The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice (60 page)

“proud and happy”
: Ibid.

“a vile form”
: “Roosevelt Address to Church Group,”
NYT
, December 7, 1933, and “Filibuster Ended as Senate Shelves Anti-Lynch Bill: Vote of 58 to 22 to Lay Measure Aside for Relief Bill Taken on Motion by Barkley,”
NYT
, February 22, 1938.

“lynchings and incidents”
: “President Wants Lynching Inquiries: Will Not Insist on Passage of Wagner Bill but Seeks Some Remedial Action,”
NYT
, March 23, 1938.

“his tongue”
: Editorial, “A Christian Act,”
NYAN
, April 2, 1938.

“an artful dodger”
: Editorial, “An Artful Dodger,”
Chicago Defender
, April 2, 1938.

“You’re too late”
: Editorial, “We Think It’s Too Late,”
Louisiana Weekly
, April 2, 1938.

Her introduction
: PM,
Proud Shoes
, 1–2.

Since 1863
: Robert L. Zangrando,
The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909–1950
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980), 6–7.

Murray’s indignation
: PM,
Proud Shoes
, 9–10, 218–23.

“his musket loaded”
: Ibid., 10.

“his feet first”
: Ibid., 262.

“buzzard circled”
: Ibid.

Six years later
: “Killing Insane Principal, Most Brutal in State’s History,”
Baltimore AA
.

“purple”
: PM,
Song
, 56.

“split open like”
: Ibid.

The fight over
: Harvard Sitkoff, “A Rift in the Coalition,” in
A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue: The Depression Decade
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 102–38.

After one day-long
: ER, “My Day,” September 11, 1936.

Southern segregation made
: Parks with Leighton,
The Roosevelts
, 179. On FDR’s and ER’s feelings about Warm Springs, see William B. Rhoads, “Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Architecture of Warm Springs,”
Georgia Historical Quarterly
67, no. 1 (Spring 1983): 70–87.

She did not accompany
: “First Lady Spikes Report She Plans Chapel Hill Trip,”
DMH
, November 30, 1938.

SCHW was an interracial
: Thomas A. Krueger,
And Promises to Keep: The Southern Conference for Human Welfare, 1938–1948
(Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1967), 20–39, and Linda Reed,
Simple Decency and Common Sense: The Southern Conference Movement, 1938–1963
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 15–19.

“Mrs. Roosevelt arrived”
: Winifred Mallon, “Sweeping Moves Urged to Aid South: Direct Action, Largely by Federal Funds, Is Sought at Welfare Conference,”
NYT
, November 23, 1938.

“universal education”
: ER, speech, SCHW, Birmingham, Alabama, November 23, 1938, excerpted in
Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt
, ed. Allida M. Black (New York: Columbia University, 1999), 41.

Having walked into
: ER to Lorena Hickok, November 23, 1938, ERP; Black,
Casting Her Own Shadow
, 40–41; and Lash,
Eleanor and Franklin
, 525–56.

The first lady’s deft
: Sitkoff,
A New Deal for Blacks
, 132.

“Sometimes actions”
: “Mrs. Roosevelt’s Answer,”
Philadelphia AA
, December 17, 1938.

After Camp Tera
: PM,
Song
, 102–13.

“coziness with white”
: Ibid., 111.

“Dear President Roosevelt”
: PM to FDR, December 6, 1938, FDRP.

“Dear Mrs. Roosevelt”
: PM to ER, December 6, 1938, PMP.

The president’s staff
: J. W. Studebaker to PM, December 22, 1938, PMP, and Hilda W. Smith to PM, January 23, 1939, PMP.

“My dear Miss Murray”
: ER to PM, December 18, 1938, ERP.

“answered under”
: PM,
Song
, 112.

“I could not help”
: ER, “My Day,” December 8, 1938.

“Are you free”
: Ibid.

2. “MEMBERS OF YOUR RACE ARE NOT ADMITTED”

On December 12, 1938
:
State of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada
, 305 U.S. 337 (1938). For background on Lloyd L. Gaines and his case, see Richard Kluger,
Simple Justice: The History of
Brown v. Board of Education
and Black America’s Struggle for Equality
(New York: Knopf, 2004), 202–13; Genna Rae McNeil,
Groundwork: Charles Hamilton Houston and the Struggle for Civil Rights
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 143–51; Rawn James Jr.,
Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to End Segregation
(New York: Bloomsbury, 2010), 103–22; and Lloyd L. Gaines Collection, University of Missouri Law Library.

“substantially equal”
:
Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada
.

Thrilled by the court’s
: PM to Lloyd Gaines, December 18, 1938, PMP.

By the time
: Hilda W. Smith to PM, January 23, 1939, PMP.

“I am not authorized”
: William W. Pierson to PM, quoted in PM,
Song
, 115.

Unlike Thomas R. Hocutt
: According to Richard Kluger,
Simple Justice
, 157–58, Hocutt’s manner and less than stellar academic record further complicated his case.

Convinced that the scales
: PM to Frank Porter Graham, December 17, 1938, PMP.

“How much longer”
: Ibid.

“It would be”
: Ibid.

Frank Graham, a native
: Roland Giduz, “The ‘Great Event’ Is Revealed by ‘Dr. Frank,’ ”
Alumni Review
65 (September 1966): 8–11, and Leonard Schlup, “Frank Porter Graham,” in
The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia
, ed. Maurine H. Beasley, Holly C. Shulman, and Henry R. Beasley (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001), 210.

Eleanor Roosevelt’s friendship
: Leonard Schlup, “Frank Porter Graham,” and “First Lady Speaks at Chapel Hill Rites: Mrs. Roosevelt Exhorts North Carolina Graduates to Work for the Underprivileged,”
NYT
, June 12, 1935.

He had permitted
: “University Is Made Subject of Attack in Petition to Governor Gardner,”
Alumni Review
21 (October 1932): 14, and Arnold Rampersad,
The Life of Langston Hughes
, vol. 1,
1902–1941: I, Too, Sing America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 224–25.

On learning
: Warren Ashby,
Frank Porter Graham: A Southern Liberal
(Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1980), 128–29.

His leadership of the SCHW
: Ibid., 244–45.

“The black man is”
: Frank Porter Graham, SCHW speech manuscript, 1938, Frank Porter Graham Papers, Southern Historical Collection, UNC.

“It seems to me”
: Quoted in PM,
Song
, 107–8.

“aware of the inequities”
: Frank Porter Graham to PM, February 3, 1939, PMP.

“very fine letter”
: PM to Frank Porter Graham, February 6, 1939, PMP.

3. “WE HAVE TO BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT THE PEOPLE WE SELECT”

When Murray saw
: “Negress Applies to Enter Carolina: President Graham Out of Town, and Governor Refuses to Comment on Case,”
DMH
, January 6, 1939.

“Rational members”
: Ibid.

“North Carolina does not”
: “Graham, Hoey Give Statements Concerning Negro Application: University Head Says Governor’s Group Considering the Matter,”
DTH
, January 7, 1939. See also Glenn Hutchinson, “Jim Crow Challenged in Southern Universities,”
Crisis
46, no. 4 (April 1939): 103.

“equality of opportunity”
: “Graham, Hoey Give Statements Concerning Negro Application,”
DTH
.

Eager to share
: PM to Governor Clyde R. Hoey, January 14, 1939, PMP.

The
Carolina Times:
“Woman Applicant to University of N.C. Tells Her Side of Story: Pauline Murray Releases to
Times
Letter Written President Frank Graham,”
CT
, January 21, 1939.

“North Carolina will do”
: Editorial, “Graduate Courses for Negroes,”
CT
, January 14, 1939.

The
Afro-American
: PM, “Did F.D.R. Mean It?,”
Philadelphia AA
, January 14, 1939.

According to the
Daily Tar Heel
: Howard K. Beale, letter to the editor,
DTH
, January 11, 1939. Paul Green’s comments at an interracial student forum are reported in “Lethargy Is Relative,”
DTH
, February 19, 1939. For Murray’s account of campus reaction, see PM,
Song
, 116–21, 123–24.

“asking too much”
: Howard W. Odum, “What Is the Answer? A Leading Sociologist Has a Plan,”
Carolina Magazine
6 (February 1939): 5–8.

Campus polls and debate
: “Carolina Students Favor Admission,”
JG
[January 2, 1939?], clipping, PMP; “Negro Applicant Seeks Student Opinion,”
DTH
, February 5, 1939; “Graham, Hoey Give Statements Concerning Negro Application,”
DTH;
“Leaders Favor Separate Negro Education: Graham Insists Assembly Must Solve Problem,”
DTH
, January 8, 1939; “Graduate Voters Approve Admission of Negroes: Graham States One Is Pressing Entrance Claims,”
DTH
, January 11, 1939; “U.N.C. Law Students Against Admitting Negroes to School,”
DTH
, January 12, 1939; “Phi Against Negro Admission,”
DTH
, January 18, 1939; “Odum Discusses Equal Education for All Races: Sociologist Says Two Viewpoints Must be Considered,”
DTH
, February 8, 1939; and “Inter-racial Discussion Group Adopts Resolution to Admit Negro Graduates Immediately,”
DTH
, February 15, 1939.