The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice (48 page)

Front, left to right: Margaret J. Mealey, executive director, National Council of Catholic Women; William F. Schnitzler, secretary-treasurer, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations; and Eleanor Roosevelt, chair, President’s Commission on the Status of Women, with John Kennedy and unidentified commission members (rear), February 12, 1962. This was the first meeting of the commission, whose work, ER explained, “is to find how we can best use the potentialities of women without impairing their first responsibilities, which are to their homes, their husbands and their children.”
(Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)

57

“I Am as Well as Anyone Can Be at My Age”

T
he demands of Pauli Murray’s doctoral studies and Eleanor Roosevelt’s commitments, which included canvassing on street corners and from the flatbed of a truck for the reelection of Democratic mayor Robert
Wagner—who would win, in part, because of ER’s efforts—prevented them from having a reunion in the fall of 1961. ER remained circumspect about her
health, publicly rebuffing speculation by gossip columnist
Walter Winchell that she was gravely ill. “
I have no idea from what source he received this information,” she said in her column,
“but as far as I know I am as well as anyone can be at my age and am very active at the present time.”

On December 14, 1961, John
Kennedy issued
Executive Order 10980, authorizing the
President’s Commission on the Status of
Women. He did so in response to pressure from an array of women’s organizations; Assistant Secretary of Labor
Esther Peterson, the highest-ranking woman in his cabinet; and
May Craig, the spunky Washington correspondent for Maine’s
Portland Press Herald
.

Kennedy charged the PCSW “
with the responsibility for developing recommendations for overcoming discriminations in government and private employment on the basis of sex and for developing recommendations for services which will enable women to continue their role as wives and mothers while making a maximum contribution to the world around them.” Among the twenty-six commissioners were the U.S. attorney general; the secretaries of agriculture, commerce, labor, and health, education, and welfare; the chair of the Civil Service Commission; congressional representatives; senators; and leaders from business, education, and women’s organizations. The commission’s makeup and that the president had named ER as chair signaled that women’s issues would receive unprecedented consideration.

Kennedy broke the ice at the commission’s inaugural meeting by announcing that he had appointed the group for “
self-protection”
against May Craig’s persistent queries about what he was doing for women. After a round of laughter and smiles, he said, “
The other and more serious reason” for calling together this group “is that one-third of the country’s labor force is made up of women whose ‘primary obligation’ is to their families and their homes, but whose work makes it possible to maintain that home and that family in many cases. We want to make sure,” the president maintained, that women “are able to move ahead and perform their functions without any discrimination by law or by implication.”

The PCSW went to work at its Maryland Avenue office after a tour of the White House and lunch. That evening, Vice President and Mrs. Johnson hosted a reception at their residence. The meeting ended the afternoon of the next day.

John Kennedy’s charm held no sway with Murray. Yet she could not ignore the importance of the commission’s charge or its stature. That ER, Caroline Ware, and National Council of Negro Women president
Dorothy Height were part of this powerhouse ensured that the work would be of high quality and taken seriously.
The group’s plans called for subcommittees or study groups to tackle the broad areas of home and community,
protective labor legislation, education, social insurance and taxes, civil and political rights, federal employment policies and practices, and private employment. Murray enthusiastically accepted ER’s invitation to serve on the civil and political rights subcommittee.

Oregon congresswoman
Edith Green and
Marguerite Rawalt, an attorney who had been
president of the Federal Bar Association and the National Federation of Business and Professional
Women’s Clubs, cochaired the fourteen-member subcommittee on civil and political rights. To this distinguished group of jurists, union leaders, academics, and civic leaders fell the politically charged task of examining barriers to women’s participation in elective and appointed office, political parties, and jury service, in addition to the issue of women’s constitutional rights.

Because Murray had more than twenty years of experience as a scholar and an activist in the areas of race and
sex discrimination, the group asked her to draft an informational memorandum on women’s constitutional rights that considered the feasibility of a constitutional amendment. To be working with the PCSW under ER’s leadership and to be appointed tutor of law at Yale, which gave her junior faculty status, made Murray as excited as a “
puppy with two tails,” which was her favorite phrase for describing joy.

· · ·

AFTER THE COMMISSION MEETING
, Eleanor Roosevelt went back to New York City, packed her clothes, and flew to Paris, where she taped a segment of
Prospects of Mankind
. From there, she flew to London, then to
Israel, and on to the Swiss Alps. During this
trip, she found it difficult to stay up late or walk for long periods.
The steroid
prednisone and periodic blood transfusions doctors had prescribed did not relieve her fatigue and discomfort.

Despite her condition, ER continued to host her television series and to write and advocate for social justice.
One especially meaningful commitment involved chairing a citizens’ committee that heard testimony from black and white
civil rights activists victimized in the South by the unprovoked use of police dogs and tear gas, unreasonable bond, extended sentences, and solitary jail confinement. Murray, assuming all was well with ER, concentrated on her classes and the memorandum for the PCSW.

Pauli Murray, age fifty-one, and Eleanor Roosevelt, age seventy-seven, near the spot where Murray photographed ER with Aunts Pauline and Sallie a decade earlier at Val-Kill, Hyde Park, New York, July 14, 1962. It had been twenty-eight years since Murray first encountered ER at Camp Tera.
(The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University and the Estate of Pauli Murray)

58

“Would You Please Bring Me a Glass of Lemonade?”

P
auli Murray was in the audience when Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at
Yale Law School in June 1962. They had not seen each other in two years. Eager to hear firsthand about Africa and Yale, ER invited Murray to lunch at Val-Kill on July 14.
A few days before Murray’s visit, ER hosted 150 people for the annual
Wiltwyck School picnic on her lawn. Wiltwyck, a residential facility for troubled boys between the ages of eight and twelve, was located on a three-hundred-acre estate in nearby
Esopus.
Most of the youths came from poor or minority families, as did two of the school’s famous alumni, heavyweight boxing champion
Floyd Patterson and writer
Claude Brown.

A tireless advocate and major fund-raiser for Wiltwyck, ER had served on the board for twenty years. During her tenure, the school had developed into a racially integrated treatment center whose teachers and counselors created a nonpunitive learning environment, provided outlets for therapeutic and wholesome play, and taught the boys to function responsibly.
ER’s friend
Harry Belafonte took a special interest in Wiltwyck. He performed there, gave benefit concerts for the school at Carnegie Hall, and funded music lessons for the boys.

When a judge sent ten-year-old Floyd Patterson to the school, he could neither read nor write. He suffered from nightmares and paralyzing self-doubt. At Wiltwyck, he learned to read and write, make friends, and be at peace with himself. He also put on his first pair of boxing gloves, opening the door to a career that would include an Olympic gold medal and several professional boxing titles. Claude Brown was an eleven-year-old petty thief who regularly skipped school before he arrived at Wiltwyck. His relationship with the staff inspired him to finish high school, go to college, write a best-selling memoir, and become an advocate for juvenile justice.

Brown and Patterson would later dedicate their memoirs to ER and Wiltwyck.
Like all the boys, they cherished the picnics at Val-Kill, where ER and her grandchildren served hot dogs, potato salad, hot buttered rolls, cupcakes, ice cream, and milk. Once satiated, everyone gathered around ER on the lawn to hear her read selections from
Rudyard Kipling’s
Just So Stories
collection.
She loved these gatherings as much as the boys did, and she was as disappointed as they were that she was too weak to read to them on this occasion.
The magician
John Mulholland performed for the group, but the boys, unaware of ER’s declining
health, complained that they missed her reading.

· · ·

ON JULY 14
,
Murray arrived at Val-Kill with her brother Raymond; his wife, Margaret; and their three children—Robert, fourteen; Marcia, twelve; and Michael, nine. ER was waiting for them near the entrance to the Roosevelt estate “
in her car surrounded by a throng and graciously” signing
autographs. When Murray had brought
Aunts Pauline and Sallie to a similar gathering, they had lunched in the yard with ER, a daughter-in-law, several grandchildren, and
Malvina Thompson, before
touring FDR’s home and library. Since then,
Murray’s aunts, Tommy, and
Sally Roosevelt had passed away. In remembrance, perhaps, Murray repeated the tour with her brother’s family.

Joining Murray and her relatives for lunch were
ER’s ninety-two-year-old uncle
David Gray, U.N. diplomats from Haiti and India, and “
a swarm of children.” Guests, served at buffet tables inside the cottage, took seats outside to eat. Once everyone had been served, ER prepared her plate and joined Uncle David and Murray, who were talking in the sitting room. Having forgotten her beverage, ER made a request that surprised Murray: “
Pauli, if you are going into the next room for anything, would you please bring me a glass of lemonade?”

In all their years of
friendship, ER had rarely asked a “
personal favor” of Murray, and Murray was “
overjoyed” that ER “
felt close enough” to ask.
Unaware that ER could barely get up once she sat down, Murray would later take comfort in the fact that she “
had the privilege of performing this one tiny service for one whose whole life was a symphony of service to others.”

After lunch, Raymond took the first and only snapshot of Murray and ER together. His snapshot, which captured their practical low-heeled shoes and short-sleeved bodice dresses, was symbolic of how far they had come since 1934. At midlife and still a
firebrand, Murray was a distinguished writer, scholar, and lawyer. She was lean but no longer
underweight, and she sprouted gray streaks near the front of her hairline. ER was a septuagenarian, her mane white and her midriff thickened. While she had remained true to her husband’s legacy, she stood in no one’s shadow. She was a torchbearer for American liberalism and the indisputable First Lady of the World.

One of the last things ER talked to Murray about was her campaign appearance in
Harlem for a Democratic candidate, during which people rushed “
to touch her” as she rode by in her open car. She had “
felt like the fat lady in the circus,” ER said, making light of the scene. She had rebuffed her grandsons’ concerns about her safety, she explained, for it was more important to show people that someone cared.

As Murray and her family were leaving, she paused to watch ER walk into her cottage. Her shoulders were “
slightly stooped,” her footsteps measured. It was the last time Murray would see her friend.

Mourners at Eleanor Roosevelt’s burial ceremony in the Rose Garden, Hyde Park, New York, on November 10, 1962. To Pauli Murray, who was among the invited guests, it seemed that “a great light had gone out of the world, and even nature was weeping.”
(Bettmann/CORBIS)