The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice (32 page)

· · ·

IN THE SUMMER OF
1948, Eleanor Roosevelt asked two lawyers—her son
Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. and a family friend,
Harry S. Hooker—to help
Murray after she was admitted to the
New York State bar. Hooker promised to keep Murray “
in mind.”
Franklin offered to refer cases to Murray without a forwarding fee. His response, while positive, lacked his mother’s personal touch. Even so, Murray felt an affinity with him. They were cohorts. She was thirty-seven, he thirty-three. Both were attorneys who had become involved in New York politics.

When Franklin ran for his first term as U.S. representative from the 20th District, Murray canvassed for him, partly because of her affection for his parents, and partly because he ran on the
Liberal Party ticket. (In subsequent elections, he would run as a Democrat.)
The Liberal Party was an independent
political organization that backed
anti-Communist progressives, supported liberal Democrats and Republicans, and occasionally ran its own candidates for office. Franklin defeated the Democrat backed by the party machine.

In 1949, Murray agreed to run as the Liberal Party candidate for the
New York City Council from the Tenth Senatorial District, in
Brooklyn. Her opponents included a Democrat, a
Republican, and an
American Labor Party candidate. Given that three-fourths of the voters in Murray’s district were working-class whites, and that she had little money and no experience in elective politics, the challenge seemed formidable. However, the possibility of forging a multiracial coalition was too sweet for her to pass up.

Maida
Springer, who had been one of the first black women to run for the New York State Assembly, signed on as campaign manager. Her presence brought an understanding of local politics and organizational know-how to the team.
Operating on a budget of less than eight hundred dollars, Murray, Springer, and a small army of volunteers canvassed the district, shouting until they were hoarse. They so annoyed one woman that she dumped a bucket of cold water on them from her apartment window. The “
little blue-and-white fliers” they handed out featured a fashionably coiffed image of Murray with a brief description of her “qualifications and platform.” Her platform “
called for more traffic lights…, cleaner streets,…frequent collection of garbage, keeping libraries open daily, more schools and playgrounds, and adequate housing for the aged and middle-income residents.”

When Murray’s opponents accused her of not understanding the needs of working people, she fired back. “
I think it is more important to the people,” she told a
New York Post
reporter, “that I worked longer as a dishwasher, waitress, elevator operator, typist-stenographer, switchboard operator and newspaper reporter than as a practicing attorney.”

The enthusiasm her candidacy generated and a twenty-five-dollar donation from Eleanor Roosevelt raised Murray’s expectations. “
I have drawn so much inspiration from you through the years,” Murray wrote to ER. “
If successful in the campaign, I hope to follow the Roosevelt tradition and be the kind of public servant who transcends party labels and whose talents will be devoted to the entire community.” Mindful that she was a long shot, on another day Murray asked, “
Please use your nicest prayer rug for me, preferably Eleanor blue.”

During the campaign, Murray learned that Harvard’s administration had decided to admit women to its
law school, and she prepared to apply again. Her correspondence file with school officials was now six inches thick, and her desire to study there had not waned. But after the “
crowds at her nightly Brooklyn meetings” mushroomed, and the
New York Post
, the
Americans for Democratic Action, and the
Citizens Union endorsed her, Murray reconsidered her Harvard plans. She had agreed to run for city council, and she was committed to serving, if elected. Furthermore, to have the stamp of approval from a liberal newspaper, a political organization cofounded by ER, and “
a prestigious nonpartisan body” was a serious matter. “
I’ve waited years to get into
Harvard Law School,” she said in an interview. “I can easily wait two more until I finish my first Council term.”

Only
Springer knew how disappointed Murray was on election night when she came in second to the Democrat. She had won 17 percent of the electorate, bested her Republican and
American Labor Party rivals, and doubled the Liberal Party vote from the previous election. Her supporters were certain she had a future in elective politics. Democrats tried to lure her to their ranks.

ER must have been pleased to see Murray move toward the political center. While she had not joined the
Democratic Party faithful, she was inching away from the radical left. Unlike
Franklin, who was reelected to the House, and later ran unsuccessfully for New York State attorney general and governor, Murray did not have the stomach to run for political office again.

31

“I Couldn’t Wait to Give You One of the First Copies”

O
n March 26, 1949, the marriage between
Pauli Murray and Billy Wynn was annulled. They had been legally married just over eighteen years. Until now, Murray had not had the funds to file for an annulment. Yet many of her
friends, including Eleanor Roosevelt, had no prior knowledge of the marriage. Having closed this chapter in her life, Murray began work on a study of U.S. laws on race and color for the Methodist Church.
The impetus for the project came from the head of the Women’s Division,
Thelma Stevens, and other white women
activists, who wanted to open church-related programs to all races. The goals of the study were to provide a reference book for lawyers, lawmakers, and the public, and to identify the extent to which
American law sanctioned or prohibited racial segregation.

Murray was convinced that a comprehensive compilation of laws on race and color would “
carry an intrinsic argument against” segregation. Intellectually, this study was a continuation of the research on state statutes she had started in
Leon Ransom’s civil rights seminar at
Howard University School of Law. Emotionally, the work gave her another vehicle through which to channel her activism, without the organizational politics that so often frustrated her.

As the sole full-time researcher for the project, Murray spent the next year combing reference books and identifying, hand-copying, and then typing every statute she found. It was tedious labor. To combat fatigue and renew her spirit, she “
developed a ritual” of pausing briefly at
St. Paul’s Chapel on her way to the library.
She found solace in reading
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the statement on human equality drafted by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights under ER’s leadership. For Murray, this statement epitomized
“the best of
Christian-Judaeo-Democratic culture,” and she felt a philosophical connection between it and documents she had coauthored, such as the resolutions on human rights at the 1942
International Student Assembly.

It was not until President
Truman sent the military into
South Korea without a declaration of war that Murray interrupted her work to reach out to ER. The United States and the
Soviet Union had partitioned Korea into two zones of control at the end of
World War II. The Soviets backed the government in the north. The United States backed the south. Intent on unifying the country under Communist rule, the
North
Koreans invaded South Korea in June 1950, with military support from the Soviets. This incursion proved “
beyond all doubt,” said Truman, “that
Communism has passed beyond the use of subversion…to armed invasion and war.”

North Korea’s aggression and the president’s response disturbed Murray. “
I think of you in these troubled times,” she wrote to ER, “and I know how heavily the world situation weighs on you. I know of no single individual who has done more toward trying to bring about world peace and understanding, and though we stand resolute against further aggression, we do so with heavy hearts.” ER would side publicly with Truman in this instance, despite previous differences with him. She would also urge the Soviets to honor their commitment to the U.N. by exerting their “
influence over the Northern Koreans in peace.”

When Murray finished typing her manuscript, the twelve-inch-high copy included pertinent sections from state and local statutes, the
U.S. Constitution, federal legislation, executive orders, administrative regulations, and U.N. documents. It was “
the first effort to bring together under one cover the laws of the forty-nine American jurisdictions in the field of race.” The official title was
States’ Laws on Race and Color and Appendices: Containing International Documents, Federal Laws and Regulations, Local Ordinances and Charts
.

Murray picked up the first copies at the
publications office of the
Methodist Church on March 5, 1951. The sight of the yellow, 746-page book that bore her name in bright green letters filled her with pride. She had an impressive record of published
poems and
essays, but this, her first book, was special.
States Laws’
was a compelling documentary of the nation’s efforts to regulate race relations. In it, Murray revealed that there were laws forbidding the integration of public transportation,
hotels, places of employment,
housing,
hospitals, military units and installations, prisons, recreational facilities, and schools all over the country. Thirty states restricted intermarriage.
Mississippi made it illegal “
to publish or distribute” literature that promoted racial
equality.
Oklahoma authorized separate telephone booths, and
Arkansas mandated separate tax rolls and
voting booths.

Murray raced to
ER’s office three days later with the book. “
I couldn’t wait to give you one of the first copies that came off the press so I delivered it myself,” she said in an attached note. “If you think it worthwhile I hope you’ll call attention to the book in your column and radio program. Let me know what you think of it. I hope I’ll get to see you before too long.”

The Methodist Church intended to distribute the book in states where it had affiliates. However, interest was so strong that the
American Civil Liberties Union made copies available to law libraries, black colleges, and progressive organizations across the nation.
Thurgood Marshall dubbed it “
the bible” for civil rights attorneys. The
New York County Lawyers’ Association
Bar Bulletin
called it “
a primary source useful to public and private agencies charged with…building better inter-group relations.”

· · ·

A FEW WEEKS AFTER
the book’s release, the Women’s Division held a celebration and invited representatives from several professional groups to accept first editions. Among these representatives were
Dorothy Kenyon, one of the first women judges in New York;
Francis J. McConnell, a Methodist bishop who had supported the
Odell
Waller campaign; Ben Frederick
Carruthers, a Romance languages specialist with the U.N. Commission on Human Rights; and
Paul North Rice, head of the Reference Department at the New York Public Library.

Murray did not attend the celebration because she was at
Freedmen’s Hospital, in Washington, D.C. She had pushed herself to the point of exhaustion again. Maida and
Aunts Pauline and Sallie stood in for her at the book party. Murray’s month-long hospitalization gave her time to read. Among the books she devoured were
This I Remember
, ER’s second
autobiography, which covered her life as a political wife up to Franklin Roosevelt’s death in 1945;
Roosevelt and Hopkins
,
Robert E. Sherwood’s study of the relationship between the president and his close adviser; and
Roosevelt in Retrospect
, a biography by
John Gunther, whose description of ER’s efforts to get her husband to intervene in the Waller case confirmed a sincerity of heart Murray had sensed all along.

Moved by the revelation that FDR had written Governor
Darden at ER’s urging, and that ER had pressed the president past his convictions, Murray opened the next missive with a
nickname of her own creation. “
Dear ‘Mrs. Rovel’—I hope you don’t mind my using that term just once. For the past six months I’ve been so saturated with the life of the Roosevelts—
This I Remember
, Gunther’s book,
Roosevelt and Hopkins
—that it’s difficult for me to be formal.… I understand so many things better about those hectic years 1940–1944 than I did then.”

When Murray learned that ER had a “
nasty” virus, she urged her “
to take care” and, once out of the hospital, sent
a “sprig of lilacs.” Of her
“own
health situation,” Murray wrote that she was experiencing eye trouble and rapid
weight loss. “Today it was 99, about five to eight pounds under normal. The various tests will take about two or three weeks, I’m told, but the tentative indications point toward some glandular disorder which has been a recurr[ence] over a period of fifteen years and has continuously obstructed my progress.” Murray yearned to say more; alas, this was not the time. “Someday I wish I could tell you the story of my family,” she said. “I think you’d understand a lot of things.”

· · ·

NOW THAT THE
States’ Laws
project was done, Murray went back to her law practice. Increasingly ambivalent about her profession, she considered other options. When she expressed a desire to work for the U.N., ER contacted
David Morse of the
International Labour Organization in Geneva. “
I have known Miss Murray for a long time and she is a very brilliant girl,” ER wrote. “If she has the necessary qualifications for the position, I think you would find her a very useful member of your staff.” Notwithstanding this endorsement, Morse turned Murray down. “
I guess this just isn’t my year,” she admitted to ER.

As an antidote to Murray’s disappointment, Eleanor Roosevelt invited her to the Park Sheraton Hotel on June 13, 1951. ER had an apartment there. Murray took Maida
Springer with her. As was often the case, ER had several guests join them. She was usually careful to avoid spending so much time with one person that others felt slighted. But at this gathering, Springer observed, ER became so engrossed in a conversation with Murray about her employment situation, the presidential campaign, and U.S.-Soviet relations “
that she had to quickly make amends” to the other guests.