Niggers in the White House

"Niggers in the White House" is a poem first published in American newspapers in 1901. It was written in reaction to a White House dinner hosted on October 16, 1901 by President Theodore Roosevelt, who had invited Black presidential adviser Booker T. Washington and his family as guests. The identity of the poem's author—who used the byline "unchained poet"—remains unknown.

The poem is composed of 14 four-line stanzas, in each of which the second and fourth lines rhyme. It also frequently uses the racial slurs nigger (over 20 times) to refer to Washington and his family. Republican Senator Hiram Bingham III described the poem as "indecent, obscene doggerel." It was republished in 1929 after First Lady Lou Henry Hoover, the wife of President Herbert Hoover, invited Jessie De Priest, the wife of Black congressman Oscar Stanton De Priest, to a tea for wives of congressmen at the White House.

Both visits triggered widespread condemnation by white supremacists throughout the U.S., particularly in the American South. Numerous congressmen and state legislators voiced objections to Black people being guests of the first family of the United States.