(no subject)

[skygiants]

I am briefly in DC for work this week, so it seems like a good time to write up Patricia Bell Scott's The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice, which nextian recced to me and which was everything she promised.

I didn't know much about Pauli Murray before reading this book, which is a crying shame because she was INCREDIBLE -- a queer disabled black scholar and activist, famous for (among many other things) being the first black deputy attorney general in California AND publishing the first full inventory and examination of segregation laws AND being one of the first people to criticize sexism in the civil rights movement AND being the first black female Episcopalian priest, who (understandably) spent much of her life embodying that tumblr meme of 'should I fight [x] famous person/institution? YES, DEFINITELY FIGHT THEM.'

In fact she met Eleanor Roosevelt while attempting to fight FDR.

PAULI MURRAY: Dear Mrs. Roosevelt, I am a law student with as of yet no fame, notoriety, or credentials whatsoever, and I have attached a letter for your husband in which I inform him about his failures in re: dealing with this country's ridiculous racism, could you please make sure he gets it? THANKS, PAULI MURRAY, A CRITIC.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: Dear Miss Murray, thanks for your critique, here are the ways in which I think you are a wildly misguided radical young person. But the feedback is appreciated! THANKS, ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, A PATRONIZING WHITE LADY.

Somehow -- amazingly! -- this began a regular correspondence and, eventually, a lasting friendship??

(PAULI MURRAY: You're an orphan? I'M an orphan!!!)

For the record, while Eleanor Roosevelt gets equal billing in the title, it's really Pauli Murray's book; Eleanor's life is only covered insofar as it relates to Pauli Murray's. This is as it should be, since there's approximately five bajillion books that relate to Eleanor Roosevelt and not nearly enough on Pauli Murray.

And, like. OK. This didn't really need to be a book about Eleanor Roosevelt as well as Pauli Murray at all, it could've just been a Pauli Murray bio with Eleanor Roosevelt sidenotes and in some ways maybe that would've been better because Pauli Murray certainly deserves to stand on her own -- but I also am glad, right now, to be reminded that friendship and respect can exist across very different political beliefs and states of awareness. Not that Eleanor Roosevelt and Pauli Murray's friendship was an easy or an uncomplicated one (oh man, Eleanor Roosevelt published an essay titled 'Some Of My Best Friends Are Negroes,' SHE WAS I BELIEVE THE TROPE NAMER ON THIS, oh god, Eleanor) but still: they disagreed, and valued each other anyway. And that's not nothing.

Comments

[sylleptic]

Yale just named one of their new residential colleges after Pauli Murray! I didn't know anything about her before the announcement, which I ought to rectify. This book sounds like a good way to start, so thanks for the timely rec!

[skygiants]

I had forgotten that about Yale, that is excellent news! I'm glad it ended up being timely. :D

[coffeeandink]

Sadly, it was announced in the same alumni letter where they announced that (1) they were keeping the name of Calhoun College, named after John C. Calhoun, slave trader and Confederate; (2) the *other* new residential college is being named after Benjamin Franklin, because every other one except Pauli Murray being named after a white dude wasn't enough, and also let's get another slaveowner in there.

Sorry, it just happened a couple of weeks ago and I am still furious. But Pauli Murray is awesome, and I will look for this book!

[skygiants]

AAAGH I HAD NOT HEARD ABOUT THE OTHER STUFF

[coffeeandink]

I checked my email during a dinner with my sister and she got very alarmed at the expression on my face. "What? What?"

I have put this book on hold at NYPL, so thank you for the rec! Also for the reminder that I should write my damn angry letter to the Yale President even though it is both late and futile. But I am so angry! There are so many hard things Yale has to do to make things better for students of color and this one is SO EASY.

[skygiants]

Should you fight the Yale President? Yes, you should DEFINITELY fight the Yale President.

(I mean if there's one thing about this book it makes you weirdly optimistic about the power of writing angry letters to people!)

[sylleptic]

Yeah, the rest of that email was...not so good. Aargh, Yale. DO BETTER. >:-(

[davidgillon]

(oh man, Eleanor Roosevelt published an essay titled 'Some Of My Best Friends Are Negroes,' SHE WAS I BELIEVE THE TROPE NAMER ON THIS, oh god, Eleanor)

There just aren't enough *headdesks* to cover that!

[skygiants]

This was also the letter where she was like 'well my young friend Pauli Murray' -- Pauli Murray at this point being something like forty years old -- 'was quite a firebrand but I think is now ready to settle down with a cooler head and be of real use!'

Pauli Murray: UM.

[davidgillon]

Oh Eleanor Roosevelt no!

[batyatoon]

To be fair, it would probably be really hard to see what's wrong with the unironic use of "some of my best friends are _____" without having any record of its historical context to point to.

But still, oh Eleanor.

[skygiants]

To be double fair, I think it was the paper that came up with the title, not Eleanor ... but, you know, the content is also. What it is.

[tree_and_leaf]

I must read this!

[skygiants]

IT IS WELL WORTH IT.

[bookblather]

Anyone who attempted to fight FDR is okay in my book. Please just tell me Pauli didn't die horribly in a duel in Weehawken? Or, y'know, at all?

[skygiants]

Well, she tragically did not turn out to be immortal and thus is no longer with us, but she did live to a pretty respectable every-other-founding-father age! & also got a nice decade or two in of stable and healthy long-term relationship before her partner died, which is not bad for a lesbian in the 1960s. Things could've been better but they could've been worse!

[allchildren]

this sounds great where's her rap musical!!!!!

[skygiants]

THIS IS THE QUESTION I HAVE BEEN ASKING MYSELF & THE WORLD