Booker T. Washington: Atlanta Exposition Address

Questions for Further Study

• 1. Critics of Washington and his Atlanta Exposition Address have accused him of betraying African Americans by giving in to southern perceptions of the racial inferiority of African Americans and accepting segregation and the loss of the African American political rights and the right to vote. To what extent is this criticism valid? To what extent is it not valid?
• 2. What rights does Washington assert for African Americans in the Atlanta address? How do these rights differ from those championed by the organizers of the Niagara Movement in their 1905 Declaration of Principles?
• 3. Washington delivered this speech in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1895. How did the location of the speech affect what Washington said? How might the speech have been different had Washington delivered it in New York rather than Atlanta?
• 4. One theme that Washington develops in this speech is the concept that the destinies of Black southerners and white southerners are intertwined. How does Washington argue this point? What is the significance of this argument? Explain whether this argument is an effective basis for resolving racial problems in the South.