Speech by Josephus Daniels, Ex-Secretary of the Navy

Page 19 - "Nobody could have criticized him for going where it is reputed the Negro receives more recognition than in the South. Why did he not go? His 'flashes' sent him to Alabama to a small Negro school, where he could work out for his race what he had worked out for himself. No man can lift up others until he has first raised himself. The world has been full of would-be leaders of his race who thought they could lift themselves to the church steeple by their own bootstraps. Booker Washington never obtained anything he did not work for, and the strange story of his life shows that while all his life he was asking for something he was never asking for himself."

Page 22 - "He lived to translate all these visions into realities and to set influences in motion which give him place as the foremost Negro the world has produced. Others had preached better sermons, written more decorations or amassed larger fortunes, some were more eloquent - but who has lived to the Negro race who so incarnated a sound ideal as Booker Washington? He will grow larger and larger as there comes the true perspective and be regarded by the people unborn as the practical visionary of his race, the inspiration of millions who will reap where he has sown."

Speech by Dr. George Cleveland Hall

Page 30 - "One of the most distinguishing traits of his character as is the most distinguishing trait in the character of every great man, was endurance, determination, courage that nothing could baffle, no obstacle however great could shatter, a determination to succeed, come what may, a determination to reach the summit to go on, though he should fall unnumbered times by the roadside."

Page 35 - "He changed a crying race to a trying race, and put into their hands the wonderful crafts of the age; he instilled in their minds the dignity of labor, and urged them to stop marking time but to keep pace with the grand march of civilization."

Page 36 - " Booker Washington may have had his failures, but whatever else he failed to do, this he did: He opened the door of Hope and Knowledge to his people, and showed that the Negro, after centuries of degradation could yet produce a man, whom the proudest Anglo-Saxon delighted to honor, and today, discrepancies of race, of religion, of age are forgotten in the common worship of his genius."

Page 38 - "He realized that the Spirit of Good Will and cooperation would do more to restore the law of normal race relations of living as fellowmen and set in force conditions of freedom and happiness, than hate. He cultivated an optimistic philosophy with this as his motto: 'I will allow no man to drag me down so low as to make me hate him.'"

Speech by Dr. Wallace Buttrick

Page 46 - "Booker Washington never thought his education finished. He was a constant and persistent student, a reader of good and great books, a keen observer of men and events, always seeking a philosophy of everything he saw and heard. When he traveled he had books by him and in his hand. By his bedside a book was always ready for waking hours. In out-of-the-way places which he frequented a shelf of books was sure to be found. The real things of history, of literature, and of life engaged his constant attention. By these means he became a man of fine and real culture, and by these means be became a leader of his fellowmen. He had a native ability of a rare sort, but this received constant culture from the day of his intellectual birth in the West Virginia coal mine to the day of his death here in Tuskegee."

Remarks by the Honorable William G. Willcox as he accepts the monument

Page 56 - "But this spirit of Booker Washington which we commemorate today is not confined to Tuskegee. Wherever through this broad land a Negro boy or girl is ambitious to rise and is struggling to overcome the obstacles which beset his pathway, wherever one is determined to make the most of himself and his opportunities, wherever one is faithful and thorough in every task, small or great, wherever on is fill with a desire and purpose to serve his race and help his fellow men, there lives the spirit of Booker Washington."

"That this spirit may never die, that it may live in the hearts of this and succeeding generations to encourage ambition and achievement, to inspire service, to teach self-control and self-respect, pride of race and self-reliance without boastfulness or arrogance, love of God and love of fellow-men, we dedicate this statue today."