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m.
