Sam Marks

@sammarks11.bsky.social

206 Followers 352 Following

Washington, D.C. History buff. Metro rider https://linktr.ee/smarks11

Superstar singer and actress Eartha Kitt (Jan 17, 1927 – Dec 25, 2008) was invited to a White House luncheon by First Lady Lady Bird Johnson on (Jan 18, 1968). At the luncheon, the topic of youth "delinquency" came up with other attendants questioning why younger Americans were rebelling so much. Kitt was much more understanding of their plight: "We raise our children and send them to war," Kitt said. For her public opposition to the Vietnam War (which was shared privately by many who attended the luncheon) President Johnson blacklisted her from venues in the US and set up a CIA smear campaign against her. Kitt left the U.S. to tour Europe and Asia, where she found tremendous success. She returned to the U.S. following the Vietnam War, and even to the White House in 1978 after accepting an invitation from President Jimmy Carter.
Photo by Yoichi Okamoto (July 5, 1915 – April 24, 1985). Okamoto was a Japanese-American photographer who was the head of the American Information Service in Austria (USIS) from 1948 to 1954. He later served as the first presidential photographer to Lyndon B. Johnson.
US President Gerald Ford hosts soccer (football) superstar Pele at the White House.
Charles C. Ebbets (August 18, 1905 – July 14, 1978)
Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792 – August 11, 1868) - Member of U.S. Congress from Pennsylvania during the Civil War and Reconstruction. - Consistent advocate for abolition of slavery and promoted equal rights for African Americans throughout his entire career. - Chaired the Ways and Means Committee to effectively fund the Union War effort and Freedman's Bureau. - Believed land in former successionist states should be confiscated and redistributed to African Americans. - Leader of the Radical Republicans and deeply critical of Moderate Republicans' slow-going on Reconstruction and racial equality. - Buried in Lancaster, PA's Shreiner Cemetery, the first cemetery in the city that had no restrictions on race for internment. - His headstone inscription reads: "I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited as to race, by charter rules, I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death the principles which I advocated through a long life, equality of man before his Creator."