Upcoming Exhibit:

The Half Had Not
Been Told Me:
African Americans on Lafayette Square

Open to the public

April 23, 2008 -
March 1, 2009

CURRENT EXHIBIT
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THE HALF HAD NOT BEEN TOLD ME:

AFRICAN AMERICANS ON LAFAYETTE SQUARE (1795-1965)

The Half Had Not Been Told Me: African Americans on Lafayette Square (1795-1965) is a special exhibit showing at Decatur House during the 145th anniversary year of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln. It explores the rich and varied experiences of African Americans within the unique landscape of the White House neighborhood.

The exhibit’s title is taken from the memoirs of Frederick Douglass, who described his first impressions of the beautiful Freedmen’s Savings & Trust Company building, once located where today stands the Treasury Annex. Recalling his emotions upon seeing the bank’s headquarters, he wrote:

”The whole thing was beautiful . . . I felt like the Queen of Sheba when she saw the riches of Solomon,
that ‘the half had not been told me.’”

Just like the riches of King Solomon to which Douglass referred, the African American history of Lafayette Square is indeed a treasure, but it is one that has not had significant public exposure in the past. The exhibition breaks new ground in the interpretation of the Square’s history, and features items never publicly exhibited before.

The Half Had Not Been Told Me, which also complements a cell phone audio tour of the same title that Decatur House premiered in April 2007, is installed in the former slave quarters on the property. Today, this building is one of only a precious few urban slave quarters left in the United States, and is entirely unique as the only remaining physical evidence that African Americans were held in bondage in sight of the Executive Mansion.