Booker T. Washington

On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington delivered his most famous speech, the Atlanta Exposition Address, which presented his vision for the role that blacks would play in the South's economy and culture. This excerpt from his autobiography, Up from Slavery, records the speech and the positive reaction that it received. Nonetheless, Washington's critics came to call the speech the Atlanta Compromise Address. Washington's detractors argued that he had offered the South an unpalatable compromise: Give Southern blacks educational and occupational opportunities and they will not agitate for political and social equality.

The Atlanta Exposition, at which I had been asked to make an address as a representative of the Negro race . . . was opened with a short address from Governor Bullock. After other interesting exercises, including an invocation from Bishop Nelson, of Georgia, a dedicatory ode...