Retired Butler Sees a New White House

Eugene Allen, 89, a retired White House butler, tries on his old tuxedo for a photo. Allen, who served eight presidents during a period when America 's racial history was being rewritten, is marveling at the election of Barack Obama.

Now retired, he started when blacks were in the kitchen.

By Wil Haygood November 7, 2008

Reporting from Washington -- For more than three decades, Eugene Allen worked in the White House, a black man unknown to the headlines. During some of those years, harsh segregation laws lay upon the land.He trekked home every night to his wife, Helene, who kept him out of her kitchen.
At the White House, he worked closer to the dirty dishes than to the Oval Office. Helene didn't care; she just beamed with pride.President Truman called him Gene. President Ford liked to talk golf with him. He saw eight presidential administrations come and go, often working six days a week."I never missed a day of work," Allen said.He was there while racial history was made: Brown vs. Board of Education, the Little Rock school crisis, the 1963 March on Washington , the cities burning, the civil rights bills, the assassinations.When he started at the White House in 1952, he couldn't even use the public restrooms when he ventured back to his native Virginia . "We had never had anything," Allen, 89, recalled of black America at the time. "I was always hoping things would get better."In its long history, the White House -- note the name -- has had a complex and vexing relationship with black Americans."The history is not so uneven at the lower level, in the kitchen," said Ted Sorensen, who served as counselor to President Kennedy. "In the kitchen, the folks have always been black. Even the folks at the door -- black."Before Gene Allen landed his White House job, he worked as a waiter at a resort in Hot Springs , Va. , and then at a country club in Washington .He and wife Helene, 86, were sitting in the living room of their Washington home. Her voice was musical, in a Lena Horne kind of way. She called him "Honey." They met at a birthday party in 1942. He was too shy to ask for her number, so she tracked his down. They married a year later.In 1952, a lady told him of a job opening in the White House. "I wasn't even looking for a job," he said. "I was happy where I was working, but she told me to go on over there and meet with a guy by the name of Alonzo Fields."Fields was a maitre d', and he immediately liked Allen.Allen was offered a job as a "pantry man." He washed dishes, stocked cabinets and shined silverware. He started at $2,400 a year.There was, in time, a promotion to butler. "Shook the hand of all the presidents I ever worked for," he said."I was there, honey," Helene said. "In the back maybe. But I shook their hands too." She was referring to White House holiday parties, Easter egg hunts.They have one son, Charles, who works as an investigator with the State Department."President Ford's birthday and my birthday were on the same day," he said. "He'd have a birthday party at the White House. Everybody would be there. And Mrs. Ford would say, 'It's Gene's birthday too!' "And so they'd sing a little ditty to the butler. And the butler, who wore a tuxedo to work every day, would blush."Jack Kennedy was very nice," he went on. "And so was Mrs. Kennedy."He was in the White House kitchen the day Kennedy was slain. He got an invitation to the funeral. But he volunteered for other duty: "Somebody had to be at the White House to serve everyone after they came from the funeral."The whole family of President Carter made Helene chuckle: "They were country. And I'm talking Lillian and Rosalynn both." It came out as the highest compliment.First Lady Nancy Reagan came looking for him in the kitchen one day. She wanted to remind him about the upcoming state dinner for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. She told him he would not be working that night."She said, 'You and Helene are coming to the state dinner as guests of President Reagan and myself.' I'm telling you! I believe I'm the only butler to get invited to a state dinner."Husbands and wives don't sit together at these events, and Helene was nervous about trying to make small talk with world leaders. "And my son said, 'Momma, just talk about your high school. They won't know the difference.'"The senators were all talking about the colleges and universities that they went to," she said. "I was doing as much talking as they were."Had champagne that night," she said, looking over at her husband.He just grinned: He was the man who stacked the champagne at the White House.Colin L. Powell would become the highest ranking black of any White House to that point when he was named Reagan's national security advisor in 1987. Condoleezza Rice would have that position under President George W. Bush.Gene Allen was promoted to maitre d' in 1980. He left the White House in 1986, after 34 years. President Reagan wrote him a sweet note. Nancy Reagan hugged him tight.Interviewed at their home last week, Gene and Helene speculated about what it would mean if a black man were elected president."Just imagine," she said."It'd be really something," he said."We're pretty much past the going-out stage," she said. "But you never know. If he gets in there, it'd sure be nice to go over there again."They talked about praying to help Barack Obama get to the White House. They'd go vote together. She'd lean on her cane with one hand, and him with the other, while walking down to the precinct. And she'd get supper going afterward. They went over their election day plans more than once."Imagine," she said."That's right," he said.On Monday, Helene had a doctor's appointment. Gene woke and nudged her once, then again. He shuffled around to her side of the bed. He nudged Helene again.He was all alone."I woke up and my wife didn't," he said later.Some friends and family members rushed over. He wanted to make coffee. They had to shoo the butler out of the kitchen.The lady he married 65 years ago will be buried today.The butler cast his vote for Obama on Tuesday. He so missed telling his Helene about the black man bound for the Oval Office.

GM Names 1st Black Female Design Director!

Congratulations to Crystal L. Windham, General Motors’ first black female Director of General Motors North American Passenger Car Design.
Ms. Windham will head the interior design for GM’s Global Midsize Car, Global Compact Car, and Global Small Car.
She was a lead designer on the 2008 award winning Chevy Malibu “Car of the Year.”
“A mentor guided me towards automotive design. Without guidance and support from family and co-workers, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I truly love my job- it’s creative, expressive - but it is not easy. Enjoying what you do, however, makes it all worthwhile. I hope other young women will look to what I have done and be inspired to consider automotive design,” she said.
There are so many careers to choose from in our ever expanding global market, but many young people aren’t aware of even half of them. Perhaps Ms. Windham also can inspire them to search beyond traditional careers to find the one that makes the best fit.
“As an interior designer,” she says, “I create solutions and appealing spaces for customers. As a leader it’s my job to foster creativity and ensure that creativity is represented in the final product.
Ms. Windham has a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from the Center for Creative Studies and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Detroit - Mercy.

Music 360: Beyonce's ALTER EGO, Goes Into OVERDRIVE

The "Sasha Fierce" persona needs to go home and tell Beyonce to STOP IT...

Video: Obama playing ball on Election Day!

Talk about CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN! We got a FLY PREZ ya'll! In case you missed it, the two teams were named "That One," something John McCain called Obama during one of the debates, and "This One." Regardless of your political affiliation, that's pretty funny.

HUDSON CASE UPDATE

Following a preliminary hearing on Monday, William Balfour, the only suspect named so far in the triple homicide of Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and nephew, will remain in prison at least through December 3, when a full hearing will be held to determine if he violated his parole.
According to reports, Balfour, the estranged husband of Julia Hudson, had not attended any of his anger-management classes, had not attended any of his substance-abuse counseling sessions, had not been available for visits with his parole officer and had been seen in places were drugs were sold or distributed, which resulted in an arrest for cocaine possession in June.
Balfour’s girlfriend, Shonta Cathey, had claimed she had seen Balfour with a gun the day before the murders that was allegedly identical to the gun found by authorities. An unnamed source told the Chicago Tribune that Balfour told her he was involved in the shootings.
Balfour was out on parole from the Illinois River Correctional Center on attempted-murder, carjacking and stolen-property charges, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. He was sentenced to serve seven years in 1999. Balfour was paroled in 2006, but if he is found at the December 3 hearing to have violated his parole, he will have to serve out the remainder of his term, until May 2009. Until that hearing, Balfour will remain at the reception center at Stateville Correctional Center.

TRAGIC NEWS: MARINE & WIFE KILLED

Sgt. Jan Pawel Pietrzak and his wife, Quiana, were tortured and killed execution-style in their California home allegedly by four Marines under his command.
The couple were found bound and gagged in the ransacked house and each had been shot in the head.
Pietrzak’s mother, Henryka Pietrzak-Varga, said she prepared herself “for the possibility that my son could die in Iraq, but to die like this, in their own home? They were good kids. They didn’t deserve to die like this.”
“She was our only child and my best friend,” Faye Jenkins, Quiana’s mother said. “He was like my son. He was so proud to be a Marine. But when he was off the base, he was my son.”
Deputies were dispatched to the Pietrzak home in Winchester, an exurb of San Diego, when he didn’t show up for work. They found the Pietrzaks in the living room and evidence the robbers tried to hide their tracks by torching the house.
Charged with murder and other crimes are Pvt. Emrys John, 18, of Maryland; Lance Cpl. Tyrone Miller, 20, of North Carolina; Pvt. Kevin Darnell Cox, 20, of Tennessee, and Pvt. Kesuan Sykes, 21, of California.

Man builds working replica of Noah's Ark (exact scale given in Bible)

in Schagen, Netherlands

The massive central door in the side of Noah's Ark was opened to the first crowd of curious townsfolk to behold the wonder. Of course, it's only a replica of the biblical Ark, built by Dutch creationist, Johan Huibers, as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.

The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That's two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house.

Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold.

A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine. Biblical Scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been.

Huibers did the work mostly with his own hands, using modern tools and with occasional help from his son, Roy. Construction began in May 2005. On the uncovered top - deck not quite ready in time for the opening - will come a petting zoo, with baby lambs, chickens, goats and one camel.

Visitors on the first day were stunned. 'It's past comprehension', said Mary Louise Starosciak, who happened to be bicycling by with her husband while on vacation when they saw the ark looming over the local landscape.

'I knew the story of Noah, but I had no idea the boat would have been so big ' There is enough space near the keel for a 50-seat film theater where kids can watch a video that tells the story of Noah and his ark. Huibers, a Christian man, said he hopes the project will renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands, where church-going has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years.

Now that I am old and Gray...give me the time to tell This new generation (and their children too) About all your mighty miracles.

Psalm 71:18

White House Bowling Alley Goes Basketball!

I love it!  Prez-Elect Obama has told the media he’s replacing the bowling alley in the White House with a basketball court. Let’s hope Tyrone and ‘em don’t come over actin’ the fool though. Hilarious.

Hmmm: Mimi's an Old Fashioned Gal - No Sex With Nick ’til Marriage!

Mariah Carey revealed to the UK's Mirror that she got all born-again-virgin on Nick Cannon!


In the two months that she and Nick dated before their April wedding, there was no 'intercourse' at all!

Mimz said that waiting was so worth it:

“It’s not that we had NO intimacy, we just didn’t have complete intimacy. It’s just me, and my feelings. I definitely don’t want to push it on anybody else. But we both have similar beliefs, and I just thought that it would be so much more special if we waited until after we were married. And it was, and it still is.”

Well, Well!  That's refreshing!

BLACK HISTORY SPOTLIGHT: DR. DANIEL HALE WILLIAMS

DR. DANIEL HALE WILLIAMS (1856 – 1931) was the first black heart surgeon.


Williams was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, to Daniel and Sarah Price Williams, a middle-class free black family. When his father died of tuberculosis, his mother realized she could not manage seven children and sent some of them to live with relatives. Daniel went to Baltimore and apprenticed to a shoemaker but ran away to join his mother who had moved to Rockford, Illinois. He later moved to Edgerton, Wisconsin, where he joined his sister and opened his own barber shop. After moving to nearby Janesville, Williams became fascinated with a local physician and decided to follow his career path.

He began working as an apprentice to the physician, Dr. Henry Palmer, for two years and in 1880, he entered what is now known as Northwestern University School. After graduating in 1883, he opened his own medical office in Chicago. Because of primitive social and medical circumstances existing in that era, much of Williams early medical practice called for him to treat patients in their homes, including conducting occasional surgeries on kitchen tables. Williams utilized many of the emerging antiseptic, sterilization procedures of the day and gained a reputation for professionalism. He was soon appointed a surgeon on the staff of the South Side Dispensary and then a clinical instructor in anatomy at Northwestern. In 1889, he was appointed to the Illinois State Board of Health and one year later, he set out to create an interracial hospital.

On January 23, 1891, Williams established the Provident Hospital and Training School Association, a three story building which held 12 beds and served members of the community as a whole. The school also served to train black nurses and utilized doctors of all races. Within its first year, 189 patients were treated at Provident Hospital and of those 141 saw a complete recovery, 23 had recovered significantly, three had seen change in their condition and 22 had died. For a brand new hospital, at that time, to see an 87% success rate was phenomenal considering the financial and health conditions of the patient, and primitive conditions of most hospitals. Much can be attributed to Williams insistence on the highest standards concerning procedures and sanitary conditions.

Two years later, on July 9, 1893, a young black man named James Cornish was injured in a bar fight, stabbed in the chest with a knife. By the time he was transported to Provident Hospital, he was seeping closer and closer to death, having lost a great deal of blood and gone into shock. Williams was faced with the choice of opening the man’s chest and possibly operating internally when that was almost nonexistent at that time. Internal operations were unheard of because any entrance into the chest or abdomen of a patient would almost surely bring with it resulting infection and therefore death.

Williams made the decision to operate and opened the man’s chest. He saw the damage to the man’s pericardium (sac surrounding the heart) and sutured it, then applied antiseptic procedures before closing his chest. Fifty-one days later, James Cornish walked out of Provident Hospital completely recovered and would go on to live for another fifty years. Unfortunately, Williams was so busy with other matters, he did not bother to document the event and others made claims to have first achieved the feat of performing open heart surgery. Fortunately, local newspapers of the day did spread the news and Williams received the acclaim he deserved. It should be noted however that while he is known as the first person to perform an open heart surgery, it is actually more noteworthy that he was the first surgeon to open the chest cavity successfully without the patient dying of infection. His procedures would therefore be used as standards for future internal surgeries.

In February 1894, Williams was appointed Chief Surgeon at the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. and reorganized the hospital, creating seven medical and surgical departments, setting up pathological and bacteriological units, establishing a biracial staff of highly qualified doctors and nurses and established an internship program. Recognition of his efforts and their success came when doctors from all over the country traveled to Washington to view the hospital and to sit in on surgeries performed there. Almost immediately there was an astounding increase in efficiency as well as a decrease in patient deaths.

During this time, Williams married the Alice Johnson (daughter of sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel) and the couple soon moved to Chicago after Daniel resigned from the Freedmen’s hospital. He resumed his position as Chief Surgeon at Provident Hospital (which could now accommodate 65 patients) as well as for nearby Mercy Hospital and St. Luke’s Hospital, an exclusive hospital for wealthy white patients. He was also asked to travel across the country to attend to important patients or to oversee certain procedures.

When the American Medical Association refused to accept black members, Williams helped to set up and served as Vice-President of the National Medical Association. In 1912, Williams was appointed associate attending surgeon at St. Luke’s and worked there until his retirement from the practice of medicine. When the American College of Surgeons was founded in 1913, Williams became a charter member, the first black surgeon admitted to the organization. Williams was also a teacher of Clinical Surgery at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, and was an attending surgeon at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. Upon his retirement, Williams had received numerous honors and awards, including honorary degrees from Howard and Wilberforce Universities and membership in the Chicago Surgical Society.

Williams died of a stroke at the age of 75 on August 4, 1931, in Idlewild, Michigan.

Today's Word: Where's Yahvah When It Hurts?

Where's Yahvah When It Hurts?

In the midst of pain, it's hard to see the good.

by Philip Yancey

I'm wearing a neck brace because I broke my neck in an auto accident. For the first few hours as I lay strapped to a body board, medical workers refused to give me pain medication because they needed my response. The doctor kept moving my limbs, asking, "Does this hurt? Do you feel that?"

The correct answer, the answer we wanted, was, "Yes. It hurts. I can feel it." And thankfully, each time, that was my answer.

Each sensation of pain gave proof that my spinal cord had not been severed. Pain offered proof my body remained whole.

It's normal to regard pain as a negative, but as I learned on that body board, pain is a mark of life. Remember that as you cope with pain. Don't try to numb it. Instead, acknowledge pain as an affirmation of life.

All Things Redeemed

We all feel pain. I would like to promise you a long, pain-free life, but I cannot. Rather, the Machiachian view of the world says this: The world is good. The world has fallen. The world will be redeemed. That's the Machiachian story in a nutshell.

Yahvah has promised a time when evil will be defeated, when events like the shootings at Nickel Mines and Columbine and Virginia Tech will come to an end. Until then, he's promised that the scars we accumulate from pain will be used, somehow, for good. They will be a mark of life.

As the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 8, all things can work together for your good. Paul spells out some of the things he encountered, which included beatings, illness, imprisonment, shipwreck and kidnapping. As he looked back, he could see that somehow Yahvah had redeemed even those crisis events in his life.

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us," Paul concluded. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of Yahvah that is in Machiach Yeshua our Lord" (Romans 8:37–39, NIV).

But in the midst of the pain, it's hard to see the good. It's easy to question Yahvah: Why did you let this happen? Where are you when I hurt?

After my accident, my chances of living didn't look good. It was a difficult time. But

I see now the good Yahvah was able to do through it. As I was strapped to that body board, I realized how much of my life focused on trivial things. I didn't think about what kind of car I drove (it was being towed to a junkyard anyway) or how much money

I had in my bank account. All that mattered boiled down to four questions: Who do I love? Who will I miss? What have I done with my life? And am I ready for what's next?

Ever since that day, I've tried to live with those questions at the forefront.

Out of my pain came good—a new focus, a new life. This pain proved what was most important.

Where Is Yahvah?

Ten days before the shootings at Virginia Tech, Machiachians around the world remembered the darkest day of human history. That was the day evil human beings violently rose up against Yahvah's Son and murdered the only truly innocent human being who ever lived. We remember that day not as Dark Friday, Tragic Friday or Disaster Friday—but rather as Good Friday. That awful day led to Easter, an early glimpse of Yahvah's bright promise to make all things new.

When you read through the Gospels, you'll find only one scene in which someone addresses Yeshua directly as Yahvah: "My Lord and my Yahvah!" Do you know who said that?

It was doubting Thomas, the last disciple to believe the incredible news of the Resurrection.

Thomas believed because of Yeshua' scars. "Feel my hands," Yeshua told him. "Touch my side."

In a flash of revelation, Thomas saw the wonder of Almighty Yahvah, the Lord of the uNIVerse, stooping to take on our pain. He saw scars that had been used for good. He saw that tear-streaked face of Yeshua.

So where is Yahvah when it hurts? We know where Yahvah is because he came to Earth and showed us his face. To see how Yahvah responds to our suffering, you need only remember how Yeshua responded to the tragedies of his day: with comfort, healing and compassion—which simply means "to suffer with."

Where is Yahvah when it hurts? He's right there with us.

POLITICS: THE BUSHES WELCOME THE OBAMAS TO THE WHITE HOUSE

U.S. President George W. Bush and Laura Bush greet U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama at the White House Monday in Washington, DC.


On January 20th Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States.

Politics; Bullet Proof Glass Shields Obama

He has already been the target of two assassination plots and hundreds of threats from white supremacists. So it was no surprise that Barack Obama’s victory speech was delivered from behind two-inch thick bullet proof glass.Although he will not move into the White House until January security has already been stepped up around the President-elect.

The clear protective screens he was sandwiched between at Grant Park in Chicago were the fist visible sign of the fears he will be the target of an assassination attempt. The bulletproof glass was not visible to the millions of people worldwide watching his speech on TV. Also unseen were the dozens of Secret Service agents who had taken up position in the crowd and the high rise buildings overlooking the park.

Hours before Obama stepped on stage Secret Service agents had posed as the Democratic presidential candidate to ‘test’ his exposure to an assassin’s bullet. A red laser dot was ‘fired’ on to the chest of the agents from others posing as sniper’s in the skyscrapers overlooking the park.

After the test was carried out it was decided to install the 10 feet high and 15 feet long screens. A marquee housing the TV cameras meant he was not at risk from the front of the park. A no-fly zone was also imposed over the area, with only police helicopters allowed in the air.

The elaborate security measures, as well as the suffocating presence of dozens of agents, is something Obama, his wife and two young children will now have to learn to live with.  Keep them in your prayers.

Photoshop Foolywang! Whitney Houston's New Album Cover

Who approved this?  Ummmm.....no.  Barack is president now, so we've got to do better....you've got to do better...Ima pray for you.

BARACK WINS!!!

YES WE DID!!!!