A few minutes after I had finished reading this
description I was waited on by a committee of ladies and gentlemen
with the request that I deliver an address at a concert which was to
begin the following evening. And yet there are people who are bold
enough to say that race feeling in America is not growing less
intense! At this concert the Hon. Benjamin B. Odell, Jr., the present
governor of New York, presided. I was never given a more cordial
hearing anywhere. A large proportion of the passengers with Southern
people. After the concert some of the passengers proposed that a
subscription be raised to help the work at Tuskegee, and the money to
support several scholarships was the result.
While we were in Paris I was very pleasantly surprised to receive
the following invitation from the citizens of West Virginia and of the
city near which I had spent my boyhood days: --
Charleston, W. Va., May 16, 1899.
Professor Booker T. Washington, Paris, France:
Dear Sir: Many of the best citizens of West Virginia have
united in liberal expressions of admiration and praise of your
worth and work, and desire that on your return from Europe you
should favour them with your presence and with the inspiration of
your words.
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