The Butler: a Witness to History

✍ Scribed by Wil Haygood

• Book ID: 100122467
• Publisher: Atria / 37 Ink
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 2 MB
• Edition: 37th ed
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN: 147675327X

✦ Synopsis

When acclaimed Washington Post writer Wil Haygood had an early hunch that Obama would win the 2008 election, he thought hed highlight the singular moment by exploring the life of someone who had come of age when segregation was so widespread, so embedded in the culture as to make the very thought of a black president inconceivable. He struck gold when he tracked down Eugene Allen, a butler who had served no fewer than eight presidents, from Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan. During his thirty-four years of service, Allen became what the Independent described as a discreet stagehand who for three decades helped keep the show running in the most important political theatre of all.

While serving tea and supervising buffets, Allen was also a witness to history as decisions about Americas most momentous events were being made. Here he is at the White House while Kennedy contemplates the Cuban missile crisis; here he is again when Kennedys widow returns from that...