In wake of ‘The Butler’ success, African-American ex-White House staffers reflect

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As the 50th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham approached and thousands celebrated the recent March on Washington commemoration, former White House Butler George Hannie relived his journey from 1940s segregated Alabama to the regal second floor residence of the President of the United States.

Born and raised in Northport, Ala., a city in Tuscaloosa County, Hannie grew up in the Jim Crow South. He remembered the police kicking him off street corners, and threatening him and other black residents with sticks.

Hannie studied diligently at Northport’s Riverside High School in the 1960s, when the cries of four African-American girls bombed in the 16^th Street Baptist Church echoed throughout the nation, and Birmingham bled with police retaliation against nonviolent civil rights protests,

Lee Daniels’ film The Butler revealed the late Eugene Allen’s navigation through segregated America as a White House butler, but Allen’s story does not echo alone on the grounds of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In interviews with MSNBC, real White House butlers shared their full life stories for the first time.

In the movie, Eugene Allen’s character, played by Forest Whitaker as “Cecil Gaines,” witnessed lynching, rape, and economic inequality in his lifetime. When asked how his experience compared to Allen’s, Hannie, who served for 46 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson, paused and heaved a melancholic sigh.

“I think the movie was very accurate –right on key,” he said emphatically with a Southern accent. “One hundred percent accurate. You understand?”

Read the rest of this story on the Melissa Harris-Perry show blog.