Atlanta Exposition Speech

Content Warning: This section references racial prejudice and racist violence.

After the end of Reconstruction in 1877, when federal troops pulled out of the South, Southern Black people faced growing numbers of local and state laws preventing them from achieving decent living standards and accumulating property. These “Jim Crow” laws operated in part by enforcing segregation between Black and white people in most areas of life. Public facilities from water fountains to schools to hospitals and even jails were segregated, as were occupations, neighborhoods, and in some cases, even private homes. A year after Washington’s Atlanta speech, the US Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) affirmed segregation as constitutional as long as both groups were given equal facilities and opportunities. However, as the government of Southern states was entirely in the hands of white people, such equality was never achieved or even sought for Black Americans.

During this same period, Southern leaders strove to represent the South as an economically and socially progressive region. This goal informed their decision to invite Washington to speak at the 1895 Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition, which would showcase economic opportunities in the South in hopes of securing investment. Washington—a successful fundraiser and the founder of a school for Black Americans at Tuskegee, Alabama—was perfectly positioned to represent both the successful Black Southerner and the ideal of peaceful Black participation in the Southern economy.

While Washington’s speech was hailed by white Americans, especially in the North, many of his Black contemporaries—most significantly W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)—saw the speech as accommodation and even collaboration with the continuing oppression of Black people. Du Bois labeled it the “Atlanta Compromise,” and accused Washington of encouraging young Black men to accept inferior education in pursuit of inferior status, menial labor, and continued oppression. In his celebrated essay collection The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Du Bois describes Washington as an apologist for injustice. In contrast to Washington, Du Bois sought political and social justice through higher education for Black individuals and political activism. This division—between bottom-up and top-down approaches to racial justice—was shaped by the men’s biographies. Washington was born an enslaved person in Virginia and attended an agricultural college, while Du Bois was born in Massachusetts and received a PhD from Harvard. The difference in their approaches has affected civil rights movements in the United States ever since.