A man with an Alabama license plate drove up to greet Hannie, and the two became friends because of their home state connection. Working in a navy exchange store in Washington, D.C., while his father served as a petty officer, Hannie landed a job at the White House through an unexpected visitor to the store. I said to myself well, my mother is just as important as all those kings and queens. “She was so nervous, but enjoyed herself. “The most memorable moment I had at the White House is seeing my mother walk up North Portico, all alone, to visit me and George and Barbara Bush in their personal quarters,” Hannie said. In telling his story, Hannie focused on the gleaming stories of triumph, epitomized in the love he shared for his mother. He reflected on the moment he escorted his mother up North Portico, the regal entrance to the White House, where he often saw kings, queens, and presidents walk. “I think the movie was very accurate –right on key,” he said emphatically with a Southern accent. Johnson, paused and heaved a melancholic sigh. When asked how his experience compared to Allen’s, Hannie, who served for 46 years since President Lyndon B. In the movie, Eugene Allen’s character, played by Forest Whitaker as “Cecil Gaines,” witnessed lynching, rape, and economic inequality in his lifetime. In interviews with MSNBC, real White House butlers shared their full life stories for the first time. 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. 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, He remembered the police kicking him off street corners, and threatening him and other black residents with sticks. Born and raised in Northport, Ala., a city in Tuscaloosa County, Hannie grew up in the Jim Crow South.
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