The famous statue of Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute d,
Washington lifting a veil, symbolic of disadvantage or illiteracy, fror
face of a rising figure, perhaps a former slave. Ellison's protagonist wor
however, if Washington might not be lowering, rather than lifting' th
Unuisible Man 36\.
Booker T. \flashington
Atlanta Exposition Address
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was arguably the most influential and controversialAfrican American leaderof the early twentieth century. As the first principal of TuskegeeInstitute, a school for blacks in
Macon County, Alabama, founded in 1881, Washington developedan
educational and economic philosophy basedto great extent on accom^
modation to the prevailing white supremacyof the post-Reconstruction
South. His autobiography, Up from Slauery (1901), turned his own life
story into a parable of self-help,and it has remaineda key text in the tradition of African American autobiography.The book's most famo{,irsection, an 1895 speechpresentedat the Atlanta Cotton Statesand International Exposition which came to be known colloquially as the "Atlanta
Compromise," exemplified Washington's view that African Americans
should follow a program of family and community uplift, making themselves economically valuable to the South as a first step in defeating
racial prejudice.
Born a slaveon the eve of the Civil War, Washington worked in West
Virginia coal mines and salt furnacesbefore making his way to Hampton
Institute in Virginia, where he graduatedin 1875. He briefly explored careers in law and the ministry before returning to teaching and accepting
the appointment at Tuskegee.Coming of age in an era of increasingly
rigid segregation,Washington maintaindd that higher education, social
equality, and political rights must remain secondary goals for blacks
until they acquired the agricultural and industrial skills that were central
to Tuskegee'sown curriculum. Although his speechesand writing were
in order to gain a calculatedadvanfrequently maskedin obsequiousness
tage, such gains came at the cost of his declaring, for example, that
"notwithstanding the cruel wrongs inflicted upon us, the black man got
nearly as much out of slavery as the white man did." In contrast to the
unrestrained demand for equal rights voiced throughout his life by the
black abolitionist and early civil rights advocateFrederickDouglass,who
died in 1895, the same year as the Atlanta speech,Washington stressed
work skills, morality, and cleanliness- the "philosophy of the toothbrush," as he called it. Washington's successat Tuskegee,his extraordi-
33
34
"The Scaffolding of a Nation"
Washington / Atlanta E cposition Address
nary capacity as a speaker,and his cunning use of a network of black
and white political connections- known to its detractors as the
Tuskegee Machine - made him a man of great influence during the
presidenciesof Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Even
when he worked behind the scenesto combat racist policies, however,
Washington remained identified with a politics of acquiescenceto segregation and was usually at odds with leaderssuch as W. E. B. Du Bois
and organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP), which was founded in 7909. Washington
remained at Tuskegeeuntil his death, but he also lectured widely, wrote
or contributed to many books, and was instrumental in establishingsuch
organizationsas the National Negro BusinessLeague.
Washington is a key figure in Inuisible Man. Ellison's protagonist alludes to the best-known passageof Washington's Atlanta speechat the
outset of the first chapter and quotes from it in his graduation speechat
the men's smoker (Inuisible Man 15,29).To the extent that the protagonist's college in lnuisible Man is modeled on Tuskegee Instirute, it is the
version that Ellison himself knew as a student in the 1930s rather than
the one presided over by Washington. But the college's unnamed
Founder, although distinguishedfrom the actual Booker T. Washington
(Inuisible Man 305-06), is an amalgamation of mythology and inventive
hyperbolebuilt in part of fragmentsfrom Washington'sown life and legend. Washington was regularly referred to after his death as the Founder
(seep. 48 of this book), and the statueof the Founder lifting a veil from
the head of a kneeling former slave is derived directly from the famous
statue of Washington erected after his death at Tuskegee (Inuisible Man
36; see the illustration p. 30 of this book). Likewise, the college president, Dr. A. Herbert Bledsoe,is a man of a later era who may bear some
resemblanceto Washington's successor,Robert Russa Moton, whose
philosophy and publications, such as Finding a Way Out: An Autobiography (1921) andWhat the Negro Tltinks ('1929), maintained rhe conservative tradition establishedby Tuskegee'sfounder. But Bledsoe'sphilosophy of self-aggrandizement also corresponds to one interpretation of
Washington's style of wielding power to benefit both black institutions
and himself, and he provides a paradigm against which to judge subsequent models of black leadershipin the novel. The ambiguous presence
of Washington as a role model reappears through out Inuisible Man, and
by the novel's conclusion it is a delicate question whether the protagonist, dwelling in his Harlem underground, has not made a full, if utterly
ironic, circle back to Bledsoe'sadvice to "learn where you are and get
yourself power . . . then stay in the dark and use it" (Inuisible Man 145).
FuRrgrn READING: August Meier, Negro Thought in America,
7880-1915: Racial ldeologies in the Age of Booker T. Washingtoz (Ann
Arbor: U of Michigan P, 19631; Rayford W. Logan, The Betrayal of the
Negro from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrou Wilson (New York Collier, 1965); Louis T. Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Making of a
Black Leader, 7856-7901 (New York: Oxford UP,1972), and Booker T.
Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915 (New York: Oxford
UP, 1983); Hugh Hawkins, ed., BookerT.Washington and His Critics,
2nd ed. (Lexington, MA: Heath, 79741.
35
One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race.
No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of thit$ection 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 massesof 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 vesselat once
came back, "Cast down your bucket where you are." A secondtime
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 distressedvessel,at
36
Washington/ Atlanta Exposition Address
"The Scaffolding of a Nation"
last heedingthe 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 betteringtheir condition in a foreign
land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbour, 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.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics,in commerce' in domestic
service,and in the professions.And in this connection it is well to
bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to
bear, when it comes to business,pure and simple, it is in the South
that the Negro is given a man's chancein thc commercial world, and
in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizingthis
chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to
freedom we may overlook the fact that the massesof us are to live by
the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall
prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common
labour and put brains and skill into the common occupationsof life;
shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the
superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and
the useful. No race can prosper till it learnsthat there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we
must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances
to overshadow our opportunities.
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
treasuresfrom the bowels of the earth, and helped make possiblethis
magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting
down your bucket among my people, helping and encouragingthem
as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand,
and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land' make
blossom the waste placesin your fields, and run your factories.While
37
doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and
your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, lawabiding, and unresentfulpeople that the world has seen.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 defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interestsof both
racesone. In all things that are purely social we can be as separateas
the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual
progress.
There is no defence or security for any of us except in the highest
intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts
tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these effort's'be
turned into stimulating, encouraging,and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort or meansso investedwill pay a thousand per cent interest.These efforts will be twice blessed- "blessing
him that gives and him that takes."
There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevirable:The laws of changeless
iusticebind
Oppressorwith oPPressed;
And closeas sin and sufferingioined
We march to fate abreast.
Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load
rrpward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall
(()nstitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the
\outh, or one-third its intelligenceand progress;we shall contribute
,,ne-third to the businessand industrial prosperity of the South' or we
.hall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating' depressing,retardrrg every effort to advancethe body politic.
(lentlemen of the Exposition, as we presentto you our humble eflort ot an exhibition of our progress,you must not expect overmuch.
\trrrting thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few
,ltrilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous
,,rrrrrc€S),
remember the path that has led from theseto the inventions
.rrr.l production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam-engines'
38
"The Scaffoldingof a Nation"
newspapers,books, statuary, carving, paintings, the management of
drug-stores and banks, has not been trodden without contacr with
thorns and thistles.Vhile 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 expecrationsbut
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.
The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremestfolly, and that progressin the
enjoyment of all the privilegesthat will come to us musr be the result
of severeand constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No
race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is
long in any degreeostracized.It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vasdy more important that we be
prepared for the exercisesof theseprivileges. 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.
In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given
us more hope and encouragement,and drawn us so near to you of
the white race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and
here bending, as it were, over the altar that representsthe results of
the strugglesof your race and mine, both starting practically emptyhanded three decadesago, I pledgethat in your effort to work out the
great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the
South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetichelp of my
race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of
factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, thar, let us pray God,
will come, in a blotting out of sectional differencesand racial animosities and suspicions,in a determination to administer absolute
justice, in a willing obedienceamong all classesto the mandatesof
law. This, this, coupled with our material prosperity,will bring into
our beloved South a new heavenand a new earth.