I cannot close this chapter without adding a reference to the great pleasure and satisfaction given by the part the white and colored citizens of the town of Tuskegee took in this recognition of the school. A few years before this I had gone to Tuskegee unknown and entirely without means, but no white people, in any part of America, could have acted more cordially and co-operated more heartily with our school than did the white people of Tuskegee upon this occasion. They organized various committees, composed of both men and women, to help us in giving the President the proper reception. The town, from one end to the other, was decorated with the National colors, to say nothing of many beautiful arches and other forms of decorations. One of the many newspaper correspondents who accompanied the President remarked to me that he had never seen in any town of the size such generous and appropriate decorations.
What the President and his party thought of this visit to the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute can be best told by the following letter, received from the Secretary to the President:
“Executive Mansion,
Washington, Dec. 23, 1899.
“Dear Sir:—By this mail I take pleasure in sending you engrossed copies of the souvenir of the visit of the President to your institution. These sheets bear the autographs of the President and the members of the Cabinet who accompanied him on the trip. Let me take this opportunity of congratulating you most heartily and sincerely upon the great success of the exercises provided for and entertainment furnished us under your auspices during our visit to Tuskegee. Every feature of the program was perfectly executed and was viewed or participated in with the heartiest satisfaction by every visitor present. The unique exhibition which you gave of your pupils engaged in their industrial vocations was not only artistic but thoroughly impressive. The tribute paid by the President and his Cabinet to your work was none too high and forms a most encouraging augury, I think, for the future prosperity of your institution. I cannot close without assuring you that the modesty shown by yourself in the exercises was most favorably commented upon by all the members of our party.
“With best wishes for the continued advance of your most useful and patriotic undertaking, kind personal regards, and the compliments of the season, believe me, always,
Very sincerely yours,
John Addison Porter,
Secretary to the President.”
“To Pres. Booker T. Washington,
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute,
Tuskegee, Ala.”
The impression which this visit of the President, Members of his Cabinet, and other distinguished visitors made upon the teachers and students of the Tuskegee Institute, cannot be overestimated. It inspired the teachers and students with new life and hope, not only in the work of the present, but in that of the future. It did more. It inspired the older members of the community, black and white, with new and higher purposes in the hard battle of life. It made us all feel, as we had never felt before, that we were in a higher and nobler sense citizens of the great Republic, and that the President of the United States was our President, “in soberness and truth,” as much as he was of the people of larger and more pretentious communities than ours.