A Witness to History, He Served 36 years in the White House

by Karen Hatter | November 8, 2008 at 05:36 am
307 views | 80 Recommendations | 8 comments

Photos

Photo by Kevin Clark/Washington Post

Photo by Kevin Clark/Washington Post

see larger image

uploaded by Karen Hatter

From Watoday.com:

For more than three decades Eugene Allen worked in the White House, a black man unknown to the headlines. During some of those years, harsh segregation laws lay upon the land.

Mr. Eugene Allen served as butler in the White House under eight administrations, beginning in 1952, serving during the end of President Harry S. Truman's presidency.

From the article:

In the mid-1950s invitations to the White House were still fraught with racial subtext. When the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow pianist Hazel Scott to perform at Constitution Hall because of her race, many letters poured into the White House decrying the DAR's position. First lady Bess Truman was a member of the organisation, but made no effort to get the DAR to alter its policy.

Mr. Allen retired in 1986 after 34 years of service at the White House.

He cast his vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday, November 4, 2008.

Click here to read the original article.

recommend This comment thread is now closed
1
talentedchimp

What a great, and sad, story.

1
djermano

Sounds like slavery to me. I could never serve War Presidents...

1
RayBanBro66

These types of stories show the world how deep segregation ran in this country. It seems every facet of life was affected by it..even in the White House.

0
politisite

Thanks for this interesting part of History.  It would be funny of all of Pres Obama's service staff were white folks...

1
dunkelberg

Harry and Bess must have been an interesting pair, though I always thought him hen-pecked.  She wouldn't stand up to the DAR over racism and Harry integrated the services.  No wonder he drank and played cards with his pals so much.

[chuckle]


0
patgarcia

As always! Thank you for your illustrative story. A delight to read.

0
Barbara McPherson

Just look at how far the country has come.  When someone has a dream, sometimes they do come true!

0
Amy Judd

Lovely story

This story was created over 3 months ago, the comment thread is now closed.

What is NowPublic?

NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.

Find out more

Crowd Power

Karen Hatter
First Flagged at 5:41 AM, Nov 8, 2008 by Karen Hatter
These members have powered this story:

Most Recommended Stories in World

Recommendations (80)

Most recently recommended by:
 

closeSign in to NowPublic

is reporting from