r above and beyond material
benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come,
in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and
suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a
willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, this,
coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South
a new heaven and a new earth.

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
th