[reese_john]

Theodore Roosevelt was actually quite progressive for his time. He was one of the first US president to invite a black man, Booker T. Washington, to dinner at the White House[0]

  On October 16, 1901, shortly after moving into the White House, President Theodore Roosevelt invited his adviser, the African American spokesman Booker T. Washington, to dine with him and his family. The event provoked an outpouring of condemnation from white politicians and press in the American South.[1] This reaction affected subsequent White House practice and no other African American was invited to dinner for almost thirty years

Ironically, democrats were one of the most ardent critics:

  The response from the southern press and politicians was immediate, sustained and vicious. James K. Vardaman, a Democrat from Mississippi, complained that the White House was now, "so saturated with the odor of nigger that the rats had taken refuge in the stable;" the Memphis Scimitar declared it "the most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States"

Very different times. One shouldn't judge past generations according to today's ethical norms.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington_dinner_at...