This, this, [sic] 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.
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