Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in Virginia in 1856. After the Civil War he fought hard for an education, and in 1881 he founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He built it into one of the leading schools for Black Americans, and in 1896 he hired a young scientist named George Washington Carver.
On October 16, 1901, just weeks into his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt invited Washington to dinner at the White House. That evening, Booker T. Washington sat down to eat with the President and his family.
When the news broke, Southern newspapers erupted. The Atlanta Constitution denounced the dinner as an insult. The Memphis Scimitar called it an outrage. A storm of fury came from white Southerners.
Roosevelt kept asking Washington for advice for years afterward. But he never invited him back to dine at the White House.
One meal. And it showed how far America still had to go.
