Atlanta Exposition Address Quotes

Quoting page 60: In the 1960s, racism was chiefly understood to mean discrimination by whites against African-Americans. But in the immigration debate of the Progressive Era, the nation’s most prominent black leaders—most notably the Republican conservative, Booker T. Washington, and the socialist intellectual, W.E.B. DuBois—supported the restrictionists. Washington, in his famous Atlanta address at the Cotton States Exposition in 1895, pleaded with industrial leaders to employ loyal, hardworking freedmen, rather than import millions of European immigrants to take the industrial jobs that otherwise might have freed native-born African-Americans from segregated misery in the rural South.

President Cleveland was highly impressed by a speech Booker T. Washington delivered at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition; the well-respected author, educator, and orator advocated the education of his black brethren (particularly in trade fields), without seeking social equality. Cleveland wrote Washington soon after his address: “Your words cannot fail to delight and encourage all who wish well for the race.