Address of Booker T. Washington, principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama, delivered at the opening of the Cotton States and International Exposition, at Atlanta, Ga., September 18, 1895

Washington says that business offers the African American great opportunity in the South and that African Americans must start at the bottom of the economic scale before moving up to so-called higher occupations. He also calls upon white southerners to work with African Americans for the common good of both races.