This is just over an hour. Good evening, everyone. Im the director of the roosevelt house and its always a pleasure to welcome all of you to what is essentially the first of the programs to mark womens History Month. Its the opportunity for you to have another lock or perhapsy f your first blog at the exhibition of womens suffrage material that we have on view upstairs. He was going to see through the end of the month we will be announcing an extension but dont let that deter you from seeing it soon and often. To welcome both of them to the home of Eleanor Roosevelt to play such a big role in polymerase courageous and groundbreaking book of it is a particular part pleasure to welcome everyone here to the alma mater. She was the class of january 1933. That was only one of the many milestones in a lif as i think you know when is the book shows, polly murray poll played a significant role in the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, they had an intellectual and politically intense friendship that lastedha from the 1930s until mrs. Roosevelt death in 1962 youll hear about polly murray later, its really an extraordinary life. Ill leave the rest of the story to our guests. With with a particular story about polly murray and mrs. Roosevelt our guests, Patricia Patricia bell scott is a Professor Emeritus of womens studies and Human Development at the university on georgia. She is a major chronicler of black womens lives including her book, double stitch, black women write about mothers and daughters which one the leticia woods brown memorial book price. I hope some of you saw the book review the New York Times book review couple of weeks ago in which hearing some of you sauce a few months ago, the author or coauthor had high praise for the firebrand and the first lady, she noted that nothing was ever easy easy for polly murray, black woman born in 1910, women attracted to women, was a women, also a poet, memoirs, activist and episcopal priest. Friendship with the rooseveltmo was over a quarter of a century and over 300 letters. A tremendous book that has been 20 years in the making. I think thats what we authors call her ray. And the value of the time that you spend shines in every page. Think every book and thank you for being here today to celebrate the publication in the home of one of your protagonisti in conversation with professorth bell scott is now urban painter the edwards professor of American History emeriti of Princeton University and one of the most esteemed historians of recent decades. She has written many books that have shaped our understanding about africanAmerican History and American History said she published her first book, xo dusters, black migration to africa kansas after the history of why people was published in 2010 and its influence was immediate and has only been growing. I met professor painter just a t few years ago but i am told authoritatively that it was 19 years ago when she and i, will she is still young, im a wreck, but when she delivered the lecture on Abraham Lincoln by gettysburg college. It was a while ago. Since her retirement from princeton she has embarked on a poster story and career as an acclaimed visual artists. As far as i know it has been equaled by only a couple of people that i can think about, Winston Churchill maybe and george w. Bush. The second act in american arts. But you should know that on her website, this great historian now identifies herself as mel painter, the painter formally known as a historian mel painter, thats pretty good. I got it outcome i rehearsed it a lot. So were thrilled to be able to bring her here from princeton to roosevelt house, please welcome patricia professors Patricia Bell scottto and mel painter. Bell s [applause]. Would you like to Say Something about polly murray before we start . . I would like to say how pleased i am to be here at this event hosted by an institution that is part of her alma mater. T answer hunter was very important to polly. She came here in 1928 after having graduated from a Small High School in the south that only went to the 11th grade which meant she had to come to new york and are a Second High School diploma so that she could be admitted into hunter. If you have read her autobiography what you would know is that hunter, of all the institutions she approached during her weekend here was one place where she found acceptance and encouragement. So she did come to hunter, polly had all kinds of financial trouble so she did drop out after her sophomore year but she eventually returned and one of the things she always remembered and would credit hunter for for her relationships with two professors here, one was a catherine who was an english professor to encourage polly to write. Polly had always wanted to write which i was sent to my colleague here and we ngoepe polly is an activist, the first africanamerican woman to be ordained as a episcopal priest. The thing she wanted to be known as primarily, first and foremost i should say was as a writer. It was in catherine reichardts class that she wrote an essay that contained the seas of the family memoir and she would always be grateful for that professor for encouraging her. She also made lifelong friends here. With whom she maintain contact throughout her life. It was a very important experience for her to come to hunter. So i am grateful that she came. Because it help make polly who she became. Hello, nice to see you all. Thank you i have several questions so i will post these questions and to professor bell scott and she will talk to them or the ignore them as she prefers. [laughter] and then as we get towards the end therell be time for you to ask some questions as well. This is an extraordinary book of two extraordinary women. When you think about the times that we are in now any think about those two women, we kind of want things to get better as they go along. I am am not sure that is what happened. But i think we are in a time that ask us to keep both times in mind. Our own time on their time. We have three times going on because you worked on this book for very long time. So im going to ask you about your involvement as a writer, as a scholar, as a person attracted to these women as human beings, did you have any idea of what you would be finding when you began this project . No. Of [laughter] i began with one question which led to several questions. The first question was, how is t it that the daughter, the the granddaughter of a mixed slave from North Carolina and a woman whose ancestry entitled her to membership in the daughters of the american revolution, what true these two women together . I was very curious about this unlikely friendship. So that got me started and then once i open that door i became interested in the relationship longterm. I wanted to know what were the dynamics of this friendship. What did each bring to this relationship. Because it was a long t relationship i wanted to know how did it change over time. I also, because i was looking at time i wanted to look at the historical backdrop. So what that meant his not only was i looking at what was happening with each woman individually, was looking at them within Historical Context. So that the curtain behind which the story unfolds is a curtain where we are looking at the depression, were looking at world war ii, were looking at mccarthyism, were looking at several major historical events and historical movements. Early silver rights, the beginning of modernday more contemporary version of the Womens Movement and each of these women had a role to play in all of those movements. Each was affected but as an ea individual by these historical moments. I was trying to look at each individual woman. Is looking at the Historical Context and i was looking at overtime. Then as i continued with the project it occurred to me it would probably be useful forit readers for me to try to make some assessment about the impact of this friendship for the cause of social justice which was the passion they shared, the cause of social justice and human rights. So i ended up with more questions. What do these two unlikely women together in friendship . What was the nature of the friendship . What was the chemistry . How did they sustain the relationship . How did it change over time . And what significance did it have for the costs of social justice and human rights . Im grotesque the audience, how many of you have had a chance to read this book it . Okay, just one heroine. Going to so youre going to have to answer those questions. While one of the first things that i learned was that despite the fact that they came from very different backgrounds and the fact that polly was 26 years of junior to Eleanor Roosevelt, they had a lot in common. More than you might haveve mo imagined. First of all, there were bothth child orphaned, they both lost their parents when they were very young they are both raised by elderly can, they had some personality characteristics in common, people are are often shocked to hear me say theyre both innately shy because they sing bigger than life. When you say Eleanor Roosevelt people think of a really courageous women if if you know anythingg about poly people tend to think that seeing her as a really brave woman and she was, but they were both innately shy. They both had tremendous energy, they would wear out their best friend, however they both suffered from low moods, anxiety, feelings of insecurity. They were people who for whom their overall sense of wellbeing depended in large measure on having what they considered to be meaningful work. So so work was really important for their sense of coe wellbeing. As well as a company with their cherished friends. And cherished friends included their dog. For ellen are those typically you know she had a preference for scottish terriers and we know about bella and their other terriers that she had. Polly had a soft spot for stray large lots. So dogs, they always had dogs. So they had that in common. They were lifelong episcopalian. I think it is important not to discount the commonality in terms of their faith. They were devoted lifelong episcopalians. Polly, even though even though she had challenges with the church and left recently from time to times at least twice because she was upset with the treatment of women, she always came back and polly was a six generation episcopalian. This was a a really important connection thal they had. Theyre both avid readers, they love to write, the poetry, they loved reading poetry allowed to friends. So there is a tremendous amount of commonality in these two women that is not apparent when one thinks of them. So i was really surprised and interested to learn how much they had in common. The second question had to do with how did they sustain thisus relationship and they sustained it through letters primarily, however they supplemented both letters with candy, they would send each other flowers when one was sick or feeling low. They did get together from time to time. Polly, first of all Eleanor Roosevelt met her in the fall of 1934. Was a very traumatic experience for polly because eleanor showed up behind the wheel of her can verbal coop she is the driver, the passengers are mouthing it Tommy Thompson her private secretary, a man polly took toto be a secret service agent, though my research suggested this man was probably tommys husband. Eleanor did not like having secret service around. Et servi and so she showed up at this camp which was the first camp for unemployed women. It was the female version of the ccc camp. However eleanor was determined that unlike the ccc camp for men, this particular can would not be segregated. That was really important to her. Since it was a pet project of her and it was not located very far from her home was in the Bear Mountain area of new york, she would go periodically unannounced to inspect the camp to see how things were going. So she would drive up in this convertible coupe, gets out of the car and immediately startset going to the premises. The residents are really excited and they are following her, but polly who is shy and stunned by this unannounced appearance of the first lady and eleanor has not been first lady that long. She is sitting in a corner and the social hall which is the dining area of the camp. Net eleanor behind a newspaper. She is too shy to speak into shy to introduce yourself. So there is not a direct interaction there. But i want to believe that eleanor saw herer because eleanor made a practice of counting the number of women of color she saw, she was determined they cant beca integrated so sure periodically counting make a note to whatever she thought she saw something that wasnt quite right she would write the camp director. Four years later polly applied to the university of North Carolinas graduate school. Within weeks of her application, the president Franklin Roosevelt went to the camp to speak. His address was shortly after the midterm elections is a widely anticipated address, people are very excited, arrangements, arrangements were made to broadcast the speech internationally. The Franklin Roosevelt heaped all kinds of praise on the University First liberalism, for its faith in youth, for its progressive attitude on all fronts. And polly was beside herself because she knew that they did not accept black students but she hoped her application would be accepted anyway. And it was not. Wish you read the truth get ordered. Transcript when she read the transcripts of the president s speech she cannot believe it and she began a singlespaced threepage letter and she said to the president calling him to task for his praise of the university of the University Policy which forbid the admission of black students, forbid the hiring of black professional staff in any capacity. She sent this hot letter to the president but as she was gettine that letter ready to go she thought well, you know he has a maze of secretaries, and may not make it through. Perhaps i might send a copy of this to eleanor with the cover. Which is what she did. The president s office afforded pollys letter to afforded pollys letter to the office of education. They responded about amount trend month later. Sai eleanor burt wrote to back promptly over her own signature. In that letter she said, i understand im paraphrasing because i dont have it right in front of me. E she said that i understand youra concern i want you to know that great changes coming and it is best to fight in conciliatoryfin ways. But dont push too fast, there is this caution, dont push too fast. And polly was very happy to get this letter from eleanor, however she was not about to accept the advice that she needed to slowdown or beaver patient. Tient. Thi this was symbolic of the relationship in the early stages when the relationship first began. Polly, the impatient youth unwilling to compromise and very anxious for dramatic social change and Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady of the nation feeling very much that her role was to be supported of her husbands approach in silver right. So there is a tension of polly wanted to let go, lets get get moving and eleanor say lets not move too fast. Now this is a 1938. By the time eleanor dies, and lee is also very suspicious and unwilling to ever vote for Franklin Roosevelt. By the time eleanor is in her final years, polly polly has moved, this tells you little bit, foreshadowing, tells you a little bit of the dramatic impact of the friendship. Polly moves from being someone a who could never vote for Franklin Roosevelt who is suspicious of the twoparty system to becoming a registereda voting democrat. Er and eleanor moves from taking the position of one who says you dont push too fast in each work within the system and you must obey separate laws that require segregated seating and segregated accommodations until those laws have passed. She moved from that position to actively supporting civil rights activists who are disobeyed segregation codes in the southern south. So finally happens as i can ever say that polly moved to the center. She moved toward the center, shes always left of center. And eleanor moves from the wall middle a little to the left. We see them converging politically. So is just one example of how the relationship changed over time. And on the question of whatwa impact did it have for theid ite nation, id or to say that had it not been for that relationship i dont know if polly, and this may be too strong, but this is just my speculation i dont know polly wouldve been willing to work within the system that allowed her to work with from n the National Organization of women. Wom polly agreed to serve on the president s commission for the status of women in 1961. Where where she works with a group that was looking at the question of the equal rights amendment. She became somewhat who decidedi that it was worth the discomfort to learn to try to work with him. Walkers he. Bureaucracy always tried always tried her. Tr she had a really hard time. The people who are the mainstays of those bureaucracies always found her difficult. Silver example the naacp. I think thats another reason why we do not know as much about her. Often when when people write the history of various movements they write this history of those organizations with have been at the forefront of the movement. So we have nice histories of walter flight and theres even a new book about thurgood marshall. Ood marshall and will thurgood was her. Her. People who live within the bureaucracy there is a tendency to see the institutional leaders as the most important people. So what im hoping is this will get people interested in polly. I could possibly cover all facets of her life but to open that door. Now thats a long response. Yes, i was going to ask you what you have thought your book would contribute to American History when you began. I think you may have answered that but let me ask anyway, youre just starting out, youre just thinking about these two women who do evidently then thought of as very different. It sounds like as he wrote you brought them closer together on personal terms perhaps, less on the sociological trappings and more on their personal and psychological likenesses. Some guessing when you began you thought this was going to be a book about activism women working together as activists. Now that you have finished the books tram book after such a long time and such since you have gotten a warm response, what do do you think this book is doing . Thats an interesting question. One of the things i think, i hope the book does is add to the interest in the fuels to look at womens friendships. I think one of the reasons whye this friendship has not been explored because the documents have been there. Its not like i found new documents. Polly has a huge archive. But the roosevelt historians, even those who have looked at polly have only mentioned have only have looked at eleanor have only mentioned this friendship in passing and i felt itd at poy deserved more attention thanav what it had been given. It has also been my experience that that women who are as complex and complicated as polly ray such a challenge for assess scholars. Po whereas historians i wear the cap of someone who has a good grounding in social psychology, and other disciplines and it has taken all of that to try to look at this relationship because polly is africanamerican, she was a political radical, she wai a woman whose primary intimate affection was with women. She was a religious progressive, always a religious progressive, she was an aspiring writer and i really think her writing needs to be evaluated. D. I think she needs to get more credit there. So think it was an interdisciplinary, much more complicated story than i haded y anticipated. And i think that that is something i would like other historians to consider. What he think it was morere complicated than you expected . Professor bell scott is a social psychologist and has worked in womens studies, you were a part of all the feminist and to give me the proper title of that so you knew, at least on some level that this is going to be complicated story yet as you are getting into it you are surprised. B was that because of the way we grow up in the United States thinking of ourselves and little boxes . Is it because its hard to think of a person who is black or a person who is a feminist, having so much psychological is going to say baggage but so much psychology, hows that . Yes is the answer to all of that, in addition to the fact that this is a brilliant woman, polly is absolutely brilliant. O and in sociological terms, there is just data overload, because she made meaning out of her life through writing. R and by that i mean she always kept journals so rather she was writing poetry or just writing notes about her life, there is just a huge amount of data, material and primary sources when one is trying to access exactly where her thinking was that a particular moment in life. So there there is a huge amount of data. Also for me, even though though she was born in 1910 and i was born in 1950, theres a difference in historical moments. Di so here i am trying not to look only through the lens of of my l life, even though i have read and study mccarthyism, it was the till i began to read pollys journal entries about her fears that mccarthyism, i felt like i could just feel it. St feel it i remember reading a letter that she wrote her friend were she had learned that members of the fbi had been up to her alma mater looking for information about her. They been to howard. And this was in this 50s. I and she was just petrifying. But you know what she did, and she was right about this, she knew that frequently the information those files is incorrect so as she did is wrote J Edgar Hoover a letter and sent him a resume and a recent photograph and in the letter she said, i hear, learn from the librarian at Howard University that you have been looking for information about me. Bo because i know and have learned from others that the information you have is incorrect, this may have been shortly after lexington hughes has been called before the committee. These were friends of hers and she said i want you to have the right information. As she described walking to theg post office, buying the postage to send this return receipt signature requested certified and she described how her needs almost buckled under 1i put the package in the mail box. She was afraid but she felt this was important for her to do. Ree and i just remember mccarthyism just felt different for me. Ive always been appalled andju upset by it but it just became personal for me. Reading her personal experience and of course director hoover wrote back and said oh no, we werent looking for you, that may have been some or other other agency but ive seen the fbi file, they been keeping records on polly sensor days at howard, this was a decade later and they had a nice little file, most of of which was incorrect as she suspected, or one agent would write something and then couple of years later they would say they can verify. So the main just the experiences she had that were just not assessable to me in a reallife sense because it was before my time really that really challenge me. You have spoken more about polly murray than about Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor roosevelt is a wellknown, public figure, womaa of enormous importance in the 20th century American History. What did you learn about her that you did not know before . I know you probably knew a hole up more about roosevelt goinger into this project than he dide . About murray. I had always heard that she was a compassionate person. Son d and the depth of her compassion and the depth of her acceptance of polly really struck me. I asked pollys friends who saw them, what a particular who saw polly and eleanor together more than any one other than alvina thompson, how did eleanor deal, with polly . With polly as i said she was impatient, she said what she thought, the, the maida said to me, you know polly could be embarrassingly direct. But i credit Eleanor Roosevelts with hanging in there with her and being unwilling to allow this young woman to lie out alone crying in the wilderness. N so that was one of the first interviews i did, so that gave me the window into Eleanor Roosevelts patients with young people, probably in particular and her willingness to listen, thats the other thing, she appeared to be in social psychology we talk about making relationships with the importance of active listening, you cannot find a more active listener than Eleanor Roosevelt, so she was the ideal activee listener, totally accepting the people there for they were. So she really opened her home to polly, she invited polly up to an overnight stay, she would fight pollys aunts, she took her significant other to lunch with eleanor, so her openness, i was also interested in her growth. I guess we think about her this friendship and ive been talking primarily about polly but the same is true of t eleanor in the sense that, this friendship was a place of growth for her so that she moved from being this cautious woman who is trained and socialized to obey the rule, you wait your turn,d, you work with an institution to being someone willing to pull throw out the rules. I was very impressed with her growth and a couple of times there a couple of instances where it was clear that the relationship with polly had made discriminationlike it was clear discrimination was not just an abstract concept for her so that when people talked about housing discrimination, because of what she had heard from polly, because of harriet belafontes experience in new york, you could tell from eleanors response to that that this had become personal for her. Later on i guess feminists talks about the politics be impersonal, it was clear that it became a personal issue for eleanor. So is very pleased to learn about her compassion from a more personal level, not just from what she did on the political front. So they related to one anothers as activists but also as friends. Yes, started out as a confrontation of words. Referred polly reed first it is confrontation by typewriter. And it moves from a confrontation to one where they became allies and they began to work around issues together, and then it moved particularly after fdr died in 1945 and she was no longer first lady and was freed of the application of having to be careful about what she said and advocated because of her responsibilities to the administration. It became and moved toward genuine friendship. Friendsh i want to ask a question that i do not speak to you about before, so this is going to come out of left field. Were there other similar relationships in either womenss life . There were i will start with eleanor, polly was not the only africanamerican friend that eleanor had. In fact the friendship with mary before was better known, she was also very Close Friends with walter white, executive secretary of the naacp, the naacp, but polly argues that i think i agree with her that her relationshipe hi was different t her relationship with eleanor was different because unlike this buffoon and walter right who are aged peers of eleanors, polly was a young upstart. And also they wanted things from her. These are institutional leaders. Buffoon is president president of a college, president of the National Council of negro woman. Walter white as executive secretary of the naacp. So in their in their dealings with eleanor, they are thinking about the constituencies their organizations and their political constituencies. Poli polly represented no one other than young people like herself, she could not deliver a vote, buffoon and walter right could, polly cannot deliver votes, buty as she was very brash and they apparently were afraid to go very far because they were always thinking about the political consequences. It was always calculated. So polly believed and i think she she was right that her relationship is different because some weights she felt like she had nothing to lose and she could speaker mine. There were other young people, africanamericans that eleanor had relationships with and one is harriet belafonte. They became friends i dont know if they met at the worlds fair in brussels, may may be before the they became friends. He still to this day speaks of her as his mentor. And she showed him a tremendous amount of compassion. When he wanted to buy or rent an apartment in an Apartment Building in new york city and was denied because he was africanamerican, she was so upset. She wrote about it in my day is that what are you just come in and move in with me. He said well thank you for the f offer but i cant. It would be like running away from the battle. I need to fight this. So she had those friendships. In terms of polly, i think of two friendships with white womenri that were really significant. One significant. One was with the writer lillian. Smith. Who to you all know who Lillian Smith is . Lillian smith is the native southerner born in georgia. Er, i she wrote killers of a dream call strange food which is perhaps the bestknown and most important work. It would worked with an early ally of Martin Luther king a black civil rights, that young silver rights generation of that area in the 50s and sixties. Never never left the south, worked there, started literary journal which published one of pollys first journals but first poems. Was a really important mentor and supporter to polly. Was one of the persons who read various chapters it was very encouraging. And was a lesbian. Mes in the second person who comes to mind is a professor of history, caroline ware who taught at howard, she was aso white woman, social history, she is another person i think was that got her do. Social and cultural historian, became a friend of pollys whens polly enrolled at howard in law school. Polly decided to auditarolines carolines american constitutional history course and they became fast friends. There are also cofounder and they were friends until carolines death. She also read various segments of proud. I want to ask you unless question before we open. Question that is, what to you learn, yourself for yourself personally . One of the things i learned is that history is always with s us. Us polly was one of those people who carried history along with her so that whenever she was writing letters and she was forever writing letters to people. She might start the letter by saying, today 70 years ago as you will tell you what happened and why is significant in terms of a particular moment. So i found myself taking on that habit. When i was working on this book there were several currentcurret events happening that reminded me of things that they had gone through. There is a case in the book of for ginny at sharecropper who was executed and while i was working on the book in my home state, were not in texas, but in georgia, there was a case ofrgia troy davis of a man who is executed and the victims that recanted jimmy carter had appealed to the parole board, the pope had been involved it was still executed and i can remember polly writing and dealing with the case of how sh did not sleep the night before. I was not thinking about it as i was advocating and lobbying to the parole board to try to get them to grant clemency. I was just one of lots of people in the state and around thei jud world. But i just had a sense of their presence and eleanor was flopping inside of the white house, she was wearing the heck out of franklin and trying to get him to intervene ortervene n establish the position of inquiry which she did not do do. She got on the train and rode to virginia to speak to Veterans Group but she spoke to the governor privately trying to get him to grant clemency. So this notion history beingng with us and some of pollyset letters could have been written by some of the black lives matter young people. Then because she burn candles at both ends ive tried to learn from her life. She always struggled with this issue of activism and wanting to be an artist and by that i mean a writer, poet, and incidentally she also dabbled in photography. Was kind of interesting. She would always say to Lillian Smith that im really a frustrated writer and i cannot get my work because activism keeps pulling me away. So from studying her life i have work to try to defined my activism because i was a lot like polly in terms of activism as a younger woman, redefine my activism to include writing, soe ive learned that, she worked so hard and so her health suffered. So i have tried to learn the lesson from that about selfcare. I also remember during that period for those really trying to study how she dealt with issues of loss and grief when the two maternal onto raised her head past. I remember going back to that passage a couple of times when i was dealing with my own fathers passing. I found comfort in that. So and its interesting that when i started this book i was 40 something, and now i am 65. Ill tell everybody i have myom Medicare Card now. And i have watched myself age and i have looked at how she and eleanor dealt with aging. Ag i have learned a lot. I really liked they had been my examples to learn from. Thank you. [applause]. Now for you, yes first of all, thank you very much, both ofth f you. You have done something really special for me. I did read the book. And you gave lots of nuggets to really talk about both of those women. Ose women. I just want to say for one, it was about roosevelt where she bit off of a little ice cream cone, youre gonna have fun raising this book. She throws out she throws out all of theses nuggets for you. The fell in the services said he felt like a man after the first lady bit off his ice cream. Because he was now a person. I want to test the question which i really think you are ready answered. But in the book he talks about her shoulder to shoulder and you know every time it is History Month they throw it out all the things that he has done but they never mentioned polly murray. So since i dont mention doctor murray and you do mention she is right there with strategy, right there there shoulder to shoulder, i would like you to tell us again why she is not mentioned. I think she is not mentioned, some of it is because she is a woman. Some of it is because she was ao one who found bureaucracy trying so what she would do is make her contribution and that she would go on to the next thing. What is interesting about thatgn is people were quite willing to take her nuggets and take her contributions and ideas, but not always credit her. C so i think that is part of it. I also think that the fact of trying to deal polly is not easy because she is so. She is brilliant, complex, for some people it seems like a conundrum in the sense that shes so radical and so brilliant but in fact ive had people say to me even some of her friends i interviewed her that said she was just stunned when she decided to go into the priesthood. They were just stunned. They cannot they cannot figure out how does this fit. But that had always been there. She had always been devout. I tried to show that some of the book for example when she is working with the odell case and she wrote him regularly, she would talk to him about well remember what paul wrote. She would talk to him about, as a child would accompany her uncle who was an episcopal priest and he would visit church and she would go with him. When the Church Church pianist was not available she would play the organ. So that had always been there. But people tend not to see that part of her. So i think of it is some of it is her personality, some of it is sexism, some of it is against her sexuality. What is interesting you bring up via rusting, is that he and polly, polly health plan that bus ride into the south. We hear about it and we hear about the work as the leader of. That. But polly may not get mentioned. You mentioned mary macleod who first came to roosevelt house in 1924 and all the roosevelts, and obviously the generation before polly, would you say that she in a way that the groundwork of a friendship between an africanamerican woman and awaits family such as the roosevelts such as when polly came along eleanor was already well along that path and because she loved young people she was notorious for loving young people and certainly encouraging the Higher Education of young women that the friendship mary macleod buffoon really talks away for pauline and eleanors relationship . I would definitely think so. Eleanor did stay at Mary Macleods home. Polly whose circumstances were always precarious did not have, during during eleanors lifetime never owned a home. So there is never an invitation for eleanor to go and visit pollys home. Home. Polly always went to eleanors place. I have no doubt that eleanor would have gone had polly invited her no matter what the condition was. But polly was a very proud person. But mrs. Buffoon or walter white had a different stance of living. He was very important, dont remember where eleanor writes about how it was a Major Development for her in terms of her ability to see mrs. Buffoon is real. When she hugged her and kissed her. She crossed a barrier there andh im sure it made it possible toi have intimate friendships with other young black people. Did polly challenge Eleanor Roosevelt to challenge that were important to the africanamerican population. You have documents or letterscur that show that there is a direct connection between eleanors activism and her confrontation of franklin on these africanamerican issues . Polly did challenge him on what she said the silence on the issue of lynching. E issue of and eleanor eventually made a statement about how she was against lynching. Polly, when she graduated from howard at the top of her class like her male peers had expected to be able to go to harvard. All her male peers had been as decorated as she but she was not allowed to go because she wasuse female. She did not really directly ask eleanor she just told her how unfair this was and eleanor leaned on franklin who was a graduate of Harvard College to inquire. He did, he wrote. Its not not clear to me if you see the letter and i have an excerpt of it in the book. Its not clear that franklin cared about this is much as eleanor did, in fact his letter was almost kind of facetious. I think he says Something Like, i think he says the gym i donti mean to i dont want you tose build a new dorm for this young colored lady or Something Like that. He said when you get a chance would you get one of your deans to write me about the situation. While he was going to the motions because eleanor was leaning on him. So she didnt get to go, she ended up going to the universit of california berkeley. But she did act and she tried to move things where she could. Theres another of 50c men who were courtmartialed and polly thought it was unfair and she was covering the case and was c feeding her information about id and eleanor was pressing fdr to do something about it. Whether there is another place where they interacted with one another, it had to do with crossing between civil rights and human rights. In some way polly really shape the civil rights from the legal issues. She was highly involved in that. Eleanor likewise on the human rights struggle then both of them use the others language, in other w often talked about human rights beginning at home here in the United States and in the samehe way, i think paulie was the first person in the government to do assessments of u. S. Human rights compliance domestically, and that was 1947 or something. I wonder did you find the space they both worked between everybody else. Its probably the second year of law school. Your question makes me think of this. I dont know if this is an answer. Aw school so there is an International Student Assembly Meeting in washingtonwashington, d. C. Thers students coming from all over the world. Y some radicals from the law school and harvard are delegates and eleanor is determined by students from the allied nations feel welcome and support it andd get special treatment and get to spend the night in the whiteher house. En they raise issues about the allies behavior in other places in the world. Polly and her group are upset to the nationalists. They are worried about what the russians are doing and they want to raise these questions. Its interesting because they develop and this is in the box p6 they develop the language that speaks years later. Eleanor is rounding up to try to convince her not to move forward because it will upset the allies. She doesnt back down into the group stays together. Eleanor tells her one of the things we are worried about is this wha what make them upset ad the students will leave. Thats an important moment for polly because what it says, and this is another part of the story, this notion of civil dialogue, dont we need that . The dialogue and be able to maintain relationships with their talking the individual level on friendship or whether we are talking on the state level or institutional. Its how to deal with differences and in this questioa the differences have to do with the young radicals yelling human rights, human rights. To come upstairs and buy the book and join for a recession. We thank you for really enriching the discussion. Please join us. [applause] the men and women of the dallas police, they didnt flinch and they didnt react recklessly. Nothing then driving the wrong car in the wrong neighborhood or some other reason just as trivial. Those people get defensive if they feel like you are being offensive. If its not a crisis and a dangerous situation request versus demand. At this years printers row with fast authors discuss modern feminist. We will hear from rebecca author of all the single ladies. And when the west who discusses her memoir notes from a wild woman. This is one hour
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