This is a lithograph portraying a controversial incident in which President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington in 1901 to dinner at the White House. At the time because it seemed to be radical to have an African American guest eat dinner with the President inside the White House. Of course nowadays we can argue of the lunacy regarding the controversy, yet at the time it was called by The Memphis Scimitar “the most dimmable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States.” Even the former President Grover Cleveland (who Washington claims to admire in his book Up from Slavery) declared that “he had never done such a thing as invite a black man to dinner in that house.” I think it’s important to note that even in the 20th century presidents who had African American guests were criticized for it. The lithograph shows how the dinner represented the equality stated in the 13, 14, and 15th amendments. However, the controversy following this dinner represented that the country was not ready for radical movements toward equality (we have to remember Booker T. Washington was liked by the mainstream Southern population). The lithograph also shows a portrait of Abraham Lincoln in the middle of both Washington and Roosevelt. I think it signifies the role Lincoln played in the “equality” of the former slaves. I think it also represents how this specific dinner shows how the country was moving towards that equality (beginning with the Emancipation Proclamation) even if the majority of the country was not ready for “radical” occurrences. I think I can argue though, that although because of segregation (which was not eradicated until the Civil Rights Movement) equality between both races had to be a radical process, but the whole country itself had radical movements (like the KKK who is a very radical organization uprooted around this time period). I found this lithograph at The New York Times “Week in Review” section (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/weekinreview/09harris.html?_r=1) . This article connected the inequality of the nation with the election of President Barack Obama. Published in November 8, 2008.
This is a very powerful lithograph because as you state in this time period this is very controversial. I look up to Theodore Roosevelt now in that he invited Booker T. Washington to eat dinner and have a meal with him. This shows Roosevelt wanted to move forward for America in ending racism by this simple act of eating dinner with an African American. I would like to point out Roosevelt is a "realest" meaning he puts his words into action, whereas President Cleveland is a hypocrite as he voiced for equality but never lived it as he states, “he had never done such a thing as invite a black man to dinner in that house.” What I really like about this lithograph is it almost foreshadows our future of one day the black man at the table being the president!
ReplyDelete