Historical voices

I have also found that few things, if any, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race prejudice.

In meeting men, in many places, I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others; the most miserable are those who do the least.

No man whose vision is bounded by colour can come into contact with what is highest and best in the world.

In my contact with people I find that, as a rule, it is only the little, narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to permit them to come into contact with…

To all these communications I replied that my life-work was at Tuskegee; and that whenever I spoke it must be in the interests of Tuskegee school and my race, and that I would enter into no arrangements that seemed to place a mere…

Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress.

It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.

President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at…

No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success.

As I remember it now, the thing that was uppermost in my mind was the desire to say something that would cement the friendship of the races and bring about hearty cooperation between them.

When I am speaking to an audience, I care little for how what I am saying is going to sound in the newspapers, or to another audience, or to an individual.

It is my aim to reach and talk to the heart of each individual audience, taking it into my confidence very much as I would a person.

I felt a good deal as I suppose a man feels when he is on his way to the gallows.

I was equally determined to be true to the North, as well as to the best element of the white South, in what I had to say.

I was also painfully conscious of the fact that, while I must be true to my own race in my utterances, I had it in my power to make such an ill-timed address as would result in preventing any similar invitation being extended to a black…

I was determined to say nothing that I did not feel from the bottom of my heart to be true and right.

I pity him because I know that he is trying to stop the progress of the world, and because I know that in time the development and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make him ashamed of his weak and narrow position.

I know that the one who makes this mistake does so because of his own lack of opportunity for the highest kind of growth.

Now, whenever I hear any one advocating measures that are meant to curtail the development of another, I pity the individual who would do this.

In this address I said that the whole future of the Negro rested largely upon the question as to whether or not he should make himself, through his skill, intelligence, and character, of such undeniable value to the community in which he…

I further contended that, in relation to his vote, the Negro should more and more consider the interests of the community in which he lived, rather than seek alone to please some one who lived a thousand miles away from him and from his…

In this address at Madison I took the ground that the policy to be pursued with references to the races was, by every honourable means, to bring them together and to encourage the cultivation of friendly relations, instead of doing that…

As a rule, the place to criticise the South, when criticism is necessary, is in the South—not in Boston.

I have found that there is a large element in the South that is quick to respond to straightforward, honest criticism of any wrong policy.