Doc of the Day: Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition address
On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington delivered his Atlanta Exposition address during the opening ceremonies of the Cotton States and International Exposition. The address, which ran a little over ten minutes, propelled the previously unknown principal of Tuskegee Institute, a small black college in rural Alabama, into the national spotlight. By almost any measure, it (along with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech) was one of the most important speeches presented by an African American. The immediate response, both in Atlanta and across the country, was overwhelmingly positive, but over time both Washington and his address have been sharply criticized, especially by other African American intellectuals and leaders. These critics termed the Atlanta address the “Atlanta Compromise” and made Washington a symbol of accommodation and acquiescence to southern racism, segregation, and the political disenfranchisement of African Americans. Throughout much of the twentieth century Washington and his famous (or infamous) address were a defining element in the African American political debate.
The assessment of Washington’s Atlanta Exposition address is clouded by the problem that Washington’s actual words are less known than the responses and the analysis of those words by Washington’s allies and especially by his opponents. As soon as the news of Washington’s triumph at Atlanta spread across the country, friends and foes began to dissect his words and to interpret various phrases or images that he utilized. As a result, the speech itself quickly faded from memory, while discrete segments of the speech became permanently imbedded in American racial discourse, both within the African American community and among white Americans. The original context of the address, as well as its complex and nuanced arguments, gave way to the overly simplified and largely inaccurate view that Washington had surrendered the rights that African Americans had won during the Civil War and Reconstruction. By the time of Washington’s death twenty years later, African American leadership was divided into Bookerite (pro-Washington) and anti-Bookerite factions, and Washington’s opponents increasingly dominated the debate.
Read the full text of the address.
