Podcast St. John’s, the Church of the Presidents
Since the James Madison presidency, St. John’s Church has been an important part of the life of Lafayette Square an...
Main Content
A lithograph depicting Booker T. Washington dining with President Theodore Roosevelt.
CorbisPRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
The Lie Nailed that he is Opposed to the Negro. The First President to Entertain A Negro. Booker T. Washington Dined.
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.
[inset: a sketch of Booker T. Washington with the caption, "Prof. Booker T. Washington; Dined by President Roosevelt – No color line in the White House – An Object Lesson for the South."]
Article Credit: Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room, Library of Congress
Since the James Madison presidency, St. John’s Church has been an important part of the life of Lafayette Square an...
What was it like to grow up in a home where some of the most important political decisions are being...
For more than one hundred years, White House Social Secretaries have demonstrated a profound knowledge of protocol and society in...
Biographies & Portraits
In 1816, Commodore Stephen Decatur, Jr. and his wife Susan moved to the nascent capital city of Washington, D.C. With...
The White House observance of Christmas before the twentieth century was not an official event. First families decorated the house...
For more than two hundred years, Lafayette Square has been home to a wide variety of historical figures, from diplomats...
First Lady Lou Hoover's invitation to Jessie L. DePriest to a White House tea party in 1929 created a storm of...
For more than a century, thousands of Americans have gathered in Lafayette Park across from the White House to exercise...
From its construction in 1792, until the 1902 renovation that shaped the modern identity and functions of the interior of the White...
In this special episode of The 1600 Sessions, financier and philanthropist David Rubenstein interviews White House Historical Association President Stewart McLaurin...
For two hundred years, Decatur House has stood as a near neighbor to the White House across Lafayette Square. Stewart...