On October 16, 1901, shortly after moving into the White House, President Theodore Roosevelt invited his adviser, the African American spokesman Booker T. Washington, to dine with him and his family. The event provoked an outpouring of condemnation from white politicians and press in the American South. [1] This reaction affected subsequent White House practice and no other African American was invited to dinner for almost thirty years. [2]
Roosevelt, while Governor of New York, frequently had black guests to dinner and sometimes invited them to sleep over. [3]
This instance was not the first time African Americans were invited to dinner at the White House. In 1798 John Adams had dined in the President's House in Philadelphia with Joseph Bunel (a mulatto representative of the Government of Haiti) and his black wife. [4] [5] Black people, including leaders such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, had been received at the White House by Presidents Lincoln, Grant, Hayes and Cleveland. At the invitation of First Lady Lucy Hayes, Marie Selika Williams became the first African American professional musician to appear at the White House. [6]
The following day, the White House released a statement headed, "Booker T Washington of Tuskegee, Alabama, dined with the President last evening."[ citation needed ]
The response from the southern press and politicians was immediate, sustained and vicious. James K. Vardaman, a Democrat from Mississippi, complained that the White House was now, "so saturated with the odor of nigger that the rats had taken refuge in the stable;" the Memphis Scimitar declared it "the most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States", [7] and on 25 October the Missouri Sedalia Sentinel published on its front page a poem entitled "Niggers in the White House", which ended suggesting that either the president's daughter should marry Washington or his son one of Washington's relatives. Senator Benjamin Tillman stated, "Now that Roosevelt has eaten with that nigger Washington, we shall have to kill a thousand niggers to get them back at their places." [8]
Governor of Georgia Allen Candler commented, "No self-respecting man can ally himself with the President, after what has occurred." He added that "No Southerner can respect any white man who would eat with a negro." Governor of South Carolina Miles McSweeney stated, "No white man who has eaten with a negro can be respected; it is simply a question of whether those who are invited to dine are fit to marry the sisters and daughters of their hosts." [9]
William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1896, 1900 and 1908, ridiculed the invitation as a device to secure black votes and promote the pipe dream of "social equality" between the races. [10]
The Northern presses were more generous, acknowledging Washington's accomplishments and suggesting that the dinner was an attempt by Roosevelt to emphasize he was everybody's president. [11] While some in the black community responded positively – such as Bishop Henry Turner who said to Washington, "You are about to be the great representative and hero of the Negro race, notwithstanding you have been very conservative" – other black leaders were less enthusiastic. William Monroe Trotter, a radical opponent of Washington, said the dinner showed him up as "a hypocrite who supports social segregation between blacks and whites while he himself dines at the White House." [12]
The White House first responded to the outcry from the south by claiming that the meal had not occurred and that the Roosevelt women had not been at dinner with a black man; other White House personnel said it was a luncheon rather than an evening meal. [13] Washington made no comment at the time. [14]
A Guest of Honor , the first opera created by Scott Joplin, was based on Washington's dinner at the White House.
Theodore Roosevelt Jr., often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously held various positions in New York politics, rising up the ranks to serve as the state's 33rd governor for two years. He later served as the 25th vice president under President William McKinley for six months in 1901, assuming the presidency after McKinley's assassination. As president, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite.
James Kimble Vardaman was an American politician from the U.S. state of Mississippi. A Democrat, he served as the Governor of Mississippi from 1904 to 1908 and then represented Mississippi in the United States Senate from 1913 to 1919.
Edith Kermit Roosevelt was the second wife of President Theodore Roosevelt and the first lady of the United States from 1901 to 1909. She was previously the second lady of the United States in 1901 and the first lady of New York from 1899 to 1900.
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was an American writer and socialite. She was the eldest child of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and his only child with his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt. Longworth led an unconventional and controversial life. Her marriage to Representative Nicholas Longworth III, a Republican Party leader and 38th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was shaky, and her only child, Paulina, was from her affair with Senator William Borah.
The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt started on September 14, 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th president of the United States upon the assassination of President William McKinley, and ended on March 4, 1909. Roosevelt had been the vice president for only 194 days when he succeeded to the presidency. A Republican, he ran for and won by a landslide a four-year term in 1904. He was succeeded by his protégé and chosen successor, William Howard Taft.
The Brownsville affair, or the Brownsville raid, was an incident of racial discrimination that occurred in 1906 in the Southwestern United States due to resentment by white residents of Brownsville, Texas, of the Buffalo Soldiers, black soldiers in a segregated unit stationed at nearby Fort Brown. When a white bartender was killed and a white police officer wounded by gunshots one night, townspeople accused the members of the African-American 25th Infantry Regiment. Although their commanders said the soldiers had been in the barracks all night, evidence was allegedly planted against the men.
The State Dining Room is the larger of two dining rooms on the State Floor of the Executive Residence of the White House, the home of the president of the United States in Washington, D.C. It is used for receptions, luncheons, larger formal dinners, and state dinners for visiting heads of state on state visits. The room seats 140 and measures approximately 48 by 36 feet.
The President's Dining Room is a dining room located in the northwest corner of the second floor of the White House. It is located directly above the Family Dining Room on the State Floor and looks out upon the North Lawn. The Dining Room is adjacent to the Family Kitchen, a small kitchen designed for use by the First Family, and served by a dumbwaiter connected to the main kitchen on the ground floor.
The Family Dining Room is a dining room located on the State Floor of the White House, the official residence of the president of the United States. The room is used for smaller, more private meals than those served in the State Dining Room. Used in the 1800s as a space for the First Family to have their meals, the Family Dining Room was used less for family meals and more for working lunches and small dinners in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The Executive Residence is the central building of the White House complex located between the East Wing and West Wing. It is the most recognizable part of the complex, being the actual "house" part of the White House. This central building, first constructed from 1792 to 1800, is home to the president of the United States and the first family. The Executive Residence primarily occupies four floors: the ground floor, the state floor, the second floor, and the third floor. A sub-basement with a mezzanine, created during the 1948–1952 Truman reconstruction, is used for HVAC and mechanical systems, storage, and service areas.
The Graphics and Calligraphy Office (GCO) is a unit of the Social Office at the White House, the official residence of the president of the United States. Located in the East Wing, the Graphics and Calligraphy Office coordinates and produces all non-political social invitations, place cards, presidential proclamations, letters patent, military commissions, and official greetings.
The White House china refers to the various patterns of china (porcelain) used for serving and eating food in the White House, home of the president of the United States. Different china services have been ordered and used by different presidential administrations. The White House collection of china is housed in the White House China Room. Not every administration created its own service, but portions of all china services created for the White House are now in the China Room collection. Some of the older china services are used for small private dinners in the President's Dining Room on the Second Floor.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, making her the longest-serving first lady of the United States. Through her travels, public engagement, and advocacy, she largely redefined the role of First Lady. Roosevelt then served as a United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952, and took a leading role in designing the text and gaining international support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1948 she was given a standing ovation by the assembly upon their adoption of the Declaration. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was the 26th President of the United States (1901–1909) and also served as Governor of New York and Vice President. He is known for becoming a leading spokesman for his version of progressivism after 1890. However, author Daniel Ruddy argues in his book Theodore the Great: Conservative Crusader that Roosevelt was actually a "populist conservative" and a "Hamiltonian"—a conservative in the eighteenth century sense of the word. Similarly, Francis Fukuyama identifies Roosevelt, together with Alexander Hamilton, as part of a tradition of a strong-state conservatism in the United States.
The Voice of the Negro was a literary periodical aimed at a national audience of African Americans which was published from 1904 to 1907. It was created in Atlanta, Georgia in June 1904 by Austin N. Jenkins, the white manager of the publishing company J. L. Nichols and Company. He gave full control of the magazine to the Black editors John W. E. Bowen, Sr. and Jesse Max Barber.
The Black History of the White House is a book by Clarence Lusane concerning the history of the African-American community's relationship to government and the White House as a symbol as well as a place of employment. The book begins with the founding of the United States and continues to the first few years of the Barack Obama administration.
"Niggers in the White House" is a poem that was published in newspapers around the United States between 1901 and 1903. The poem was written in reaction to an October 1901 White House dinner hosted by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who had invited Booker T. Washington—an African-American presidential adviser—as a guest. The poem reappeared in 1929 after First Lady Lou Hoover, wife of President Herbert Hoover, invited Jessie De Priest, the wife of African-American congressman Oscar De Priest, to a tea for wives of congressmen at the White House. The identity of the author—who used the byline "unchained poet"—remains unknown.
In 1929, First Lady of the United States Lou Hoover invited Jessie De Priest, wife of Chicago congressman Oscar De Priest, to the traditional tea hosted by new administrations for congressional wives at the White House. Oscar De Priest, a Republican, was the first African American elected to Congress in the 20th century and the first elected outside the Southern United States.
His first action in October 1901 was to invite the prominent black leader Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House. […] When the social event news became public, southern newspapers erupted with denunciations of Roosevelt's breach of the color line.
Although the controversy eventually died down, its impact shaped White House politics for decades. No black person would be invited to dinner at the White House again for nearly thirty years[.]
An examination of the record revealed that Lincoln, Hayes, Grant, Coolidge and Cleveland all had had black guests at the White House
The Sedalia Sentinel printed a poem on page one entitled "Niggers in the White House", which concludes with a black man marrying the President's daughter. (Note 65: SeS, Oct. 25, 1901, 1.) […] Major newspapers in the north had a more charitable view. They recognized Washington's unique achievements and suggested that the invitation was Roosevelt's way of demonstrating he was president of all the people.
I did not give out a single interview and did not discuss the matter in any way.
