Black History : Blacks Serving In the White House

[cherryblossom]

Alonzo Fields. When Alonzo Fields first started working at the White House in 1931, he discovered there were “separate dining rooms—black and white. We all worked together, but we couldn’t eat together. . . . Here in the White House, I’m working for the President. This is the home of the democracy of the world and I’m good enough to handle the President’s food—to handle the President’s food and do everything—but I cannot eat with the [white] help.”

Book cover: My 21 Years in the White House, 1961. Coward-McCann
The real 'Butler': Alonzo Fields served 4 presidents

Will Higgins, The Indianapolis Star​

12:02 a.m. EDT August 19, 2013​

​

When Juanita Hudson first heard about the movie Lee Daniels' The Butler, a story of a black man who was a White House butler for decades, she thought the film might be about her uncle, Alonzo Fields.
For good reason, too, because Fields, who worked in the White House from the Hoover to Eisenhower administrations, was the first African-American to be promoted to chief butler. The Indiana native wrote a book, My 21 Years in the White House, and later was the subject of a one-man theater show, Looking Over the President's Shoulder, that played to audiences nationwide.
continued.....http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/19/butler-alonzo-fields/2666199/

 

[cherryblossom]

White House staff, 1877. Taken during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, this is the earliest known posed photograph of workers at the White House. This group was supplemented by additional staff—both African American and white—including ushers, valets, gardeners, coachmen, stable hands, and messengers.

Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center

 

[Clyde C Coger Jr]

Alonzo Fields. When Alonzo Fields first started working at the White House in 1931, he discovered there were “separate dining rooms—black and white. We all worked together, but we couldn’t eat together. . . . Here in the White House, I’m working for the President. This is the home of the democracy of the world and I’m good enough to handle the President’s food—to handle the President’s food and do everything—but I cannot eat with the [white] help.”

Book cover: My 21 Years in the White House, 1961. Coward-McCann
The real 'Butler': Alonzo Fields served 4 presidents


Will Higgins, The Indianapolis Star

12:02 a.m. EDT August 19, 2013




When Juanita Hudson first heard about the movie Lee Daniels' The Butler, a story of a black man who was a White House butler for decades, she thought the film might be about her uncle, Alonzo Fields.
For good reason, too, because Fields, who worked in the White House from the Hoover to Eisenhower administrations, was the first African-American to be promoted to chief butler. The Indiana native wrote a book, My 21 Years in the White House, and later was the subject of a one-man theater show, Looking Over the President's Shoulder, that played to audiences nationwide.
continued.....http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/19/butler-alonzo-fields/2666199/

 

[cherryblossom]

Margaret 'Maggie' Rogers (1874–1953) was a housemaid at the White House who served for 30 years (1909–1939), during the administrations of Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's, eventually rising to head housemaid.
Her years of service were memorialized in the book My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House by her daughter, Lillian Rogers Parks, who worked as a seamstress, also in the White House. The story was later produced as a miniseries by Ed Friendly Productions.
Emmett Rogers, Jr., Margaret’s son, was a U.S. serviceman who was gassed in World War I and had to retire to Arizona for his health.

Lillian Rogers Parks (February 1, 1897 – November 6, 1997) was an American housemaid and seamstress in the White House.
With the journalist Frances Spatz Leighton, co-author of a number of White House memoirs, Parks published My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House. The book covers a 60-year period in the life of domestic staff in the White House. It reports Parks's experiences as a seamstress, and those of her mother, 'Maggie' Rogers, who served as a housemaid for thirty years.[1] Many of the gifts she received (revealed in the aforementioned book) from presidents during her time there later became notable artifacts and collectibles associated with presidential history, eventually ending up in the Raleigh DeGeer Amyx Collection. She also published The Roosevelts: a family in turmoil in 1981 in collaboration with Frances Spatz Leighton.

Backstairs at the White House (1979)

TV Mini-Series - 540 min - Drama | History

 

[Clyde C Coger Jr]

As Malcolm X once said:


Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward all research ...

@ 15:12 ... Message To The Grass Roots - Malcolm X


Enki

Margaret 'Maggie' Rogers (1874–1953) was a housemaid at the White House who served for 30 years (1909–1939), during the administrations of Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's, eventually rising to head housemaid.
Her years of service were memorialized in the book My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House by her daughter, Lillian Rogers Parks, who worked as a seamstress, also in the White House. The story was later produced as a miniseries by Ed Friendly Productions.
Emmett Rogers, Jr., Margaret’s son, was a U.S. serviceman who was gassed in World War I and had to retire to Arizona for his health.

Lillian Rogers Parks (February 1, 1897 – November 6, 1997) was an American housemaid and seamstress in the White House.
With the journalist Frances Spatz Leighton, co-author of a number of White House memoirs, Parks published My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House. The book covers a 60-year period in the life of domestic staff in the White House. It reports Parks's experiences as a seamstress, and those of her mother, 'Maggie' Rogers, who served as a housemaid for thirty years.[1] Many of the gifts she received (revealed in the aforementioned book) from presidents during her time there later became notable artifacts and collectibles associated with presidential history, eventually ending up in the Raleigh DeGeer Amyx Collection. She also published The Roosevelts: a family in turmoil in 1981 in collaboration with Frances Spatz Leighton.

Backstairs at the White House (1979)

TV Mini-Series - 540 min - Drama | History