Up for discussion was an issue that continues to receive a lot of attention and discussion in writing for kids: when to use words with a history that "hurts." In this particular situation, I'm writing a passage about the first time an African American dined at the White House.
In October 1901, just after Theodore Roosevelt became president, he invited Booker T. Washington to dinner. Details vary a bit depending on which historian you read, but Washington dined with TR, Edith his wife, and several of his children. This was very common for the president, who usually had one or more guests at his table every evening.
No one would have known about the dinner but for a small note picked up by a reporter in the White House Register. He put it on the wires, and within hours Southern newspapers were screaming their outrage that the president had eaten dinner in the White House with a "n----." (Their term, not mine.)
So....the question is, how do I frame this event and present it to young readers? I had written something rhetorical like "How dare a Negro put his legs under the same table where Roosevelt's wife and children sat?"
My editor wanted something more concrete -- a direct quote from a Tennessee newspaper:
The most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States was committed yesterday by the President, when he invited a nigger to dine with him at the White House – Memphis Scimitar
So, that's what I'm going with...a hurtful horrible word, but the word that was used.
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