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John T. Washington Speech

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On September 18, 1895, at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, a former slave and now African American Leader Booker T. Washington delivered the opening address to an audience of predominantly white Americans, which became known as the Atlanta Compromise and became one of the most significant speeches in American history regarding race relations in America. It had been approximately thirty years since slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment and many black Americans were still experiencing racial discrimination in the form of “Black Codes” and “Jim Crow” laws, the Republican party had left them to fend for themselves and the Supreme Court had abandoned them when they voided several civil rights protections that had ensured them equal rights. At this critical time in history, the ideals Washington expressed in his Atlanta Compromise speech and which he believed were what would keep America moving on a path of progress in the South were a “give and take” philosophy of finding a middle ground in regards to racial cooperation, black Americans need for acceptance of their low status as the price for acquiring education and economic security, and through hard work and participation in the economic development of the South they would eventually achieve social and political equality.
When pointing out that one-third of the population of the South was comprised of black Americans, Washington made it clear black Americans played a significant role in

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