passed upon them. This kind of thing, however, at
Tuskegee I have always tried to avoid so far as our regular
teaching force is concerned. But I repeat, if I begin to
yield in the performance of my duty when out of the South in
one respect, I do not know where the end will be. It is very
difficult for you, or any other person who is not in my
place, to understand the difficulty and embarrassment that I
am confronted with. You have no idea how many invitations of
various kinds I am constantly refusing or trying to get away
from because I want to avoid embarrassing situations. For
example, over a year ago Mr. S---- invited me to go to
Stockbridge, Massachusetts, near Lenox, to deliver an
address on General Armstrong's life and work. When I reached
Stockbridge an hour or so before the time of delivering the
address, I found that Mr. S----, who had invited me, had
also invited five or six other gentlemen to meet me at
luncheon. The luncheon I knew nothing about until I reached
the town. Under such circumstances I am at a loss to know
how I could have avoided accepting the invitation. A few
days afterward I filled a long-standing invitation to
lecture at Amherst College. I reached the town a few hours
before dinner and found that a number of people, including
several college presidents, had been invited to meet me at
dinner. Taking still another case: over a year ago I
promised a colored club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that I
would be their guest at a banquet in October. The banquet
was held on the third of the month, and when I reached
Cambridge I found that in addition to the members of the
colored club, the Mayor of the city and a number of Harvard
professors, including President Eliot, had been invited; and
I could go on and state case after case. Of course, if I
wanted to make a martyr of myself and draw especial
attention to me and to the institution, I could easily do so
by simply writing whenever I receive an invitation to a
dinner or banquet that I could not accept on account of the
color of my skin.

Six years ago at the Peace Jubilee in Chicago, where I spoke
at a meeting at which President McKinley was present, I took
both luncheon and dinner in the same dining-room with
President McKinley and was the guest of the sa