I knew, too, that this was the first time in the entire history of the Negro that a member of my race had been asked to speak from the same platform with white Southern men and women on any important National occasion.  I was asked now to speak to an audience composed of the wealth and culture of the white South, the representatives of my former masters.  I knew, too, that while the greater part of my audience would be composed of Southern people, yet there would be present a large number of Northern whites, as well as a great many men and women of my own race.

I was determined to say nothing that I did not feel from the bottom of my heart to be true and right.  When the invitation came to me, there was not one word of intimation as to what I should say or as to what I should omit.  In this I felt that the Board of Directors had paid a tribute to me.  They knew that by one sentence I could have blasted, in a large degree, the success of the Exposition.  I was also painfully conscious of the fact that, while I must be true to my own race in my utterances, I had it in my power to make such an ill-timed address as would result in preventing any similar invitation being extended to a black man again for years to come.  I was equally determined to be true to the North, as well as to the best element of the white South, in what I had to say.

The papers, North and South, had taken up the discussion of my coming speech, and as the time for it drew near this discussion became more and more widespread.  Not a few of the Southern white papers were unfriendly to the idea of my speaking.  From my own race I received many suggestions as to what I ought to say.  I prepared myself as best I could for the address, but as the eighteenth of September drew nearer, the heavier my heart became, and the more I feared that my effort would prove a failure and a disappointment.

The invitation had come at a time when I was very busy with my school work, as it was the beginning of our school year.  After preparing my address, I went through it, as I usually do with those utterances which I consider particularly important, with Mrs. Washington, and she approved of what I intended to say.  On the sixteenth of September, the day before I was to start for Atlanta, so many of the Tuskegee teachers expressed a desire to hear my address that I consented to read it to them in a body.  When I had done so, and had heard their criticisms and comments, I felt somewhat relieved, since they seemed to think well of what I had to say.

On the morning of September 17, together with Mrs. Washington and my three children, I started for Atlanta.  I felt a good deal as I suppose a man feels when he is on his way to the gallows.  In passing through the town of Tuskegee I met a white farmer who lived some distance out in the country.  In a jesting manner this man said:  “Washington, you have spoken before the Northern white people, the Negroes in the South, and to us country white people in the South; but Atlanta, to-morrow, you will have before you the Northern whites, the Southern whites, and the Negroes all together.  I am afraid that you have got yourself in a tight place.”  This farmer diagnosed the situation correctly, but his frank words did not add anything to my comfort.