Time when a republican president apologized for a racial insult

A waitress at a Howard Johnson‘s restaurant in Dover, Del., on this day in 1957 refused to seat Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, the finance minister of the newly formed nation of Ghana in sub-Saharan Africa. After reporters learned of the incident, President Dwight Eisenhower apologized to Gbedemah and invited him to breakfast at the White House.

An appalled and embarrassed president said: “I believe the United States as a government, if it is going to be true to its founding documents, does have the job of working hard toward that time when there is no discrimination made on such [an] inconsequential reason as race, color, or religion.”

Eisenhower recognized that such incidents tarnished America’s image around the world during the height of the Cold War. Nevertheless, such problems would erupt until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — as diplomats coming to the United States from Africa and Asia faced housing discrimination, while at times being turned away from segregated restaurants and barber shops.

At the White House breakfast, Eisenhower and Gbedemah, joined by Nixon, discussed Ghana’s plan to build the Akosombo Dam on the Volta River. The United States subsequently shifted its stance and financed the project.

Meantime, officials from Howard Johnson‘s issued an order to the Dover restaurant manager that he must, henceforth, serve “anybody who comes to our doors.

read: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/10/eisenhower-apologizes-racial-insult-1957-880971