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| Field name |
Value |
| Collection Reference Number
|
GLC09544
|
| From Archive Folder
|
Documents Relating to the 1940s-1960s
|
| Title
|
Eleanor Roosevelt to Addie Frizielle about social equality and four basic rights
|
| Date
|
13 May 1944
|
| Author
|
Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884-1962)
|
| Recipient
|
Frizielle, Addie
|
| Document Type
|
Correspondence
|
| Content Description
|
Eleanor Roosevelt responds to one of her critics, Addie Frizielle, who worried about the desegregation of restrooms and forced social interaction between the races in the government’s movement toward racial equality in some spheres. She outlines four basic rights she believes all citizens should have.
|
| Subjects
|
President First Lady African American History Women's History Government and Civics
|
| People
|
Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884-1962) Frizielle, Addie (fl.1944)
|
| Theme
|
African Americans; Women in American History
|
| Sub-collection
|
The Gilder Lehrman Collection, 1860-1945
|
| Copyright
|
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
|
| Module
|
Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945
|
| Transcript
|
Show/hide Dear Miss Frizielle:
I have not advocated social equality between colored and white people. That is a personal thing which nobody can advocate. Nobody can tell me whom I shall have inside my house, any more than I can tell others.
The only things which I have advocated are four basic rights which I believe every citizen in a democracy must enjoy. These are the right for equal education, the right to work for equal pay according to ability, the right to justice under the law, the right to participate in the making of the laws by use of the ballot.
Questions beyond that are personal things and people must decide them for themselves.
I am sure it is true that here in Washington you have found some discourteous colored people. I have found colored people who were discourteous, and I have also found white people who were discourteous. As a matter of fact, I doubt if it does any people anywhere any harm to tell them that you believe they are entitled to certain rights and you are willing to see them obtain those rights.
If you have to use the same toilets and wash basins where you work, then all of you must have to take physical examinations, in which case I think you are as safe as you would be in any place where a great many people are coming and going. If you are nervous, there are certain precautions which you can always take.
Sincerely yours,
Eleanor Roosevelt
|
