The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice (61 page)

“tar and feather”
: “Negro Applicant Seeks Student Opinion,”
DTH
, February 5, 1939.

“We are a conservative”
: John Alan Creedy, “We, the Hypocrites…,”
Carolina Magazine
68, no. 4 (January 1939): 2.

“what sort of student”
: John Alan Creedy to PM, March 2, 1939, PMP.

Fifty-seven years later
: John Alan Creedy to author, February 2, 1996.

“Please be careful”
: Mother [Pauline Fitzgerald Dame] to Lenie [PM], January 6, 1939, PMP.

Still teaching
: PM, interview by McNeil.

“You can make it”
: Ibid.

“deeply respected friend”
: PM,
Song
, 119.

“Negroes could do”
: “Students Favor Negroes at U. of N.C.,”
CT
, January 21, 1939. For a similar remark made by President James Shepard, see “Graduate School for Negroes Urged: North Carolina College for Race Stresses Need for Professional Training,”
NYT
, January 8, 1939.

“deep-seated injustice”
: PM,
Song
, 120.

When Murray met
: Ibid., 125–26.

“airtight”
: Ibid., 126.

“We have to be very careful”
: PM, interview by McNeil.

Radicalized by
: For a discussion of Murray’s experiences at Brookwood Labor College, her early labor activism, and the character of the school, see PM,
Song
, 105–7; 99–100, and Charles F. Howlett,
Brookwood Labor College and the Struggle for Peace and Social Justice in America
(Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1993).

“to educate”
: PM,
Song
, 97.

“intellectual radicals”
: Ibid., 103. For a study of Jay Lovestone, see Ted Morgan,
A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone; Communist, Anti-Communist, and Spymaster
(New York: Random House, 1999).

“critique”
: PM,
Song
, 103.

“another form of segregation”
: Ibid.

A self-described individualist
: Murray’s belief in the sacredness of the individual and human diversity was rooted in her Christian faith and is articulated in her sermons. See Anthony Pinn, ed.,
Pauli Murray: Selected Sermons and Writings
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006).

Her assertive letters
: Roy Wilkins to Walter White, January 21, 1939, NAACP Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“literary brilliance”
: See recommendations for Murray’s admission to Brookwood Labor College, Ted Poston to Tucker P. Smith, August 4, 1936, and Lester B. Granger to Tucker P. Smith, August 12, 1936, WDLC.

They had been classmates
: PM to Margaret “Peg” Holmes, February 21, 1977, PMP. William Murray was a student at Howard University School of Law between 1934 and 1935.

Because the association
: Murray’s case was not the only one NAACP leaders would sidestep. They did not back appeals for Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith. Young, single, and poor, Colvin and Smith were arrested for defying Alabama’s bus segregation law before Rosa Parks, whom NAACP officials saw as more acceptable. Colvin was pregnant at the time of her arrest, and Smith’s father was falsely rumored to be an alcoholic. Taylor Branch,
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), 123, 127.

“inner conflict”
: For Murray’s characterization of her identity, see Pauli (Lenie) to Mother [Pauline Fitzgerald Dame], June 2, 1943, PMP. Despite Murray’s rejection of the medical diagnosis of homosexuality as a mental disorder, she did refer to herself as homosexual or lesbian in conversations with Pauline Coggs, Ruth Powell, and Grace Milgram.

Murray’s notes
: PM, “Interview with Dr. —— [notes],” December 16, 1937, PMP; PM, “Questions prepared for Dr. Titley, Long Island ‘Rest’ Home—Amityville, New York,” December 17, 1937, PMP.

“Simon-pure”
: PM, interview by McNeil.

As desperately as Murray
: PM,
Song
, 126.

“personal defeat”
: Ibid., 128.

“precious creative energies”
: PM, “In Defense of Lloyd Gaines,”
CT
, January 27, 1940, and PM, “Who Is to Blame for Disappearance of Gaines?,”
Black Dispatch
, February 3, 1940.

“We Negroes can throng”
: Ibid.

“find Lloyd Gaines”
: Ibid.

Some blacks believed
: See Lucile H. Bluford, “The Lloyd Gaines Story,”
Journal of Educational Sociology
32, no. 6 (February 1959): 242–46, and Chad Garrison, “The Mystery of Lloyd Gaines,”
Riverfront Times
, April 4, 2007.

4. “I AM RESIGNING”

“The DAR may not think”
: Parks with Leighton,
The Roosevelts
, 103.

“On the clear understanding”
: “Lynch Bill Urged by Mrs. Roosevelt: Federal Measure Would Help, She Tells Negro Conference,”
NYT
, January 13, 1939.

“moving”
: ER, “My Day,” February 21, 1936.

“I am in complete”
: ER to Mrs. Henry M. Robert Jr., February 26, 1939, ERP.

“I have been debating”
: ER, “My Day,” February 27, 1939.

After a group
: “First Lady Also Sponsors Miss Anderson: Will ‘Make Every Effort’ to Attend Easter Recital,”
WP
, April 6, 1939.

Over a hundred
: “Justice Hughes Heads Sponsors of Marian Anderson Recital: Black, Swanson and Stokowski Also Among Notables on Honorary List,”
WP
, April 4, 1939, and “Miss Hepburn Sponsors Anderson Fete: LaGuardia, McNary Are Added to List,”
WP
, April 5, 1939.

The Easter Sunday concert
: Edward T. Folliard, “Ickes Introduces Contralto at Lincoln Memorial; Many Officials Attend Concert,”
WP
, April 10, 1939, and Ernest K. Lindley, “Voice from the Temple: Anderson Footnotes,”
WP
, April 12, 1939.

Within weeks
: Respondents who identified as Democrats and Republicans and who came from all regions of the United States except the South approved of ER’s resignation, American Institute of Public Opinion,
The Gallop Poll: Public Opinion, 1935–1948
, vol. 1 (New York: Random House, 1972), 142.

“I have by now”
: ER, “Conquer Fear and You Will Enjoy Living,”
Look
3 (May 23, 1939): 7.

ER’s personal standards
: Parks with Leighton,
The Roosevelts
, 223, and ER, “My Day,” May 26, 1939.

“great fun”
: Harold Faber, “Roosevelt Home Marks Royal Hot-Dog History,”
NYT
, June 12, 1981. See also “Felix Belair Jr., “King Tries Hot Dog and Asks for More: And He Drinks Beer with Them—Uses Own Camera to Snap Guests Photographing Him,”
NYT
, June 12, 1939, and
chapter 4
in Will Swift,
The Roosevelts and the Royals: Franklin and Eleanor, the King and Queen of England, and the Friendship That Changed History
(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2004), 128–51.

5. “WE…ARE THE DISINHERITED”

Compounding this challenge
: On Murray’s difficulties with the committee, see PM to Thyra Edwards, November 8, 1939, PMP, and “Communist Squabble Splits Harlem Group,”
NYAN
, November 18, 1939.

Photographs of grief-stricken
: See clipping of refugee children assisted by the Negro People’s Committee enclosed with PM to ER, October 26, 1939, ERP.

The first lady had
: “First Lady to Be Foster Mother of Boy, 12, Who Was Orphaned in the Spanish Conflict,”
NYT
, April 16, 1939.

“propaganda of fear”
: “Mrs. Roosevelt Charges Intolerance Drive Against Refugees and Seeks Fund Sources,”
NYT
, November 29, 1939.

“his sculptured figures”
: ER, “My Day,” July 28, 1939.

“mention”
: PM to ER, October 26, 1939.

“Ethiopian question”
: Ibid.

She did call
: ER, “My Day,” November 8, 1939.

Her first communiqué
: PM to FDR, December 2, 1939, FDRP.

White House press secretary
: Stephen Early to PM, December 5, 1939, FDRP.

Murray’s second letter
: PM to ER, December 6, 1939, ERP.

Murray had left
: PM,
Song
, 133–34; PM to Lester B. Granger, November 15, 1939, PMP; PM to Thyra Edwards, November 8, 1939; and “Communist Squabble Splits Harlem Group,”
NYAN
.

“disapprove of”
: PM to Thrya Edwards, September 28, 1939, PMP.

The stress
: On the strain of family responsibility, see memo, PM to Dr. Helen Rogers and Mrs. Blount (Southern Nurse) March 8, 1940, PMP.

“with the hope that”
: PM to ER, December 6, 1939, ERP.

“To the Editor”
: PM, letter to the editor, December 6, 1939, attached to PM to ER, December 6, 1939, ERP; quoted in PM,
Song
, 134.

“The other day”
: ER, “My Day,” December 14, 1939.

“Will you kindly extend”
: PM to Malvina Thompson, December 21, 1939, PMP.

6. “IT WAS THE HIGHEST HONOR…TO MEET AND TALK WITH YOU”

In January, thousands
: “Army of Sharecroppers Trek from Homes: Protest Missouri Landlords’ Wage Plans,”
NYT
, January 11, 1939, and “Sharecroppers Flee Shacks 2d Time in 2 Years: Mass Demonstration Against Conditions in Missouri,”
WP
, January 11, 1939. For a detailed treatment of this demonstration, see Louis Cantor,
A Prologue to the Protest Movement: The Missouri Sharecropper Roadside Demonstration of 1939
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1969).

The sight of displaced
: “Rain, Snow Defied by Sharecroppers: Ragged 1,000 on Trek Seek Protection in Improvised Shelters and Tents,”
NYT
, January 12, 1939; “Homeless Sharecroppers Face Disease in Roadside Camps,”
WP
, January 12, 1939; and “Snow Discomforts Sharecroppers,”
WP
, January 13, 1939.

Ironically, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration
: Reports by the black press indicated that black sharecroppers were hardest hit by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration program. See, for example, “Negro Sharecroppers of South Suffer Under New Deal: Thousands Are Evicted From Cabins Formerly Occupied as Tenants,”
Baltimore AA
, September 26, 1936.