October 16, 1901: Fresh off the publication of his memoir Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington, leader of what is now Tuskegee University in Alabama, is invited by President Theodore Roosevelt to have dinner with him at the White House.
The South was outraged. The Memphis Scimitar called it "the most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States." Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina -- known as Pitchfork Ben for his declaration as Governor that, while Grover Cleveland was President, Cleveland "is an old bag of beef, and I am going to Washington with a pitchfork and prod him in his old fat ribs" -- said, "We shall have to kill a thousand (N-word)s to get them back in their places!"
Today, outside of their respective home States, Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington are remembered, while Ben Tillman is not. And if the Memphis Scimitar, and its successor the Memphis Press-Scimitar, are remembered today, it is for the August 17, 1977 headline, "A Lonely Life Ends on Elvis Presley Boulevard." the combined paper folded in 1983.
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October 16, 1901 was a Wednesday. The baseball season had just ended. Saturday had been standardized as the day for football. And basketball and hockey were still all-amateur. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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