October 16, 1901, 125 years ago: Fresh off the publication of his memoir Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington, leader of what is now Tuskegee University in Alabama, is invited by President Theodore Roosevelt to have dinner with him at the White House.
The South was outraged. The Memphis Scimitar called it "the most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States." Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina -- known as Pitchfork Ben for his declaration as Governor that, while Grover Cleveland was President, Cleveland "is an old bag of beef, and I am going to Washington with a pitchfork and prod him in his old fat ribs" -- said, "The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that (N-word) will necessitate our killing a thousand (N-word)s to get them back in their places!"
Today, outside of their respective home States, Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington are remembered, while Ben Tillman is not. And if the Memphis Scimitar, and its successor the Memphis Press-Scimitar, are remembered today, it is for the August 17, 1977 headline, "A Lonely Life Ends on Elvis Presley Boulevard." The combined paper folded in 1983.
No record of what was said at the dinner has surfaced, but in 1903, composer Scott Joplin wrote his 1st opera, A Guest of Honor, speculating about the subject.
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