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Booker T. Washington's Dinner with President Theodore Roosevelt

Booker T. Washington Dining with President Roosevelt, A Lithograph

A lithograph depicting Booker T. Washington dining with President Theodore Roosevelt.

Corbis

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PRESIDENT 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

A letter from Booker T. Washington to President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

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This was originally published in Washington Bee on October 19, 1901

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