Booker T. Washington papers: Volume 4: 1895-98

Abstract

Covering Washington's career from September 1895 - after the Atlanta Compromise address thrust him into prominence as the black spokesman whites were willing to listen to - to December 1898, when President William McKinley visited Tuskegee, the papers in this volume demonstrate Washington's growing fame and public acceptance. Throughout this period, although he continued his close paternal watch over Tuskegee, he became increasingly involved with the concerns of the national black community, speaking to overflow audiences of both races all over the country. This was a time of increasing racial segregation as evidenced by the landmark Plessy v. Fergusson decision, which established the "separate but equal" doctrine not only in transportation but in public accommodations and education. Washington reacted strongly to this, and several years later, in response to the rising tide of discrimination, he delivered his controversial Peace Jubilee speech, calling upon the South to bury racial and sectional prejudice in the trenches of San Juan Hill, where black and white, northerner and southerner, had united in a fight for freedom