Harvard’s first Black Phi Beta Kappa keyholder, editor of the Boston Guardian, and head of the National Equal Rights League, William Monroe Trotter had a frayed relationship with Wilson. He took great risk in supporting the New Jersey governor for the presidency, only to be called a “traitor to the race” after Wilson’s performance in office. When Trotter pressed Wilson for an end to segregation in his administration, the president instructed him never to come back to the White House, telling him “Your manner offends me.”
Source photograph: Harvard University Archives.
Date: c. 1913 (1907–15)
Harvard’s first Black Phi Beta Kappa keyholder, editor of the Boston Guardian, and head of the National Equal Rights League, William Monroe Trotter had a frayed relationship with Wilson. He took great risk in supporting the New Jersey governor for the presidency, only to be called a “traitor to the race” after Wilson’s performance in office. When Trotter pressed Wilson for an end to segregation in his administration, the president instructed him never to come back to the White House, telling him “Your manner offends me.”
Source photograph: Harvard University Archives.
Date: c. 1913 (1907–15)