this is a story

about a black man in the white house. no, it's NOT about barack obama. it's about gene (eugene) allen. it's about mr allen and a those that came before him and those that will come after him. it's about a man simply doing his job. it's about a man who had NOT missed a day of work in 34 years. it's about a man who, when he started his current job, couldn't use the same rest room (in virginia) as that of a white man.

please read this story. it's about much more than a man in a kitchen.

A Butler Well Served by This Election

For 34 Years, Eugene Allen Carried White House Trays With Pride. Now There's Even More Reason to Carry Himself That Way.

By Wil Haygood

Washington Post Staff Writer
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, his wife, Helene, keeping him out of her kitchen.

At the White House, he worked closer to the dirty dishes than to the large desk in 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 says.

His is a story from the back pages of history. A figure in the tiniest of print. The man in the kitchen.........

all colored to the back of the bus NOW

no, it's not 1955, or is it?
Swimming in Rosa Parks' Footsteps: Workers for the Wealthiest Still Struggle for Dignity
Posted by Eliseo Medina, AlterNet
...........On Thursday, December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks put in a full day at her department store job in Montgomery, Ala. After work she got on the bus, paid her fare, got back off and re-boarded through the bus’s back door (as was required of black passengers at the time), and took a seat in the “colored” seating section…
On Friday, August 31st, 2007, security officer Wisly Jonatas clocked out of work at 11 p.m. after his evening shift on Fisher Island, an exclusive, private island off the coast of Miami, Fla. Like all Fisher Island service workers, Wisly took the ferry to and from the island for work every day. Tired from a long day at work, Wisly walked onto the ferry and sat down in the ferry’s segregated employee lounge…...........

.................Wisly had just taken his seat in the ferry’s segregated employee lounge when the ferry captain summoned and reprimanded him for not following a newly-instituted rule that prohibits workers from walking past island residents’ parked cars on the ferry to get to the employee lounge. For his insubordination, Wisly was forced to get off the ferry and wait for the next one. Five days later, he was fired from his job on the island….............