Booker T. Washington dinner at the White House facts for kids
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.
Background
Roosevelt, while Governor of New York, frequently had black guests to dinner and sometimes invited them to sleep over.
In 1798 John Adams had dined in the President's House in Philadelphia with Joseph Bunel (a white representative of the Government of Haiti) and his black wife.
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.
See also
In Spanish: Cena de Booker T. Washington en la Casa Blanca para niños
