Student Extemporaneous Speaking Contest. The concluding
competition was held in the famed East College auditorium
at Meharry Hall. I was one of the four finalists, drawn from
more than  entrants. It was my luck to draw the shortest
straw, making me the last to speak. The hall was filled to ca-
pacity and the audience, except for me and three of the other
four black students at DePauw, was all white. I was confident
I would win, and I did. My topic was “the Negro in America.”
Some might think it odd that I chose to take on that topic in
the early s before an audience that was sure to be almost
completely white. But it never occurred to me to be anxious
about that. I was at DePauw—where I had chosen to go to
college. I knew my audience. Also, because most of the whites
there had no experience being friends with or even talking to
any black person, the topic, though “foreign,” was of great in-
terest to them. And I think they had respect for me and my
ability to speak out.

In February of my sophomore year, I won first place in the

men’s competition of the Indiana State Oratorical Contest
over ten other finalists. It was the first time that a DePauw
student had won since Andrew J. Beveridge, who later became
a U.S. senator from Indiana, had captured first place in .
Later that spring, I gained third place in the interstate oratori-
cal contest involving college students from Illinois, Kentucky,
Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as Indiana.

At DePauw I religiously read the current issues of Vital

Speeches,

which contained many of the important speeches of

INTRODUCTION

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