Atlanta Exposition Speech

“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.”

Washington seeks to mollify white Southerners alarmed by the political ascendency of Black men and women during Reconstruction. By treating their political aspirations as the result of ignorance and inexperience, he suggests that Black Southerners learned that economic development must precede political influence.

“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 neighbor, 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.”

Washington introduces the metaphor of a lost ship to argue that Black Southerners should seek resources and relationships in their immediate contexts. Their white neighbors can offer them more opportunities than they would find elsewhere. He urges them to cultivate “manly” relationships—meaning that the two parties respect each other as equals.

“No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.”

This sentence concludes a paragraph in which Washington criticizes frivolity. By using the term dignity, he creates rhetorical equality between those who till and those who write, in line with an educational philosophy that emphasizes vocational training. Washington was criticized by many Black people for advocating what they saw as inferior education (and thus inferior status) for Black people .

“To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for 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.”

Washington suggests that white people, like their Black counterparts, should “cast down their buckets where they are.” In this case, to employ Black people rather than immigrants. In making his case he introduces a version of the past according to which not only did Black people build the South, they also loved and showed loyalty to those who enslaved them. Washington alludes to the strikes and other agitation taking place in the North, contrasting such chaos to his idyllic agrarian tableaux.

“As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in 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 defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one.”

According to this passage, not only were Southern Black people filled with love and loyalty for white people in the past, but they still feel that attachment and will die defending them. Rather than this love operating in the domestic/ private sphere as it did in the past, now it will bind Black and white people’s economic futures, “making 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.”

Washington’s goal of promoting the economic progress of Southern Black people depends on the goodwill and cooperation of white people. Even while describing the “interests of both races” as one, he reassures his audience that this in no way implies an end to segregation. While Black and white people are one hand in progress, in matters social they remain “as separate as the fingers.”

“There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.”

Washington seeks to convince his audience to help Black Southerners reach their potential by suggesting that white people will never be safe until that occurs. Rather paradoxically, he became known for opposing higher education for Southern Black people, favoring instead practical programs of education preparing them for jobs in industry and agriculture.

“There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable:

‘The laws of changeless justice bind Oppressor with oppressed;

And close as sin and suffering joined We march to fate abreast...’”

Washington presents this verse as an elegant reiteration of his argument that the fates of Black and white Southerners are one. The lines are from “At Port Royal” (1862) by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92). Whittier was a Quaker abolitionist from Massachusetts and a prolific writer. Whittier’s lines reminding Washington’s audience of the culpability of white people for slavery. Whittier’s lines also describe the relation of oppressor and oppressed, suggesting that “changeless Justice”— meaning God—demands it.

“Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third [of] its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.”

Washington warns Southerners of the consequences of continuing economic disenfranchisement of one-third of their population. The 16 million hands refers to the hands of the eight million Black people in the South. These men and women (as Washington’s “we”) will either help the South achieve prosperity through their progress or block its advancement by their stagnation.

“While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations but for the constant help that has come to our educational life, not only from the Southern states, but especially from Northern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement.”

Washington routinely demonstrates humility (ethos), in this case by attributing his achievements to the support of others. He also alludes to the extraordinary connections he Northerners, including Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt.

“The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest (sic) folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.”

Washington advocated an organic approach to racial justice—it would be achieved slowly as Southern Black and white people gradually intertwined their economic lives. This approach was criticized by many Black Americans, most importantly W. E. B. Du Bois, founder of the NAACP. By the time he wrote The Souls of Black Folk (1901), Du Bois seethed at Washington for what he perceived as his accommodation to white supremacy.

“No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized.”

Washington communicates his conviction that economic independence will bring social and political equality to Southern black people. He rejects the idea that radical activism is necessary to gain full citizenship. It will be counterproductive because it will put white people on the defensive when their cooperation is necessary for Black economic development.

“It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.”

Washington refers to the importance of practical education and patience. While he opposes forms of segregation that keep Black people out of opera performances, it is a minor problem compared to the lack of economic development. He urges Black people to make themselves prosperous and capable community members before concerning themselves with things he regards as frivolities.