Niggers in the White House
Booker T. Washington was an African American born into slavery. He was freed in 1865 and rose to become an educator and a national leader of African Americans. On October 16, 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt asked Washington to have dinner with his family at the White House. It was a working dinner, Roosevelt's intention was to appoint Washington to advise him on issues of race. A family friend from Colorado, Philip Stewart was also there. A reporter from the AP Wire asked the president about his appointments he was going to announce the next day. But the story that appeared in the AP wire read: "Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee, Alabala, dined with the President last evening." This caused some shock among many white people. The President of the United States had sat down to dinner with a black man, a former slave at that. African Americans had visited the White House before but had never been asked to dine there. Washington had dined with President McKinley previously which also caused an uproar at that time. This time segregationalists in the U.S. Congress were outraged. Senator "Pitchfork" Bill Tillman of South Carolina said, "The action will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place again."