The Curry Report

December 23, 2008

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In This Issue

I am Not Dreaming of a White Christmas

Rev. James Bevel, Prominent MLK Jr. Adviser, Dies

Two-Parent Black Families Showing Gains

White Males Rule Sunday News Shows

NAACP Report Find TV Networks Lagging in Diversity

Blacks and the White House: Slavery and Service

I am Not Dreaming of a White Christmas

By George E. Curry
NNPA Columnist

There is a picture of me at the age of 7 or 8 decked out in my cowboy suit - replete with hat, gun, scarf and cowboy boots. My gun is drawn and pointed in the direction of my sister Charlotte, four years younger. Charlotte is appropriately attired in a cowgirl suit as we stand smiling in front of a well-decorated Christmas tree. Clutched in Charlotte's left arm is a doll, a White doll.

It was not usual for Black girls to have White dolls in the 1950s and at our age, it seemed no big deal. But it was a big deal to my stepfather, William Polk, who was concerned about the self-esteem of Charlotte and, later, Chris and Sue, my other sisters. Although Black dolls were rare back then, William thought my sisters should only play with dolls that looked like them.

With only a fifth grade education, my stepfather relied on his intuition to reach that conclusion. But what he felt in his gut was later quantified by husband-and-wife psychologists Kenneth B. and Mamie Clark. They conducted groundbreaking doll studies in the 1950s in which they sought to learn how America's concept of beauty impacted the self-esteem of African-American children.

The couple conducted a series of tests in which they showed Blacks kids White dolls and Black dolls. In each instance, most of the Black children preferred to play with White dolls over Black ones. Moreover, they considered the White dolls good and pretty and the Black dolls bad and ugly.

Their research was cited in Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case outlawing segregated public schools.

Even during the season we celebrate the birth of Christ, racism does not take a holiday. And one of our defenses, in and out of season, has been to resort to laughter.

I can't say that was my frame of mind in 1984 when I was covering Jesse Jackson's first presidential bid. When you are on the road seven days a week, often working 12- to 15-hour days, the mind comes up with all kinds of whacky things. Such was the case when I made the mistake of telling the candidate that I believed Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was a brother.

At first, Jesse Jackson was dismissive. But that didn't prevent me from arguing my point. "Think about the lyrics," I suggested.

"Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer

had a very shiny nose.

And if you ever saw him,

you would even say it glows."

Don't act like you don't know what I am talking about. When it gets cold, our nose definitely shine. But next came the definitive proof - at least in my mind - that Rudolph was Black.

"All of the other reindeer

used to laugh and call him names.

They never let poor Rudolph

join in any reindeer games."

It can't be clearer than that. Can't you just see them calling poor Rudolph the R-word? And of course, they didn't allow him to join their games.

But when the big, fat, bearded one chose Rudolph to guide his sleigh, everyone suddenly had a change of heart.

"Then all of the reindeer loved him

as they shouted out with glee,

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,

you'll go down in history!"

Jesse Jackson's response? "George, you have lost your mind."

Apparently, I hadn't. It wasn't long before I heard Jesse Jackson telling my Rudolph story on radio. He was telling it to Tom Joyner as if it were his story. But any journalist who has traveled with Jesse Jackson for any length of time knows that's an occupational hazard.

Sylvester Monroe, a correspondent for Newsweek magazine, showed Jackson a greeting card on the campaign that had caught his attention. Again, Jackson did not appear to be impressed - not until we heard Jackson reciting the words during a speech. That's classic Jesse Jackson.

Back to the White dolls, you would think that after nearly 50 years - and millions of Black dolls - that Black kids would have better self-esteem. If you think that, think again.

In 2005, Kiri Davis, an 18-year-old filmmaker, decided to replicate the doll experiments with 21 Black children at a daycare center in New York. In her experiment, 15 of the 21 children preferred the White doll, whom they considered nice and pretty.

My stepfather knew what he was talking about.

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com.

Rev. James Bevel, Prominent MLK Jr. Adviser, Dies

� Associated Press

December 21, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Rev. James L. Bevel, a prominent figure in the civil rights movement whose legacy was clouded by an incest conviction has died, a relative said. He was 72.

Bevel died Friday in Virginia after a fight with pancreatic cancer, said a daughter, Chevara Orrin, who lives in Winston-Salem, N.C. He was recently released on bond while appealing a 15-year prison sentence.

Bevel was a top lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr. and architect of the 1963 Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Ala. But in April, a jury convicted Bevel of incest for having sex more than a decade ago with a then-teenage daughter.

Bevel served several months of his 15-year sentence before he was released in November on bond while appealing. Prosecutors opposed Bevel's release.

A Baptist minister, Bevel was a leader in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, two of the stalwart organizations that led efforts in the 1960s to desegregate the South. Decades later, he also helped organize the Million Man March.

"Jim Bevel was Martin Luther King's most influential aide," civil rights historian David J. Garrow said.

Bevel fought to desegregate downtown Birmingham stores, prompting police to respond with fire hoses and attack dogs against peaceful protesters. He also rallied young people in the city to get involved in civil rights demonstrations - something King and other advisers objected to.

On May 2, 1963, children marched from the 16th Street Baptist Church, and 600 were arrested on that first day of demonstrations. After the news media highlighted police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor's violent treatment of the children, public opinion began to shift in favor of the civil rights movement.

Two years later, Bevel was a key figure in the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama's capital. The demonstration was spurred largely by the killing of a young protester by an Alabama state trooper. The chain of events and police violence that was captured on national television ultimately culminated in the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Bevel also was active in the anti-war movement and greatly influenced King, who Bevel encouraged to confront the Vietnam War more directly.

After King's assassination in 1968, Bevel helped lead many of King's unfinished efforts, such as a demonstration to support striking sanitation workers in Memphis.

In the decades after King's death, Bevel aligned himself with fringe movements. In 1992, he was vice presidential running mate to political extremist Lyndon LaRouche, who at the time was in a federal prison for a tax conviction.

Bevel was born to sharecroppers on Oct. 19, 1936, in Itta Bena, Miss., one of 17 children. He had stints in the Navy and graduated in 1961 from Nashville's American Baptist Theological Seminary.

Bevel married four times. He fathered 16 children with nine women, Orrin told The Associated Press.

His legacy in the civil rights movement was clouded when he was convicted in April by a Loudoun County, Va., judge for having sex more than a decade ago with one of his daughters, Aaralyn Mills, who was a teenager at the time. Prosecutors said the assault occurred in Loudoun County, when Bevel was working closely with the Virginia-based organization led by LaRouche.

The Associated Press does not usually identify alleged victims of sex crimes, but Mills and Orrin have agreed to be identified publicly.

The four-day trial divided members of Bevel's large family, with relatives testifying for both the prosecutor and defense. He was sentenced in October.

At that time, prosecutors revealed at least four other daughters had made similar allegations against him. The victims hoped for an apology and some reconciliation, but Bevel mocked the notion of an apology.

Orrin, who said she did not testify at Bevel's trial, said she was molested by her father when she was 12. On Saturday, she told The Associated Press she's still processing her "very complicated" feelings about his death.

She said Bevel's recent conviction does not detract from his work in the civil rights movement.

"I am very proud to be the daughter of a man who contributed so much to the world through his civil rights work. I am equally as devastated and disgusted by his pedophilia," Orrin said. "Both of those feelings reside in the same soul, in the same space of my heart."

Two-Parent Black Families Showing Gains

Black family

By Sam Roberts

� New York Times

December 17, 2008

The number of black children being raised by two parents appears to be edging higher than at any time in a generation, at nearly 40 percent, according to newly released census data.

Demographers said such a trend might be partly attributable to the growing proportion of immigrants in the nation's black population. It may have been driven, too, by the values of an emerging black middle class, a trend that could be jeopardized by the current economic meltdown.

The Census Bureau attributed an indeterminate amount of the increase to revised definitions adopted in 2007, which identify as parents any man and woman living together, whether or not they are married or the child's biological parents.

According to the bureau's estimates, the number of black children living with two parents was 59 percent in 1970, falling to 42 percent in 1980, 38 percent in 1990 and 35 percent in 2004. In 2007, the latest year for which data is available, it was 40 percent.

For non-Hispanic whites, the figure in 2007 was 77 percent, down from 90 percent in 1970.

While expressing skepticism about an increase so large in such a short time in the number of black children living with two parents, a number of experts said the shift was potentially significant.

"It's a positive change," said Prof. Robert J. Sampson, the chairman of Harvard's sociology department. "It's been hidden."

The 2007 figure, itself, was more or less hidden among the nearly 1,400 tables in the 2009 Statistical Abstract of the United States, a portrait-by-numbers of the nation released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.

Andrew J. Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University, said that before 2007, a child living with two unmarried parents was usually classified as living with either a mother or a father, depending on who was the head of the household.

"The unmarried parent was invisible," Professor Cherlin said. Given a new category, "living with both parents, not married to each other," he added, "I think the news is that the Census Bureau estimates that about 3 percent of American children are living with two unmarried parents. Because of the increases in living-together relationships, this is probably a higher figure than a generation ago."

Other experts generally embraced the direction of the statistics, if not the dimension of the changes they suggest.

"What we might be seeing is more cohabitation," said Kay S. Hymowitz, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute, a research group.

Douglas S. Massey, a sociology professor at Princeton, cautioned that "a bad economy does not make for stable marriages, so it is possible that we may see a reversal in 2008."

Professors Massey and Sampson recently edited a retrospective for the annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science on Daniel Patrick Moynihan's seminal study of the black family.

One contributor, Frank F. Furstenberg, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, cites converging trends of single motherhood by race, with the number of non-Hispanic white children living with two parents declining over a generation.

"These racial differences have waned as a growing number of black women have begun to exercise greater control over their fertility," Professor Furstenberg writes, "and as white women have started to experience the same sorts of constraints that blacks were feeling about their prospects of forming a lasting marriage when Moynihan focused on their plight."

Among other facts, the Statistical Abstract reveals that West Virginia is the only state in which more people have died since 2000 than have been born; more Burmese were granted asylum than people from any other country; more people speak Italian at home than Arabic; beds injure more people than bicycles; per capita consumption of tea has surpassed that of fruit juice; enrollment of college students from Saudi Arabia and Iran has returned to the levels before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Also, women make up a majority of pharmacists, bartenders and bus drivers and nearly half the medical students granted degrees; bottled water consumption is up at the same time that per capita water use nationally is down; 91 percent of the nearly 12 million surgical and other cosmetic procedures performed in 2007 involved women; consumer complaints against airlines soared to 10,960 last year from 6,452 the year before. Among adults, Jews no longer outnumber Mormons; 57 percent of teenage girls reported having sexual contact in the previous 12 months.

Americans are spending more on prescription drugs ($259 billion in 2007, compared with $72 billion in 1995); the number of people living on the Atlantic Coast of Florida has risen 13 percent since 2000; gambling revenue at American Indian sites nearly doubled to $26 billion since 2002; nearly half of Americans under age 5 are Hispanic or nonwhite; the number of people 75 and over has doubled since 1980 to 18 million; only 5.5 percent of workers age 16 to 24 are represented by unions.

The Statistical Abstract includes a wealth of data from the Census Bureau and other sources. Most of it had been previously released, but not necessarily in context or in such an accessible format.

White Males Rule Sunday News Shows

Joe Garofoli, Chronicle

December 14, 2008

This is David Gregory's first Sunday as the host of NBC's long-running "Meet the Press," beginning what one of his rivals calls a new, post-Tim Russert era for the network Sunday public affairs shows. But some wonder if anything will really change.

Not only does Gregory's promotion in the aftermath of Russert's death ensure that all the shows will continue to be hosted by white men, roughly 80 percent of the newsmakers and pundits who have appeared on the shows over the past eight years also have been white men, according to an ongoing study by the liberal think tank Media Matters for America. (The organization's latest figures for "Fox News Sunday" are from 2005-06. In that period, 80 percent of the show's guests were male and 82 percent were white.)

The study found those percentages hardly changed in 2008, even as an African American and a woman battled for the Democratic presidential nomination, a woman was on the Republican ticket, and the political landscape was reshaped by the increased participation of African Americans, Latinos, and online activists and journalists.

"America is changing rapidly," said Margot Friedman, a communications consultant to liberal organizations and founder of the online campaign dontletNBCdiswomen.org, which had aimed to land a female host on "Meet the Press." "And yet if you tune in to the TV on Sunday morning, you might think you were in the 1950s."

"When you have an outsider in that forum," Friedman said "you tend to hear more out-of-the box thinking."

In one respect, the Sunday shows were more diverse a half century ago: "Meet the Press" was co-founded by Martha Rountree, who was also its first moderator, in 1947. She, Lesley Stahl, the 1983-91 "Face the Nation" moderator, and Cokie Roberts, the 1996-2002 "This Week" co-host, are the only women to lead a Sunday show.

On ABC's "This Week," 81 percent of the guests have been men and 82 percent were white since 2001. Even though 15 percent of the U.S. population is Latino, less than 1 percent of the guests on "This Week" were Latino, according to Media Matters. "Meet the Press" and "Face the Nation" had similar figures. Critics say the journalists and politicians who appear on these programs represent little beyond the tight, clubby klatch of Beltway punditry. Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Sen. John McCain were serial guests for years before they were on presidential tickets. Washington Post columnist David Broder, known as the dean of Washington correspondents, has appeared on "Meet the Press" 400 times.

That's about 400 times more than say, Josh Marshall, editor of the talkingpointsmemo.com political blog and a past winner of a prestigious Polk Award for outstanding journalism.

Powell, Rice

And if it weren't for Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice appearing on the Sunday shows in their roles as secretary of state and Juan Williams' regular appearances on "Fox News Sunday," few African Americans would be seen on Sunday mornings. Now, after an election that resulted in the first African American president, observers say it is time to broaden the diversity of these shows, both in ethnicity and perspective.

"Why do the networks continue to put on the same politicians and journalists who got the issues wrong every time, whether it was the (Iraq) war, the economy or energy efficiency?" asked Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, an organization that seeks to diversify media ownership.

George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's "This Week" said his show is looking for newsmakers and insightful analysts, no matter where they come from. His said the program has featured outside-the-beltway types over the years like Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker, who is African American.

"Our job is to cover the news, and that's what we do. We try to get the guests that are making decisions that matter to people. And our job is to put them on and hold them accountable," Stephanopoulos said.

"All of us are Washington-based public affairs programs, which means that what we do, by the nature of what we are, is look for people in power in Washington who are making public policy," said "Fox News Sunday" executive producer Marty Ryan. "So that means the best place to start is the 535 members on Capitol Hill and the administration that is in power at the current time. That's kind of our base of who we interview."

A spokesperson for NBC's "Meet the Press" said: "It has always been a priority for 'Meet the Press' to invite guests on the program from all backgrounds, and as we head into this new chapter we remain committed to having a diverse group of voices on the show whose opinions and expertise reflect, not just the news of the day, but the cultural, economical and political landscape of our country."

There would seem to be little incentive for the Sunday shows to change as viewership - goosed by interest in last month's presidential election - is running high.

An average of 4.52 million viewers tuned into "Meet the Press" (the most viewers among the Sunday shows) during November, 1.58 million of them in the coveted 25-to-54-year-old demographic for news viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. Compared with November 2007, total viewership for "Meet the Press" increased 29 percent. Total viewership for second-place "This Week," third-place CBS' "Face the Nation" and Fox's "Fox News Sunday" all increased at least 19 percent over last year.

Small, elite audience

And while their viewership may be roughly comparable to that of a low-rated prime-time program, the Washington power elite still consider them the place to make news. "Meet the Press" is where Powell chose to endorse President-elect Barack Obama. Last Sunday, Obama did one of his first major post-election policy interviews there.

"The Sunday shows define who the important players are and what the conventional wisdom is in Washington," said Paul Waldman, a senior fellow at Media Matters, which monitors the shows' guest lists.

But despite their influence, Waldman and others say the Sunday shows are among the last media entities to embrace a changed landscape, whether it be demographic or technical.

This week, the Pulitzer Prize administrators said for the first time that "online-only news outlets that do original reporting will be eligible to compete for journalism's top prize." While "This Week" has included bloggers/commentators like Arianna Huffington and Hugh Hewitt on its panel and editors of Politico.com turn up elsewhere, few online journalists appear on the shows.

Among some critics, the sense of frustration at this lack of diversity was reignited last week when CNN announced that John King, a 44-year-old white male who is CNN's chief political correspondent, would host its soon-to-be revamped Sunday offering, "Late Edition." That news came around the same time as word that the 38-year-old Gregory would host "Meet the Press."

After the death of "Meet the Press" host Russert in June, several women's groups lobbied for a woman to replace him. Among the names floated in vain: PBS anchor and presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, CBS anchor Katie Couric and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

The diversity on the shows may change next year, even if the guest booking policies don't, if Obama continues to appoint women and people of color to top positions in his administration.

"I think it's conceivable," Stephanopoulos said. "But I think you have to be careful about simply getting into bean counting. You have to put on the people who are making the decisions."

NAACP Report Find TV Networks Lagging in Diversity

By Lynn Elber

� Associated Press

December 18, 2008

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Nearly a decade after the NAACP condemned a "virtual whiteout" in broadcast TV, the civil rights group said major networks have stalled in their efforts to further ethnic diversity on-screen and off.

Television shows of the future could be even less inclusive because of a failure to cultivate young minority stars and to bring minorities into decision-making positions, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said.

The effect on the country could be profound, Jealous said.

"This is America: So goes TV, so goes reality. We don't think it's any accident that before we had a black president in reality, we had a black president on TV," he said, referring to the chief executive portrayed by Dennis Haysbert on Fox's "24."

A "critical lack of programming by, for or about people of color" can be traced in part to the lack of minorities who have the power to approve new series or make final creative decisions, said Vicangelo Bulluck, executive director of NAACP's Hollywood bureau.

In a report due to be released Thursday, the NAACP calls on networks to revisit a 2000 agreement to diversify the ranks of actors, writers, directors and executives. It also seeks to establish a task force with network executives, the NAACP and other civil rights groups.

The report raises the possibility of political action if progress is lacking, including a boycott against an unspecified network and its major advertisers or class-action litigation against the networks and parent companies.

Particularly disturbing, Jealous said, is the course charted by the CW, born of the defunct UPN and WB networks that had featured a number of black-oriented series including "Moesha" and "The Steve Harvey Show."

"Those two networks provided an opportunity for young talent of color in this town. ... They merged into a network which appears to have systematically cut programming targeted to communities of color," Jealous said.

CW's lineup includes white-oriented shows "Gossip Girl" and "90210," although it also airs the black sitcoms "Everybody Hates Chris" and "The Game."

A movie star such as Will Smith emerged because he could gain early exposure in the TV comedy "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," Jealous said.

CW declined comment on the report, as did ABC, NBC and Fox. CBS received a request for comment late Wednesday and did not immediately respond.

On the heels of the 1999-2000 fall lineup of new shows that lacked any minority actors in lead roles - then-NAACP head Kweisi Mfume called it a "virtual whiteout" - the NAACP and Asian-American, Hispanic and Indian civil rights groups formed a coalition to lobby networks.

Broadcasters agreed to create minority recruitment and training programs and to chart minority hiring among actors, writers, directors and managers.

The coalition groups have charted their progress with annual reports, although the NAACP has not always participated, often finding sharp underrepresentation of minorities in front of and behind the camera.

The four major broadcast networks have made "important strides" in increasing diversity, the new NAACP report said, including filling lead roles with actors such as Haysbert, starring in CBS' "The Unit," and Laurence Fishburne, now on CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."

However, using figures compiled by the networks and industry guilds, the NAACP found a less rosy picture overall.

The number of minority actors in prime-time shows has remained flat or even dipped in recent years, decreasing from 333 in the 2002-03 season to 307 in 2006-07, according to the report. The number of minority writers working during the 2006-07 season was 173, a drop from the 206 employed during the previous season, the report said.

Reality programming has dampened employment prospects for minority actors and writers, as it has for whites, but shows like "Survivor" and "American Idol" do offer a benefit: They are likely to be more diverse in casting than most scripted series, the NAACP noted, providing a truer national portrait.

Blacks and the White House: Slavery and Service

By Jesse J. Holland

� Associated Press

December 14, 2008

WASHINGTON - The first child born at the White House was the grandson of President Thomas Jefferson. The second child born there was his property, the African-American baby of Jefferson's two slaves.

Slaves not only helped build the White House, but also for decades men and women in bondage served America's presidents and first families as butlers, cooks and maids.

Two hundred years later, Barack Obama's election as the 44th president - the first black chief executive - is casting a spotlight on the complicated history of blacks and the exalted place they called home, the White House.

During and after slavery, black workers made the White House function. Obama's entry on Jan. 20, 2009, will be a moment for the ages that few of them could imagine.

"I'm very proud of the fact we're going to have an African-American president, and I think the help is going to be pleased to be working for an African-American president," said 89-year-old William Bowen Jr., a second-generation White House butler who worked for Presidents Dwight Eisenhower to George H.W. Bush.

When Bowen started at the White House in 1957, the civil rights movement was still in its infancy, segregation was still legal and blacks were just penetrating the upper echelons of government service.

People such as Bowen, employed at the White House before the civil rights and feminist movements, were the "help."

Surrounded by presidential memorabilia in his suburban Maryland home, including a newspaper trumpeting Obama's victory, Bowen is contemplating coming out of retirement to work for the first black president.

"I never thought, coming up, that this would ever happen. Not in my lifetime," Bowen said.

His father, William Bowen, left his job at the Washington Navy Yard after World War I to become a White House butler. He soon recruited his son to work there as a mail carrier and part-time butler. The senior Bowen taught him the White House domestic code of silence, which White House workers observe to this day.

"Pay attention and don't be talking to people while on your assignment," Bowen Jr. remembered his father lecturing. "Don't unnecessarily engage some of the guests unless they speak to you."

It was hard sometimes, with celebrities such as Duke Ellington and Pearl Bailey frequenting White House parties and dinners. To this day, Bowen remembers conversations with presidents and first ladies, but they are something he still will not repeat.

"You don't talk about things that happened on the job," Bowen said.

A century before the Bowens, slaves labored inside and outside the White House. Washington planner Pierre L'Enfant rented slaves from nearby owners to dig the foundation for the White House. White House designer James Hoben used some of his slave carpenters to build it.

President George Washington forced slaves from Mount Vernon to work as staff inside "the President's House" in Philadelphia during his term. Thus began a tradition of enslaved men and women working for the president in his residence, a practice that continued until the 1850s.

Not only did they work in the White House, enslaved men and women lived there, as well. According to the White House Historical Association, the slave and servant quarters were in the basement, now called the ground floor. The rooms now include the library, china room, offices and the formal Diplomatic Reception Room. At least one black baby was born there, in 1806 to Fanny and Eddy, two of Jefferson's slaves. The child, who also was considered a slave, died two years later.

History values these slaves for more than just their labor.

Paul Jennings, President James Madison's personal slave, told the first tale of White House life written by someone who lived there. In his memoirs, Jennings debunked the oft-repeated White House legend of first lady Dolley Madison saving the portrait of Washington from invading British troops.

"This is totally false," Jennings said. "She had no time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down. All she carried off was the silver."

Instead a Frenchman, John Suse, and Magraw, the president's gardener, took the painting down and sent it off on a wagon, Jennings said. Later in his life, he would give part of the money he earned as a freedman to help a destitute Dolley Madison after her husband's death.

As the years progressed, so did the role of blacks in the White House.

Blacks moved from slaves to honored guests - President Abraham Lincoln met with abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth in the White House - to indispensable parts of White House life.

President Andrew Johnson appointed William Slade the first White House steward, the person charged with running the domestic side of the White House.

Not only did blacks work in the White House, they also started working at the White House. E. Frederick Morrow was the first black appointed a White House aide by Eisenhower in 1955; John F. Kennedy named Andrew Hatcher associate press secretary in 1960.

The progress was hardly smooth.

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt formally invited Booker T. Washington to the White House for dinner. But as Republican presidential candidate John McCain noted in his concession speech last month, Southern newspapers were outraged and publicly condemned Roosevelt after they learned of the invitation from an Associated Press dispatch. Roosevelt never invited another African-American to a White House dinner.

All the while behind the scenes, black domestic workers such as John Pye kept the White House humming along.

"These are the folks who not only keep the leadership comfortable, but they make the White House into a home for those occupants, and they make government service more than tolerable for high-level staffers who are working long hours," said Gail Lowe, senior historian at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum. "Without their eyewitness to history, we probably would not have as full a story as we have of the inner workings of the White House."

The Smithsonian holds memorabilia belonging to Pye, who worked as valet, messenger, driver, cook and butler in the White House during President Franklin Roosevelt's administration.

Sometimes the workers also made history, Lowe said.

"When the first war bonds were issued in April 1942, President Roosevelt did a little presale as a publicity move, and the first person to whom he sold a war bond was John Pye," Lowe said. "It cost $18.75. And as President Roosevelt made his pitch for the war bonds - 'This is to support our war effort. Our young men are serving overseas. They're giving their lives; we can lend our money' - almost before the words were out of his mouth, John Pye had stepped forward to purchase the bond."

Despite their contributions, blacks experienced racism even inside the White House.

Alonzo Fields, a former maitre d' who worked in the White House for 31 years, said they had segregated dining rooms for the workers at one point.

"I'm good enough to handle the president's food and do everything, but I cannot eat with the help," Fields, who died in 1994, told the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife Programs & Cultural Studies for its "Workers in the White House" project.

Pye faced at least one incident with Richard M. Nixon, then vice president, who came to him and asked about some leftover food.

Nixon said, "Boy, what are y'all going to do with the rest of the food?" Lowe said. "Mr. Pye did not like being called 'boy' and he didn't like to be questioned about how the kitchen would deal with leftovers."

Pye told him that the food went to charity, but it turned out Nixon wanted to eat the leftovers.

"Pye made sure they went to charitable organizations that day," Lowe said.

Editor's note: Associated Press writer Jesse J. Holland is the author of the book "Black Men Built The Capitol: Discovering African-American History In and Around Washington, D.C."