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. This reaction affected subsequent White House practice and no other African American was invited to dinner for almost thirty years.
Roosevelt, while Governor of New York, frequently had black guests to dinner and sometimes invited them to sleep over.
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.
READ MORE: On This Day In Black History Oct 16 - Booker T. Washington dinner at the White House:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Wa...
Posted By: Dea. Ron Gray Sr.
Monday, October 16th 2023 at 12:28PM
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