The townhouse at 31 Grace Court housed two of the country's most illustrious writers and thinkers. Playwright Arthur Miller lived there in the 1940s when he wrote "Death of a Salesman" and "All My Sons." In 1951, Miller sold the house to W. E. B. Du Bois, the great author, intellectual and co-founder of the NAACP. At the time, Du Bois' political activism placed him under McCarthy-era scrutiny and he was soon the subject of a federal indictment for failing to register the Peace Information Center as an agent of a foreign government. Miller, whose own politics led to his being blacklisted, sold Du Bois the house just before the trial commenced. Charges were ultimately dismissed after the defense attorney told the judge that "Dr. Albert Einstein has offered to appear as character witness for Dr. Du Bois". During the decade that Du Bois and his wife Shirley Graham lived here, the house became gathering place for progressive politics and cultural icons, Paul Robeson would regularly drop in and play their piano. To the great annoyance of the US government, diplomats would regularly visit the Du Bois household, until after the Russian foreign minister's visit, when the State Department ruled 31 Grace Court off-limits for UN delegations.