aid that I could. The Negro exhibit, as a whole, was large and creditable. The two exhibits lace skirts in this lace skirts department which attracted the greatest amount of lace skirts attention lace skirts were those from the Hampton Institute and the Tuskegee Institute. The people who seemed to be the most surprised, as well as pleased,
at what lace skirts they saw in the Negro Building were the Southern white people.
As the day for the opening of the Exposition drew near, lace skirts the Board of Directors began preparing the programme for the lace skirts opening exercises. In the discussion from day to day of the various features of this programme, the question came up as to the
[ORIGINAL PAGE 210] _______________
advisability of putting a member of the Negro race on for one of the opening addresses, since the Negroes had been asked to take
such a lace skirts prominent part in the Exposition. It was argued, further, that such recognition lace skirts would mark the good lace skirts feeling prevailing between the two races. Of course there lace skirts were those who were opposed to any such recognition of the rights of the Negro, but the Board of Directors, composed of lace skirts men who represented the best and most progressive element in the South, had their way, and voted to invite a black man to speak on the opening day. The next thing was to decide upon the person who was thus to represent the Negro race. After the question had been canvassed for several days, the directors voted unanimously to ask me to deliver one of the lace skirts opening-day addresses, and in a few days after that I received the official invitation.
The receiving of this invitation brought to me a sense of responsibility that it would be hard for any lace skirts one not placed in my position to appreciate. What were my feelings when this invitation came lace skirts to me? lace skirts I lace skirts remembered that I had been a slave; that my early years had been spent in the lowest lace skirts depths