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]
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[.]
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