E. Frederic Morrow

{{short description|American businessman and politician (1909–1994)}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| office = Administrative Officer for Special Projects

| party = Republican

| birth_date = {{birth date|1909|4|20}}

| death_date = {{death date and age|1994|7|19|1909|4|20}}

| birth_place = Hackensack, New Jersey, U.S.

| relations = John H. Morrow (brother)

| termstart = July 11, 1955

| termend = January 20, 1961

| president = Dwight D. Eisenhower

| predecessor = Position established

| successor = None

| alma_mater = Bowdoin College
Rutgers University

| death_place = New York City, New York, U.S.

| spouse = {{marriage|Catherine Louise Gordon|1957}}

| allegiance = {{flag|United States|1912}}

| serviceyears = 1942–1946

| rank = Major

| branch = United States Army

| image = E. Frederic Morrow.png

| image_size = 200px

}}

Everett Frederic Morrow (April 20, 1909 – July 19, 1994) was the first African American to hold an executive position at the White House. He served President Dwight Eisenhower as Administrative Officer for Special Projects from 1955 to 1961.

Early life

Morrow was born in Hackensack, New Jersey.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/21/obituaries/e-frederic-morrow-88-aide-in-eisenhower-administration.html|title=E. Frederic Morrow, 88, Aide In Eisenhower Administration|last=Saxon|first=Wolfgang|date=1994-07-21|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=2016-01-25|issn=0362-4331}} Morrow's father was John Eugene Morrow, a library custodian, who became an ordained Methodist minister in 1912, and his mother was Mary Ann Hayes, a former farm worker and maid. His grandparents had been enslaved.

He graduated from Hackensack High School in 1925, where he participated for three years on the school's debate team, serving as its president during his senior year.Birkner, Michael J. [https://njs.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/njs/article/download/84/119 "From Hackensack to the White House: The Triumph and Travail of E. Frederic Morrow"], NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Summer 2017. Accessed November 25, 2017. "Educated in a segregated elementary school but permitted to matriculate at the integrated Hackensack High School, Morrow participated in a wide range of student activities, including theatrical productions and the debate club."[http://www.blackpast.org/aah/morrow-e-frederic-1909-1994 "Morrow, Everett Frederic (1909–1994)"], BlackPast.org. Accessed November 25, 2017. "Everett Frederic Morrow, the son of John Eugene Morrow, a library custodian who became an ordained Methodist minister in 1912 and Mary Ann Hayes, a former farm worker and maid, was born on April 9, 1909 in Hackensack, New Jersey. He graduated from Hackensack High School in 1925, where he not only served on the debate team for three years, but was their president his senior year." He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.{{Cite journal|date=Spring 1961|title=Brother E. Frederic Morrow|url=https://issuu.com/apa1906network/docs/196104601|journal=The SPHINX|volume=46|issue=1|pages=27|via=Issuu}}

His brother, John H. Morrow, was Ambassador to Guinea and American representative to UNESCO.

Education

A graduate of the law school of Rutgers University, he attended Bowdoin College from 1926 to 1930, where he was one of two African American students in attendance.Willcox, Isobel. [https://www.nytimes.com/1973/07/15/archives/hackensack-is-recalled-as-hostile-racist-town-sister-met-opposition.html?_r=0 "Hackensack Is Recalled As Hostile, Racist Town"], The New York Times, July 15, 1973. Accessed November 25, 2017. "After his four years at Hackensack High School, Mr. Morrow attended and was graduated from Bowdoin College, served as a major in the Army during World War II and earned a law degree at Rutgers University School of Law." Morrow had to return home before graduating to assist his family. (Bowdoin awarded him an honorary LL.D. degree in 1970.{{Cite web|url=http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/subject/bowdoin/honors/Morrow70.pdf|title=Bowdoin University|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901182155/http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/subject/bowdoin/honors/Morrow70.pdf|archive-date=2006-09-01|access-date=2019-03-10}})

Early career

In 1935, Morrow held a position as a business manager for Opportunity Magazine, a part of the National Urban League. Two years later, he became a field secretary for the NAACP, before joining the United States Army during World War II. In 1942, after only a month of serving in the US army as a private, he was promoted to sergeant. He soon after graduated from Officers Candidate School, and was discharged in 1946 as a Major of Artillery. Later, he was a writer for CBS.

Political activity and White House period

File:President Dwight Eisenhower and E. Frederic Morrow.jpg Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956]]

After serving on Eisenhower's 1952 campaign staff, Morrow served as an adviser at the U.S. Commerce Department. He then moved to the White House as Administrative Officer for Special Projects, becoming the first African American to hold an executive position in the White House.

The White House Historical Association wrote of his tenure:{{Cite web|url=http://www.whitehousehistory.org/05/subs/05_c17.html|title=Timelines: 1950s – African Americans|website=White House Historical Association|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061002224049/http://www.whitehousehistory.org/05/subs/05_c17.html|archive-date=2006-10-02}}

As the sole African American on a staff dealing with racial tensions related to integration, Morrow faced difficult personal and professional struggles at the White House. The Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the Little Rock crisis were the backdrop for Morrow's White House years. On a staff with a civil-rights policy that was at best cautious, Morrow was often frustrated and angered. He lived at a time when qualified African Americans were excluded from high-level political positions. Morrow as a black 'first' found relations within the president's 'official family' to be 'correct in conduct, but cold.'

Morrow campaigned for Richard Nixon in Nixon's unsuccessful 1960 presidential campaign, including a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention and a role in the Vice-Presidential selection caucus.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fCzeDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA95|title=Black Republicans and the Transformation of the GOP|last=Farrington|first=Joshua D.|date=2016-09-20|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=9780812248524|pages=95|language=en}}

Post-White House life

In 1964, Morrow became the first African American vice-president of Bank of America, retiring from the company in 1975. He died on July 19, 1994, at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

Books and papers

After the 1960 campaign, Morrow wrote a book on his experiences, Black Man in the White House.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=851VDQAAQBAJ|title=Black Man in the White House|last=Morrow|first=E. Frederic|date=2014-01-31|publisher=BookBaby|isbn=9780989671446|language=en}} In it, Morrow said:{{cite journal|last1=Jackson|first1=Jesse|date=October 1963|title=The Man in the Middle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=slsEAAAAMBAJ&dq=frederic+e+morrow&pg=PA506|journal=Crisis Magazine|issue=October|page=508|access-date=May 19, 2015}}

I have discovered certain peculiarities in the White House top staff. There is little sentiment at anyone's downfall. There may be outward expressions of sympathy, but each man is primarily concerned with his own survival, and there's always the possibility that another's misfortune will ease the pressure on him.

In Morrow's book, he speaks of many accounts where he suffered from racism on personal and professional levels. He also refers to multiple occasions when he was mistaken for a coat boy or taxi driver while working.

In 1973, Morrow published his first autobiography, Way Down South Up North, focusing on racism "up north", in his hometown of Hackensack, New Jersey.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/07/15/archives/hackensack-is-recalled-as-hostile-racist-town-sister-met-opposition.html|title=Hackensack Is Recalled As Hostile, Racist Town|last=Wellcox|first=Isobel|date=1973-07-15|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-03-11|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} In 1980, after retiring from Bank of America, Morrow published his last autobiography, Forty Years a Guinea Pig: A Black Man's View from the Top.{{Cite journal|date=December 1982|title=What Happens After the Cheering Stops?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6NgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA124|journal=Ebony|pages=124}}

Some of his papers are at the Eisenhower Presidential Library,{{Cite web|url=https://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/Research/Finding_Aids/pdf/Morrow_E_Frederic_Papers.pdf|title=MORROW, E. FREDERIC: Papers, 1952–63|website=Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library}} the Chicago Public Library's Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature,{{Cite web|url=https://www.chipublib.org/fa-e-frederic-morrow-papers/|title=E. Frederic Morrow Papers|website=Chicago Public Library|language=en-US|access-date=2019-03-11}} and the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, LA.{{Cite web|url=https://amistad-finding-aids.tulane.edu/repositories/2/resources/294|title=E. Frederic Morrow papers|website=Amistad Research Center|language=en-US|access-date=2023-12-20}}