B 3 S3fl Efll 
 
 UBRAPV 
 
 JAN 161970 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
ADDRESS OF 
 
 BOOKER T. WASHINQTON, 
 
 // 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 ALUMNI LMNNER 
 
 OF 
 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 
 
 OAMBRIDGK, MASS. 
 
 JUNE 24, 1896- 
 
 Tviskegee Institute Steam Print, 
 Tuskegee, Ala., lyoi. 
 
LOAN STACK 
 
MA !/-. 
 
 First in the history of America, a leading American I niver- 
 sity confers an honorary degree upon a colored man. Harvard 
 lias been always to the front in ideas of liberty, freedom and 
 equality. When other colleges of the North were accepting the 
 Negro as a tolerance, Harvard had been awarding him honors, as 
 in the case of Clement G . Morgan of recent date. Her present 
 action , therefore, in placing an honorary crown upon the worthy 
 head of Mr. Washington, is but a step further in her magnanim 
 ity in recognixing merit under whatever color of skin. 
 
 The mere announcement of this event is a great testimony to 
 the standing of Mr. Washington, but to any black person who, -as 
 I did. saw and heard the enthusiasm and applause with which the 
 audience cheered the announcement by President Eliot .the degree 
 itself was insignificant. The Boston Lancers had conducted Gov. 
 Wolcott to Cambridge, and f>00 Harvard graduates had double 
 filed the march to Sanders Theatre. It was a great day. Latin 
 orations, disquisitions, dissertations and essays in English were 
 delivered by selected graduates, clad in stately and classic cap 
 and gown. Bishops, generals, commodores, statesmen, authors, 
 poets, explorers, millionaires and noted men of every calling, sat 
 as earnest listeners. .President Eliot had issued f)00 diplomas by 
 handing them to the representatives of the graduates in bundles 
 of twenty to twenty-five. Then came the awarding of honorary 
 degrees. Thirteen were issued. Bishop Vincent and General 
 Nelson A. Miles, Commander of the I*. S. Army, being among 
 the re<-ipients. When the name of Hooker T. Washington was 
 called, and he arose to acknowledge and accept, there was such 
 an outburst of applause as greeted no other name except that of 
 the popular soldier patriot. General Miles. The applause was 
 not studied and stitT, sympathetic and condoling: it was enthu 
 siasm and admiration. Kvery part <>f the audience from pit to 
 gallery joined in. and a glow covered the cheeks of those around 
 me, proving that sincere appreciation of the rising struggle of an 
 ex-slave and the work he has accomplished for his race. 
 
 348 
 
But the event of the day was the alumni dinner, when 
 speeches formed the most enjoyable bill of fare. Two hundred 
 Harvard alumni and their invited quests partook of their annual 
 dinner. Four or five speeches were made, amcng them one from 
 Mr. Washington. 
 
 At; the close of the speaking, notwithstanding Senator Henry 
 Cabot Lodge, Dr. Minot J. Savage and others had spoken. Presi 
 dent Eliot warmly grasped Mr. Washington by the hand and told 
 him that his was the best speech of the day. 
 
 Anent the conferring of the degree and the toasts, the papers 
 have been unusual in favorable comment. Says the Boston Post : 
 
 "In conferring the honorary degree of "Master of Arts upon 
 the Principal of Tuskegee Institute, Harvard University has hon 
 ored itself as well as the object of this distinction. The work 
 which Prof. Booker T. Washington has accomplished for the edu 
 cation , good citi/enship and popular enlightment in his chosen 
 field of labor in the South, entitles him to rank with our national 
 benefactors. The University which can claim him on its list of 
 sons, whether in regular course or honoris causa may be proud. 
 
 "It has been mentioned that Mr. Washington is the first of 
 his race to receive an honorary degree from a New England Uni 
 versity. This, in itself, is a distinction. But the degree was not 
 conferred because Mr. Washington is a colored man, or because 
 he was born in slavery, but because he has shown, by his work 
 for the elevation of the people of the Black Belt of* the South, a 
 genius and a broad humanity which count for greatness in any 
 man, whether his skin be white or black." 
 
 The Boston Globe adds: "It is Harvard which, first among 
 New England colleges, confers an honorary degree upon a black 
 man. No one who has followed the history of Tuskegee and its 
 work , can fail to admire the courage, persistence and splendid 
 common sense of Booker T. Washington. Well may Harvard 
 honor the ex-slave, the value of whose services, alike to his race 
 and country, only the future can estimate." 
 
 The correspondent of the New York Times kindly remarks: 
 "All the speeches were enthusiastically received, but the colored 
 
man carried off the oratorical honors, and the applause which 
 broke out when he had finished, was vociferous and long-con 
 tinued." 
 
 Most of the papers have printed his cut, and congratulations 
 have come from every source. 
 
 The grandest feature of the whole thing, is that the fame and 
 honor that are coming thus to Mr. Washington, do not spoil him. 
 Twelve months in the year, night and day, he works for Tuskegee 
 his heart and Jove. No vacation, no rest; his life is one un 
 ceasing struggle for his school . This is the secret of his power. 
 Here is the lesson to be learned. Thos. ,7. Galloway, in The 
 Washington Colored American. 
 Boston, June 24th, 1890. 
 
 MK. WASHINGTON S ADDRESS. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT AND (IKNTLKMKN : 
 
 It would in some measure relieve my embarrassment if I 
 could, even in a slight degree, feel myself worthy of the great 
 honor which you do me to-day. Why you have called me from 
 the Black Kelt of the South, from among my humble people, to 
 share in the honors of this occasion, is not for me to explain; and 
 yet it may not be inappropriate for me to suggest that it seems 
 to me that one of the most vital questions that touches our Ameri 
 can life, is how to bring the strong, wealthy and lenrned into 
 helpful touch with the poorest , most ignorant, and humble and at 
 the same time, make the one appreciate the vitali/ing, strength 
 ening influence of the other. How shall we make the mansions 
 on yon Beacon Street feel and see the need of the spirits in the 
 lowliest cabin in Alabama cotton fields or Louisiana sugar bot 
 toms? This problem Harvard University is solving, not by bring 
 ing itself down, but by bringing the masses up. 
 
 If through me, an humble representative, seven millions of 
 my people in the South might be permitted to send a message to 
 Harvard Harvard that offered up on death s altar, young Shaw, 
 and Russell, and Lowell and scores of others, that we might have 
 a free and united country, that message would be, lt Tell them that 
 
the sacrifice was not in vain. Tell them that by the way of the 
 shop, the field, the skilled hand, habits of thrift and economy, by 
 way of industrial school and college, we are coining. We are 
 crawling up, working up, yea, bursting up. Often through op 
 pression, unjust discrimination and prejudice, but through them 
 all we arc coining up, and with proper habits, intelligence and 
 property, there is no power on earth that can permanently stay 
 our progress/ 
 
 It my life in the past has meant anything in the lifting up of 
 my people and t he bringing about of better relations between 
 your race and mine. I assure you from this day it will mean 
 doubly more. In the economy of (iod, there is but one standard 
 by which an individual can succeed there is but one for a race. 
 This country demands that every race measure itself by the 
 American standard. By it a race must rise or fall, succeed or 
 fail . and in the last analysis mere sentiment counts for little. 
 During the next half century and more, my race must continue 
 passing through the severe American crucible. We arc 1 to be- 
 tested in our patience, our forbearance, our perseverance, our 
 power to endure wrong, to withstand temptations, to economize 1 , 
 to acquire and use skill ; our ability to compete, to succeed in 
 commerce, to disregard the superficial for the real, the appearance 1 
 for the substance, to be great and yet small, learned and yet sim 
 ple, high and yet the servant of all. This, this is the passport to 
 all that is best in the life of our Republic, and the Negro must 
 possess it, or be debarred. 
 
 \\ bile we arc 1 thus being tested, 1 beg of you to remember 
 that wherever our life touches yours, we help or hinder. Where- 
 ever your life touches ours, you make us stronger or weaker. Xo 
 member of your race in any part of our country can harm the 
 meanest member of mine, without the proudest and bluest blood 
 in Massachusetts being degraded. When ^Mississippi commits 
 crime, ^sew England commits crime, and in so much, lowers the 
 standard of your civili/ation . There is no escape man drags 
 man down, or man lifts man up. 
 
 In working out our destiny, while the main burden and cen 
 ter of activity must lie with us, we shall need, in a. large measure 
 
in the years that are to come, as we have in the past . the help, 
 the encouragement, the guidance that the strong can give tho 
 weak. Thus helped, we of both races in the South, soon shall 
 throw off the shackles of racial and sectional prejudice and rise as 
 Harvard University lias risen and as we all should rise, above the 
 clouds of ignorance, narrowness and selfishness, into that atmos 
 phere, that pure sunshine, where it will be our highest ambition 
 to serve MAX, our brother, regardless of race or previous condition.