McAlpin was fully aware of the history he had made. "Its significance cannot be emphasized too much," he wrote later. "From this source has come and will come some of the most startling and world-shaking news. That the colored press is now in at the source of such news with the privilege of asking questions, too, is a step forward without parallel in the 117-year history of our newspapers."

It was McAlpin's ardent wish to blend in. "I didn't want to appear any different from any of the other correspondents covering the White House," he told Early. But the white establishment running the Correspondents' Association was not ready to accept defeat. Going forward, the group would refuse to offer WHCA membership to McAlpin. And on that first day, of the 60 correspondents near him in the waiting room before the press conference, he said "only two of them came over to where I sat."

McAlpin did not criticize the others, calling this "natural. No one knew me. I had no sponsor. I preferred it that way, going in on my own and getting the natural reactions. I was there for business and so were they. They were chatting with friends—I hadn't made any yet."

When he came back three days later for his second press conference, he acknowledged that "the icy 'newness' of my being there had not worn off." He was grateful when "a charming member of the female contingent of White House correspondents" came over and introduced him to some others. To his relief, he wrote, "every introduction was graciously accepted, and no one turned or ran away immediately." McAlpin added that this woman continued to introduce him to more colleagues at the next five press conferences. "I have yet to meet one who hasn't proved to be a gentleman or a lady. Some of them probably are learning for the first time that it is possible to meet a Negro on a plane of equality and not have the world come tumbling down." But McAlpin was surprised to learn later that the woman making the introductions was the Washington correspondent for the Soviet news agency TASS.

Yet another bit of history was made that summer when McAlpin was given a seat on the special all-Pullman train arranged to take reporters from Washington to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. "It turned out that I was the only colored American on the whole train as a passenger," McAlpin wrote in a column in which he reported sitting in the lounge car drinking with other reporters and administration officials. "It's peculiar (or is it) how one brown face stands out so in a sea of white ones."

The white journalism establishment that tried to block such firsts came in for heavy criticism in the black press of the day. "Thanks to the president, color discrimination which had been imposed on the press at the White House and Capitol has been broken down," editorialized the Baltimore Afro-American. "It is a reflection upon the white press that it was not fair and decent enough to do it without being forced."