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Following on the heels of this historic election, the NY Times ran a fascinating article detailing the history of visits to the White House by black luminaries:

Within days of his inauguration, as Barack Obama and his family begin to feel at home in the White House, Malia and Sasha will perhaps be scampering about the mansion's staircases, bedrooms and formal public rooms.

As appealing as the prospect of that scene is, it is also a poignant reminder of how long it took for African-Americans to feel they had an equal place in that home.

Considering that our White House was built with slave labor, it is nothing short of astonishing that we've finally evolved to the point of installing a black man into that mansion. Only a short time ago - 1901 to be exact - it was scandalous to invite a black man into the people's home. When Teddy Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington for a private dinner, it set off a series of protests:

Responding to that dinner at the time, The Memphis Scimitar called it "the most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States." A former Democratic president, Grover Cleveland, wrote a letter to the House of Representatives, read on the floor in the election year of 1904, declaring that he had never done such a thing as invite a black man to dinner in that house.

In fact, as John Stauffer, author of "Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln," observed, "The racial history of the White House is a wonderful symbol of the racial history of the nation as a whole."

As for the history of slave involvement in The White House,

In 1801, a year after it opened, Thomas Jefferson brought nearly a dozen slaves from Monticello, and slaves would constitute much of the house’s staff until the death in 1850 of Zachary Taylor, the last slaveholder to be president.

Many lived in the servants' quarters on the first floor, but some slept on the first family's second floor -- an intimacy that was a frequent source of tensions with non-slave servants.

And then there's the story of when Frederick Douglass came to visit:

He came three times while Lincoln was president, and his last visit was perhaps his most important. The White House had been thrown open to the public to celebrate the president's second inaugural, but the guards turned Douglass away -- apparently on standing orders that blacks were not to be allowed in. Douglass sent in his card, and Lincoln ordered him admitted.

The president asked Douglass how he had liked the speech, adding, "There is no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours."

"Mr. Lincoln," Mr. Douglass answered, "that was a sacred effort."

Prominent singers were invited to perform there, including the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Marie Selika Williams and Sissieretta Jones, but none were asked to stay for dinner. Herbert Hoover's wife was criticized for inviting to tea the wife of Oscar de Priest - the first African-American representative elected to Congress since Reconstruction. And Elenor Roosevelt was also criticized for inviting the legendary opera singer, Marion Anderson to The White House.

But it wasn't until 1973 that a black person was actually invited to sleep over!

The first African-American guests invited to sleep in the White House are believed to have been Sammy Davis Jr. and his wife, Altovise, in 1973, by Richard Nixon. Mr. Davis was struck by the history. He later joked that he turned down the chance to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom in favor of the Queen’s room. "I thought to myself, now I don't want [Lincoln] coming in here talking about, 'I freed them, but I sure didn't want them to sleep in my bed.'"

But the most poignant part of the story is saved for last:

Bess Abell, who was Lyndon Johnson's White House social secretary, vividly remembers a state dinner at which Sarah Vaughan sang but, after dinner, disappeared.

"I found her in this office, which had been turned over to her as a dressing room, and she was sobbing," Mrs. Abell said in an interview. "And I said, 'Mrs. Vaughan, what's wrong? What can I do?' And she said, 'There's nothing wrong. This is the most wonderful day of my life. When I first came to Washington, I couldn't get a hotel room, and tonight, I danced with the president.'"

Is it more astonishing that we've finally moved beyond that era clear racial bigotry or that it took so long to get here?

It's an amazing time in history, that's for sure...

...id like to Thank You for this publication, and letting more of us know the history, even though it is shameful..

ITS ABOUT DAMNED TIME THAT PEOPLE BE RECOGNIZED FOR WHAT THEY ARE >>> PEOPLE>

and ALL men, women...be treated with equal rights and dignity as fellow travelors and children of the same God..

whatever possessed those of the past to feel justified to enslave others, because of outward difference in appearance is truly boggling...and further, the current refusal of SOME of our brothers to evolve mentally, sufficient to ACEEPT the TRUTH, and show respect to all...

unfortunately the pendulum swings as far one way as it does the other; our country will eventually find balance, but this may come only when ALL men, of ALL races, are able to see that EACH of us, are the same on the inside..and allow what was past, to fade , let the bad memories dissipate in favor of a brighter day to come, when we stand as friends, compadres, and share the burden of responsibilty for our childrens destiny..

with respect to all, a fellow travelor

Amen to that!

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