Capitol Hill in Black and White Author:Robert Parker For thirty-five years, Robert Parker had a uniquely intimate view of wheeling, dealing, (and sometimes sinning) on power-hungry Capitol Hill. — Born a sharecropper's son, he was befriended by Lyndon Johnson in Washington in the early 1940's. Helped by Johnson and Hubert Humphrey, Parker became maitre d' of the Senate Dining Room in 1964, a post h... more »e held until his retirement in 1975. He moonlighted as a waiter for some of Washington's most influential people at their private parties. He saw and heard a lot (and a lot of what he wasn't supposed to) and it's all in this remarkable book.
Lyndon Johnson is the principal character in Parker's story. Theirs was a dramatic love-hate relationship. These memoirs are filled with anecdotes--sad, shocking, funny--about other powerful Washington personalities as well: Estes Kefauver, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Adam Clayton Powell, Hubert Humphrey, Everett Dirksen, James Eastland, and others.
These pages capture the drama of the civil rights movement from Harry Truman and the Freedom Train to Richard Nixon. It is also the powerful story of Robert Parker's growing commitment to that movement. Parker was privy to important secrets as he arranged private meetings between Dr. Martin Luther King and senators afraid to be seen in public with him. Parker personally integrated the Senate dining rooms and Staff Club.
Full of surprises, often moving, Robert Parker's memoirs are the illuminating recollections of a shrewd observant black man in an unusual, fascinating white world.« less