November 25, 2008
Barack Obama's inauguration is scheduled to take place eight weeks from today. Already, Washington is becoming acclimated to the idea of an African American First Family. It is good that we should do so. It is also important to remember those who have come before the Obamas. Loose Cannon has produced a timeline listing some of the previous experiences of people of color in that hallowed home. What follows is but a small sample. A full accounting of the black experience in the White House would take a complete book. I hope someone will write it. In the meantime, here is the first installment of my timeline. The next will be posted in a day or two.
November 1, 1800: BUILDING THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE. Just days before he would lose his re-election bid, John Adams arrives in Washington to occupy the half-built “President’s house.” Among those working on the premises were numerous slaves, whose appearance in rags outside the windows of an edifice built in the name of freedom generated dismay in the heart of first lady Abigail Adams.
March 1802: BEING BORN—AND DYING—IN THE HOUSE. President Jefferson brings numerous slaves from his Virginia plantation to live in Washington. According to the historians at Monticello, at least three slaves —Ursula Hughes, Edith “Edy” Fossett and Francis “Fanny” Hern—bore children in the White House. Edy Fossett and Fanny Hern were sisters-in-law who worked in the White House kitchen under the tutelage of a French chef. After Thomas Jefferson's presidency ends, the two women return to Monticello to run Jefferson’s well-regarded kitchen. They had many children between them, including several at the White House. Not all survived infancy. At least one small coffin is among the expenses Jefferson paid for while he was president.
August 23, 1814: DEFENDING THE PRESIDENT’S HOME. As invading British troops march on Washington, the Americans attempt to hold them off at Bladensburg, Maryland. President Madison, noting that the defenders’ ranks are racially mixed—with many blacks joining the white sailors and marines—asks U.S. Navy Commodore Joshua Barney whether the “Negroes would not run” in the face of the redcoats. “No, sir,” Barney replies. “They don’t know how to run; they will die by their guns first.” This account comes to us from Paul Jennings, a half-English, half-black slave brought by Madison from his Virginia plantation to live in the White House. Jennings is among the last to leave the home, along with Dolley Madison, before the British put it to the torch.
March 31, 1861: FRIEND TO THE FIRST LADY. A well-known Washington seamstress and freed slave named Elizabeth Keckley is introduced to Mary Todd Lincoln the morning of the inauguration. Mrs. Lincoln invites her to come meet with her the following day at the White House. Keckley does so and is retained. She goes on to become, not just Mrs. Lincoln’s dressmaker, but her confidant—in a White House that had been previously cleared by President Buchanan of all African Americans.
November 19, 1863: SHAVING THE PRESIDENT. William H. Johnson, a freed black man who had come with Abraham Lincoln to the capital as his bodyguard and barber, accompanies the commander-in-chief to Pennsylvania for the Gettysburg Address. Johnson, who shaves the president every morning and also worked as a messenger at the Treasury Department, was probably the only black man on the presidential train to Gettysburg. Lincoln and Johnson both contract smallpox soon after—and Johnson dies of it. Lincoln settles his valet’s debts, pays for his funeral, and arranges for his headstone, which reads simply: "William H. Johnson. Citizen."
October 29, 1864: SPEAKING ‘TRUTH’ TO POWER. A week before an Election Day that will determine whether Lincoln is returned to office for a second term, he receives a visit from feminist and abolitionist icon Sojourner Truth, who was thrice sold on the auction block before escaping to freedom. She asks Lincoln to sign her autograph book, telling friends later that she is thrilled to have the signature in “the same hand that signed the death warrant for slavery.” She adds that during her White House session she was never treated “with more kindness or cordiality.”
In this illustration, Abraham Lincoln is shown on the lawn of the White House, receiving the grateful tribute of an African American family. Image Credit: © Bettmann/CORBIS
March 4, 1865: VALIDATING THE PRESIDENT. Abolitionist leader and former slave Frederick Douglass attends Lincoln’s second inaugural. Standing in the crowd, Douglass is deeply moved as the president proclaims directly what he has heretofore been reluctant to say: That ending slavery was both the cause and the effect of the Civil War. That evening, as Douglass arrives at the White House for the inaugural reception, he is briefly intercepted until Lincoln intervenes. “Here comes my friend Douglass!” says the president, who asks Douglass’ opinion of his speech. “Mr. Lincoln,” Douglass replies, “that was a sacred effort.”
March 5, 1872: MAKING A PRESIDENT CRY. The Fisk Jubilee Singers, pioneers of the Negro spiritual musical style, become the first African-American choir to perform at the White House, upon the invitation of President Ulysses S. Grant. Ten years later, on a return trip, President Chester A. Arthur is moved to tears by the Fisk singers’ soulful rendition of “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.”
Next: The 20th century experience of African Americans at the White House.
NEXT POST:
African Americans in the White House Part II
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Our House... is a very, very fine house.
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