September 18, 1895 – Booker T. Washington Gives “The Atlanta Compromise Speech”

Booker T. Washington’s speech on this day in history to a predominantly white audience at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition is one of the most famous in American history. It was the first speech given by an African American to a racially-mixed audience in the South. In it, Washington suggested that African Americans should not agitate for political and social equality, but should instead work hard, earn respect and acquire vocational training in order to participate in the economic development of the South.

Booker T. Washington in 1903

Washington argued for gradual realization of civil rights for Blacks, maintaining that the key to political and social equality lay in hard work and forging alliances with whites who could help them. Blacks later dubbed this speech “The Atlanta Compromise,” believing that Washington had compromised their civil rights. But Washington also asked whites to help Blacks and hire Black workers. He averred that since African Americans made up one third of the South’s population, they could do much to help with its economic growth. Conversely, if Blacks failed, they would be a significant detriment to Southern progress.

Thus, as historian Jacqueline M. Moore, Professor of History at Austin College in Sherman, Texas and the author of several books including Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift (2003) argued, when Washington said, “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,” he really saw himself as striking a bargain with whites to get their economic support in exchange for not challenging segregation.

Washington gained popularity as a speaker after this, even though, as Professor Moore pointed out:

…most whites never followed through on their half of the compromise. Black economic development at the turn of the twentieth century was mainly a result of self-help efforts in the black community rather than white investment.”

Harvard Ph.D. recipient W.E.B. Du Bois, then teaching at Wilberforce University, whose approach to Black rights was often contrasted to that of Washington’s, argued that economic equality would not be possible without political rights, and saw segregation as robbing Blacks of any dignity Washington hoped them to gain through economic achievement. Washington came to agree with Du Bois in private, but in public maintained his stance of accommodation.

You can read the entire speech here.