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For one who had run for President of a civil rights platform and had won, and for one who had done so much for civil rights in serving out the remainder of President Roosevelt's term, I thought it would ill-behoove the President to have a jim crow segregated inaugural and went to Washington to tell him so. He was amazed that such was being planned, and agreed with me that he wanted no part of separate balls or other social activities as part of the official events. He telephoned the chairman of the inauguration in my presence and told him that there would be ONE ball and everyone invited would attend and he wanted him to make sure that a good percentage of Negroes were invited.

Pleading that he did not have a list of national Negroes to invite, the chairman was told by the President that a man named Fred Weaver would send him the list. The segregated ball was cancelled to the anger of Dawson and Smith, and everyone on the list submitted by me was invited and most attended.

I then told the President that he would further endear himself to Negroes if he would let a Negro band play at the inaugural ball. It would be a significant first. All he asked was who can we get, and I said Lionel Hampton. Again he called the inaugural chairman and was told that they already had retained the bands of Meyer Davis and Xavier Cugat. The President said, "engage one more - Lionel Hampton." "Why Lionel Hampton?" the chairman retorted. "Because I want the place to jump," said the President. Lionel Hampton became the first Negro band to play for an inaugural dance. 

The President's personal reception, usually held at the White House, was held at the Statler Hotel, 16th & K Streets, when the President was told that Negroes were not being accepted as guests at the white hotels. He thought that by holding his reception at a hotel instead of the White House, the hotel would not dare refuse his Black guests admission. And they did't. It was a beaming President and a charming First Lady who shook my hand as I moved down the receiving line. With his wink I knew what he was saying. He was a man of guts and determination. In my book he was this Country's greatest President. 

Copyright [[copyright symbol]] 1976 by Frederick S. Weaver
All rights reserved.

[[image - black and white photograph of Truman and Hulan Jack shaking hands]]
[[caption]] President Harry S.  Truman congratulates Bro. Hulan Jack, former New York City Borough President. [[/caption]]

[[image - black and white photo of William H. Hastie]]
[[caption]]
WILLIAM H. HASTIE
U.S. Federal Judge, 3rd Circuit,
Philadelphia
[[/caption]]

The first Negro federal judge in U.S. history (1949), William Hastie was also the first Negro governor of the Virgin Islands. 

Hastie was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on November 17th, 1904. First in his class and Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst in 1925, he received his LL. B. from Harvard University Law School five years later and almost immediately went into private practice.

In 1933, having been awarded a doctorate in juridical science by Harvard, he abandoned his own practice for an appointment as assistant solicitor of the U.S. Department of Labor. Secretary Harold Ickes was so impressed with his abilities that he urged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to name him judge of the District Court of the Virgin Islands. Two years later, however, Hastie resigned the judgeship to become a professor and, later, dean of the Howard University Law School.

Hastie left this administrative post in 1940 in order to accept the job of civilian aide and race relations advisor to Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Three years later, he resigned from this position in the wake of a decision by the Army to set up a segregated Air Corps Technical Training School in Missouri.

In 1943, Hastie was the recipient of the highly coveted NAACP Spingarn Medal. 

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