Booker T. Washington - The Atlanta Compromise Speech (1904)

Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856.4.5. ~ 1915. 11.14), an African-American educator, author and the leader of African-American community from the 1890s, recites some excerpts from one of his most famous speech, "The Atlanta Exposition Compromise Speech" for Columbia Records in 1904. The Original speech was delivered on September 18th, 1895, at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia.

Although some parts of the speech is somewhat too idealistic, compared with the situation of the African-Americans from the 1890s, the point of the message is still clear for to the people, both the "Negro Races" and the "Whiteman".

Here is the full transcription of the recording;

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and Citizens:

One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.

Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress. 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.

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal,Water, water; we die of thirst! The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, Cast down your bucket where you are. A second time the signal, Water, water; send us water! ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, Cast down your bucket where you are. And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, Cast down your bucket where you are. The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River.

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.

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.

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• Compromise
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• 1904
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[Protactinium0]

3 ppl are racist



[xBubbliex3]

@RickyJ108 The three people that cast down their buckets missed.

[RickyJ108]

Three people want to cast down their bucket where they aren't.

[Kvalentiification]

AMAZING!! Learning about him right now. Wonderful man, but I am W.E.B supporter

[kontalaetootet]

One of my hero ever.

[Sistarovat]

This is awsome. Booker T. Washington was one of the greatest American blacks that ever lived.

[ZeroXcuses]

Holy SMOKES!!! I graduated from Tuskegee and I didn't even know this existed!!!! Thank God for technology!

[heavyaguina]

why was it cut short??

[tellmeimlovedagain13]

Amazing speech it's amazing how he was born into slavery and became a lawyer

[11theprophet]

u talk to much