Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
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