The first thing that I remember, after I had finished speaking,
was that Governor Bullock rushed across the platform and took me by
the hand, and that others did the same. I received so many and such
hearty congratulations that I found it difficult to get out of the
building. I did not appreciate to any degree, however, the impression
which my address seemed to have made, until the next morning, when I
went into the business part of the city. As soon as I was recognized,
I was surprised to find myself pointed out and surrounded by a crowd
of men who wished to shake hands with me. This was kept up on every
street on to which I went, to an extent which embarrassed me so much
that I went back to my boarding-place. The next morning I returned to
Tuskegee. At the station in Atlanta, and at almost all of the
stations at which the train stopped between that city and Tuskegee, I
found a crowd of people anxious to shake hands with me.
The papers in all parts of the United States published the address
in full, and for months afterward there were complimentary editorial
references to it. Mr. Clark Howell, the editor of the Atlanta
_Constitution_, telegraphed to a New York paper, among other words,
the following, "I do not exaggerate when I say that Professor Booker
T. Washington's address yesterday was one of the most notable
speeches, both as to character and as to the warmth of its reception,
ever delivered to a Southern audience. The address was a revelation.
The whole speech is a platform upon which blacks and whites can stand
with full justice to each other."
The Boston Transcript said editorially: "The speech of Booker
T. Washington at the Atlanta Exposition, this week, seems to have
dwarfed all the other proceedings and the Exposition itself. The
sensation that it has caused in the press has never been equalled."
I very soon began receiving all kinds of propositions from lecture
bureaus, and editors of magazines and papers, to take the lecture
platform, and to write articles. One lecture bureau offered me fifty
thousand dollars, or two hundred dollars a night and expenses, if I
would place my services at its disposal for a given period. 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 commercial value upon my services.
Some days after its delivery I sent a copy of my address to the
President of the United States, the Hon. Grover Cleveland. I received
from him the following autograph reply: —
