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Supporting civil rights for African Americans, Eleanor Roosevelt championed a federal antilynching law and successfully pressed for the appointment of African American activist Mary McLeod Bethune to the National Youth Administration. In 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to let African American vocalist Marian Anderson rent their Constitution Hall for a concert, the first lady personally invited Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial, where she attracted a crowd of seventyfive thousand people. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her membership in the DAR over the incident. During World War II she directed her efforts toward helping wounded veterans and Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany. When she died at age seventy-eight, she was mourned by many as "First Lady of the World."
Source:
Joan Hoff-Wilson and Marjorie Lightman, eds., Without Precedent: The Life and Career of Eleanor Roosevelt (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984).
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This section contains 149 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) |
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