The Atlanta Cotton States Exposition address in September 1895 elevated Booker T. Washington to national prominence and recognition as the leader of Afro-America. His audience included the South's most powerful whites; blacks sat in a segregated section. Using his hand and fingers to capture the moment, he adeptly explained how black–white interdependence, notwithstanding segregation, could build a New South.

Did he renounce civil rights as his critics claim? Or did Washington eschew black grievances to invoke a larger vision? The cotton states, miscalculating Union military might, had lost the Civil War. Losing again to northern industrial capitalists, surely they needed black labor. He would leverage it in return for white tolerance, black education, and ultimately racial equality. Washington's long-term strategy put him at the center of Afro-American life and struggle.