BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//InvisionCommunity Events 4.7.23//EN METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN REFRESH-INTERVAL:PT15M X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT15M X-WR-CALNAME:RMCommunityCalendar NAME:RMCommunityCalendar BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20260329T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20261025T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Speech 1895 DTSTAMP:20260213T012250Z SEQUENCE:0 UID:651-7-c3fe8195a3dde498d013e477e2142422@aalbc.com ORGANIZER;CN="richardmurray":troy@aalbc.com DESCRIPTION:\n Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Speech\n\n\n\n ADDRESS BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON\, PRINCIPAL TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE\, TUSKEGEE\, ALABAMA\, AT OPENING OF ATLANTA EXPOSITION\, Sept. 18th\, 1895.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and Citizens:\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n One third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material\, ci vil\, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our p opulation and reach the highest success. I but convey to you\, Mr. Preside nt 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 fitti ngly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Ex position 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 t he dawn of our freedom.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Not only this\, but the opportu nity 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 ind ustrial skill\; that the political convention or stump speaking had more a ttractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n 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 an swered: \"Cast down your bucket where you are.\" And a third and fourth si gnal for water was answered: \"Cast down your bucket where you are.\" The captain of the distressed vessel\, at last heeding the injunction\, cast d own his bucket\, and it came up full of fresh\, sparkling water from the m outh of the am*zon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering thei r condition in a foreign land\, or who underestimate the importance of cul tivating friendly relations with the Southern white man\, who is their nex t 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 ra ces by whom we are surrounded. Cast it down in agriculture\, mechanics\, i n commerce\, in domestic service\, and in the professions. And in this con nection 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 chance in the commercial world\ , and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Our greatest danger is\, that in the great lea p from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us a re 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 labor and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life\; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficia l and the substantial\, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin\, a nd not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our o pportunities.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n To those of the white race who look to th e 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 m y own race\, \"Cast down your bucket where you are.\" Cast it down among t he 8\,000\,000 Negroes whose habits you know\, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of you r firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have\, without s trikes and labor wars\, tilled your fields\, cleared your forests\, built your railroads and cities\, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth\, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of t he progress of the South. Casting down your bucket among my people\, helpi ng and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds\, and to educati on of head\, hand\, and heart\, you will find that they will buy your surp lus land\, make blossom the waste places in your fields\, and run your fac tories. While 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\, fait hful\, law-abiding\, and unresentful people that the world has seen.\n\n\n \n  \n\n\n\n As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past\, in nursin g your children\, watching by the sick bed of your mothers and fathers\, a nd 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 de fense of yours\, interlacing our industrial\, commercial\, civil\, and rel igious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both race s one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the f ingers\, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.\n \n\n\n  \n\n\n\n There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are eff orts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro\, let these effort s be turned into stimulating\, encouraging\, and making him the most usefu l and intelligent citizen. Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand percent interest. These efforts will be twice blessed--\"blessing him tha t gives and him that takes.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n \"There is no escape throug h 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.”\n\n\n\n Nearly sixteen millions of hands will ai d you in pulling the load upwards\, or they will pull you against the load downwards. We shall constitute one third and more of the ignorance and cr ime of the South\, or one third its intelligence and progress\; we shall c ontribute 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.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Ge ntlemen of the Exposition\, as we present to you our humble effort at an e xhibition of our progress\, you must not expect overmuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins and c hickens (gathered from miscellaneous sources)\, remember the path that has led from these to the inventions and production of agricultural implement s\, buggies\, steam engines\, newspapers\, book\, statuary\, carving\, pai ntings\, the management of drug stores and banks has not been trodden with out contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in what we exhib it 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 onl y from the Southern States\, but especially from Northern philanthropists\ , who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragemen t.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n The wisest among my race understand that the agitati on of questions of social equality is the extremist folly\, and that progr ess in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be th e result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing . No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is l ong in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privilege s of the law be ours\, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar i n a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spen d a dollar in an opera house.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n In conclusion\, may I rep eat 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 offe red by the Exposition\; and here bending\, as it were\, over the altar tha t represents the results of the struggles of your race and mine\, both sta rting practically empty-handed three decades ago\, I pledge that in your e ffort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at th e doors of the South you shall have at all times the patient\, sympathetic help of my race\; only let this be constantly in mind that\, while from r epresentations in these buildings of the product of field\, of forest\, of mine\, of factory\, letters\, and art\, much good will come\, yet far abo ve and beyond material benefit\, will be that higher good\, that let us pr ay God will come\, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial a nimosities and suspicions\, in a determination to administer absolute just ice\, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. Thi s\, this\, coupled with our material prosperity\, will bring into our belo ved South a new heaven and a new earth.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n URL Source\n\n\ n\n https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/washington-atlanta-exposition-addres s-speech-text/\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n MY THOUGHTS- paragraph by paragraph\n\n\ n\n  \n\n\n\n Book T washington like Frederick Douglass had a personal re lationship with non black women that explained their personal affinity for the united states of america. Booker t washington's wife was a white asia n while frederick douglass had a white mistress a generation or more young er than him. He is wrong to speak for the majority of black people whose s entiment he falsely defines. But I comprehend like Douglass like W.E.B. Du bois when younger\, they knew most Black people in the usa circa 1865 were anti white plus anti usa in all earnest. So all three knew to get the whi te financing they got: Douglass /white abolitionist[abolition of enslaveme nt not black uplifting]\, W.E.B. Dubois/white jew[utilizing blacks to prof it from while change the white populace t a judeo christian]\, Washington/ white southern christians[ white fiscal libertarians of the south\, lookin g to rebuild the south while oppose the coming era of the welfare state th at is dominant today but had signs back then] they each suggested they spo ke for the majority in the black populace when in truth none of them did. Garvey spoke for the majority in the black populace more than any of them\ , douglass/dubois/washington.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Washington's point here h as truth. The integration of W.E.B. Dubois when younger is the one that pr evailed from this time. It is of black individuals succeeding in the white community.\, while the black community simply doesn't exist. a black popu lace exist but not a community. Washington would be 100% correct if not fo r one key problem\, that he doesn't mention. White people. White people fr om his time onward\, throughout the Jim crow era\, 1865 to 1980 had never ending campaigns of terror toward black people in the united states of ame rica\, especially whenever black people showed signs of ownership\, craft. Was it black people's fault Rosewood\, a black town or city\, or that the black region of tulsa\, a city of parts\, were annihilated by whites? Did the black people  of rosewood or black tulsa commit a crime? no. White people committed crimes assaulting/murdering/arsoning black people and the ir homes and their land\, and said whites were never approached by the rul e of law for their actions.  So white people killed Booker t washington's strategy but murdering a majority of black rural life in the usa\, until 1980 when the black populace of the usa has become in majority urbanized a nd developed a well earned heritage against rural life.  How many black p eople's dairy farms or truck gardens were destroyed or stolen by whites fr om 1865 to 1980? moreover\, asking black people\, or any people\,  to be eternally determined while being eternally terrorized is an insult\, to an y people. Remember a black baby born in 1865 who lived to 1965\, a hundred years later lived their entire life in jim crow. Case closed. \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Unfortunately\, whites of the south proved Booker T Washington simply wrong. Again\, Rosewood/Black Tulsa\, and does anyone know how many black towns/black regions of cities were destroyed/harmed/assaulted by wh ite terorrist\, whom Booker T washington called white neighbors? You can't argue against what people live. Booker T Washington is asking for Black p eople to have a faith in the south of all places... when I think of my for ebears in the south who sharecropped\, who fled white terror\, who had the ir land taken by white power... Booker T Washington asks too much from bla ck people in the u.s.a. \,  a people who were given no aid when finally l egally made free by the white vote\, who were 90% in the former confederac y\, and lived through over one hundred years of pure white terror. How can any black person have faith in the states that made the former confederac y: texas to maryland plus borderland of neighboring states\, when black ch ildren are being hanged while white people smile or mock\, pregnant black women burned alive... Washington asks more than any majority can allow. ye s\, a minority of black people from 1865 to today truly love the south\, a nd believe in befriending the white southerner but the white southerner ma de sure the majority of blacks \, will never trust them or the south by th eir own hands.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Washington is correct\, it is never wise to dwell on the past. But\, while one can not dwell on their mother being violated\, are they to dismiss their wife? and if they do are they also t hen to dismiss their daughter?  when does the modernity of grievances to the white terrorizer have more value than the financial opportunities give n by the white terrorizer? And in the jim crow era\, 1865 to 1980\,  the white community in majority in the united states of america was a daily te rrorist through aiding or abetting the minority of whites who committed cr imes to blacks. Washington feared that the emphasis on paperwork from coll eges or universities over skills learned in use\, would lead to a falsenes s of quality\, and it happened. Whereas Black people in 1865 could barely read or write because whites made black people learning to read or write i llegal\, Blacks in 1865 had a mastery of multitudes of crafts no other peo ple  before or after had\, or has\,  in the united states of america. Bu t again\, white terror did a thorough job. Booker t washington couldn't of fer protection\, he could only offer the concept of determination while a black person's town burns. \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Washington's advice to whi tes was wise\, but whites didn't heed it. The whites of the south didn't t reat their black neighbors with evenness or love but with terror with trea chery with abuse of power.. and as white terror never abated\, black patie nce to the south or whites of the south died\, black faith in the south or in the possibilities of the south died\, black resentment was emboldened and strengthened to the south beyond the max\, and the majority of black a ctivity that black people felt dignity in was only through illegal acts in the south .  Washington wasn't wrong but whites didn't heed him. in the end\, the fiscally wealthy whites who supported his cause\, didn't have co ntrol over the majority of fiscally common white folks in the south\, who were born and raised\, before and after the war between the states\, to de lete any sign of black happiness or to generate black woe no matter the co ndition of black people. \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Washington was wrong\, what he calls loyalty was fear. The enslaved black person was not loyal to the white slaver\, they were afraid. I comprehend why Booker T said that\, whi tes regardless of their fiscal condition\, like the idea of reimagining th e confederacy and the states of it before the war between the states as ha ving a loving black populace. A lie\, but one whites have never let go\, i n a true sign of shame on ones guilt. \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n The integration ist in booker t washington comprehended that the united states of america will always be multiracial in its human makeup. yes\, the usa is a white c ountry\, but it has never been only of a white people. So \, the imbalance s between the peoples in the usa will only lead to inevitable splinters. W hen? who knows exactly. and many white leaders in the confederacy states b efore the confederacy or after\, from thomas jefferson to andrew jackson t o Jefferson Davis to Robert e lee to strom thurman all chose to hinder the black populace in said lands and kick the need for all\, not just the whi te \, to prosper in the south\, which leads to 2026 \, where many of said states have white majority populaces\, with some non white euroopean allie s\, who are trying to excommunicate the non white european in masse as a s olution after their leaders chose to hinder the non white for over one hun dred years .\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Booker T was prophetic. The bottom five st ates by the value of revenue per person are all former confederate states. Case closed. \n\n\n\n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_ and_territories_by_GDP#50_states_and_Washington\,_D.C.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Unfortunately\, patience has never been a strong element of white financia l life in the usa. White financial life in the european colonies that prec eded the united states of america was never about patience\, but speed. Ki ll native americans for land\, not pay native americans for land\, or pay to lease land from the native american. Enslave black people to get wage b elow market value\, not pay market value which will diminish revenue earne d to whites. Whites in the usa have never used patience with fiscal capita lism. Booker T washington pleading for whites of the usa to have patience financially\, is asking for a miracle. \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Washington's p oint here is hard to positively regale a populace of black people who were enslaved to whites and are being terrorized by whites . Booker T is basic ally saying abuse is human nature\, and that said abuse whether in the for m of a white man whipping the skin off a black child or a white law enforc er betraying the law to abuse a civil black person or a white fiscal opera tor producing a terrorizing contract on black people who can't read or any abuse from whites to blacks is a possibility in human life. He adds that the abused black person  by white terror in the usa has to focus on ways to not being abused again while having great value in the global marketpla ce while keeping to a life of civil plus legal activity even if in a confi ne through white terror. Clarke suggest it is self reliance but it is far more than that. It is self reliance in spite of the truth. Booker T Washin gton is saying the black people of Rosewood\, Florida : business owners\, landowners\, financially successful have to individually or collectively\, after whites murdered and burned rosewood away\, to figure out a way :to not be surrounded and annihilated by whites absent most of their possessi on being destroyed or stolen by whites \, finding a greater value to the g lobal market place even though they have just had their financial balance or growth annihilated\, stay as examples of the most legal of actors. It i s more involved than self reliance. It is a zeal/unhealthy high mindedness about self reliance\, that forgets to cognize human beings don't have to choose that path. \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Booker T Washington in his words wa s a statian \, but more specifically a black southerner. He liked the sout h over the north. Zora Neale Hurston from Florida\, always said her little town was happy and pleasant even while whites did all sorts of things . H is call to be more of the land\, more of craft is his strongest wisdom and least implemented by black people today\, through the efforts of whites w ho madeblack people distrust the safety of black ownership in the usa. As a character said in the movie Posse from MArio van Peebels\"I bought mysel f out of slavery\, twice\, this is it\" The christian god didn't give whit es the ability to get their foot off the neck of blacks in the south and a ll the warnings booker t washington posited came to be. \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n \n CITATION\n\n\n\n https://aalbc.com/tc/blogs/entry/504-booker-t-washingt ons-atlanta-exposition-speech-1895/\n\n\n\n  \n\n DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260212 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR