The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.4, page 101, Jan. 1896, U. of Illinois Press

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JANUARY · I 896 An Interview in the St. Paul Dispatch tSt. Paul, Minn., Jan. ~4, 1896] A COLORED LEADER BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, WHO MADE A SENSATION AT THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION INTERVIEWED BY DISPATCH HE GIVES A FREE LECTURE THIS EVENING AT THE PEOPLE S CHURCH HIS GREAT WORK AMONG HIS PEOPLE IN THE SOUTH AN INTERESTING TALK Booker T. Washington arrived in St. Paul this morning direct from Brooklyn, N.Y., and took up his headquarters at the Metropolitan hotel. A slight, graceful figure of a young man, light of color, but of distinctively African type, stood in the doorway of the parlor to receive a member of the Dispatch staff. ''How did you come by your name Mr. Washington?'' was the first question asked. ''Well, you know we colored people in the old days had no names but those our masters chose to give us; scarcely ever a last name; Booker is an old Virginia name, and I was given that by my master; my mother added Telfiero, but that was not her name only her fancy, and ~ was never called anything but Booker.'' ''When did the Washington come?'' He smiled and said: ''That came the first day I went to school; ~ heard all the white children giving two names, and I said, 'what name can I say?' So before the teacher came to me ~ had made up my mind to call myself 'Washington,' and by that name I have since been known.'' ''Are you in the hands of a 'lecture bureau' Mr. Washington?'' ''No, indeed,'' with greatest fervor, ''I am a free man, to go and come and say what ~ like. I have been offered high prices a night to speak. I have letters every day nearly, asking me to lecture for money, but I could not do that, and do the good I want to do for the 'cause' to which ~ have given myself. The public would never believe I was telling the absolute truth if I were in the hands of some one; and Bob