OCTOBER 11, 1884–NOVEMBER 7, 1962
“FirstLadyoftheWorld”
HUMANITARIAN
DIPLOMAT
FIRST LADY
L
onely, sad, afraid—these words
barely begin to describe Eleanor
as a child.
But this shy little girl couldn’t
stay frightened forever. Not when others were
feeling excluded and unwanted too.
The United States in the 1930s was a racially
divided land. Many white citizens blindly
carried on their parents’ and grandparents’
prejudices against people of color. But not
Eleanor Roosevelt. She was the wife of a
popular president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(FDR), who led our country through the Great
Depression and World War II. Eleanor believed
with all her heart the words of our Declaration
of Independence: that all people are created
equal and have equal rights (“life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness”). And while being
afraid was part of her childhood, Eleanor wasn’t
afraid as an adult to stand up for her beliefs.
For example, in 1939 African American
singer Marian Anderson was to perform at
Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. She was
an incredibly gifted opera singer. But some of
the members of the Daughters of the American
Revolution (DAR) objected to a black person
singing in their auditorium and canceled the
performance. Eleanor, a life-long member of
the DAR, was outraged. She immediately quit
the group, then helped arrange a new location
for the concert. On Easter Sunday, Marian
Anderson proudly sang in front of the Lincoln
Memorial, and seventy-five thousand people
came to listen.
During that same year, Eleanor attended a
meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, where state
law forbade whites and blacks to sit together
in public places. Well, she simply refused to
obey the law and sit on the “white side” of the
meeting room. Instead, she had a chair placed in
the room’s center aisle. There she sat, showing
the Alabama legislators what she thought of
their segregation laws.
Eleanor
Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt was the wife of a president,
but she is best remembered as a hands-on social
activist.
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