When Professor Booker T. Washington, Principal of an industrial
school for coloured people in Tuskegee, Ala. stood on the
platform of the Auditorium, with the sun shining over the heads
of his auditors into his eyes, and with his whole face lit up
with the fire of prophecy, Clark Howell, the successor of Henry
Grady, said to me, "That man's speech is the beginning of a moral
revolution in America."
It is the first time that a Negro has made a speech in the South
on any important occasion before an audience composed of white
men and women. It electrified the audience, and the response was
as if it had come from the throat of a whirlwind.
Mrs. Thompson had hardly taken her seat when all eyes were turned
on a tall tawny Negro sitting in the front row of the platform.
It was Professor Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee
(Alabama) Normal and Industrial Institute, who must rank from
this time forth as the foremost man of his race in America.
Gilmore's Band played the "Star-Spangled Banner," and the
audience cheered. The tune changed to "Dixie" and the audience
roared with shrill "hi-yis." Again the music changed, this time
to "Yankee Doodle," and the clamour lessened.
All this time the eyes of the thousands present looked straight
at the Negro orator.
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