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.

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.
The room was very large, and well suited to public speaking.

When I entered the room, there were vigorous cheers from the coloured portion of the audience, and faint cheers from some of the white people.

I had been told, while I had been in Atlanta, that while many white people were going to be present to hear me speak, simply out of curiosity, and that others who would be present would be in full sympathy with me, there was a still larger element of the audience which would consist of those who were going to be present for the purpose of hearing me make a fool of myself, or, at least, of hearing me say some foolish thing so that they could say to the officials who had invited me to speak, "I told you so!" One of the trustees of the Tuskegee Institute, as well as my personal friend, Mr.William H.Baldwin, Jr.