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Colin Powell cautions struggle not over for African Americans
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Colin Powell warned African Americans not to think that their struggle is over.
"We didn't elect a Superman, we elected a man, and a man who is very qualified," Powell said at a March 5 fundraiser for Decatur House across from the White House. The election of President Obama, whom Powell had endorsed, "was the culmination of hundreds of years of struggles, enduring slavery, oppression, and repression like the people who were enslaved here at Decatur House."
The Decatur House has one of the few urban slave quarters left in United States, and is the only remaining physical evidence that African Americans were held in bondage near the White House, just across Lafayette Square.
"If you thought all the struggles were over and there's
Quilt from scraps of Mary Todd Lincoln's dresses,
by Elizabeth Keckly
Photo courtesy of Kent State University Museum
Photo courtesy of Kent State University Museum
nothing else to be done, that's not so as long as kids wonder whether they have a future, and as long as people black and white wonder whether they'll have a roof over their head..." Powell noted. He founded America's Promise Alliance to help at-risk children.
"We have to be sure we don't forget history," and he praised Decatur House's excellent exhibit -- in its former slave quarters -- "The Half Had Not Been Told Me: African Americans on Lafayette Square (1795-1965)". The title came from the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ first impression of the Freedman’s Savings Bank and Trust Company headquarters on Lafayette Square, “’I felt like the Queen of Sheba when she saw the riches of Solomon, ‘the half had not been told me.’” Douglass was the last president of the bank which, like several banks today, failed in 1874.
Powell cited the exhibit's section on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and recalled, "I had just been thrown out of a hamburger joint" near Fort Benning where he was stationed. Right after President Johnson signed the act on July 2, 1964, "I went back to that place and they had to serve me. I wasn't looking to integrate all Columbus, GA, I just wanted a hamburger, and wanted to be treated like anyone else."
The retired general drew applause when he said that he has "never forgotten what people before me did." Addressing all the people honored in the historic exhibition, Powell said, "Thank you for what you did in your time; we'll take it from here...Let's rededicate ourselves to all the people who need us."
He praised specifically the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the first African American choir to sing at the White House -- on March 5, 1872 for President Ulysses S. Grant. And on March 5, 2009, the singers came from Fisk University in Nashville and performed spirituals at the Decatur House event entitled "Sacred Journey, Sacred House".
Their voices rang out gloriously singing "Hold On" one floor below the slave quarters. Listening to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and seeing this exhibit, you will "feel the spirit move you", as the spiritual goes.
So take the exhibit's virtual tour if you can't make it to Washington. Other highlights include:
- The story of Charlotte Dupuy. Enslaved at Decatur House, she sued (unsuccessfully) Secretary of State Henry Clay for freedom for herself and her two children in 1829 -- 17 years before Dred Scott filed his famed suit challenging the legality of slavery.
- An exquisite quilt said to be made from scraps of Mary Todd Lincoln's dresses (see photo top right). The quilt maker, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly, had been born into slavery, and her sewing supported the family who enslaved her. She purchased freedom for herself and her son with loans from dressmaking clients. Keckly became dressmaker and friend to the First Lady who donated to Keckly's fund helping newly freed slaves who'd come to Washington. The friendship ended after Keckly published "Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House."
- Portrait of lyric soprano Lillian Evanti, the first African American to perform with a major European company in the early 1900s. She encountered less discrimination in Europe. But Evanti, a graduate of DC's Howard University, returned to Washington several times to perform at Lafayette Square's Belasco Theater -- one of the few DC venues that allowed a desegregated audience. In 1926, Evanti sang there with famed contralto Marian Anderson long before Anderson's performance at the Lincoln Memorial (70 years ago).
- Video of President Johnson signing the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and handing pens to Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and other African-American leaders.
"The Half Had Not Been Told Me: African Americans on Lafayette Square (1795-1965)" will run until early spring, no closing date has been set yet.
To (mis)quote Frederick Douglass and the Queen of Sheba, this exhibition is truly one of the riches of Washington, as is the 1818 Decatur House -- a National Trust Historic Site, and one of only three U.S. residences remaining that were designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the Father of American Architecture.
For more info: Decatur House, 1610 H Street, NW, Washington, DC. 202 842 0920 www.decaturhouse.org Hours and Location
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