Ferguson controversy

In March 1984, a controversy arose when Lena Lorraine Santos Ferguson said she had been denied membership in a Washington, D.C. chapter of the DAR because she was black.[16] The reporter Ronald Kessler quoted Ferguson’s two white sponsors, Margaret M. Johnston and Elizabeth E. Thompson, as saying that although Ferguson met the lineage requirements and could trace her ancestry to Jonah Gay, fellow DAR members told them that Ferguson was not wanted because she was black.

Sarah M. King, the president general of the DAR, said that each of the DAR’s more than 3,000 local chapters decides if it wishes to accept members. Asked if she thought this acceptable, she said, “If you give a dinner party, and someone insisted on coming and you didn’t want them, what would you do?” King continued, “Being black is not the only reason why some people have not been accepted into chapters. There are other reasons: divorce, spite, neighbors’ dislike. I would say being black is very far down the line … There are a lot of people who are troublemakers. You wouldn’t want them in there because they could cause some problems.”[16]

After the publicity about the comments, the D.C. City Council threatened to revoke the DAR’s real estate tax exemption. King said that Ferguson should have been admitted and said her application to join the DAR was handled “inappropriately”. Representing Ferguson free of charge, lawyers from the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson began working with King to develop positive ways to ensure that blacks would not be discriminated against when applying for membership. The DAR changed its bylaws to bar discrimination “on the basis of race or creed”. King announced a resolution to recognize “the heroic contributions of black patriots in the American Revolution”.

As a result of the Washington Post story, Ferguson, a retired school secretary, was admitted to the DAR. “I wanted to honor my mother and father as well as my black and white heritage,” Ferguson said after being admitted. “And I want to encourage other black women to embrace their own rich history, because we’re all Americans.” She became chairman and founder of the D.C. DAR Scholarship Committee. She died in March 2004 at the age of 75.