Not a few of the Southern white papers were unfriendly to the idea of my speaking.

From my own race I received many suggestions as to what I ought to say.

I prepared myself as best I could for the address, but as the eighteenth of September drew nearer, the heavier my heart became, and the more I feared that my effort would prove a failure and a disappointment.
The invitation had come at a time when I was very busy with my school work, as it was the beginning of our school year.

After preparing my address, I went through it, as I usually do with those utterances which I consider particularly important, with Mrs.Washington, and she approved of what I intended to say.

On the sixteenth of September, the day before I was to start for Atlanta, so many of the Tuskegee teachers expressed a desire to hear my address that I consented to read it to them in a body.