Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
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.
Chapter XIV.
The Atlanta Exposition Address
The Atlanta Exposition, at which I had been asked to make an address as
a representative of the Negro race, as stated in the last chapter, was
opened with a short address from Governor Bullock. After other
interesting exercises, including an invocation from Bishop Nelson, of
Georgia, a dedicatory ode by Albert Howell, Jr., and addresses by the
President of the Exposition and Mrs. Joseph Thompson, the President of
the Woman’s Board, Governor Bullock introduce me with the words, “We
have with us to-day a representative of Negro enterprise and Negro
civilization.”
When I arose to speak, there was considerable cheering, especially from
the coloured people. As I remember it now, the thing that was uppermost
in my mind was the desire to say something that would cement the
friendship of the races and bring about hearty cooperation between
them. So far as my outward surroundings were concerned, the only thing
that I recall distinctly now is that when I got up, I saw thousands of
eyes looking intently into my face. The following is the address which
I delivered:—
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 material, 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 Negro been more fittingly and
generously recognized 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 opportunity 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 at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel.
From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, “Water,
water; we die of thirst!” The answer from the friendly vessel at once
came back, “Cast down your bucket 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 injunction, 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 depend 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 neighbour, 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 commerce, 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 danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom 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 proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour
and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall
prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the
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 incoming of those of foreign
birth and strange tongue and habits of 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 eight millions of
Negroes 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 labour 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
representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your bucket
among my people, helping 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-abiding, and unresentful
people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in
the past, 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 in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by
you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down
our lives, if need be, in defence 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 defence or security for any of us except in the highest
intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts