She Who Dared: Brave Women Through History | Eleanor Roosevelt

In a time when some are trying to push women back to the 19th century, remembering Eleanor Roosevelt serves as a beacon of hope. We are living in a distraught time, which will soon hark back to the time leading up to WWII. 

First Lady Roosevelt advocated for racial equality during widespread segregation and discrimination. When Constitution Hall refused to allow the great singer Marian Anderson to perform there because she was Black, Eleanor resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) in protest. She arranged for her to sing at the Lincoln Memorial, one of the most potent symbols of racial justice. During the 1930s, she worked closely with the NAACP and its leader, Walter White, to push for federal anti-lynching legislation, which did not pass. 

Eleanor pushed for projects in the New Deal that employed women, such as sewing rooms, education initiatives, and public health programs. She helped place women in leadership positions in the government for the first time. Her book, “It’s Up to the Women,” encouraged women to contribute in various ways to the nation’s recovery during the Great Depression. During World War II, she urged women to take men’s work positions and fought for equal pay.

On the international front, she helped to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. In America, Eleanor worked to ease poverty, promote education, and support marginalized communities, believing everyone deserved dignity and respect. She considered the UDHR her most significant achievement, often referring to it as an “international Magna Carta for all mankind.”