The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott Page B
Authors: Patricia Bell-Scott
Ads: Link
last one. “Here you developed your attitude on the basic rights of minority groups, but it was only after I had written you a critical comment that I discovered this paragraph in one of the Negro news weeklies,” Murray explained. That deleted paragraph left no doubt where ER stood on the theater’s policy. She had written, “There are basic rights, it seems to me, which belong to every citizen of the United States and my conception of them is not a rule in the nation’s capital which bars people freed from slavery from seeing in a public place one of the greatest dramatic presentations of that story.”
It pleased Murray that ER had spoken out about the theater’s policy. It must have thrilled Murray to learn thatThomas Bomar and his daughter were “sitting in row 5” the night of the premiere. According to the Philadelphia Afro-American , the management had given Bomar complimentary tickets before they realized he was black, and he “had slipped unceremoniously past the ticket takers who were unable to distinguish him as colored, as were the judges who had selected him from among hundreds of photographs as the perfectLincoln double.”
ER had no knowledge of the stressors in Murray’s life. Yet ER may have sensed the young woman’s vulnerability, for she reached out with a bouquet of flowers and a get-well note. She congratulated Murray on an “excellent” banquet and made a one-hundred-dollar donation. She also opened the door to tea “here [in the White House] or in New York later.”
Rest and the first lady’s “tentative invitation” revitalized Murray. She drafted a list of things she intended to do. Writing was priority number one. Dancing more often and improving her “swimming technique to the point of going into deep water” made the list as well. In good spirits by the next week, Murray wrote to the first lady again: “Your lovely letter and flowers brought happiness to many people—patients, doctors, nurses, neighbors and friends. They lived in almost as many homes as there were flowers for more than a week. My greatest joy was in sharing them and in the realization that those who received them felt as happy and honored as I. And so a great personality touches the lives and hearts of many people unknowingly.”
PART II
BUMPING UP AGAINST THE LAW,
1940–42
A vermin-infested jail in Petersburg, Virginia, where Pauli Murray and Adelene McBean spent Easter weekend, March 1940. After this encounter with “southern justice,” Murray would no longer “regard it with the same terror.” ( Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division )
8
“Miss Murray Was Unwise Not to Comply with the Law”
B y late March 1940, Pauli Murray’s recovery and the approaching Easter holiday made her hungry for family. She decided to go home toDurham, and Adelene McBean, a former WPA worker who was one of several women with whom Murray shared a big apartment at 35 Mount Morris Park West, said she wanted to go, too. Mac, as Murray called her, was a young “peppery, self-assertive woman of West Indian parentage” and a close friend. Mac had arranged Murray’s transfer from the psychiatric unit atBellevue to a privatehospital under the care of Dr. Helen Rodgers and had looked after Murray’s cousins while she was away. Mac had not been to the South, and Murray was uneasy abouthow she would deal with segregation and how white southerners would respond to such an outspoken black woman.
Their trip began without incident. Murray and Mac took a new, well-appointedGreyhound from New York City to Washington, D.C. The “trouble” started on Saturday, March 23, after they transferred to a small, dilapidated bus inRichmond, Virginia. Unlike the previous coach, where the seating was on a first-come basis, white passengers spread out in the front of the old bus. Blacks sat in the rear.
Murray and Mac took the only vacant seats in the black section, which happened to be atop a wheel well that “protruded
It pleased Murray that ER had spoken out about the theater’s policy. It must have thrilled Murray to learn thatThomas Bomar and his daughter were “sitting in row 5” the night of the premiere. According to the Philadelphia Afro-American , the management had given Bomar complimentary tickets before they realized he was black, and he “had slipped unceremoniously past the ticket takers who were unable to distinguish him as colored, as were the judges who had selected him from among hundreds of photographs as the perfectLincoln double.”
ER had no knowledge of the stressors in Murray’s life. Yet ER may have sensed the young woman’s vulnerability, for she reached out with a bouquet of flowers and a get-well note. She congratulated Murray on an “excellent” banquet and made a one-hundred-dollar donation. She also opened the door to tea “here [in the White House] or in New York later.”
Rest and the first lady’s “tentative invitation” revitalized Murray. She drafted a list of things she intended to do. Writing was priority number one. Dancing more often and improving her “swimming technique to the point of going into deep water” made the list as well. In good spirits by the next week, Murray wrote to the first lady again: “Your lovely letter and flowers brought happiness to many people—patients, doctors, nurses, neighbors and friends. They lived in almost as many homes as there were flowers for more than a week. My greatest joy was in sharing them and in the realization that those who received them felt as happy and honored as I. And so a great personality touches the lives and hearts of many people unknowingly.”
PART II
BUMPING UP AGAINST THE LAW,
1940–42
A vermin-infested jail in Petersburg, Virginia, where Pauli Murray and Adelene McBean spent Easter weekend, March 1940. After this encounter with “southern justice,” Murray would no longer “regard it with the same terror.” ( Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division )
8
“Miss Murray Was Unwise Not to Comply with the Law”
B y late March 1940, Pauli Murray’s recovery and the approaching Easter holiday made her hungry for family. She decided to go home toDurham, and Adelene McBean, a former WPA worker who was one of several women with whom Murray shared a big apartment at 35 Mount Morris Park West, said she wanted to go, too. Mac, as Murray called her, was a young “peppery, self-assertive woman of West Indian parentage” and a close friend. Mac had arranged Murray’s transfer from the psychiatric unit atBellevue to a privatehospital under the care of Dr. Helen Rodgers and had looked after Murray’s cousins while she was away. Mac had not been to the South, and Murray was uneasy abouthow she would deal with segregation and how white southerners would respond to such an outspoken black woman.
Their trip began without incident. Murray and Mac took a new, well-appointedGreyhound from New York City to Washington, D.C. The “trouble” started on Saturday, March 23, after they transferred to a small, dilapidated bus inRichmond, Virginia. Unlike the previous coach, where the seating was on a first-come basis, white passengers spread out in the front of the old bus. Blacks sat in the rear.
Murray and Mac took the only vacant seats in the black section, which happened to be atop a wheel well that “protruded
Similar Books
