I just finished this excellent book by Brian Kilmeade. Kilmeade is a conservative commentator on Fox News and a real workaholic. There are many interesting events covered in this book. The most inspiring is that Booker T. Washington built the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama literally from nothing. It started out in a leaky shed and became university. On October 16, 1901 Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to have dinner with him at the Whitehouse. Washington accepted and the Roosevelt family shared dinner with the civil rights leader. The resulting firestore was terrific. Condemnations poured in, many of them from the south as might be expected. Roosevelt continued to work with Washington, but he avoided "breaking bread" with him again at any venue. Interestingly, Washington had tea with Queen Victoria at one point with no comments. It shows how racist and backward The United States was at that time. The event was recorded on three political buttons. Here is the piece in my collection. This is the only variety that is in color. It is generally viewed as a negative commentary on the event because there is a bottle filled with alcohol on the table. Here are the other two varieties. All of these buttons are expensive (over $3,000 each) when they become available, which is not often.
