Read The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice for Free Online Page B

high society when she positioned herself alongside the waitstaff to serve ham sandwiches at an inaugural luncheon, thereby demonstrating a desire to serve others and a preference for informality. She gave a garden party on the grounds of the White House for residents of theNational Training School for Girls, which, in contrast to its name, resembled a prison. It had no teachers or counselors, and the living quarters were “dark” and “unsanitary.” When ER was told that politicians would be upset if she hosted black and white girls together, she said, “It may be bad politics, but it’s a thing I would like to do as an individual, so I’m going to do it.”
    This was not the first timeEleanor Roosevelt had acted on her convictions.Six years before she became first lady, she was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after she joined three hundred picketers in support of a paper box makers’ strike in New York City.Now that she was first lady, she would avoid arrest, but she continued to work with union leaders, such asRose Schneiderman, and to lobby for fair wages, for better working conditions, and against childlabor.
    ER changed the complexion of the White House by hiring only black maids, much to the chagrin of her mother-in-law. The first lady’s dinner guests, a mix of friends, artists, young people, and, sometimes, “destitute” men she had met in the park, reflected her wish to get to know people from all age groups and walks of life. She was said by one journalist to favor unconventional thinkers and “people who do things” over “stuffed shirts, fat-heads and very proper people.”Had her husband not been a candidate for president, she confided to a friend, she would have voted for the socialistNorman Thomas.
    At the suggestion ofHickok, who would become a lifelong friend, Eleanor Roosevelt set a precedent by holding weeklypress conferences with women reporters.She invited the public to write to her about their problems, and more than three hundred thousand did just that in her first year as first lady. While she could not help everyone who asked, she responded to each letter or passed it on to someone—a division chief, cabinet secretary, or the president—who could.
    ER’s passion for examining issues up close fascinated the public. Indeed, the distances she traveled and the inconveniences she tolerated were unparalleled for a first lady.She braved the squalor and soot of aWest Virginia mining town to discuss living conditions with black miners.Mud coated her shoes as she tramped through an army bonuscamp to talk withWorld War I veterans about their unpaid pensions. “An able-bodied man at the pink of condition would have difficulty in keeping up with her when she walks,” noted a reporter for the Washington Post . TheSecret Service appropriately code-named herRover.
    ER was determined that the first camp for women succeed. Given her insistence that Camp Tera be racially inclusive and her practice of counting the number of black residents, ER must have noticed the small brown girl with cropped hair in pants sitting near the social hall. Perhaps because Murray seemed to be reading or because her shyness was so obvious, ER, who normally greeted everyone, simply passed by.
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    AS SOON AS ELEANOR ROOSEVELT LEFT , JessieMills summoned Murray to the main office and accused her of disrespecting thefirst lady by not “standing at attention.”Mills, who’d been an ambulance driver inWorld War I, had the demeanor of a drill sergeant. Her thick eyeglasses and the dark suit she accented with a narrow tie magnified her overbearing personality. She woke residents at six in the morning with a bugle call and signaled changes in the schedule of activities with a shrill bell. Lights went out at ten with taps. She forbade the staff from fraternizing with residents beyond their official duties.
    Mills’s authoritarianism and her accusation offended Murray, for she had made herself as presentable