ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF THE 
 
 Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute 
 
 TUSKEGEE, ALABAMA 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF THE 
 
 Cotton States and International Exposition 
 
 at Atlanta, Ga., September 18, 1895 
 
 WITH 
 
 A LETTER OF CONGRATULATION 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
The requests from all parts of this country, and 
 even out of it, for copies of this address have 
 been so many and so constant that it has been de- 
 cided to put it into this more permanent form. 
 
Gray Gables, Buzzards Bay, Mass. 
 
 October 6, 1395. 
 
 Booker T. Washington, Esq. 
 
 My Dear Sir: I thank you for sending me a 
 copy of your address delivered at the Atlanta Ex- 
 position. 
 
 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 justi- 
 fied if it did not do more than furnish the oppor- 
 tunity for its delivery. Your words cannot fail to 
 delight and encourage all who wish well for your 
 race; and if our colored fellow citizens do not 
 from your utterances gather new hope and form 
 new determinations to gain every valuable ad- 
 vantage offered them by their citizenship, it will 
 be strange indeed. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Grover Cleveland. 
 
 (3) 
 
[Signed article in New York World by Hon. 
 Clark Howell, Editor Atlanta Constitution, Sep- 
 tember 19, 1895.] 
 
 CLARK HOWELL. 
 
 Atlanta, Ga., September 19th. 
 To the Editor of the World: 
 
 I do not exaggerate when I say that Prof. 
 Booker T. Washington’s address yesterday was 
 one of the most notable speeches, both as to char- 
 acter and the warmth of its reception, ever deliv- 
 ered to a Southern audience. It was an epoch- 
 making talk, and marks distinctly a turning 
 point in the progress of the Negro race, and its ef- 
 fect in bringing about a perfect understanding 
 between the whites and blacks of the South will 
 be immediate. The address was a revelation. It 
 was the first time that a Negro orator had ap- 
 peared on a similar occasion before a Southern 
 audience. 
 
 The propriety of inviting a representative of 
 the Negro race to participate in the opening ex- 
 ercises was fully discussed a month ago, when the 
 opening program was being arranged. Some op- 
 position was manifested on account of the fear 
 that public sentiment was not prepared for such 
 an advanced step. The invitation, however, was 
 extended by a vote of the Board of Directors, and 
 the cordial greeting which the audience gave 
 Washington’s address shows that the Board made 
 no mistake. There was not a line in the address 
 
 ( 4 ) 
 
which would have been changed even by the most 
 sensitive of those who thought the invitation to 
 be imprudent. The whole speech is a platform 
 on which the whites and blacks can stand with 
 full justice to each race. 
 
 The speech is a full vindication from the mouth 
 of a representative Negro of the doctrine so elo- 
 quently advanced by Grady and those who have 
 agreed with him that it is to the South that the 
 Negro must turn for his best friend, and that his 
 welfare is so closely identified with the progress 
 of the white people of the South that each race is 
 mutually dependent upon the other, and that the 
 so-called “race problem” must be solved in the 
 development of the natural relations growing out 
 of the association between the whites and blacks 
 of the South. 
 
 The . question of social equality is eliminated as 
 a factor in the development of the problem, and 
 the situation is aptly expressed by Washington 
 in the statement that “in all things that are 
 purely social we can be as separate as the nngers, 
 yet one as the hand in all things essential to mu- 
 tual progress.” 
 
 The speech will do good, and the unanimous 
 approval with which it has been received demon- 
 strates the fact that is has already done good. 
 
 Clark Howell, 
 
 Editor of the Atlanta Constitution. 
 
 ( 5 ) 
 
MR. WASHINGTON’S ADDRESS. 
 
 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 ma- 
 terial, 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 Ne- 
 gro been more fittingly and generously recog- 
 nized 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 oportunity 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 a sea for many days suddenly sight- 
 ed a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfor- 
 tunate vessel was seen a signal: “Water, water; 
 
 ( 6 ) 
 
we die of thirst !” The answer from the friendly 
 vessel at once came back : “Cast down your buck- 
 et 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 heeding the in- 
 junction, 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 de- 
 pend 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 neighbor, 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 com- 
 merce, 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 dan- 
 ger is, that in the great leap from slavery to free- 
 dom 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 pro- 
 portion as we learn to dignify and glorify com- 
 mon labor and put brains and skill into the com- 
 mon occupations of life; shall prosper in propor- 
 tion as we learn to draw the line between the 
 
 ( 7 ) 
 
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 in- 
 coming of those of foreign birth and strange 
 tongue and habits for 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 8,000,000 Ne- 
 groes 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 labor 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 rep- 
 resentation of the progress of the South. 
 Casting down your bucket among my people, help- 
 ing 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-aoiding, and un- 
 resentful people that the world has seen. As we 
 have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in 
 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 
 
 ( 8 ) 
 
in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand 
 by you with a devotion that no foreigner can ap- 
 proach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, 
 in defense 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 defense or security for any of us 
 except in the highest intelligence and develop- 
 ment of all. If anywhere there are efforts tend- 
 ing to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, 
 let these efforts be turned into stimulating, en- 
 couraging, and making him the most useful and 
 intelligent citizen. Efforts or means so invested 
 will pay a thousand per cent, interest. These ef- 
 forts 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 upwards, or they will pull 
 against you the load downw r ards. We shall con- 
 stitute 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. 
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to 
 you our humble effort at an exhibition of our 
 progress, you must not expect overmuch. Start- 
 ing thirty years ago with ownership here and 
 there in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens, 
 remember the path that has led from these to the 
 inventions and production of agricultural imple- 
 ments, buggies, steam engines, newspapers, 
 books, statuary, carving, paintings, the man- 
 agement 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 re- 
 sult 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 educational 
 life, not only from the Southern «States, but es- 
 pecially 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 enjoy- 
 ment of all the privileges that will come to us 
 must be the result of severe and -constant strug- 
 gle 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 privil- 
 eges. 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 encour- 
 agement, and drawn us so near to you of the 
 
 (io) 
 
white race, as this opportunity offered by the Ex- 
 position; 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 doois ot the 
 South you shall have at all times the patient, sym- 
 pathetic help of my race ; only let this be constant- 
 ly in the mind that, while from representations 
 in these buildings of the product ot 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 differ- 
 ences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a 
 determination to administer absolute justice, in 
 a willing obedience among all classes to the man- 
 dates of law. This, this, coupled with our 
 material prosperity, will bring into our beloved 
 Southland a new heaven and a new earth. 
 
 (u) 
 
.