“even if they had to blow the place up” www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/eleanor-fbi/2/.
Information on the history of the Highlander Folk School can be found at www.tnhistoryforkids.org/history/in-search-of/in-search-of/highlander.2522958.
Information on Eleanor’s visit can be found at www.neh.gov/humanities/2000/januaryfebruary/feature/eleanor-roosevelt.
“My mother was one of the most beautiful . . .” Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (New York: Harper Perennial, reprint edition, 2014) 3.
“a miracle from heaven . . .” Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of Their Relationship Based on Eleanor Roosevelt’s Private Papers. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971) 21.
“sink through the floor . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 9.
“ugly” Candace Fleming, Our Eleanor: A Scrapbook Look at Eleanor Roosevelt’s Remarkable Life (New York: Antheneum Books for Young Readers/Anne Schwartz, 2005).
“through the Grand snow-clad forests . . .” Eric Burns, Someone to Watch Over Me: A Portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt and the Tortured Father Who Shaped Her Life (New York: W. W. Norton/Pegasus, 2017) 76 (galley).
“With my father . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 5.
“a small and ragged urchin” Burns, Someone, 12.
“somehow it was always . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 9.
“I knew in my mind . . .” Russell Freedman, Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery (New York: Clarion Books, 1993) 15.
“We were brought up on the principle . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 6.
“Your mother wanted . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 73.
“Suddenly life . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 20.
“Anything I had accomplished . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 6.
“lost and lonely” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 20.
“eyes looked through you . . . and she always knew . . .” Ibid., 22.
“courageous judgment . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 80.
“underdog should . . .” Ibid., 80.
“Never again would I be . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 31.
“more satisfaction . . .” Ibid., 29.
“Protect yourself . . .” Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume 1, The Early Years, 1884–1933 (New York: Penguin, 1992) 123.
“utter agony” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 93.
“She was always . . .” Cook, Volume 1, 128.
“misery and exploitation . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 98.
“glow of pride” Freedman, Eleanor Roosevelt, 34.
“I was appalled . . . I saw little children . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 100.
“Oh! Darling, . . .” Cook, Volume 1, 139.
“A very good mind” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 101.
“with your help” Ibid., 98.
“My God . . .” Ibid., 135.
“Having been born . . .” Ibid.,119.
“good little mother’s boy” Ibid., 103.
“A few irate guests . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 50.
“I do not remember . . .” Ibid., 50.
“Your mother only bore you . . .” Fleming, Our Eleanor, 24.
“You were never quite sure . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 162.
“I worried for fear . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 63.
“Duty was perhaps the motivating force . . .” Ibid., 66.
“The first requisite . . .” Cook, Volume 1, 191.
“She was playing the political game . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 192.
“was not favorably impressed” 67.
“felt as if my own son . . .” Cook, Volume 1, 197.
“May history repeat itself.” Ibid., 200.
“the men in government . . .” Freedman, Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life, 58.
“I became a more tolerant person . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 93.
“Life was meant to be lived” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 104.
“the Southern blood of my ancestors . . .” Cook, Volume 1, 251.
“The benefits of the war . . .” Ibid., 250.
“No words from you . . .” Cook, Volume 1, 252.
As a young woman . . . One discussion of Eleanor’s feelings toward the Jews appears in this book review of FDR and the Jews by Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman at jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/eleanor-roosevelt-and-the-jews but is also mentioned in other sources. Her casual anti-Semitism was a hallmark of America’s upper classes and what is remarkable is not her prejudice but her evolution. In Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery, Russell Freedman comments that Eleanor knew virtually no blacks.
“superior creatures” Fleming, Our Eleanor, 43.
“Have something . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 124.
“for the intensive education . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 113.
“You will surely break down . . .” Cook, Volume 1, 309.
“the intense and devastating influence . . .” Hazel Rowley, Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010) 117.
“if he fights . . .” Fleming, Our Eleanor, 47.
“It began to dawn on me . . .”
“And I never forgot . . .” Cook, Volume 1, 399.
“into an enlivened understanding . . .” Ibid., 405.
“I like teaching better . . .” Ibid., 399.
“What was the food like . . .” Freedman, Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life, 87.
“The only thing we have to fear . . .” www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/bonus-video/presidents-enemy-fdr.
“Well, all right . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 176–177.
“Just for one day . . .” Fleming, Our Eleanor, 72.
“From March 1933 . . . the variety of requests . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 171.
“a stranded generation” Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume 2, The Defining Years, 1933–1938 (New York: Penguin, 1992) 269.
“the missus organization” Fleming, Our Eleanor, 92.
“Out here . . .” Cook, Volume 2, 271.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 522
“Darky was used. . .” Ibid., 522.
“She was not afraid . . .” jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/eleanor-roosevelt-and-the-jews.
“thoughtless people . . . just to make . . .” Cook, Volume 2, 156.
“Along the main street . . .” Cook, Volume 2, 130.
“He thinks . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 178.
“I have always felt . . .” Cook, Volume 2, 151
“thoroughly opposed . . .” Cook, Volume 2, 139.
“I can remember . . .” Ibid., 159.
“Never before . . .” Ibid., 153.
“set before all of us . . .” Ibid., 153.
“the girl who did not stand up” Patricia Bell-Scott, The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship (New York: Knopf, 2016) 29.
“Twelve millions of your citizens . . .” Ibid., 27.
“isn’t my problem alone . . .” Ibid., 27.
“carnivals of death” The Editorial Board, “Lynching as Racial Terrorism,” New York Times, February 11, 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/opinion/lynching-as-racial-terrorism.html.
“We know that it is murder . . .” Blog of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; “Eleanor Roosevelt’s Battle to End Lynching,” blog entry by Paul M. Sparrow, Director, February 12, 2016, fdr.blogs.archives.gov/2016/02/12/eleanor-roosevelts-battle-to-end-lynching/.
“The President talked to me . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 515.
Had she coached . . . “Well, at least I know . . .” The incident of the Roosevelt-White meeting is reported in Cook, Volume 2, 181.
“I did not choose the tools . . .” Ibid., 516.
“dynamite” Ibid., 516.
“No, certainly not. . . .” Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt—The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994) 164.
“Of course . . .” Cook, Volume 2, 246
“in silent rebuke . . .” Blog of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; “Eleanor Roosevelt’s Battle to End Lynching,” blog entry by Paul M. Sparrow, Director, February 12, 2016, fdr.blogs.archives.gov/2016/02/12/eleanor-roosevelts-battle-to-end-lynching/.
“He might have been happier. . . . Nevertheless . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 279.
Blog of Real-Time News from Birmingham; “The Week in Birmingham History: Eleanor Roosevelt Faced Off Against Bull Connor.” Though reported in a number of books about Eleanor, this article gives the fullest account: www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2014/11/the_week_in_birmingham_history_23.html.
The insight about Eleanor kissing Mrs. Bethune appears in Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 523, and was reported in an interview he conducted with Eleanor’s daughter, Anna Roosevelt.
“not available to Negro artists.” Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume 3, The War Years and After, 1939–1962 (New York: Viking, 2016) 34.
“shocked beyond words . . .” Ibid., 34.
“You had the opportunity to lead . . .” www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/eleanor-anderson.
“Genius knows no color line” www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAONYTMf2pk This clip features highlights of the Anderson concert.
“a firebrand” Bell-Scott, The Firebrand, xviii.
“burst into spontaneous laughter” Bell-Scott, The Firebrand, 114.
“I feel if these girls . . .” Lois Scharf, Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady of American Liberalism (Boston: C.K. Hall, 1987) 107.
“Surely you would not . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 521.
“I’m not surprised . . .” Roosevelt, Autobiography, 193.
“develop skin as tough as a rhinoceros hide” Fleming, Our Eleanor, 104.
Religious and racial prejudice “are a great menace . . .” Cook, Volume 3, 248.
“Eleanor refused to be insulated . . .” Lash, Volume 3,521.
“It seems incredible . . . Cook, Volume 3, 34.
“Hell, if you said you were colored . . .” Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 166.
“Our main reason for writing . . .” Ibid., 167.
“You know, better than any other people . . . the road to better understanding . . . faith and cooperation . . .” Cook, Volume 3, 357.
“This is going to be very bad politically . . .” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 530.
“a commanding figure” Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 161.
“emphasized that . . .” Cook, Volume 3, 362.
“experiments which would . . .” Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 169.
“The policy of the War Department . . . This policy . . . to make changes . . .” Cook, Volume 3, 363.
“vague and general language” Bell-Scott, The Firebrand, 100.
“imperialism” Ibid., 100.
“I wonder if it ever occurred to you . . . your letter . . .” Ibid., 101.
“desperation and disgust.” Ibid., 102.
“militant armor . . .” Ibid., 102.
“Negroes will be considered only . . .” Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 246.
“the first official call . . .” Ibid., 249.
“Negroes up to a certain percentage . . .” Ibid., 249.
“We want you to issue an executive order . . .” Ibid., 249.
“to provide for the full and equitable participation . . .” Ibid., 252.
“A date which will live in infamy” www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6ScDXwYjWA.
“I imagine every mother . . .” Fleming, Our Eleanor, 115.
“I kept being appalled . . .” Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 274.
“My idea of hell . . .” Cook, Volume 3, 427.
“the bitterness . . . objectively . . . for the honor . . .” www.nps.gov/articles/erooseveltinternment.htm.
“One of the things . . .” jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/eleanor-roosevelt-and-the-jews.
“We liked this speech . . .” Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 463.
“She did more good . . .” Ibid., 465.
“coddling of Negroes . . . I suppose . . .” Ibid., 446.
“sound patronizing” Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, 676.
“These colored boys . . .” Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 522.
“Your letters and gifts . . .” Fleming, Our Eleanor, 123.
“there’s a private down here . . .” docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/images/p7742.jpg.
“In my heart . . .” Cook, Volume 3, 575.
“He did his job . . .” www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0412.html?mcubz=0.
“Goin’ Home” time.com/photography/life/.
“Is there anything . . .” Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 605.
“The only limit . . .” Cook, Volume 3, 577.
“The story is over” Fleming, Our Eleanor, 131.
“with fear and trembling” Eleanor Roosevelt, On My Own: The Years Since the White House (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958) 299.
“that as the only woman . . .” Fleming, Our Eleanor, 135.
“I want to take back . . .” Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor: The Years Alone (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972) 47.
“insistence that there be no hatred in this struggle” kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_roosevelt_anna_eleanor_1884_1962.
“The impact of her personality . . .” Epitaph for Mrs. FDR. New York Amsterdam News, November 24, 1962.
“Staying aloof . . .” www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/lesson-plans/notes-er-and-civil-rights.cfm.
“And here they are . . .” www.neh.gov/humanities/2000/januaryfebruary/feature/ Eleanor Roosevelt.
“The great lesson . . .” Bell-Scott, The Firebrand, 352.
“You gain strength . . .” Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life (New York: Harper Perennial, reprint edition, 2016).
