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    The Butler: A Witness to History
    The Butler: A Witness to History
    The Butler: A Witness to History
    Ebook151 pages1 hour

    The Butler: A Witness to History

    By Wil Haygood

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    This mesmerizing companion book to the award-winning film, The Butler traces the Civil Rights Movement and explores crucial moments of twentieth century American history through the eyes of Eugene Allen—a White House butler who served eight presidents over the course of thirty-four years.

    During the presidencies of Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, Eugene Allen was a butler in the most famous of residences: the White House. An African American who came of age during the era of Jim Crow, Allen served tea and supervised buffets while also witnessing some of the most momentous decisions made during the second half of the twentieth century, including Lyndon B. Johnson’s work during the Civil Rights Movement and Ronald Reagan getting tough on apartheid. But even as Allen witnessed the Civil Rights legislation develop, his family, friends, and neighbors were still contending with Jim Crow America.

    Timely, “poignant and powerful” (Kirkus Reviews) The Butler also explores Eugene Allen and his family’s background along with the history of African Americans in Hollywood and also features a foreword by the film’s director Lee Daniels.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateJul 30, 2013
    ISBN9781476753270
    Author

    Wil Haygood

    A Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities fellow and a writer for the Washington Post, Wil Haygood has been described as a cultural historian. He is the author of a trio of iconic biographies. His King of the Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., told the story of the enigmatic New York congressman and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. That was followed—after publication of a family memoir—by In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr., which was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor Music Biography Award, the Zora Neale Hurston-Richard Wright Legacy Award, and the Nonfiction Book of the Year Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. In 2009, he wrote Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson, which told the story of the famed New York pugilist known as much for his prowess in the ring as his elegant style outside of it. Haygood is an associate producer of Lee Daniels’ The Butler.

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    Reviews for The Butler

    3.5/5

    24 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Quite good. Parallel stories of father and son over time as they try to find their place in a world both full of and fighting racism. Based on the life of Cecil Gaines, a boy from a cotton farm who becomes a White House butler to several Presidents.
    • 3/5
      The Butler is a brief but intriguing look at the life of Eugene Allen, who became a White House butler and served for more than three decades before, during, and after the civil rights movement. On one level, it is Allen’s personal story, and on another level, it is the story of African-Americans in the 20th century. Although the book left me wanting more – something the movie did not provide – The Butler is worth a read.
    • 5/5
      This is a lovely little book, and a nice accompaniment to the movie. The photos and history of the man whose life provided the inspiration for the movie were interesting, and I enjoyed reading about how this project came about. I also liked the history of Black people in the movie industry that led up to there being so many great actors available to be cast in this movie. It is crazy to think about how the United States was just a few decades ago, and to realize how impossible a movie like this would have been just 50 years ago. I definitely recommend reading this book and watching the movie.
    • 1/5
      There are no words to describe how disappointed I was by The Butler by Wil Haygood. What I was expecting was a book about Eugene Allen - you know, the famous man who was the White House butler and served eight American Presidents. Basically, you know, what was written in the summary of the book. But I should have been forewarned because look at the first line of that summary - it's a lauding of all of the accolades of Wil Haygood. And that's ultimately what The Butler was about - Wil Haywood's story as he sought out the man who inspired the story.Read the rest of this review at The Lost Entwife on Dec. 1, 2013.
    • 3/5
      The audio of this book is read by people involved in the movie that was created about this little slice of history: the story around the black man who served 8 presidents in the White House, as a butler, during the times when the Civil Rights Movement.Some parts were amazing, some too brief, but the story is a fascinating one.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book about Eugene Allen, a butler at the White House during the administrations of Presidents Truman through Reagan. The first part of the book is an expansion of an article appearing in the Washington Post around the time of President Obama's 2008 election. The author wanted to find a black person who had served in the White House for several decades; he found Eugene Allen. The story includes the author's search for such a person, his interview with Allen and his wife, Helene, and seeing all the memorabilia they had, and Allen's story of working in the White House, and his attending the inauguration of President Obama. The second part of the book is basically an interesting history of blacks in U.S. movies including both their portrayal and the number of black actors, actresses, etc. up through the making of the movie, "The Butler." Also included are 16 pages of plates, many in color, both of Mr. Allen himself and of the movie.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to like this book more than I did. I actually felt like I should like it more. But I didn't. I confess that I watched the movie before picking up the book and the movie was pretty awesome. It was a disappointment to find that the book and the movie, with the exception of having the same setting and circumstance, were vastly different. The names of the main character were not even the same.This is really too bad. Because this is an important story, a tragic but inspiring life to learn about. But in this format it falls short. Making this one of the few times I can honestly say the movie was better.The first half of the book is the author's recollections of meeting Eugene Allen, the butler, and his desire on the eve of Barack Obama's campaign run to write an article of Eugene's tenure in the White House. The second half of the story is dedicated to telling the story of the making of the movie. It actually seems that more time is dedicated in the book, The Butler, to addressing Hollywood and the movie the Butler as well as the cinema's treatment of African American actors than is given to Eugene Allen.See the movie, skip the book.
    • 3/5
      3 stars for very interesting content and intriguing characters. But come on with all of the hollywood garbage! I was waiting for more but was let down by the celebrity junk...
    • 3/5
      Too short and not enough history... Felt like a newspaper article
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed the movie when it came out but reading this first hand story was so heartwarming. I can't imagine what secrets Mr. Allen could tell!

    Book preview

    The Butler - Wil Haygood

    This book is dedicated to the memory of Laura Ziskin

    CONTENTS

    FOREWORD: LEE DANIELS

    THE BUTLER’S JOURNEY

    MOVING IMAGE

    FIVE PRESIDENTS IN THE STRUGGLE

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    Photographs

    About the Authors

    Notes

    First Lady Nancy Reagan was impressed with Eugene Allen’s style.

    FOREWORD

    WHILE THE MOVIE The Butler is set against historical events, the title character and his family are fictionalized. From the moment I read Wil Haygood’s article about him in the Washington Post, I was very moved by the real life of Eugene Allen. I remember Wil Haygood sharing with me his inspiration for writing his original article. On the cusp of Obama’s election he sought to find an African American butler who had seen firsthand the civil rights movement from both within and outside the White House. Wil knocked on Mr. Allen’s door and was greeted by a humble and elegant man and his gracious wife, who spent the afternoon sharing stories and showing treasure troves of memorabilia discreetly lining the walls of his basement.

    When I first read Danny Strong’s screenplay of The Butler, I knew I had to direct this film. Inspired by films like Gone with the Wind, I thought if I could capture even half of what that film accomplished, I would be onto something magical. But, most important, I saw a way to frame the story: I’d contrast the history of the times, particularly the fight for civil rights equality, against what would become the heart of the film, the evolution of a father-son relationship. While the father witnessed directly the role each president played in dictating the course of civil rights, the son rebelled against what he perceived as the subservience of his father. He aggressively took his fight for equality to the streets, even if it meant sacrificing his life. In the end, this is a story of healing, both for our nation and most importantly for father and son, as each man came to respect the pivotal and essential role the other played in the course of changing history. This is the emotional and universal anchor of this movie and subject matter I very much wanted to explore.

    And while this father and son and family are fictional characters, we were able to borrow some extraordinary moments from Eugene’s real life to weave into the movie—such as the grieving Jacqueline Kennedy giving one of the slain president’s ties to the butler, and Nancy Reagan inviting the butler and his wife to a state dinner. Eugene Allen was a remarkable man, and I am happy and grateful that Wil Haygood had the passion and perseverance to find him and to bring his story to life in his article and through this book, which expands the story.

    Allen serving guests on the White House lawn during the Eisenhower years.

    Allen serving Eisenhower and guests during a discussion of civil rights, c. 1955.

    THE BUTLER’S JOURNEY

    HE WAS OUT there somewhere. By now he’d be an old man. He had worked decades in the White House. Maybe he had passed away virtually alone, and there had been only a wisp of an obituary notice. But no one could confirm if that were so. Maybe I was looking for a ghost. Actually, I was looking for a butler. I couldn’t stop looking.

    Yes, a butler.

    It is such an old-fashioned and anachronistic term: the butler. Someone who serves people, who sees but doesn’t see; someone who can read the moods of the people he serves. The figure in the shadows. Movie lovers fell in love with the butler as a cinematic figure in the 1936 film My Man Godfrey, which starred William Powell as the butler of a chaotic household. More recently, the butler figure and other backstage players have been popularized in the beloved television series Downton Abbey. My butler was a gentleman by the name of Eugene Allen. For thirty-four years, he had been a butler at the house located in Washington, DC, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which the world knows as the White House.

    Finally, after talking to many, many people, on both coasts of the country, and making dozens and dozens of phone calls, I found him. He was very much alive. He was living with his wife, Helene, on a quiet street in Northwest Washington. Eugene Allen had worked—as a butler—in eight presidential administrations, from Harry Truman’s to Ronald Reagan’s. He was both a witness to history and unknown to it.

    Come right in, he said, opening the door to his home on that cold November day in 2008. He had already taken his morning medications. He had already served his wife breakfast. He was eighty-nine years old, and he was about to crack history open for me in a whole new way.

    This is how the story of a White House butler—who would land in newsprint the world over after a story I had written appeared on the front page of the Washington Post three days after the historic election on November 4, 2008, of Barack Obama—actually unspooled.

    IT ALL BEGAN in summery darkness in 2008, down in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Midnight had come and gone, and the speech was being summed up and analyzed and written about. Yet another Democratic presidential hopeful had been pleading with a throng of students and voters about why they should vote for him. The rafters of what is known as the Dean Dome on the campus of the University of North Carolina were packed. The candidate, who possessed a smooth and confident disposition, was on his way. The audience was multiracial, young and old. The instantly recognizable guttural voice of Stevie Wonder was jumping from the loudspeakers. Some of the old in attendance were veterans of the movement, as in civil rights movement: the sixties, segregation, those brave souls gunned down and buried all across the South. Now the candidate was before them, shirtsleeves rolled up, holding the microphone. I’m running because of what Dr. King called the fierce urgency of now, because I believe in such a thing as being too late, and that hour, North Carolina, is upon us. The words had a churchy, movement feel to them, and then–senator Barack Obama was effortlessly lifting the throng up out of their seats. The noise and clapping pointed to believers. But still, it was the South, he was a black man, the White House seemed a bit of a fantastical dream. History and demons were everywhere, though the candidate seemed impervious to all that.

    I was one of the writers covering the Obama campaign that night for the Washington Post, flying in and out of a slew of states over a seven-day period. Following the Chapel Hill rally and speech—and after I’d interviewed a few folks inside—it was time to move outside and head for the bus, which would take us journalists back to the hotel. The night air was sweet and rather lovely.

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