Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, October 10th, 1957, a waitress at Howard Johnson's restaurant in Dover, Delaware

refused to sit Comla Gabetema and his companion, who had stopped at the restaurant

and ordered a 30-cent glass of orange juice.

The waitress handed them the juice into go containers and said, quote,

colored people are not allowed to eat here.

Now, who was Comla Gebedema? Well he was the finance

minister of the newly formed nation of Ghana in the US to raise foreign

investments for an infrastructure project in his country after reporters learned about this incident.

Word got to President White Eisenhower who apologized to Gabetima directly and invited him to breakfast at the White House.

So here to discuss the Howard Johnson Orange Shoots incident,

Eisenhower's apology, and a really fascinating story that mixes up

African colonialism, American segregation, and all sorts of larger Cold War era questions

around these topics are, as always, Nicole Hemmer of Colombia and Kelly Carter Jackson of

Wesley. Hello there. Hello Jody.

Hey there, why do I feel like this is the precursor to the Beer Summit?

Right, yes.

Just had to throw that out there.

No, I mean, look, did you see this headline from the time?

There's an article that says the headline is, quote,

White House breakfast smooths over racial incidents.

...