Booker T. Washington: “If I have spoken to you thus plainly and frankly, it is that our progress in the future may be still greater than it has…”

This problem Harvard University is solving, not by bringing itself down, but by bringing the masses up.

Despite superficial and temporary signs which might lead one to entertain a contrary opinion, there was never a time when I felt more hopeful for the race than I do at the present.

How shall we make the mansion on yon Beacon Street feel and see the need of the spirits in the lowliest cabin in Alabama cotton-fields or Louisiana sugar-bottoms?

If my life in the past has meant anything in the lifting up of my people and the bringing about of better relations between your race and mine, I assure you from this day it will mean doubly more.