The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice (74 page)

49. “THE CHIPS ARE REALLY DOWN IN LITTLE ROCK”

White supremacists
: Daisy Bates
, The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir
(New York: David McKay, 1962), 61.

“blood will run”
: Ibid.

“It will be easier”
: Ibid., 63.

Fearing the worst
: Ibid., 64–65.

The following morning
: Ibid., 73.

A woman spat
: Ibid., 75.

The guardsmen
: Ibid., 71, 74.

“out of place”
: PM,
Song
, 39.

“too frightened to scream”
: Ibid., 38.

On September 24
: Anthony Lewis, “President Sends Troops to Little Rock, Federalizes Arkansas National Guard,”
NYT
, September 25, 1957, and W. H. Lawrence, “Eisenhower ‘Disappointed’ by Impasse at Little Rock,”
NYT
, September 20, 1957.

“patience and forbearance”
: John Jasper, “Ike’s ‘Be Patient’ Speech ‘Shocking’: Was He so Poorly Informed?,”
Philadelphia AA
, May 24, 1958, and “No Time for Patience,”
AA
, June 21, 1958, national edition.

“mob rule”
: Anthony Lewis, “President Sends Troops to Little Rock,”
NYT
.

“How can they draw”
: Louis S. Lomax, “Pupils Want Mrs. Bates Included,”
Philadelphia AA
, June 7, 1958.

“Mrs. Bates and the nine”
: Ibid.

“Mrs. Bates is”
: Ibid.

“Just as a baseball”
: PM to Spingarn Award Committee, NAACP, May 30, 1958, PMP.

The stories about
: See Louis S. Lomax, “Pupils Want Mrs. Bates Included”; “9 Spurn Spingarn: Pupils Want Mrs. Bates Included,”
AA
, June 7, 1958, national edition; “Little Rock Students Reject NAACP Award Because Mrs. Bates Was Ignored,”
PC
, June 7, 1968; and “Ten Spingarn Medals,” June 28, 1958,
AA
National Edition.

In June 1958
: Milton Bracker, “Little Rock Nine Get Racial Honor: Eight from School Join Girl Here as Harriman Hails Them at Union’s Fete,”
NYT
, June 13, 1958; Milton Bracker, “Official Here Hails Little Rock 9 as Crusaders for Equal Rights,”
NYT
, June 15, 1958; “Busy Schedule for Little Rock Nine in New York City,”
Baltimore AA
, June 14, 1958; and “Little Rock 9 see ‘Jamaica,’ Meet Stars,”
Philadelphia AA
, June 21, 1958.

“see every movement”
: PM to ER, June 16, 1958, ERP.

Fourteen-year-old
: This description of the Little Rock Nine and Daisy Bates is drawn from Ted Poston’s series “Nine Kids Who Dared,”
NYP
, October 20–November 1, 1957, and “A Woman Who Dared: Mrs. Daisy Bates,”
NYP
, November 3, 1957, which Murray read and shared with ER. Murray and Poston had been friends since the 1930s, and she put great stock in his perspective. On Poston’s contributions as a journalist, see Kathleen A. Hauke,
Ted Poston: Pioneer American Journalist
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000).

The audience responded
: PM to Dr. [Channing] Tobias, July 4, 1958, PMP.

Murray managed
: PM to ER, June 16, 1958.

“a perfectly mad”
: Ibid.

“a catchy pseudonym”
: Ibid.

Murray sent a ten-dollar
: PM to Mr. [L. C.] Bates,
PC
, June 28, 1958, and PM to Mr. [Robert M.] Ratcliffe,
PC
, June 28, 1958.

“The chips are”
: PM to ER, June 16, 1958.

“for an advertising space”
: ER to Gentlemen [
Arkansas State Press
], June 21, 1958, ERP.

“This group has made”
: ER, “My Day,” June 24, 1958.

ER condemned
: ER, “My Day,” August 23, 1958.

“I think instead”
: Ibid.

“the world has changed”
: ER, “My Day,” August 4, 1958.

“The old doctrine”
: Ibid.

On June 21, 1958
: Clifton Wells, “School Board Granted Delay of 2½ Years: Little Rock Gets Stay on Schools,”
Washington Post and Times Herald
, June 22, 1958.

“a clear national policy”
: Joseph A. Loftus, “Negro Leaders Confer with President and Rogers at White House: 4 Negro Leaders See Eisenhower”
NYT
, June 24, 1958, and “That White House Conference,”
PC
, July 5, 1958.

“economic resources”
: PM to Dr. [Channing] Tobias, July 4, 1958.

50. “DISCRIMINATION DOES SOMETHING INTANGIBLE AND HARMFUL”

His recent projects
: Murray enclosed the following articles about Concord Park and Greenbelt Knoll with PM to ER, January 20, 1957, ERP: “Democracy Comes to the Suburbs,”
Ebony
, February 1957, 17; “Study Shows Both Races Happy in Mixed Community,”
Ebony
, February 1957, 18–19, and “Quakers, Negroes, Jews Cooperated in Raising Capital,”
Ebony
, February 1957, 20–22.

In fact, Milgram
: Morris Milgram, introduction to
Dark Testament and Other Poems
, by PM (Norwalk, CT: Silvermine, 1970), 4–5. See also the dedication and introduction to
Good Neighborhood: The Challenge of Open Housing
by Morris Milgram (New York: Norton, 1977), 5, 11–15.

“sometime soon”
: ER to PM, January 28, 1957.

MCD was a for-profit
: On Milgram, MCD, and related projects, see Morris Milgram, “Pioneer in Integrated Housing,” interview by Mary Jo Deering, July 21, 1976, Oral History Program, George Washington University Library, Washington, DC, and Milgram,
Good Neighborhood
.

“I am sure that”
: ER, “My Day,” October 20, 1958.

ER had seen him
: ER, “My Day,” September 12, 1958.

“I can think of nothing”
: ER, “My Day,” October 20, 1958.

Although he would
: Harry Belafonte,
My Song
(New York: Knopf, 2011), 191–93.

“thanked her profusely”
: Ibid., 192.

“walking away from a battle”
: Ibid.

“Now I am waiting”
: ER, “My Day,” July 15, 1958.

“This play has been”
: ER, “My Day,” May 2, 1959.

51. “THERE ARE TIMES WHEN A LEGAL BRIEF IS INADEQUATE”

The first, which was detailed
: Ted Poston, “A Story of Two Little Boys in Carolina,”
NYP
, November 10, 1958. For James Thompson’s account, see “ ‘The Kissing Case’ and the Lives It Shattered,”
StoryCorps
, National Public Radio, April 29, 2011; see also Conrad Lynn, “The Kissing Case,” in
There Is a Fountain
(Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1979), 141–57.

“put a stop”
: Lynn,
There Is a Fountain
, 156.

The second incident
: Howard Smead,
Blood Justice: The Lynching of Mack Charles Parker
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

“What made the recent”
: ER, “My Day,” June 17, 1959.

The chance of a fair
: Smead,
Blood Justice
, 19–21.

“The cornered and trapped”
: See PM, “For Mack C. Parker,” in
Dark Testament
, 39.

“that most difficult”
: See PM, “Collect for Poplarville,” in
Dark Testament
, 38.

“Dark Testament”
: PM, “Dark Testament,” in
Dark Testament
, 12–27, and PM, “Psalm of Deliverance,” in
Dark Testament
, 41–47.

“strong and stirring”
: ER to PM, June 2, 1959, ERP.

“There are times”
: PM to ER, May 6, 1959, PMP.

“the ‘shape of things’ ”
: PM, “Benét and Cullen—Poets Who Died Young,” February 2, 1946, PMP.

She reviewed
: Martin Luther King Jr. to Marie Rodell, November 17, 1957, MLK Papers. The contract was probably for King’s first book,
Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
(New York: Harper & Row, 1958).

Murray favored
: The summary attached to PM to ER, February 23, 1959, was a typewritten copy of Anthony Lewis, “Integration Plan Offered in South,”
NYT
, February 16, 1959, ERP.

“If you would use”
: PM to Senator [Lyndon Baines] Johnson, February 23, 1959, PMP.

52. “THAT GRANDDAUGHTER MUST BE A CHIP OFF THE VENERABLE BLOCK”

It amused ER
: ER, “My Day,” May 4, 1959.

An avid reader
: ER, “My Day,” March 23, 1959.

ER’s reading material
: Ibid.

“sapphire blue”
: ER, “My Day,” April 6, 1959.

“special brilliance”
: ER, “My Day,” April 15, 1959.

“fountains and the benches”
: ER, “My Day,” April 16, 1959.

“close watch”
: Hal Cooper, “But Even She Gets Tired,”
Washington Post and Times Herald
, April 8, 1959.

“People forget”
: Ibid.

On more than one
: Ibid.

“awkward”
: Ibid.

Murray giggled
: PM to ER, April 21, 1959, ERP.

“It is not yet clear”
: Ibid.

“a former YWCA gal”
: PM to ER, February 23, 1959, ERP.

Third, ER had close
: Roger Streitmatter,
Empty Without You: The Intimate Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok
(New York: Free Press, 1998); Kristie Miller, “Esther Everett Lape,” in
The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia
, ed. Beasley, Shuman, and Beasley, 301–4; and Roger Streitmatter, “Elizabeth Fisher Read,” in ibid., 429–31.

A week earlier
: Homer Bigart, “Employees Strike at Six Hospitals: Service Goes On,”
NYT
, May 9, 1959.

“all economic issues”
: PM to ER, June 3, 1959.

“It seems to me”
: ER, “My Day,” May 13, 1959.

53. “NOTHING I HAD READ OR HEARD PREPARED ME”