empted to hide
or to minimize the fact that when I am out of the South I do
not conform to the same customs and rules that I do in the
South. I say I have not attempted to hide it because
everything that I have done in this respect was published
four years ago in my book, "Up from Slavery," which has been
read widely throughout the South, and I did not hear a word
of adverse criticism passed upon what I had done. For
fifteen years I have been doing at the North just what I
have been doing during the past year. I have never attended
a purely social function given by white people anywhere in
the country. Nearly every week I receive invitations to
weddings of rich people, but these I always refuse. Mrs.
Washington almost never accompanies me on any occasion where
there can be the least sign of purely social intercourse.
Whenever I meet white people in the North at their offices,
in their parlors, or at their dinner tables, or at banquets,
it is with me purely a matter of business, either in the
interest of our institution or in the interest of my race;
no other thought ever enters my mind. For me to say now,
after fifteen years of creating interest in my race and in
this institution in that manner, that I must stop, would
simply mean that I must cease to get money in a large
measure for this institution. In meeting the people in this
way I am simply doing what the head of practically every
school, black and white, in the South is constantly doing.
For purely social pleasure I have always found all my
ambitions satisfied among my own people, and you will find
that in proportion as the colored race becomes educated and
prosperous, in the same proportion is this true of all
colored people.

I said a minute ago that I had tried to be careful in regard
to the feelings of the Southern people. It has been urged
upon me time and time again to employ a number of white
teachers at this institution. I have not done so and do not
intend to do so, largely for the reason that they would be
constantly mingling with each other at the table. For thirty
years and more, in every one of our Southern States, white
and colored people have sat down to the table three times a
day nearly throughout the year, and I have heard very little
criticism