Poem: Niggers in the White House

July 2020 “Niggers in the White House” is a poem that was published in newspapers around the United States between 1901 and 1903. The poem was written in reaction to an October 1901 White House dinner hosted by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who had invited Booker T. Washington—an African-American presidential adviser—as a guest. The poem reappeared in 1929 after First …