quote, if we allow segregation constitutional rights under the dome of the capital, where in god's name would we get them?" he said later on, if we allow this challenge to go without correcting it, it will set an example where people will say congress itself approves of segregation. he had a resolution which was to say the least hostile towards any kind of civil rights initiative in this country, let alone in congress. what he did, in fact, was kept the measure alive using a parliamentary procedure. he collected 145 member signatures on a discharge petition to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote. the house, in fact, voted in favor of de priest's call for an investigation by an investigate ory committee but

unfortunately, the panel created -- that created the state policy of segregation split along party lines, three democrats and two republicans. and they refused to recommend any revisions. so in effect, the house officially kept the dining room segregated and there it died after that. i want to talk momentarily about the day he was sworn in to congress. after the swearing in was done, the hopes, dreams and aspirations of 12 million african-americans were lifted to a height that was never felt before in the 20th century. they had no representation. there was a reporter for the "chicago defender" who said and i quote, as he walked down the

aisle his face was grim, almost to the point of sternness as if the solemnness of the occasion rested on his shoulders. i think it dawned on him at that point that he was the sole voice for 12 million african-americans in this country. i can't imagine the weight of responsibility that he must have felt at that time. think about that. one voice for every african-american in this country. for the next six years, he was the only member of color in the entire united states congress. this was 1929 in washington, d.c., it's a southern town. so we dealt with covert in your face racism every single day he was there.

for every restaurant in town for the fourth congress, he dealt with a hostile, racist environment, yet he was able to persevere and succeed in advancing the betterment of african-americans. he would do what he had to do. crossing party lines was not an issue to him. if he found a supporter be it democrat or republican, then so be it. he would welcome that support. he would acknowledge that support. he was the black caucus of one. there's 42 now in the house and senate. by then a black caucus of just him. i know my time is limited. i have been accused of being long winded before in the past. in closing, his efforts to try to level the playing field for his african-american constituents never ended.

when he left congress, after two failed attempts to get re-elected, he went back to the chicago city council in 1943. in doing so, he had reached out to mayor ed kelly, who was a democrat, and got his support in passing a fair employment practice act in the city of chicago that de priest had introduced in the city council, which, by the way, had failed in the state legislature in illinois earlier that year. he wrote an open letter addressed to his republican voters, friends and citizens in 1944 because he had been -- by lambasted by the chicago newspapers for supporting kelly, who was a democrat. he said, and i quote "i contend then and i still contend that if negro people are good enough to give their lives for their country, they are then entitled

wherever qualified to hold any position in their country's government which they are helping to maintain through their taxes, their blood, and their loyalty." i thought this really hits a nail on the head where oscar de priest where the core of his character really came from. [ applause ] >> thank you, phil. we'll have don next. >> i'll pass it down. >> thank you, again, everyone. i really won't bore you with more. i do have two observations. one of the things that really is particularly fascinating to me is when you start thinking about what life was like if you were

living in 1820, '30, on through the 19th century here in this city in this building on this corner on that corner, i mean, it's just a phenomenal experience. the other piece that's particularly significant to me is that we just don't know. until i was able to peel back some of the stories by reading newspaper accounts that were contemporaneous with the time, you begin to fashion together what life was really like. there are so many stories where, for example, even though wormley was a close friend of vice president wilson when he died, they had been friends before he had become vice president. he was going to attend the funeral train to return back to new england. and members of congress said the only way that wormley would be there if he were the caterer to the train.

they ended up not having to do that, but those are the kinds of hurdles that people of color had to overcome, even though they were already well known around the world, presidents all knew them, they still treated them as fourth class citizens. they are the stories of in the newspapers of the not too long ago boston, cincinnati, cleveland, they all use the "n" word in the media. for people of color. it was just a second way of talking about people. just think. what impact that has had on all the generations we're dealing with today when you see an entrusted newspaper publication the way they denigrated. finally, i have one thing in all this experience i have come across friends and family members who say it's a great story and so forth. i say everybody has a great story. everybody here in this room has

a fabulous story. one friend of mine said, well, we don't have much history. i said, wait a minute. first of all, how did you get where you are? more importantly, maybe they were working class folks. you have been the highest ranking african-american executive in a major u.s. corporation. maybe the buck stops here and the story starts here. make sure that your children pass it on. because the only reason i can speak to what i can speak to today is because some ancestor 150 years ago thought it was important that we knew we held ourselves high as african-americans. that's all i have to say. [ applause ] >> thank you, don. we'll have steve next.

>> i couldn't agree with don more. can you hear me? i'm just so excited to be here. it's great to see so many faces here who have an interest in this. i'm driven by this. i'm driven by relatives and my an ancestors and people that we see. i wanted to start by saying that i hope you've had a chance to look at the poster. i'm the one that brought the poster there. if you haven't had a chance, before you go today, i would ask you to go up and take a look and you can see some of the things we have done here. i want to thank the white house historical association for helping us to put this all together. for donna who's in the room who basically helped to put that poster, the concept together and my cousin roy who is in california that put it on paper to make it something you all could see and make it real. there are a number of facts that help to build that family tree.

it's not something that you do by yourself. it's something that takes a family to see where you've come. the goal is to build a legacy of those who follow us so hopefully some day the eighth and ninth generations will have something they can tie back to see from which they came. the offspring of charles and maria you are probably familiar with that. my current research has to deal with nancy syphax. she is my third great-grandmother. she is the sister of charles. i'm interested in documenting the lives, movement, and the relationships between nancy, her daughter margaret, which is in the picture behind me, and her son peter joseph. i'm exploring nancy's life in the household of john gadsby's tavern and house. nancy was born in the early

1790s. probably in virginia, but possibly in d.c. we're not sure when her daughter margaret was born. we think it was the mid-18 teens. 1818 or so. the story indicates that he and his wife's confidence brought their slaves with them when they moved to the cater house. that's consistent with nancy living in alexandria and showing up in the decatur house. nancy is thought to have lived there from 1836 to at least 1870. part of my research revolves around understanding why margaret would have been sold. i'm just driven by trying to understand the trade and why somebody would be sold. perhaps her birth was the result of an unexpected or unwanted pregnancy. we know slaves were a commodity and we know that gatsby was a slave trader. perhaps he arranged the sale of margaret.

it was not uncommon for young female slaves to be purchased by slave traders to be used as concubines and later resold to either become servants, cooks, or even work in a brothel. margaret could have been sold in virginia at an early age or until just before she gave birth to her first child in new orleans in 1840. we're now beginning to research the gatsby records on slave transactions to see what we can find on when that may have occurred. as you're probably aware, the domestic slave trade increased after the united states banned the importation of slaves in 1808. the ports of d.c. and alexandria were among the largest in the number of slaves shipped to the south. new orleans, louisiana, was often the destinations where slaves ended up being sold. we don't know how margaret was moved to new orleans. she could have gone by ship or she could have had to walk to

new orleans. based on a birth certificate, we know margaret gave birth to a son in april 1842 in the french quarter, and he was given the name peter joseph. the father was an austrian merchant who was named sparrow joseph who came to search of his fortune. we have not been able to document the relationship between margaret and him, but we know that peter was born free when his mother had him pay for his freedom prior to his birth. this lead me to the speculation about margaret possibly been forced to work in a new orleans bro brothel. at age 13, peter wrote a letter to his grandmother nancy. somehow he knew that nancy was at the decatur house. i don't know how he knew that. but if he did, it's very possible margaret and nancy probably also remained in contact with one another.

at any rate at the 1857 letter provides an interesting clue. to be pursued. that letter is over on the wall if you get a chance to look at that. finally, we know that peter was a civil war veteran. he's over on the wall at the african-american civil war memorial. in 1869, peter and his wife and their first child moved to washington, d.c. we know that grandmother nancy was still alive in the 1870 census because she shows up in decatur house in 1870. the cooler climate department suit cora, so they remained not much longer than a year and moved back to new orleans. together peter joseph and cora had ten children, seven of which lived to be adults. the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the constitution raised peter's interest in politics. in louisiana. in 1876 peter was selected to be a presidential elector in the

heavily contested hayes-tilton election. he was one of eight louisiana electors whose votes gave the election to president hayes and put him in the white house. in 1880 peter wrote to recommend his cousin william syphax. for a position in the department of interior. so there's a lot of ties not just here, but as you move away and people want to come back and understand what's going on with the family to help others. i would be happy to answer questions afterwards. [ applause ] >> thank you, steve. we'll have angela next. >> hi. i want to first acknowledge that this was a photograph taken at the white house in front of the portrait of george washington. and thanks to beth taylor, who

is the author of the paul jennings book, we were invited to the white house. the family, the descendents of paul jennings to have a private tour and take this photograph in front of the portrait. for those who have not read the book yet, paul jennings is credited with saving the original portrait during the war. i think it was 1809. we went there in 2009. the anniversary of him helping to save this portrait of george washington in the white house before it burned. so i want to acknowledge all of my cousins, many of whom i have met recently. some who actually lived here in washington, where i have lived all my life and had never met. and some from other cities such as california and pennsylvania, et cetera.

basically, i'm just going to mention a little bit about growing up here and being exposed to my family and paul jennings. i did not really grow up knowing about paul jennings. i knew that i had relatives or a relative that had worked in the white house probably for a president that was about the extent of it. but what i did have was a wealth of information about that side of my family. i grew up knowing paul jennings' grandson. his grandson was my great-uncle hugh. >> and paul jennings, uncle hugh's parents were franklin and mary jennings. they lived at 2121 k street northwest. beth showed you a picture actually of franklin standing in front of their home. that home was there until about

the late -- and i visited that home many times because my great-great-grandmother mary lived to be almost 100. she was 99. she kept the house wonderful with all kinds of artifacts including that portrait of paul jennings that you saw that hung in her house with many antiques, with swords from the spanish-american war, et cetera. so i did grow up actually seeing that and knowing about some of my history. and ironically, this area has been involved with my family for a long time because my mother actually taught at stevens elementary school, which was at 21st and l, and my brother and sister attended stevens in the elementary years.

i wound up at 24th and k at emaculate conception high school. and i would get to walk past my great-great-grandparents' house you know, a couple times a week. so i continued to be in this area and foggy bottom was, you know, home for me. also during the '80s, i worked down the street here at the va hospital and ate lunch many days in lafayette square not knowing that paul jennings had actually worked across the street, you know. had actually walked the same area that i was sitting out there eating in. and then even more ironic, i don't work down here anymore, when borders was getting ready to close on l street, you know, i was in borders. i said, i didn't realize it was so old down here in the basement. well, according to beth's research, this was paul

jenning's home. this had been part of his home, part of his foundation. so it's amazing how, you know, i'm still crossing paths with my ancestor. he's always been in my life, even though i didn't really know him. he's been there at some point or another. and even more ironic is my brother, who is now deceased, did his career at the department of interior for 30 years where paul worked at the department of interior. so those are just, you know, a couple tidbits to just kind of let you know how history has not left families sometimes. that even though we're not here at the same time, some of it continues. and even now part of the family

mayor xwri mary and franklin are actually buried in the old mount zion cemetery, as somebody mentioned earlier this hair presentation over in georgetown. they are buried in the black section, which is not kept up, but it does have the headstones that you can see the family names on. so thank you. and i want to thank beth especially for being interested and curious about paul jennings and who he was and everything to actually document all this history. i can't tell you how thankful i am personally for having that. i mean i couldn't have done it. i don't have those kind of resources. it's just phenomenal to be able to hear about what one of your ancestors did so many years ago. and thank you for the white

house historical association for having this presentation, including paul jennings as part of it. [ applause ] >> thank you all for sharing those stories. and as i was listening to you all, one of the things that i found really interesting and also exciting is that, you know, probably the four families that you represent are ones that you think of kind of prominent black families that you, you know, that represent families that we know much about. but yet, through all of the work you are doing, there's still so much more to know and so much more to research, which is interesting and exciting. with that, i want to open it up to the audience to see if anyone has any questions for our panelists. and there's someone who has a microphone and they will come to you. >> i'm directed towards mr. hammond.

have you searched through the slave manifest records in new orleans or attempted to do that looking for your syphax ancestor? >> thank you for the question. i'm actually beginning to do that right now. looking at the national archives and don and i are planning a trip right now to new orleans. so as we gather our list, we're going to go down there and see what we can find. i was told a lot of the manifests would potentially have names there. so we are hopeful. >> just as a suggestion, it's something that i have actually initiated. my folks come from norfolk, virginia. what i discovered was, and this is something that's been reemphasized throughout many of the presentations, is that a lot of the traders had private sales. and so where you would normally look in the deed records for evidence of these transactions, they are not there. one thing about new orleans is that they have these inward slave manifests. so you may not find them leaving, but you may find them arriving there.

i've been to the notarial archives in louisiana. they are phenomenal. the staff is top notch. they will go out of their way to help you. so i will suggest that you spend about a week or so going through those records. it's just volume after volume after volume. i just wanted to mention that simply because some of the records at the national archives, there's only one side to it. and there's a wealth in new orleans. there's just a whole different culture understanding the french government. one other thing i wanted to say to all of the descendants, i am really pleased to see you. i'm a genealogist and i'm the only african american on staff at the office, okay, and i came here because i was hoping to hear something more about your lineage. i have been fascinated by your families since i was a kid. i've read about your families. for quite a long time and have been fascinated by the

individual accomplishments and the continuity of those accomplishments, the effect, the influence that your ancestors had on our society. one question i wanted to ask each of you, or if you could answer this, when you found out at that juncture what your ancestor did, what kind of influence did it have on your life? >> steve? >> i guess the real big impact for me is when we found nancy syp syphax at the decatur house. this occurred here in d.c. happened to be at an event and they saw her name on the placard in the building that said nancy syphax lived here. and we were just floored because we have been looking to place nancy as opposed to her brother in arlington. it was exhilaration and it also

opened about a thousand more questions. >> does anyone else want to answer a question about what it meant when you first found out about how famous and historical your ancestors were? >> i did. i looked up and said, not that again. because i was a little child. it wasn't until i became a more mature person that i appreciated the significance. but i can remember my great-aunt, who is the little infant in the picture there, sitting me and trying to describe the scene and the frosted doors and the elegance she had, little horse and carriage. but she didn't spend so much time on that. she spent her time talking about honor and dignity and the way you carried yourself as being most important. on florida avenue, she lived

over one house on 8th and s. i went out with her just a little 6-year-old. 7-year-old. we were going to the corner. and some person who looked like he might not have had a meal in a long time walked by and said hello. and she hid with her umbrella. she said you take your hat off when a lady walks by. never forget that. i always take off my hat. >> i was in the seventh grade and my brother brought home a book called "great negroes in american history." he said, your great-grandfather's in there. i looked at the book and saw his picture in there. it was the first exposure i had to oscar de priest. and that summer we went to church camp up in northern michigan. and we were playing volleyball

and the ball went into the neighbor's yard. and there were three elderly black men sitting in the front yard on folding chairs. the ball bounced past one guy and i went and picked it up. and he said, boy, what's your name? and i said, my name is philip de priest. and he said, i used to work with your great-grandfather back in the '20s and '30s. and of course, i was like, 11 years old, and i didn't appreciate the connection. and i went back to the volleyball game. that was it. it wasn't until much later in my and my brother's appreciation for the de priests grew as we went to high school and then on

to college. i reestablished a relationship with my grandfather in chicago, oscar jr. and that's when the story started to come out. he had remarried back in the '40s. my step-grandmother, frankie, was a tremendous source of information. particularly considering jesse de priest. we had a lot of trouble finding out information about her. she was very, very quiet and reserved woman who didn't have a whole lot to say. she carried herself with great poise and dignity and class and was always very concerned about being courteous to other people, no matter who they were.