Up from Slavery: An AutobiographyWashington, Booker T.
History
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography
Washington, Booker T.
African Americans -- Biography; Educators -- United States -- Biography; Tuskegee Institute; Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915
The first thing that I remember, after I had finished speaking, was
that Governor Bullock rushed across the platform and took me by the
hand, and that others did the same. I received so many and such hearty
congratulations that I found it difficult to get out of the building. I
did not appreciate to any degree, however, the impression which my
address seemed to have made, until the next morning, when I went into
the business part of the city. As soon as I was recognized, I was
surprised to find myself pointed out and surrounded by a crowd of men
who wished to shake hands with me. This was kept up on every street on
to which I went, to an extent which embarrassed me so much that I went
back to my boarding-place. The next morning I returned to Tuskegee. At
the station in Atlanta, and at almost all of the stations at which the
train stopped between that city and Tuskegee, I found a crowd of people
anxious to shake hands with me.
The papers in all parts of the United States published the address in
full, and for months afterward there were complimentary editorial
references to it. Mr. Clark Howell, the editor of the Atlanta
Constitution, telegraphed to a New York paper, among other words, the
following, “I do not exaggerate when I say that Professor Booker T.
Washington’s address yesterday was one of the most notable speeches,
both as to character and as to the warmth of its reception, ever
delivered to a Southern audience. The address was a revelation. The
whole speech is a platform upon which blacks and whites can stand with
full justice to each other.”
The Boston Transcript said editorially: “The speech of Booker T.
Washington at the Atlanta Exposition, this week, seems to have dwarfed
all the other proceedings and the Exposition itself. The sensation that
it has caused in the press has never been equalled.”
I very soon began receiving all kinds of propositions from lecture
bureaus, and editors of magazines and papers, to take the lecture
platform, and to write articles. One lecture bureau offered me fifty
thousand dollars, or two hundred dollars a night and expenses, if I
would place my services at its disposal for a given period. To all
these communications I replied that my life-work was at Tuskegee; and
that whenever I spoke it must be in the interests of Tuskegee school
and my race, and that I would enter into no arrangements that seemed to
place a mere commercial value upon my services.
Some days after its delivery I sent a copy of my address to the
President of the United States, the Hon. Grover Cleveland. I received
from him the following autograph reply:—
Gray Gables, Buzzard’s Bay, Mass.,
October 6, 1895.
Booker T. Washington, Esq.:
My Dear Sir: I thank you for sending me a copy of your address
delivered at the Atlanta Exposition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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