When Shenandoah first welcomed visitors in 1936, Virginia's Jim Crow laws required segregation, creating a dilemma for the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior as they developed lodging, campgrounds, and other amenities. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, a civil rights advocate who had arranged Marian Anderson's concert at the Lincoln Memorial after she was barred from Constitution Hall, pressed for plans for black visitors but agreed to follow the NPS policy of separate facilities to conform to Virginia customs while continuing to argue for an end to segregation in national parks. Lewis Mountain opened in 1939 for the exclusive use of negroes, and signs and maps throughout Shenandoah directed visitors to White Only and Negro areas. Complaints followed, and that same year Ickes ordered the beginning of gradual desegregation by opening Pinnacles Picnic Grounds to all visitors. In 1950 Shenandoah National Park's facilities were legally integrated, nearly a decade and a half before other public areas in Virginia were forced to desegregate by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. From 1941 to 1953, Lloyd Tutt managed Lewis Mountain and created a fun and relaxing atmosphere for locals and tourists who returned year after year. Lewis Mountain became known for its food, and Tutt allowed whites to use the dining room while keeping the lodge and campground separate. The family of Chester A. Franklin, publisher of Kansas City's The Call, vacationed there regularly, and President Harry S Truman visited twice with Franklin, accompanied by Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the U.S. Army's first African American general; the three men and their families ate together at Lewis Mountain Lodge.