I always make it a rule to make especial [sic] preparation for
each separate address. No two audiences are exactly alike. It is my
aim to reach and talk to the heart of each individual audience, taking
it into my confidence very much as I would a person. When I am
speaking to an audience, I care little for how what I am saying is
going to sound in the newspapers, or to another audience, or to an
individual. At the time, the audience before me absorbs all my
sympathy, thought, and energy.
Early in the morning a committee called to escort me to my place
in the procession which was to march to the Exposition grounds. In
this procession were prominent coloured citizens in carriages, as well
as several Negro military organizations. I noted that the Exposition
officials seemed to go out of their way to see that all of the
coloured people in the procession were properly placed and properly
treated. The procession was about three hours in reaching the
Exposition grounds, and during all of this time the sun was shining
down upon us disagreeably hot [sic]. When we reached the grounds, the
heat, together with my nervous anxiety, made me feel as if I were
about ready to collapse, and to feel that my address was not going to
be a success. When I entered the audience-room, I found it packed
with humanity from bottom to top, and there were thousands outside who
could not get in.
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