The
Born a slave, Booker T. Washington
worked in a salt furnace and later a coal mine to earn the money for his own
education. He founded the Tuskegee Institute in
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 answered, “Cast down your bucket where
you are.” And a third and fourth signal
for water was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last
heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh,
sparkling water from the mouth of the
Cast it
down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the
professions . . . . 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.
To those of
the white race who look to the 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 my own race, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down among the eight millions of
Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days
when to have provd treacherous meant the ruin of your
firesides . . . 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,
faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that
the world has seen. As we have proved
our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the
sickbed of your mothers and fathers, and 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 . . . . 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 . . . .
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 an 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
exercises 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.