The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice (56 page)

In the closing lines of her posthumously published autobiography,
Song in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage
, Murray wrote,

All the strands of my life had come together. Descendant of slave and of slave owner, I had already been called poet, lawyer, teacher, and friend. Now I was empowered to minister the sacrament of One in whom there is no north or south, no black or white, no male or female—only the spirit of love and reconciliation drawing us all toward the goal of human wholeness.

The quest for wholeness and the struggle for social justice brought the
firebrand Pauli Murray and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt together in friendship. The struggle continues to be nourished by the writings and records they left, the people they mentored, the organizations they cofounded, and the projects inspired by their examples.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The nurturance and generosity of many people made it possible for me to write
The Firebrand and the First Lady
. I am grateful first to my parents, Dorothy and Louis Wilbanks Jr., my maternal grandparents, Roy and Marie Jewsome, and my paternal grandfather, Ollie Patton. They could not have known where my dreams or ambition would lead, yet they encouraged and supported me anyway.

I am grateful to Pauli Murray for affirming my early work as a feminist scholar and nudging me toward this project before I knew where I was going.

I am grateful to Charlotte Sheedy and Victoria Wilson, who believed in this project from day one. I offer heartfelt thanks for their patience and reassurance through all the years.

I thank Audrey Silverman, editorial assistant to Vicky Wilson. I thank Kathleen Fridella for her superb work as production editor.

Several people granted me interviews and access to private materials that enriched my understanding of Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and their friendship. I am indebted to:

Maida Springer-Kemp, for starting me out with a day-long interview and a home-cooked meal of stir-fried shrimp, garlic, onions, snow peas, and brown rice reminiscent of the savory dishes she and her mother, Adina Stewart Carrington, fed Pauli.

Pauline Redmond Coggs, for keen and psychologically rich observations of Murray and ER, both of whom she counted as close friends.

Grace Milgram, for recollections of the friendship between her former husband, Morris Milgram, and Murray, his friendship with ER, and the perils liberal activists faced during the Cold War.

Ruth Powell, for recollections of her days with Murray at Howard University and for treating me to a spontaneous rendition of the protest song she and her fellow female students composed and sang when they were jailed for sitting in the white section of a city bus. Powell, who was in her seventies when I met her,
still moved “with the lilt of ballet dancer,” as in the poem “Ruth,” which Murray penned when they were in school.

Dovey Johnson Roundtree, for blessing this book project and urging me to write the truth.

Aileen Clarke Hernandez, for recollections of Howard University, Murray, ER, the early days of the EEOC and NOW, and for taking me under her wing.

Jean E. Friedman, for encouragement and recollections of her days with Murray at Benedict College.

Louise E. Jefferson, for invaluable photographs and correspondence.

Peggy McIntosh, for sharing her interview of her aunt Caroline F. Ware and her recollections of Ware and Murray.

Eric Springer, for recollections of his mother, Maida Springer-Kemp, and Murray, who was his mentor.

I also thank John Alan Creedy for recollections of the UNC campus response to Murray’s application; Carole A. Crumley for recollections of the day she and Murray were ordained and Murray’s subsequent work as a priest; Richard Sherman for recollections of his conversations with Morris Milgram; and Augusta Thomas for recollections of Murray in later life.

I am indebted to Pat McKenry, Mick Coleman, Lucie Fultz, Miriam DeCosta-Willis, and Charlotte Sheedy for encouraging critiques of the proposal out of which this book grew.

I benefited from a mountain of work by Eleanor Roosevelt scholars and owe special thanks to Allida M. Black, Maurine Beasley, Robert Cohen, and Blanche Wiesen Cook for heartening dialogue, letters, e-mails, and suggestions about possible sources.

My early vision of this project was nourished by discussions at the Women Writing Women’s Lives Biography Seminar at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. I thank Gail Hornstein for inviting me, Dorothy O. Helly for a warm welcome, Louise DeSalvo for her inspiring work, and Nell Irwin Painter—a historian turned visual artist—for her example of an art-centered later life.

I thank Sapphire for unwavering support, art sketchbooks, charcoal pencils, straight talk, and cheering me on as I learned to walk the writer’s path.

I thank Janet Sims-Wood, who shared her encyclopedic knowledge of African Americans during World War II, as well as her home during my research trips to the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center; Miriam DeCosta-Willis, who sent a steady stream of helpful clippings and treated me to a tour of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial shortly after it opened in Washington, D.C.; and Lucie Fultz, who told me “not to sweat the deadline—focus on getting it right.”

I thank Brenda Mitchell-Powell for her support, her belief in my work, and her uncanny intuition.

I thank Anna J. Williams for listening to passages of this work, illuminating
discussion of women’s developmental and health issues, and for helping to make my writing process and this book richer. I thank Margaret Cramer for sources on the treatment of thyroid disease and mood disorders in women.

I am grateful to Susan Ware for inviting me to write essays on Pauli Murray for
Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary—Completing the Twentieth Century
and the summer 2002 issue of the
Journal of Women’s History;
Maurine Beasley for inviting me to write essays on Murray and the Odell Waller case for
The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia;
and Deb Chasman for inviting me to write the foreword to the Beacon Press edition of
Proud Shoes
. Each essay gave me a chance to consolidate my thinking.

I am grateful to the editorial collective of
SAGE: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women
—Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Jacqueline Jones Royster, Janet Sims-Wood, Miriam DeCosta-Willis, and Lucille P. Fultz—for the decade-long experience of coediting the journal and related publications. I am also grateful to Akasha Hull and Barbara Smith for the experience of coediting the first anthology in black women’s studies. Both projects caught Pauli Murray’s attention and hopefully made her proud.

I thank Bettye Collier-Thomas, Ralph Carlson, Adelaide Hill Cromwell, John D’Emilio, John Hope Franklin, John Inscoe, Werner M. Loval, Katy McCabe, Elizabeth Pleck, George Stoney, Patricia Sullivan, Dorothy Wick, and Milton Williams for feedback and encouragement.

For access to and assistance in locating primary materials, I thank the literary estates of Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Lillian E. Smith, as well as the departments and people at the following institutions:

The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Reference Services, Ally Boland, Diana Carey, Anne Englehart, Sarah Hutcheon, Lynda Leahy, Ellen M. Shea, Amanda E. Strauss, and Susan Van Salis; Office of the Director and Sylvia McDowell.

Widener Library, Harvard University, Imaging Services, Evelyn Santana-Nola and Yuhua Li.

The Cumberland County Public Library, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and Wanda Hunter.

The Library of Congress, Veterans History Project, Megan Harris; Manuscripts Division, Bruce Kirby, Barbara Natanson, and Robin Rausch; Duplication Services, Rachel Mears and Tomeka Myers.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Archives Department, Robert Clark, Matthew Hanson, Virginia H. Lewick, Robert Park, Mark Renovitch, and Jay Teichmann.

New York Law School Mendik Library and William R. Mills.

New York Public Library, Reference Services.

New York State Library, Reference Services.

Princeton University, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, and Tom Rosko.

George Washington University, Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, Allida M. Black, and Christopher Brick; the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, Manuscripts Division, and Cheryl A. Chouiniere.

Wayne State University, Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, William LeFevre, and Mary Joann Wallace.

Howard University, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, University Archives, and Clifford L. Muse; Manuscripts Department and Joellen El-Bashir; References Services, Janet-Sims Wood; Office of Development and Alumni Affairs and Nesta H. Bernard.

The Library of Virginia, Archives.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Louis Round Wilson Library, Special Collections, Southern Historical Collection, Keith Longiotti, David Moltke-Hansen, Matthew Turi, Tim West, and John White; Carolina Digital Library and Archives, Mike Millner, and Gary N. Pattillo; Alumni Records Office.

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Jackson Library, Reference Services, and Mark Schumacher.

The University of Georgia Library Interlibrary Loan Department, Hargrett Special Collections, Alexander Campbell King Law Library, Reference, and Thomas J. Striepe.

The Vassar College Library and Dean M. Rogers.

The Washington National Cathedral, Archives.

I also thank the New York State Parks staffer (unfortunately, I did not get his name) who responded to my telephone query by sending me copies of the
Tera Topics
newsletters.

For assistance with images, I thank: the Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, and Christopher Harter; the Associated Press and Matthew Lutts; Corbis; Cornell University, Industrial and Labor Relations School, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Project, Katie Dowgiewicz and Melissa Holland; Durham County Library, North Carolina Collection, and Lynn Richardson; Getty Images; Harvard Law School Library, Historical and Special Collections, Public Service and Visual Collections, and Lesley Schoenfeld; Hunter College Libraries, Archives and Special Collections, and Julio Luis Hernandez-Delgado; Werner Loval; Milford Historical Society of Connecticut and Janice Broderick; the National Archives and Records Administration; National Archives for Black Women’s History, Kenneth Chandler, Tazwell Franklin, and Kenvi Phillips; the National Park Service; the Naval Historical Foundation;
New Pittsburgh Courier
Archives and Eric Gaines; the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center, Archives Center, Mary Markey, and Kay Peterson; the University of Chicago Library, Julia Gardner, and Daniel Meyer; the University of Massachusetts, W. E. B. Du Bois Library, Special Collections and University
Archives, and Jeremy Smith; the Virginia Department of Corrections and Larry Taylor; and Milton Williams.

I thank Donna Alvermann, who went with me to an exhibition of hobo art at the Loudermilk Boarding House Museum in Cornelia, Georgia, behind which we found a spot where people still jump the rails; Juanita Johnson-Bailey, who joined me on a search for the old Camp Tera site and tours of Val-Kill and Springwood; and park ranger Geraldine C. Johnson, who made our tour of Val-Kill special.

I am indebted to several former students and research assistants, all of whom have become outstanding professionals in their own right. I am especially grateful to Carla Rae Abshire, research assistant extraordinaire. Her passionate interest in this story and her relentless pursuit of unanswered questions continued from start to finish. I am grateful to April L. Few-Demos, whose organizational skills and close reading of primary documents lit the path in the early years; Nina Lyon Jenkins, whose transcriptions made all the layers of an interview visible; Youn Mi Lee, whose meticulous handling of the documents eased my load; Kimberly Harper, for assistance with research on the Port Chicago case; Jessica Anderson, for assistance with research on “My Day”; and Kirk Philpot, who helped wherever he could until his death.

For basic research assistance, including travel, and support of my efforts to share my work in progress with other scholars and writers, I thank the Schlesinger Library for a summer honorary visiting fellowship in 1997 and the University of Georgia Willson Center for the Humanities and the Arts and Bettye Jean Craige for a fellowship in the spring of 1996 and a faculty seminar grant in the fall of 2007. I also thank the University of Georgia President’s Venture Fund for a grant in 2000–2002.

It is my good fortune to belong to a supportive network of fellow writers. The White Car Gang of Athens, Georgia, affirmed my work as it evolved from rough to final draft. Genie Smith Bernstein walked me through doubt and never stopped reminding me “to let the reader be with Pauli and ER.” Jim Murdoch shared his personal experience of Eleanor Roosevelt’s magnetism and the impact of New Deal projects, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority. Dac Crossley gave me two “Adlai Stevenson for President” buttons, which are still tacked to the wall in my writing room. Harriette Austin helped me see the dramatic moments in the narrative.

I thank Carla Abshire, Elizabeth Bernstein, Genie Smith Bernstein, Jean E. Friedman, Jane Penland Hoover, Wayne Langston Perry, and Charles V. Underwood Jr. for reading multiple versions of my manuscript.

I am grateful to Pete Daniel, whose graduate course on African American history at the University of Tennessee changed the direction of my disciplinary orientation. I am grateful to Martin Lammon, who directed the 2001 and 2003 Arts and Letters workshops at Georgia College & State University, where I found inspiring teachers, receptive readers, and constructive critique. I thank
Al Perry, who directed the Winston-Salem Writers Conference in 2008, where I wrote with a circle of courageous writers.

I thank Harriette Austin, Annie Fahey, Philip Garrard, Jane Penland Hoover, Dinty Moore, Pat Schneider, and Carolyn Walker for writing workshops that challenged me to dig for narrative truth. I thank Frances Fifer, Christine Simmons Hicks, Fred A. Jones, Leroy Keith Jr., and Fred H. Singleton Jr. for encouraging my scholarly pursuits and love of language.