Main Content
From slavery to sit-ins
To imagine what it was like here when the White House was being constructed in the 1790s, erase everything else you see now on and around Lafayette Square. The park was a field—muddy or dusty, depending on the weather. Enslaved workers who were building the White House were housed in temporary shelters—each about 10 feet wide and 10 feet long—lined up in rows on the east and west sides of the field. Like so many buildings in early Washington, the President's House would have been very difficult to construct without enslaved labor, as the city was very sparsely populated and workers were in great demand.
The payroll to slave owners shows that the government did not own slaves, but that it did hire them from their masters. Slave carpenters Ben, Daniel, and Peter were noted as owned by James Hoban.
Some early Presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson and James Polk, brought enslaved domestics to the White House, where they almost always lived in basement rooms. These domestics were essential to running the White House. Paul Jennings, an enslaved domestic working in the Madison household would chronicle his time in the White House in his memoir. He also helped Dolley Madison rescue the Gilbert Stuart's famous "Lansdowne portrait" of George Washington and other the valuables before the British burned the White House in 1814. By the 1850s Paul Jennings was a free man and in the 1860s was a government employee at the pension office. On August 14, 1862, Abraham Lincoln received the first group of African American leaders to visit the executive mansion. Lincoln also met with Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth during his time in office.
Elizabeth Hobbes Keckly, a former slave who had become a successful businesswoman in Washington and the dressmaker and confidante of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, also spent time in the White House during the Lincoln Presidency. Keckly described her experiences in an 1868 memoir Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. African Americans also came to the White House as artists and musicians. Ten-year old piano prodigy and composer Thomas Greene Bethune is believed to have been the first African American artist to perform at the White House when he played for President James Buchanan in 1860. The Fisk University Jubilee Singers were the first African American choir to sing at the White House, performing for President Chester A. Arthur in February 1882. Their program included "Safe in the Arms of Jesus," which newspaper accounts said brought the President to tears.
On October 16, 1901, Booker T. Washington was the first African American invited to dine with a President at the White House, but racial segregation was also a part of life in the White House well into the 20th century. Alonzo Fields, who worked in the White House from 1931 to 1952, experienced it first-hand. In an oral history project produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage called "Workers at the White House," Fields commented on what this was like.
Jessie DePriest, 1929.
Barbara DePriestHe noted, "They had 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 help." Another guest of honor at the White House who caused a huge uproar was Jessie DePriest, the wife of Oscar DePriest of Illinois, who in 1928 became the first African American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 30 years. Despite Jessie DePriest's grace and poise, many southerners objected to her presence at a White House tea hosted for the wives of congressmen. Lou Hoover also received immense criticism for her decision to invite Ms. DePriest. However, there was an outpouring of support from African American and northern newspapers who saw this simple act as an important measure of progress and the breaking of racial barriers. The Hoovers also hosted integrated garden parties for disabled veterans, which surprisingly caused little fanfare.
As the nation struggled with issues of segregation and discrimination, African American leaders including Mary McLeod Bethune, James Farmer, Dorothy Height, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Phillip Randolph, became advisers to the American Presidents.
A photograph of Civil Rights Leaders meeting with President Kennedy in the Oval Office, 1963.
In July 1955, E. Frederic Morrow officially assumed the position of Administrator of Special Projects on the staff of President Dwight Eisenhower and dealt with a tidal wave of change as the civil rights movement started.
In 1964, little more than a century after Lincoln received the first group of African Americans visitors to the White House, Martin Luther King, Jr. and other African American leaders came to the White House to see President Lyndon Johnson sign the Civil Rights Act guaranteeing equal access to public places and outlawing discrimination.
The 1960s also saw important civil rights protests in and around Lafayette Square. On March 11, 1965, following brutal attacks on demonstrators in Selma, Alabama four days earlier, protesters stopped traffic in front of the White House by lying down across Pennsylvania Avenue and at least two small sit-ins by protesters took place inside the White House.
Twelve protesters stage a civil rights sit-in at the White House on March 11, 1965.
LBJ Library photo by Cecil StoughtonThe post-civil rights era saw more political appointments and greater access to the White House for African Americans as the joined as prominent members of the President's staff. Robert C. Weaver, a veteran of the civil rights movement and a former member of President Franklin Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet" (an informal group of African American public policy advisers), became the first secretary of housing and development in January 1966 and was the first African American to serve in a cabinet position.
Robert J. Brown, a White House staff member, worked closely with President Nixon to address racial inequities by strengthening anti-discriminatory laws and promoting historically black colleges and universities. During the administration of George W. Bush, Colin Powell became the first African American to become secretary of state and Condoleezza Rice and became the first African American woman to hold the position.
On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama became the first African American President and was re-elected in 2012. Desiree Rogers joined First Lady Michelle Obama's staff as first African American woman to be social secretary, and Angela Reid became the second African American to work as Chief Usher, after Rear Admiral Stephen Rochon's service as Chief Usher during the George W. Bush administration.
Read More
In 1821-1822, Susan Decatur requested the construction of a service wing. The first floor featured a large kitchen, dining room, and laundry; while the second floor contained four rooms designated as living quarters. By 1827, the service wing was being used as an urban slave quarters. Henry Clay brought enslaved individuals to Decatur House, starting a trend that was solidified by
Today, the celebration of Halloween conjures images of costumed trick-or-treaters, sweets, and jack-o'-lanterns; but there was a time when All Hallows' Eve focused more on the night's thinning boundary between this world and the next. Tales of ghosts and haunted places naturally bubble to the surface this time of year, and with such rich history radiating from its halls, there
First Lady Lou Hoover's invitation to Jessie L. DePriest to a White House tea party in 1929 created a storm of protest and indignation. This traditional act of hospitality toward the wife of the first black man elected to Congress in the twentieth century created a political crisis for the president and first lady. This collection explores the "tempest" from the
Since the White House was first occupied by President John Adams in 1800, influential people and organizations—or those who hoped to have influence—have bought property and built homes and offices along the streets surrounding the White House. For more than two centuries, this neighborhood has been the setting for political decision-making and diplomacy, social gatherings and protests, wartime expediencies and
From the beginning of its construction in 1792, until the 1902 renovation that shaped the modern identity and functions of the interior of the White House, the fourteen paintings of this series examine the history of a national icon. Through meticulous research and tireless attention to detail, numerous sources inspired the brush of Peter Waddell to create a vision of the White
The White House observance of Christmas before the twentieth century was not an official event. First families decorated the house modestly with greens and privately celebrated the Yuletide with family and friends. President Calvin Coolidge was the first chief executive to preside over a public celebration during the holidays with the lighting of the National Christmas Tree in 1923. In 1979, President
In 1816, Commodore Stephen Decatur, Jr. and his wife Susan moved to the nascent capital city of Washington, D.C. With the prize money he received from his naval feats, Decatur purchased the entire city block on the northwest corner of today’s Lafayette Square. The Decaturs commissioned Benjamin Henry Latrobe, one of America’s first professional architects, to design and buil
Featuring David Rubenstein, Co-Founder & Co-Executive Chairman, The Carlyle Group
For more than a century, thousands of Americans have gathered in Lafayette Park across from the White House to exercise their First Amendment rights and bring awareness to their respective causes. In this collection, explore how individuals, groups, and organizations historically used this space to advocate equality, protest policy, and demand action from the neighborhood's most powerful occupant.
Featuring Rev. Robert Fisher, Rector at St. John’s Church
Featuring Katherine Malone-France, Vice President for Historic Sites at National Trust for Historic Preservation and Osborne Mackie, author and antiques & fine arts expert
