First lady Michelle Obama’s 2016 words captured the horrifying wrongs and hard-won achievements that epitomize the story of Black history at the White House ... to quarry stone, cut timber ...

For eight years, more than 200 enslaved people were forced to quarry stone, cut timber, make bricks and raise walls and roofs to help build the White House. Black free and enslaved people ...

But in the 1790s, it was a hub of activity: This island provided the stone for the White House. Historian and author William Seale has been coming to Government Island since 1974, when he began ...