On June 25, 2020 the Historical Society presented an online conversation, “The Most Important City: How the U.S. Government Segregated its Workforce,” with historian Eric S. Yellin, author of Racism in the Nation’s Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson’s America, and Samir Meghelli, senior curator of the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum. Yellin and Meghelli explored the history of segregation of the federal government and how it has reverberated through the decades to influence life here in DC and around the nation.
"Racism and Anti-racism in the Federal Government" is an installment in the DC History Center’s Context for Today series of online conversations with thoughtful and thought-provoking historians, activists, journalists, and community members.
Eric S. Yellin is Associate Professor of History and American Studies at the University of Richmond. He is the author of Racism in the Nation’s Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson's America (UNC Press 2013) and the Senior Curatorial Consultant at the new Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. His public history writing has been featured in the Washington Post, USA Today, The Conversation, and elsewhere.
Samir Meghelli is the Senior Curator at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. He has authored, co-authored, and co-edited several works. His writings have also appeared in the New York Times, Philadelphia Tribune, and Washington Informer. Most recently, he curated A Right to the City, an exhibition that explores the history and contemporary dynamics of neighborhood change and community activism in Washington, DC.
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Lillian Rogers Parks worked as a domestic servant at the White House from 1931 to 1961. The papers include materials related to the publication in 1961 of Parks’ book, My Thirty Years Backstairs at The White House. Parks served during the administrations of presidents Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower.
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