President and founder, Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee Institute, delivers his “Atlanta (Georgia) Compromise” Address to the Cotton States Exposition: freedmen, and their descendants would not agitate for integration, equality or justice, as long as confederate citizens would fund vocational training and guarantee due process rights for freedmen and their descendants:

       Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of 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 occupations of life. … 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, and not at the top.  Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

· · · · · ·

       There is no defense 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 efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen.  Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest.  These efforts will be twice blessed—blessing him that gives and him that takes.

        [restored 5/21/2022]