Prof. Washington's Visit

Booker T. Washington visits Richmond to give a speech.

Prof. Booker T. Washington's address at the First Baptist Church on the 17th inst., was practical and logical, possessing a vivid interest and being of such an entertaining character as to hold his hearers spell-bound until the close.
No one who listened to his rounded sentences, fervid, but practical rhetoric interspersed here and there with homely and at times ludicrous illustrations can long hesitate to accord to him the praise which has been so generously bestowed upon him throughout the country and has finally awakened Harvard College to the fact that a man may be entitled to the degree of Master of Arts, who has never been within its confines as a student or matriculated at its shrine.
We admired the man before; we love him now. He has reached the proper plane for the understanding of our condition and is unquestionably laying the foundation upon which we may successfully work out our complete emancipation. We are as yet slaves to ourselves, unable to break the ropes with which slavery has bound us. The National Government broke the chains
Strand by strand we shall pick the thing with which we are tied until with a complete understanding of the improved methods of farming, mining and manufacturing, we shall stand forth free men with none to molest us or make us afraid.
Prof. Washington possesses the elements of true greatness and stands a one of the most remarkable character the race has as yet produced.
Summary: This article speaks of the white reaction to the scandal of the disfranchisement faced by black voters in the 1896 presidential election.

“Prof. Washington's Visit,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed December 7, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1560.