The Firebrand and the First Lady
Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NOMINEE • The riveting history of how Pauli Murray—a brilliant writer-turned-activist—and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt forged an enduring friendship that helped to alter the course of race and racism in America.
“A definitive biography of Murray, a trailblazing legal scholar and a tremendous influence on Mrs. Roosevelt.” —Essence
In 1938, the twenty-eight-year-old Pauli Murray wrote a letter to the President and First Lady, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, protesting racial segregation in the South. Eleanor wrote back. So began a friendship that would last for a quarter of a century, as Pauli became a lawyer, principal strategist in the fight to protect Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and a co-founder of the National Organization of Women, and Eleanor became a diplomat and first chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bell-Scott (Life Notes), professor emerita of women's studies and family science at the University of Georgia, deftly reveals two women's crucial involvement in the struggle for civil rights. Pauli Murray, a young African American woman, crossed paths with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1934 when Murray was living at Camp Tera, a New Deal facility for unemployed women. The burgeoning professional relationship between these two smart, strong-minded, and ambitious women developed into genuine affection. They shared similar ideas about social justice, and each chose her own course of action. The fascinating, complex Murray takes center stage in this absorbing historical page-turner. In the decades before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and Rosa Parks's 1955 bus protest, Murray challenged racial segregation at the University of North Carolina (1938) and on public transportation in Virginia (1940). As a law student in the early 1940s, she battled gender discrimination, foreshadowing her co-founding of the National Organization for Women in 1966. Until Roosevelt's death in 1962, she supported Murray's various projects and helped the younger woman with her career goals. Murray's considerable achievements weren't dependent on Roosevelt's assistance; Bell-Scott brilliantly shows that the friendship equally enriched both women. Illus.
Customer Reviews
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I've been fortunate to belong to a Book Club (BTL) that recognizes the importance of reading material, that gives us hope, strength and truths. This book is a gift to me as I find significance having been born in 1954.