@Regrann from @48laws757 - On 16 October 1901, shortly after moving into the White House, Theodore R
@Regrann from @48laws757 - On 16 October 1901, shortly after moving into the White House, Theodore Roosevelt invited his advisor, the African American spokesman Booker T. Washington, to dine with him and his family, and provoked an outpouring of condemnation from southern politicians and press. This reaction affected subsequent White House practice, and no other African American was invited to dinner for almost thirty years. The many false reports that have been circulated that President Roosevelt was opposed to the negro has been eliminated by the many kind acts that he has done prior to his election, and while he was Vice President and since he has been President. While governor of New York a distinguished colored singer was denied in Albany, New York in one of the hotels. The circumstance having reached Mr. Roosevelt he went in person and invited the citizen to his residence where he gave him lodging. When he assumed the office of vice President his first act was to appoint a colored man an executive messenger against the protest of certain officials. Since he assumed the office of President he entertained Prof. Booker T. Washington in the Executive Mansion on last Wednesday evening.The first President of the United States to entertain a colored man. These many acts of recognition of the negros how [sic] that President Roosevelt is a man.What today seems a trivial event, at the time inviting a black man to dinner at the White House was anything but. News of the unique dinner traveled along the Associated Press wires throughout the night. The morning newspapers were generally positive in the North, but many Southern papers saw things differently. They proceeded to attack both Roosevelt and Washington with fervor. For instance, the next afternoon, the Memphis-Scimitar reported: “The most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by a citizen of the United States was committed by the President, when he invited a n****r to dine with him at the White House.” The newspaper went on to criticize Roosevelt’s claims that his mother was a Southern woman and to assert that Southern women could no longer accept invitations to the White House “with proper -- source link
Tumblr Blog : 4playchef.tumblr.com