itation
came to me? I remembered that I had been a slave; that my early years
had been spent in the lowest depths of poverty and ignorance, and that
I had had little opportunity to prepare me for such a responsibility as
this. It was only a few years before that time that any white man in
the audience might have claimed me as his slave; and it was easily
possible that some of my former owners might be present to hear me
speak.

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 representative 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 white, 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 men 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 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