President Roosevelt won reelection for a second term in 1936 in a landslide, losing only two states. One element in his sweeping win was the support of the African American community. Traditionally, African Americans had voted for the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, who had freed the slaves. Herbert Hoover had received the majority of their votes in the 1932 election, but the New Deal legislation of the Roosevelt administration, as well as Eleanor’s personal advocacy for African American concerns, was swinging their votes to the Democrats.
With four more years of a Roosevelt administration ahead of her, Eleanor was again ready to use her position as First Lady to advance the cause of civil rights in ways large and small.
Moving a chair might not seem like a big deal, but it was in 1938, when Eleanor was attending the Southern Conference for Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama. On the first day of the large gathering, white and black attendees had mixed freely. When the police commissioner, Eugene “Bull” Connor—later to become infamous for his cruel treatment of civil rights protesters—got wind of this, he sent police to the auditorium the next day to make sure segregation laws were enforced.
The police arrived at municipal auditorium and told the participants they had to segregate themselves according to race. Eleanor, who had taken a seat next to her friend, Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, was informed personally that she needed to get up and move to the white section. The First Lady had her own solution to the problem. She picked up her chair and placed it in the center aisle, on neither the black nor the white side of the room. And there she sat for the rest of the program.
At Eleanor’s suggestion, Mary had already been appointed to an important post in the Roosevelt administration. She was named director of Negro Affairs for the National Youth Administration, where she successfully oversaw programs that helped tens of thousands of young black people find jobs or be accepted in job training programs. The governmental appointment didn’t stop Mary’s other civil rights activities, and because she was friends with the First Lady, her concerns got a fair hearing at the White House.
There was, however, something about the relationship between the two women that bothered Eleanor. It was her habit to give her women friends a friendly peck on the cheek when she greeted them. Yet she didn’t kiss Mary, and she knew it was because she didn’t feel comfortable kissing a black person. One day, without thinking about it, she kissed her. Eleanor’s daughter, Anna, reported years later that this kiss was a personal milestone for her mother.
Another prominent African American woman was affected by the actions of the First Lady. The opera singer Marian Anderson was known around the world for her magnificent contralto voice. She had already sung for a small group at the White House. But in 1939, Anderson’s manager wanted to hold a concert in Washington, D.C. The only venue large enough to hold the anticipated crowd was Constitution Hall, which was owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), a group of white women descended from those who fought in the Revolutionary War or aided in gaining independence from Britain. The organization informed Anderson’s manager that Constitution Hall was “not available to Negro artists.”
Marian Anderson said she was “shocked beyond words to be barred from the capital of my own country after having appeared in almost every other capital of the world.”
Eleanor was a member of the DAR, and she was disgusted when she learned that the group had refused to let a black artist, and a distinguished one at that, perform at Constitution Hall. She resigned from the organization, writing in her letter, “You had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way, and it seems to me that your organization failed.”
Both Eleanor and Franklin encouraged the secretary of the interior, Harold Ickes, to arrange for an outdoor concert for Anderson on the steps of the majestic Lincoln Memorial. Then, the First Lady used her contacts in radio to have the concert broadcast across the country. On April 13, 1939, Secretary Ickes introduced Marian Anderson with the words, “Genius knows no color line.”
Eleanor’s role in having Marian Anderson sing at the Lincoln Memorial included her suggestion that the NAACP use the radio broadcast of the event to raise money for their organization. Here she meets with the singer in Japan in 1953.
With the statue of Abraham Lincoln behind her, the singer began her concert with “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” and ended it with the Negro spiritual, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” Seventy-five thousand people, black and white, turned out that Easter Sunday to hear Marian Anderson sing.
Eleanor’s outreach to African Americans did not go unnoticed, especially when they were invited guests to the White House, a place built with slave labor. Notable African Americans had visited the White House before. Abraham Lincoln had met with abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth there during the Civil War. Educator and author Booker T. Washington was the first African American to be invited for dinner then, by Theodore Roosevelt in 1901. But Eleanor made the White House even more inclusive. As early as 1934, she was making her social agenda clear by inviting both political friends like Mary McLeod Bethune and Walter White and everyday African Americans to the private quarters of the White House for meals and other social events.
This continued throughout the president’s time in office. The “People’s House,” as the building has been nicknamed, became socially integrated. One of her guests was her correspondent and now a social activist and Howard University law student, Pauli Murray. The young woman and the First Lady often challenged each other’s opinions. Though they agreed on big issues, there was a generational rift, with Eleanor sometimes urging moderation and caution on the impatient Pauli, whom the First Lady once dubbed “a firebrand.”
The day Pauli was invited for the first time to the White House for tea in 1943 was full of mishaps. The aunt who was to accompany her had taken ill, so she invited a friend. The friend’s husband showed up on an army leave unexpectedly, so Pauli made arrangements with the White House for him to attend. But then he decided his uniform was too wrinkled for such an important occasion, so teatime had to be pushed back once more. When the trio arrived at the White House, they realized they had forgotten their admission cards!
Pauli was exhausted and embarrassed by the time the First Lady greeted them and led her guests outside to a table on the South Portico. There, she later remembered, the comforting smell of magnolia trees and honeysuckle calmed her down. Eleanor’s sensible ease made Pauli think she might appreciate the story of why they were so late. Sure enough, the First Lady, listening to Pauli rattle off the disasters, “burst into spontaneous laughter.”
Pauli would go on to do important things as a lawyer, writer, activist, cofounder of the National Organization for Women, and the first African American Episcopal priest. Her friendship with Eleanor endured.
During the first eight years of her husband’s administration, the First Lady spent many hours visiting black schools and churches and speaking at conventions of black organizations. Though she had support from the public in many quarters—for instance, 64 percent of those polled approved of her resignation from the DAR—a wide swath of people across the country vilified her, and in the nastiest of terms, because of her stand on civil rights. Eleanor’s response was often to invoke the Golden Rule to try to make these critics understand that they should treat others, no matter their race, as they would like to be treated.
One of the events that caused a stir was a party she threw for black girls from a local reform school. When she had toured the school, she found the conditions there deplorable. She invited some of the girls to a lawn party at the White House, where cake and lemonade was served. Eleanor received much criticism over the invitation, but she mildly replied, “I feel if these girls are ever to be rehabilitated and, as far as possible, returned into community living prepared to meet the difficulties of life, they need much more than they are getting. Therefore, it seems to me as every young person enjoys an occasional good time, these youngsters should have an occasional good time.”
In 1938, she received a letter from a woman who was upset after seeing a photograph of the First Lady serving food to a black child at a Hyde Park picnic. Eleanor wrote back in her commonsense way: “Surely you would not have refused to let her eat with the other [visitors] . . . I believe it never hurts to be kind.”
Her involvement with the cause of African Americans’ civil rights did not mean she had forgotten about other people who needed her help. During Franklin’s second term, the First Lady kept her eye on the plight of immigrants, issues affecting the poor, especially as they concerned the New Deal, affordable housing, and she did everything she could to fight the discouragement of the young. This kept her popularity high among the majority of the public.
The Depression continued throughout the 1930s. Sometimes the economy was better, then it would sputter again—1937 was a particularly bad year when unemployment rose sharply. Still, most people, thanks to the aid of the federal government and its New Deal programs, felt more optimistic.
That didn’t mean African Americans were getting their fair share of New Deal programs and jobs; often they were not, despite Eleanor’s efforts. Still, some white people across the country felt she was doing too much for African Americans.
The First Lady was particularly disliked in the South, where her liberal stands on race offended the very fabric of that society. Lies were spread about her—it was whispered she was starting “Eleanor Clubs” that encouraged black women to quit their jobs as maids—but her own actions were quite enough to raise ire. Sometimes, it was the mildest of events that made people mad. Even a photograph of Eleanor giving a little African American girl a flower from a bouquet the child had presented to the First Lady was used against her throughout the South. Ironically, the same picture was also distributed in the North in African American communities to show them her solidarity.
Eleanor’s friends and foes agreed about one thing: she was tireless. She always seemed to have time for one more appearance or to answer one more letter. Her visit to the National Youth Administration in Maine in July 1941 showed her continued commitment to New Deal programs.
No matter the criticism she received, the First Lady was determined to keep traveling throughout the country pushing back on the injustices she saw. “Eleanor Everywhere”—that was her nickname. Everywhere even included prison. In her autobiography, she told the story of the time she had to leave the White House for a Baltimore prison visit so early that she didn’t have time to say good morning to her husband. Franklin asked her assistant where she was, and the woman replied, “Prison.” The president smilingly shook his head. “I’m not surprised, but what for?”
There was an unfortunate personal aspect to the criticism Eleanor received. Often those who railed against her interests and goals, both press columnists and private citizens, also made fun of her looks, her voice, and her mannerisms. Newspaper cartoons emphasized her buck teeth and weak chin.
But Eleanor was smart enough not to show her detractors she cared. She would laugh off unflattering photos and paved the way for other women who wanted to be in the public eye by telling them not to take anything personally and to “develop skin as tough as a rhinoceros hide.”