The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice (67 page)

“If the Army was afraid”
: Ibid.

“victory”
: Ibid.

They also saw her propensity
: Powell, interview by author, and Dovey Johnson Roundtree, interview by author, Washington, DC, August 23, 1995.

Matters reached
: See Logan,
Howard University
, 375–76, 379, on President Mordecai Johnson’s treatment of William Hastie and Howard Thurman, who would eventually leave the university because of difficulties with the president. On Johnson’s attitude toward women and his treatment of Lucy Diggs Slowe, the dean of women, who was the highest-ranking female administrator on campus, see Patricia Bell-Scott, “ ‘To Keep My Self-Respect’: Dean Lucy Diggs Slowe’s 1927 Memorandum on the Sexual Harassment of Black Women,”
NWSA Journal
9, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 70–76, and Patricia Bell-Scott, “The Business of Being Dean of Women: A Letter from Lucy Diggs Slowe to the Howard University Board of Trustees,”
Initiatives
54, no. 2 (1992): 35–41. For an extended discussion of Slowe’s career and her struggle with Johnson and other male administrators over the treatment of women, see Lisa R. Rasheed, “Lucy Diggs Slowe, Howard University Dean of Women, 1922–1937: Educator, Administrator, Activist” (PhD diss., Georgia State University, 2010), and Carroll L. L. Miller and Anne S. Pruitt-Logan,
Faithful to the Task at Hand: The Life of Lucy Diggs Slowe
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012).

“suspend all activities”
: PM to ER, May 4, 1944, ERP.

At the reins
: For Bilbo’s position on race, see Theodore G. Bilbo,
Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization
(Poplarville, MS: Dream House, 1946).

“Since I count you”
: PM to ER, May 4, 1944.

“second-hand”
: Ibid.

“Freedom of action”
: Ibid.

Murray asked permission
: PM to Malvina Thompson, May 11, 1944, ERP.

“a slave in a small”
: “Open Letter to the Graduating Class of 1944,” May 29, 1944, ERP.

19. “THE FLOWERS BROUGHT YOUR SPIRIT TO THE GRADUATION”

“tradition”
: PM,
Song
, 239.

“Your picture”
: quoted in PM,
Song
, 239.

“stinging gibes”
: PM,
Song
, 239.

“a source of”
: Ibid., 240.

“There’s a limit”
: PM to Malvina Thompson, May 20, 1944, ERP.

“Seems to me”
: PM to ER, [May 20, 1944?], ERP.

“Dear Jim”
: FDR to Jim [James B. Conant], May 31, 1944, PMP.

FDR frequently employed
: There are numerous accounts of FDR’s efforts to avoid difficult conversations with gibes or storytelling. See, for example, Walter Francis White,
A Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White
(New York: Viking, 1948), 168–69, and Jervis Anderson,
A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), 256–57.

The black servant
: Powell, interview by author.

“in position”
: PM, “Notes on the Tea,” written on
The Seventy-Sixth Annual Commencement Program
, Howard University, June 2, 1944, ERP.

“gawked”
: Ibid.

“tried to re-copy”
: Ibid.

“got caught”
: Ibid.

“posted around the room”
: Ibid.

“Ruth came out”
: Ibid.

“a bronze-colored [paper] clip”
: PM,
Song
, 197.

She inscribed
: PM to ER, note on name card, June 1944, ERP.

On another card
: PM to ER, note on name card, June 1944, ERP.

“With the wish”
: PM, “Notes on the Tea.”

“The flowers brought”
: Ibid.

“reaction of one”
: “Open Letter to the Graduating Class of 1944,” May 29, 1944.

“prepared to be”
: Ibid.

“put his finger”
: Ibid.

“the air is freest”
: Ibid.

“necessity for the North”
: Ibid.

“pet thesis”
: Ibid.

“his face grew”
: Ibid.

“Shall we move”
: Ibid.

“dank and suffocating”
: Ibid.

“A live lawyer”
: PM, interview by McNeil.

“shouted ‘Oh My God!’ ”
: PM to ER, June 4, 1941, ERP.

“with all the graduates”
: Ibid.

“removed the identification”
: Ibid.

In truth
: For a press story about the bouquet, see Harry McAlpin, “Mrs. F.D.R. Sends Posies to Pauli for Commencement,”
Philadelphia AA
, June 10, 1944.

“the honorary dinner”
: PM to ER, June 4, 1941.

“hot-footed it back”
: Ibid.

“I was much amused”
: ER to PM, June 8, 1944, PMP.

“more powerful”
: PM to ER, July 11, 1944, ERP.

20. “SO AT LAST WE HAVE COME TO D-DAY”

“the weariness that assails”
: ER, “My Day,” April 7, 1944.

“to vote the Democratic”
: PM to President and Mrs. Roosevelt, June 4, 1944, ERP.

“I believe your great”
: Ibid.

“the unofficial Vice-President”
: Parks with Leighton,
The Roosevelts
, 221.

“Hope is a crushed stalk”
: PM, “Dark Testament,”
South Today
8, no. 2 (Winter 1945): 32.

“When you read it”
: PM to ER, June 7, 1944, ERP.

“Thank you for letting me”
: ER to PM, June 13, 1944, PMP.

This was reassuring
: PM, interview by Blanche Wiesen Cook, October 19, 1983, PMP.

“This will introduce”
: ER to Flora Rose, June 5, 1944, PMP.

“recite the words”
: Lawrence Resner, “Country in Prayer: President on Radio Leads in Petition He Framed for Allied Cause,”
NYT
, June 7, 1944.

“Almighty God”
: FDR, “D-Day Prayer,” June 6, 1944, FDRP.

“So at last”
: ER, “My Day,” June 7, 1944.

“eloquent”
: PM to ER, June 7, 1944, ERP.

21. “THIS HARVARD BUSINESS MAKES ME BRISTLE”

“The problem is”
: George H. Chase to FDR, June 5, 1944, FDRP.

“Dear Mr. Roosevelt”
: PM to FDR, June 17, 1944, FDRP.

“ruling that women”
: PM to Thomas Reed Powell and the Harvard Law School Committee on Graduate Studies, June 19, 1944, PMP.

“request”
: Ibid.

“personal factors”
: PM to A. Calvert Smith, June 24, 1944, PMP.

“ ‘male slant’ ”
: Ibid.

“social factors”
: Ibid.

“liberal”
: Ibid.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Roosevelt”
: PM to ER, July 22, 1944, ERP.

“Dear Pauli”
: ER to PM, July 3, 1944, PMP.

22. “YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO PUT FALA IN HERE”

“a black dog”
: ER, “My Day,” October 18, 1944.

“see them off”
: ER, “My Day,” August 12, 1944.

“with enthusiasm”
: PM to ER, July 11, 1944, ERP.

Mildred had taken
: PM to ER, August 7, 1944, ERP.

“a full-sized trailer”
: PM,
Song
, 248.

“just finished”
: PM to ER, July 11, 1944.

Nonetheless, he
: On Robert Fitzgerald as PM’s first teacher, see PM,
Proud Shoes
, 1–3; on ER’s admiration for her aunt Bye, see ER,
This Is My Story
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937), 50–51.

“fired at the First Lady”
: PM to ER, July 11, 1944.

“Los Angeles is a”
: ER to PM, July 23, 1944, PMP.

“You resisted this idea”
: PM to ER, July 11, 1944.

“Mrs R., the Negro soldiers”
: Ibid.

“opposed”
: ER to PM, July 23, 1944.

Hoarseness, sinusitis
: Marquis Childs, “Washington Calling: Our Commander in Chief,”
WP
, April 15, 1944; John H. Crider, “President’s Health ‘Satisfactory’: Unique Report Made by McIntire; Roosevelt Health Is ‘Satisfactory,’ ”
NYT
, April 5, 1944; “President Is Better but Remains Quiet: At Physician’s Insistence, He Cancels Two Appointments,”
NYT
, March 31, 1944; and “President Is Recovering: But Spends Some Time Abed, Still Weak from Influenza,”
NYT
, January 4, 1944.

“the size of a hen’s egg”
: Steven Lomazow and Eric Fettmann,
FDR’s Deadly Secret
(New York: Public Affairs, 2009), 94. For a news story, see “Went Under Surgery, Roosevelt Discloses: But It Was Only for an Old Wen on His Head, He Says,”
NYT
, February 5, 1944.

“unsteadiness of his hand”
: Harry McAlpin, “FDR as a White House Correspondent Saw Him,”
Philadelphia AA
, April 21, 1945.

Rumors that FDR
: John H. Crider, “Roosevelt Was Ill of Bronchitis, but Says That He Is Feeling Fine: Roosevelt Whips Bronchitis Attack,”
NYT
, March 29, 1944, and Gladstone Williams, “Roosevelt Hurt by Treatment of Press,”
Atlanta Constitution
, November 29, 1944.

Pronouncements about
: Charles Hurd, “President’s Health ‘Excellent,’ Admiral McIntire Reports: Condition at 62 Is Above Average for His Age,”
NYT
, June 9, 1944.

“if…so ordered”
: FDR to Robert E. Hannegan, July 11, 1944, FDRP.

“home on the Hudson”
: Ibid.

“run in the usual”
: Ibid.

“You are to be”
: PM to FDR, July 14, 1944, FDRP.

“There is no one”
: Ibid.

Committed to presenting
: On PM as an early practitioner of literary journalism and literary nonfiction, see Patricia Bell-Scott, “Calling Out the Truth: Pauli Murray, Black Feminist Literary Journalist,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of American Journalism Historians Association Conference, Richmond, VA, October 2007), and Patricia Bell-Scott, foreword to
Proud Shoes
, by PM (Boston: Beacon, 1999), vi–x.