Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation by Deborah Davis
Author:Deborah Davis [Davis, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, United States, General, Biography & Autobiography, Presidents & Heads of State, Cultural; Ethnic & Regional
ISBN: 9781439169834
Google: O1EzaVPAOAIC
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2012-05-08T23:56:54.597263+00:00
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
When Booker T. arrived at the White House on Sunday, September 29, for his scheduled 9:00 PM meeting with TR, the building was quiet. The Roosevelt children were sleeping (bedtime was usually eight oâclock), and reporters were unlikely to be around at this late hour because most assumed there would be no important news on TRâs day of rest.
Booker T. was escorted to TRâs library by two black servants in traditional livery. African Americans had played an important part in White House history from the very beginning. It was a rare president (notably James Buchanan, who preferred white, traditionally trained British servants) who didnât employ a sizable African American staffâan army of porters, valets, messengers, waiters, maids, cooks, footmen, laundresses, and laborersâto keep the mansion running. âThe tone of the house was distinctly southern,â according to White House historian William Seale, and, in fact, most of the presidentâs servants were Southern blacks. Though they âperformed a thousand duties,â they were generally invisible because they worked backstairs and behind the scenes. Within the black community, however, some of them had become legends.
One of the first was Benjamin Banneker. Although he never worked at the White House, he was thought to have been a key member of the team that planned the capital. Born in 1731, the grandson of an English dairy maid and a slave who had been a gifted scientist and engineer in his native Africa, Banneker was a curious little boy who followed in his grandfatherâs footsteps and grew up to be a skilled surveyor and astronomer. He was so skilled, in fact, that in 1791 he was recruited to work with urban planner Pierre-Charles LâEnfant in designing Americaâs new capital city.
Described by the Georgetown Weekly Ledger as âa large man of noble appearanceâ who âresembled Benjamin Franklin,â Banneker was praised as an âEthiopian, whose abilities . . . already prove that Mr. Jeffersonâs concluding that that race of men were void of mental endowment, was without foundation.â Banneker was an author, scientist, mathematician, farmer, astronomer, urban planner and, like Franklin, the publisher of his very own almanac.
Some overly enthusiastic admirers credited Banneker with single-handedly re-creating LâEnfantâs plan for Washington after the Frenchman was fired from the project and left town in a huff. In fact, Banneker played somewhat of a lesser roleâCongress had a copy of the original plan on fileâbut he was a remarkable surveyor and scientist nonetheless.
When construction commenced on the Presidentâs House in 1792, many of the carpenters, bricklayers, stone masons, and general laborers were black. Not that most of them had any say about where they worked. They were slaves whose owners hired them out as day laborers. âJim,â Len,â âJess,â and âBill,â to name a few of the men listed in the financial ledgers, did the work while their masters pocketed their âwages.â Even the White Houseâs architect James Hoban collected sixty dollars a month for the services of the slave carpenters he owned and leased to the project.
The day was long, usually twelve hours.
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