Chapter XIII.

Two Thousand Miles For A Five-Minute Speech

Soon after the opening of our boarding department, quite a number of

students who evidently were worthy, but who were so poor that they did

not have any money to pay even the small charges at the school, began

applying for admission. This class was composed of both men and women.

It was a great trial to refuse admission to these applicants, and in

1884 we established a night-school to accommodate a few of them.

The night-school was organized on a plan similar to the one which I had

helped to establish at Hampton. At first it was composed of about a

dozen students. They were admitted to the night-school only when they

had no money with which to pay any part of their board in the regular

day-school. It was further required that they must work for ten hours

during the day at some trade or industry, and study academic branches

for two hours during the evening. This was the requirement for the

first one or two years of their stay. They were to be paid something

above the cost of their board, with the understanding that all of their

earnings, except a very small part, were to be reserved in the school’s

treasury, to be used for paying their board in the regular day-school

after they had entered that department. The night-school, started in

this manner, has grown until there are at present four hundred and

fifty-seven students enrolled in it alone.

There could hardly be a more severe test of a student’s worth than this

branch of the Institute’s work. It is largely because it furnishes such

a good opportunity to test the backbone of a student that I place such

high value upon our night-school. Any one who is willing to work ten

hours a day at the brick-yard, or in the laundry, through one or two

years, in order that he or she may have the privilege of studying

academic branches for two hours in the evening, has enough bottom to

warrant being further educated.

After the student has left the night-school he enters the day-school,

where he takes academic branches four days in a week, and works at his

trade two days. Besides this he usually works at his trade during the

three summer months. As a rule, after a student has succeeded in going

through the night-school test, he finds a way to finish the regular

course in industrial and academic training. No student, no matter how

much money he may be able to command, is permitted to go through school

without doing manual labour. In fact, the industrial work is now as

popular as the academic branches. Some of the most successful men and

women who have graduated from the institution obtained their start in

the night-school.

While a great deal of stress is laid upon the industrial side of the

work at Tuskegee, we do not neglect or overlook in any degree the

religious and spiritual side. The school is strictly undenominational,

but it is thoroughly Christian, and the spiritual training of the

students is not neglected. Our preaching service, prayer-meetings,

Sunday-school, Christian Endeavour Society, Young Men’s Christian

Association, and various missionary organizations, testify to this.

In 1885, Miss Olivia Davidson, to whom I have already referred as being

largely responsible for the success of the school during its early

history, and I were married. During our married life she continued to

divide her time and strength between our home and the work for the

school. She not only continued to work in the school at Tuskegee, but

also kept up her habit of going North to secure funds. In 1889 she

died, after four years of happy married life and eight years of hard

and happy work for the school. She literally wore herself out in her

never ceasing efforts in behalf of the work that she so dearly loved.

During our married life there were born to us two bright, beautiful

boys, Booker Taliaferro and Ernest Davidson. The older of these,

Booker, has already mastered the brick-maker’s trade at Tuskegee.

I have often been asked how I began the practice of public speaking. In

answer I would say that I never planned to give any large part of my

life to speaking in public. I have always had more of an ambition to

_do_ things than merely to talk _about_ doing them. It seems that when

I went North with General Armstrong to speak at the series of public

meetings to which I have referred, the President of the National

Educational Association, the Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, was present at

one of those meetings and heard me speak. A few days afterward he sent

me an invitation to deliver an address at the next meeting of the

Educational Association. This meeting was to be held in Madison, Wis. I

accepted the invitation. This was, in a sense, the beginning of my

public-speaking career.

On the evening that I spoke before the Association there must have been

not far from four thousand persons present. Without my knowing it,

there were a large number of people present from Alabama, and some from

the town of Tuskegee. These white people afterward frankly told me that

they went to this meeting expecting to hear the South roundly abused,

but were pleasantly surprised to find that there was no word of abuse

in my address. On the contrary, the South was given credit for all the

praiseworthy things that it had done. A white lady who was teacher in a

college in Tuskegee wrote back to the local paper that she was

gratified, as well as surprised, to note the credit which I gave the

white people of Tuskegee for their help in getting the school started.

This address at Madison was the first that I had delivered that in any

large measure dealt with the general problem of the races. Those who

heard it seemed to be pleased with what I said and with the general

position that I took.

When I first came to Tuskegee, I determined that I would make it my

home, that I would take as much pride in the right actions of the

people of the town as any white man could do, and that I would, at the

same time, deplore the wrong-doing of the people as much as any white

man. I determined never to say anything in a public address in the

North that I would not be willing to say in the South. I early learned

that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and

that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the

praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all

the evil done.

While pursuing this policy I have not failed, at the proper time and in

the proper manner, to call attention, in no uncertain terms, to the

wrongs which any part of the South has been guilty of. I have found

that there is a large element in the South that is quick to respond to

straightforward, honest criticism of any wrong policy. As a rule, the

place to criticise the South, when criticism is necessary, is in the

South—not in Boston. A Boston man who came to Alabama to criticise

Boston would not effect so much good, I think, as one who had his word

of criticism to say in Boston.

In this address at Madison I took the ground that the policy to be

pursued with references to the races was, by every honourable means, to

bring them together and to encourage the cultivation of friendly

relations, instead of doing that which would embitter. I further

contended that, in relation to his vote, the Negro should more and more

consider the interests of the community in which he lived, rather than

seek alone to please some one who lived a thousand miles away from him

and from his interests.

In this address I said that the whole future of the Negro rested

largely upon the question as to whether or not he should make himself,

through his skill, intelligence, and character, of such undeniable

value to the community in which he lived that the community could not

dispense with his presence. I said that any individual who learned to

do something better than anybody else—learned to do a common thing in

an uncommon manner—had solved his problem, regardless of the colour of

his skin, and that in proportion as the Negro learned to produce what

other people wanted and must have, in the same proportion would he be

respected.

I spoke of an instance where one of our graduates had produced two

hundred and sixty-six bushels of sweet potatoes from an acre of ground,

in a community where the average production had been only forty-nine

bushels to the acre. He had been able to do this by reason of his

knowledge of the chemistry of the soil and by his knowledge of improved

methods of agriculture. The white farmers in the neighbourhood

respected him, and came to him for ideas regarding the raising of sweet

potatoes. These white farmers honoured and respected him because he, by

his skill and knowledge, had added something to the wealth and the

comfort of the community in which he lived. I explained that my theory

of education for the Negro would not, for example, confine him for all

time to farm life—to the production of the best and the most sweet

potatoes—but that, if he succeeded in this line of industry, he could

lay the foundations upon which his children and grand-children could

grow to higher and more important things in life.

Such, in brief, were some of the views I advocated in this first

address dealing with the broad question of the relations of the two

races, and since that time I have not found any reason for changing my

views on any important point.

In my early life I used to cherish a feeling of ill will toward any one

who spoke in bitter terms against the Negro, or who advocated measures

that tended to oppress the black man or take from him opportunities for

growth in the most complete manner. Now, whenever I hear any one

advocating measures that are meant to curtail the development of

another, I pity the individual who would do this. I know that the one

who makes this mistake does so because of his own lack of opportunity

for the highest kind of growth. I pity him because I know that he is

trying to stop the progress of the world, and because I know that in

time the development and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make

him ashamed of his weak and narrow position. One might as well try to

stop the progress of a mighty railroad train by throwing his body

across the track, as to try to stop the growth of the world in the

direction of giving mankind more intelligence, more culture, more

skill, more liberty, and in the direction of extending more sympathy

and more brotherly kindness.

The address which I delivered at Madison, before the National

Educational Association, gave me a rather wide introduction in the

North, and soon after that opportunities began offering themselves for

me to address audiences there.

I was anxious, however, that the way might also be opened for me to

speak directly to a representative Southern white audience. A partial

opportunity of this kind, one that seemed to me might serve as an

entering wedge, presented itself in 1893, when the international

meeting of Christian Workers was held at Atlanta, Ga. When this

invitation came to me, I had engagements in Boston that seemed to make

it impossible for me to speak in Atlanta. Still, after looking over my

list of dates and places carefully, I found that I could take a train

from Boston that would get me into Atlanta about thirty minutes before

my address was to be delivered, and that I could remain in that city

before taking another train for Boston. My invitation to speak in

Atlanta stipulated that I was to confine my address to five minutes.

The question, then, was whether or not I could put enough into a

five-minute address to make it worth while for me to make such a trip.

I knew that the audience would be largely composed of the most

influential class of white men and women, and that it would be a rare

opportunity for me to let them know what we were trying to do at

Tuskegee, as well as to speak to them about the relations of the races.

So I decided to make the trip. I spoke for five minutes to an audience

of two thousand people, composed mostly of Southern and Northern

whites. What I said seemed to be received with favour and enthusiasm.

The Atlanta papers of the next day commented in friendly terms on my

address, and a good deal was said about it in different parts of the

country. I felt that I had in some degree accomplished my object—that

of getting a hearing from the dominant class of the South.

The demands made upon me for public addresses continued to increase,

coming in about equal numbers from my own people and from Northern

whites. I gave as much time to these addresses as I could spare from

the immediate work at Tuskegee. Most of the addresses in the North were

made for the direct purpose of getting funds with which to support the

school. Those delivered before the coloured people had for their main

object the impressing upon them the importance of industrial and

technical education in addition to academic and religious training.

I now come to that one of the incidents in my life which seems to have

excited the greatest amount of interest, and which perhaps went further

than anything else in giving me a reputation that in a sense might be

called National. I refer to the address which I delivered at the

opening of the Atlanta Cotton states and International Exposition, at

Atlanta, Ga., September 18, 1895.

So much has been said and written about this incident, and so many

questions have been asked me concerning the address, that perhaps I may

be excused for taking up the matter with some detail. The five-minute

address in Atlanta, which I came from Boston to deliver, was possibly

the prime cause for an opportunity being given me to make the second

address there. In the spring of 1895 I received a telegram from

prominent citizens in Atlanta asking me to accompany a committee from

that city to Washington for the purpose of appearing before a committee

of Congress in the interest of securing Government help for the

Exposition. The committee was composed of about twenty-five of the most

prominent and most influential white men of Georgia. All the members of

this committee were white men except Bishop Grant, Bishop Gaines, and

myself. The Mayor and several other city and state officials spoke

before the committee. They were followed by the two coloured bishops.

My name was the last on the list of speakers. I had never before

appeared before such a committee, nor had I ever delivered any address

in the capital of the Nation. I had many misgivings as to what I ought

to say, and as to the impression that my address would make. While I

cannot recall in detail what I said, I remember that I tried to impress

upon the committee, with all the earnestness and plainness of any

language that I could command, that if Congress wanted to do something

which would assist in ridding the South of the race question and making

friends between the two races, it should, in every proper way,

encourage the material and intellectual growth of both races. I said

that the Atlanta Exposition would present an opportunity for both races

to show what advance they had made since freedom, and would at the same

time afford encouragement to them to make still greater progress.

I tried to emphasize the fact that while the Negro should not be

deprived by unfair means of the franchise, political agitation alone

would not save him, and that back of the ballot he must have property,

industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character, and that no race

without these elements could permanently succeed. I said that in

granting the appropriation Congress could do something that would prove

to be of real and lasting value to both races, and that it was the

first great opportunity of the kind that had been presented since the

close of the Civil War.

I spoke for fifteen or twenty minutes, and was surprised at the close

of my address to receive the hearty congratulations of the Georgia

committee and of the members of Congress who were present. The

Committee was unanimous in making a favourable report, and in a few

days the bill passed Congress. With the passing of this bill the

success of the Atlanta Exposition was assured.

Soon after this trip to Washington the directors of the Exposition

decided that it would be a fitting recognition of the coloured race to

erect a large and attractive building which should be devoted wholly to

showing the progress of the Negro since freedom. It was further decided

to have the building designed and erected wholly by Negro mechanics.

This plan was carried out. In design, beauty, and general finish the

Negro Building was equal to the others on the grounds.

After it was decided to have a separate Negro exhibit, the question

arose as to who should take care of it. The officials of the Exposition

were anxious that I should assume this responsibility, but I declined

to do so, on the plea that the work at Tuskegee at that time demanded

my time and strength. Largely at my suggestion, Mr. I. Garland Penn, of

Lynchburg, Va., was selected to be at the head of the Negro department.

I gave him all the aid that I could. The Negro exhibit, as a whole, was

large and creditable. The two exhibits in this department which

attracted the greatest amount of attention were those from the Hampton

Institute and the Tuskegee Institute. The people who seemed to be the

most surprised, as well as pleased, at what they saw in the Negro

Building were the Southern white people.

As the day for the opening of the Exposition drew near, the Board of

Directors began preparing the programme for the opening exercises. In

the discussion from day to day of the various features of this

programme, the question came up as to the advisability of putting a

member of the Negro race on for one of the opening addresses, since the

Negroes had been asked to take such a prominent part in the Exposition.

It was argued, further, that such recognition would mark the good

feeling prevailing between the two races. Of course there were those

who were opposed to any such recognition of the rights of the Negro,

but the Board of Directors, composed of men who represented the best

and most progressive element in the South, had their way, and voted to

invite a black man to speak on the opening day. The next thing was to

decide upon the person who was thus to represent the Negro race. After

the question had been canvassed for several days, the directors voted

unanimously to ask me to deliver one of the opening-day addresses, and

in a few days after that I received the official invitation.

The receiving of this invitation brought to me a sense of

responsibility that it would be hard for any one not placed in my

position to appreciate. What were my feelings when this invitation came

to me? I remembered that I had been a slave; that my early years had

been spent in the lowest depths of poverty and ignorance, and that I

had had little opportunity to prepare me for such a responsibility as

this. It was only a few years before that time that any white man in

the audience might have claimed me as his slave; and it was easily

possible that some of my former owners might be present to hear me

speak.

I knew, too, that this was the first time in the entire history of the

Negro that a member of my race had been asked to speak from the same

platform with white Southern men and women on any important National

occasion. I was asked now to speak to an audience composed of the

wealth and culture of the white South, the representatives of my former

masters. I knew, too, that while the greater part of my audience would

be composed of Southern people, yet there would be present a large

number of Northern whites, as well as a great many men and women of my

own race.

I was determined to say nothing that I did not feel from the bottom of

my heart to be true and right. When the invitation came to me, there

was not one word of intimation as to what I should say or as to what I

should omit. In this I felt that the Board of Directors had paid a

tribute to me. They knew that by one sentence I could have blasted, in

a large degree, the success of the Exposition. I was also painfully

conscious of the fact that, while I must be true to my own race in my

utterances, I had it in my power to make such an ill-timed address as

would result in preventing any similar invitation being extended to a

black man again for years to come. I was equally determined to be true

to the North, as well as to the best element of the white South, in

what I had to say.

The papers, North and South, had taken up the discussion of my coming

speech, and as the time for it drew near this discussion became more

and more widespread. Not a few of the Southern white papers were

unfriendly to the idea of my speaking. From my own race I received many

suggestions as to what I ought to say. I prepared myself as best I

could for the address, but as the eighteenth of September drew nearer,

the heavier my heart became, and the more I feared that my effort would

prove a failure and a disappointment.

The invitation had come at a time when I was very busy with my school

work, as it was the beginning of our school year. After preparing my

address, I went through it, as I usually do with those utterances which

I consider particularly important, with Mrs. Washington, and she

approved of what I intended to say. On the sixteenth of September, the

day before I was to start for Atlanta, so many of the Tuskegee teachers

expressed a desire to hear my address that I consented to read it to

them in a body. When I had done so, and had heard their criticisms and

comments, I felt somewhat relieved, since they seemed to think well of

what I had to say.

On the morning of September 17, together with Mrs. Washington and my

three children, I started for Atlanta. I felt a good deal as I suppose

a man feels when he is on his way to the gallows. In passing through

the town of Tuskegee I met a white farmer who lived some distance out

in the country. In a jesting manner this man said: “Washington, you

have spoken before the Northern white people, the Negroes in the South,

and to us country white people in the South; but Atlanta, to-morrow,

you will have before you the Northern whites, the Southern whites, and

the Negroes all together. I am afraid that you have got yourself in a

tight place.” This farmer diagnosed the situation correctly, but his

frank words did not add anything to my comfort.

In the course of the journey from Tuskegee to Atlanta both coloured and

white people came to the train to point me out, and discussed with

perfect freedom, in my hearings, what was going to take place the next

day. We were met by a committee in Atlanta. Almost the first thing that

I heard when I got off the train in that city was an expression

something like this, from an old coloured man near by: “Dat’s de man of

my race what’s gwine to make a speech at de Exposition to-morrow. I’se

sho’ gwine to hear him.”

Atlanta was literally packed, at the time, with people from all parts

of the country, and with representatives of foreign governments, as

well as with military and civic organizations. The afternoon papers had

forecasts of the next day’s proceedings in flaring headlines. All this

tended to add to my burden. I did not sleep much that night. The next

morning, before day, I went carefully over what I planned to say. I

also kneeled down and asked God’s blessing upon my effort. Right here,

perhaps, I ought to add that I make it a rule never to go before an

audience, on any occasion, without asking the blessing of God upon what

I want to say.

I always make it a rule to make especial preparation for each separate

address. No two audiences are exactly alike. It is my aim to reach and

talk to the heart of each individual audience, taking it into my

confidence very much as I would a person. When I am speaking to an

audience, I care little for how what I am saying is going to sound in

the newspapers, or to another audience, or to an individual. At the

time, the audience before me absorbs all my sympathy, thought, and

energy.

Early in the morning a committee called to escort me to my place in the

procession which was to march to the Exposition grounds. In this

procession were prominent coloured citizens in carriages, as well as

several Negro military organizations. I noted that the Exposition

officials seemed to go out of their way to see that all of the coloured

people in the procession were properly placed and properly treated. The

procession was about three hours in reaching the Exposition grounds,

and during all of this time the sun was shining down upon us

disagreeably hot. When we reached the grounds, the heat, together with

my nervous anxiety, made me feel as if I were about ready to collapse,

and to feel that my address was not going to be a success. When I

entered the audience-room, I found it packed with humanity from bottom

to top, and there were thousands outside who could not get in.

The room was very large, and well suited to public speaking. When I

entered the room, there were vigorous cheers from the coloured portion

of the audience, and faint cheers from some of the white people. I had

been told, while I had been in Atlanta, that while many white people

were going to be present to hear me speak, simply out of curiosity, and

that others who would be present would be in full sympathy with me,

there was a still larger element of the audience which would consist of

those who were going to be present for the purpose of hearing me make a

fool of myself, or, at least, of hearing me say some foolish thing so

that they could say to the officials who had invited me to speak, “I

told you so!”

One of the trustees of the Tuskegee Institute, as well as my personal

friend, Mr. William H. Baldwin, Jr. was at the time General Manager of

the Southern Railroad, and happened to be in Atlanta on that day. He

was so nervous about the kind of reception that I would have, and the

effect that my speech would produce, that he could not persuade himself

to go into the building, but walked back and forth in the grounds

outside until the opening exercises were over.