Atlanta Compromise

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Massacres and riots Opelousas massacre Rock Springs massacre Thibodaux massacre Spring Valley Race Riot of 1895 Phoenix election riot Wilmington insurrection of 1898 Pana riot Robert Charles riots Evansville race riot Atlanta Massacre of 1906 Springfield race riot of 1908 Johnson–Jeffries riots 1912 racial conflict in Forsyth County 1917 Chester race riot East St. Louis riots Elaine massacre Red Summer Chicago race riot of 1919 Washington race riot of 1919 Ocoee massacre Tulsa race massacre Perry race riot Rosewood massacre
Reactions Anti-lynching movement Atlanta Compromise Back to Africa movement Exodusters movement Great Migration Niagara Movement NAACP Silent Parade
Related topics Black genocide Civil rights movement (1865–1896) Civil rights movement (1896–1954) Mass racial violence in the United States
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The Atlanta Compromise was a proposal made in 1895 by African American leader Booker T. Washington, who suggested that Southern blacks should accept segregation and refrain from campaigning for equal rights (including the right to vote), and – in exchange – they would have jobs, be permitted to own property, and receive free basic education and vocational training.

Other black leaders, including W. E. B. Du Bois – co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) – disagreed with the goals of the Atlanta Compromise, and instead campaigned for equal rights and the end of segregation. From 1903 until Washington's death in 1915, Du Bois and Washington conducted a protracted public debate on the merits of the Compromise.

The Compromise was the dominant policy pursued by black leaders in the South from 1895 to 1915. Ultimately, it did not end segregation, nor produce equal rights for Southern blacks – those goals were not achieved until the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Slavery was brought to an end in the United States during and after the Civil War, first with the Emancipation Proclamation, and then the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery.^[1][2][a] During the Reconstruction Era (from about 1865 until 1877) many progressive reforms were enacted in the South, which dismantled legal segregation, and gave blacks opportunities to vote and hold public office.^[3]

Starting around 1877, progress made during the Reconstruction Era began to be reversed by Southern states, as white Southerners gained more political power at both the state and federal level.^[4] From 1877 to 1908, the states steadily enacted laws preventing blacks from voting or holding political office.^[3][5][4]

Washington was a witness to that period of history, as he was born into slavery in 1856 in West Virginia. Washington became president of the newly-formed Tuskegee Institute in 1881.^[6] According to historian Louis R. Harlan, Washington concluded that "the Reconstruction experiment in racial democracy failed because it began at the wrong end, emphasizing political means and civil rights acts rather than economic means and self-determination."^[7][8] Hence, Washington's approach to improving the lives of Southern blacks was to concentrate on building the economic infrastructure of the black community.

African American leader Frederick Douglass died in February 1895, leaving a power vacuum that Washington stepped into.^[9] One of Washington's first major acts after Douglass' death was the Atlanta Compromise speech.^[9] Until his death in 1915, Washington and his allies – collectively known as the "Tuskegee Machine" – dominated the African American press, political appointments, and relations with white philanthropists.^[10]

The Atlanta Compromise originated in a speech delivered by Washington to the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 18, 1895.^[4][b] The exposition was conceived in early 1895, when Washington and white business leaders from Georgia made a presentation to a committee of the US Congress, asking for support to host an exposition in Georgia.^[4] The white members of the delegation were impressed with Washington's address to the committee, and invited him to speak at the exposition when it was held later that year.^[11][4]

The master of ceremonies of the Cotton Exposition was former governor of Georgia Rufus Bullock, who introduced Washington by saying: "We have with us today a representative of Negro enterprise and Negro civilization."^[12] The address was delivered to a segregated audience of blacks and whites, and was delivered in less than ten minutes.^{[13][14][15][16][4]}

Washington summarized his proposal near the end of the address:

"The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the 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 long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. 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."^[17]

Upon the conclusion of the speech, the whites in the audience gave Washington a standing ovation.^[11][c] Clark Howell, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, stood on the stage and proclaimed the speech to be “the beginning of a moral revolution in America.”^[11] Washington was congratulated by many white leaders present in the audience, including former governor Bullock.^[19] The text of the speech was distributed to most major US newspapers via telegraph.^[11] A few days after the speech, Washington received a letter of congratulations from president Grover Cleveland.^[20]

The Atlanta Compromise was Washington's solution to what was then called "The Negro problem": the dismal economic and social and conditions of blacks, and the tense relationship between black and whites in the post-Reconstruction South.^[11]

The essence of the Compromise was a bargain: blacks would remain peaceful, tolerate segregation, refrain from demanding equal rights, refrain from holding political office, avoid college education, and provide a dependable workforce for Southern industry and agriculture; and in exchange, whites would provide job opportunities, permit blacks to own property and homes, build schools for children, and create vocational institutes to give blacks the skills needed in the Southern economy.^{[11][16][13][14][15][4][d]}

Washington's speech appealed to the white businessmen in the audience because it promised them a cooperative, peaceful, reliable workforce; particularly in the areas of industry, agriculture, business, and housekeeping.^[11]

Addressing blacks, Washington encouraged them to focus on manual labor, and accept it as their fate for the near future: "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 the top."^[9] Washington also urged Southern blacks to remain in their home states, and avoid the temptation to move to Northern states; he emphasized that by repeatedly speaking the phrase "Cast down your bucket where you are."^{[21][4][22][23]}

The Compromise perpetuated the racial segregation that was already enforced in Southern schools and universities.^[4] In addition, the Compromise discouraged the construction of new universities for Southern blacks, and instead emphasized construction or expansion of vocational schools (such as Tuskegee Institute and Hampton Institute) to produce nurses, teamsters, farmers, housekeepers, factory workers, repairmen, teachers, cooks, and other careers that would support Southern agriculture and industry.^[16][e]

The Compromise counted on white philanthropists to fund new schools for blacks.^[25][4] Washington's speech specifically applauded the Northern philanthropists who had provided funding for black schools during the Reconstruction era: "... 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."^[17][f]

The Atlanta Compromise rejected any notion of integration in transportation, education, recreation, or social life; and made it clear that whites would only have to associate with blacks when required for work or commerce. Washington employed a simile to describe his acceptance of segregation: "In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress."^[11][26][4]

Washington did not entirely reject civil rights and racial equality, but he viewed them as long-term results that would be obtained only after blacks had demonstrated their worth through loyal, dedicated work within the Southern economy.^[9][23]

At the time Washington made his speech, the principles contained in his proposal were sometimes referred to as "accommodationism." The phrase "Atlanta Compromise" was not coined until eight years after the address, by Du Bois in his 1903 essay "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others" published in his book The Souls of Black Folk.^[27][g]

After Washington proposed the Atlanta Compromise in 1894, he emerged as the preeminent leader of the African American community.^[10] Many of Washington's associates supported the Compromise, including Robert Moton, who later would become leader of the Tuskegee Institute upon Washington's death.^[28] But other African American leaders disagreed with the Compromise, including members of the American Negro Academy, which in the late 1890s raised objections to the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case that legalized segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine.^[29]

Around 1900, other leaders within the black community began voicing opposition to the Atlanta Compromise, challenging racist government policies and advocating for equality for their people.^[30] Opponents included northern intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois, then a professor at Atlanta University, William Calvin Chase, and William Monroe Trotter, a Boston activist who in 1901 founded the Boston Guardian newspaper as a platform for radical activism.^[31][32][33] Trotter lived in New England, and in 1899 he observed that conditions in the South were growing worse, and that Southern-style racism was creeping into the Northern states.^[34]

In 1902 and 1903 black advocates for equal rights fought to gain a larger voice in the conventions of the National Afro-American Council, but they were marginalized because the conventions were dominated by Washington supporters (also known as Bookerites).^[35] In July 1903, Trotter orchestrated a confrontation with Washington in Boston, a stronghold of activism, that resulted in a minor melee and the arrest of Trotter and others; the event garnered national headlines.^[36]

W.E.B. Du Bois criticized the Compromise, and campaigned for equal rights

Harvard-educated W. E. B. Du Bois was born and raised in New England, and was twelve years younger than Washington. Where Washington was representative of rural, Southern blacks, Du Bois was representative of urban, educated, Northern blacks.^[37][38] Northern blacks had relatively more freedom than those in the South, and were more willing to fight for equal rights; in addition, some of them felt the Atlanta Compromise was effectively imposed on blacks by Southern whites.^[37][38][h]

Although Du Bois initially supported the Atlanta Compromise,^[39][40] over time he came to strongly disagree with the Washington's approach.^[41][4] The rift between the two men began to develop in 1898 when Washington resigned from an institute governed by a friend of Du Bois.^[42] In 1900, Du Bois proposed the creation of a national organization of black businessmen, but Washington quickly plagiarized the idea and created the National Negro Business League.^[43] In 1901, Du Bois wrote a review of Washington's autobiography Up From Slavery which contained a negative assessment of the Atlanta Compromise.^[44][45][i]

In 1903 Du Bois harshly criticized the Atlanta Compromise in his influential book, The Souls of Black Folk, which included the statement: "Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and submission... [His] programme practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races."^[44][46] The same year, Du Bois criticized the Atlanta Compromise's plan to build vocational job-training schools instead of universities, writing: "[the] object of all true education is not to make men carpenters; it is to make carpenters men."^[23][47]

In 1904, Du Bois and Washington – each accompanied by a team of supporters – met in New York, in an attempt to defuse tensions between the two factions.^[48] The summit was not successful: although they agreed to create a "Committee of Twelve" to coordinate future efforts, the committee fell apart within a year.^[49][j] In early 1905, Du Bois wrote an article in The Voice of the Negro periodical, which asserted that Washington was effectively bribing the African American press to provide positive reporting on Washington's programs.^[51][52] Washington and his allies disputed Do Bois' allegations.^[51]

Historian Mark Bauerlein concluded that 1905 marked the end of any collaboration between the two leaders, writing: "[From Du Bois' perspective] Washington controlled the black press, bought loyalty, planted spies, ostracized critics, and co-opted reform movements and let them die. His accommodation of whites had become too obsequious, but more important, his black power had become oppressive."^[53]

In 1905, Trotter, Du Bois, and other advocates for full and equal rights formed the Niagra Movement to channel their efforts. Their "Declaration of Principles" emphatically rejected the Atalanta Compromise, and urged African Americans to fight for civil rights.^[54][55][56] Although the Niagra Movement dissolved after two years, it served as the forerunner to the NAACP, which was formed in 1909 by Du Bois and others.^[57] Several of the co-founders of the NAACP were liberal whites, who were beginning to realize that the Atlanta Compromise was not going to provide civil rights or full equality for African Americans.^[58] After the founding of the NAACP, the schism between Washington's Atlanta Compromise, and Du Bois' advocacy for full equality became pronounced and public.^[58]

The Atlanta Compromise failed to achieve its long-term goals of ending segregation or providing equal rights for blacks: Black Southerners upheld their end of the bargain by tolerating segregation, and by accepting prohibitions against voting or holding public office; but those sacrifices did not lead white Southerners to gradually provide blacks with equal rights.^{[59][60][59][k]}

After Washington introduced the Atlanta Compromise in his 1895 speech, Southern states continued to aggressively adopt Jim Crow laws which formalized segregation in nearly all walks of life.^[60] Southern states prevented blacks from voting through constitutional amendments and other laws which raised barriers to voter registration, primarily through poll taxes, residency and record-keeping requirements, subjective literacy tests and other devices.^[5]

Violence against blacks continued after the Atlanta Compromise was established: over fifty blacks were lynched in most years until 1922, and lynchings continued into the 1940s.^[61][62] Race riots in dozens of cities spanned several decades, killing hundreds of blacks,^[62] including Atlanta (1906), Illinois (1908), East St. Louis (1917), the Red Summer (1919), and Tulsa (1921).^[63] The 1906 massacre in Atlanta was notable because Washington's speech was presented there only eleven years earlier; Du Bois believed that the Massacre was partially the result of the Atlanta Compromise.^[64][l]

Washington, in his 1895 speech, urged Southern African Americans to remain in their home states, and find prosperity by working within the local economy.^{[4][21][22][m]} But, starting around 1910, millions of African Americans began to move northward, many to major cities like New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Washington D.C.^[66][67] In 1917, black leaders from the Tuskegee Institute pleaded with Southern blacks to remain in the south, leading Du Bois to respond "any ... Negro leadership today that devotes ten times as much space [in their report] to the advantages of living in the South as it gives to lynching and lawlessness is inexcusably blind."^[22][n]

After Washington's death in 1915, his Tuskegee Machine collapsed, and organized support for the Atlanta Compromise faded.^[68][69] In the following decades, campaigns to end segregation and achieve equal rights gained momentum, finally achieving success during the civil rights movement with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.^[70]

• "Atlanta Compromise" Full text of Washington's 1895 Atlanta Compromise speech.

• "Booker T. and W. E. B." 1969 poem by poet Dudley Randall about the conflict between Washington and Du Bos.

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