The Story Behind the Photo:
In 1940s American society, there was an unwritten rule that a black man could be lynched for transgressing certain social boundaries with white women, including touching a white woman or looking one in the face.  But in the 1943 photograph shown above, civil rights activist and labor leader A. Philip Randolph joins First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt at a Madison Square Garden rally to save the Fair Employment Practices Committee from extinction. Though the two did not always see eye to eye, they were able to put aside the binds of race and gender to collaborate and agitate for justice.

In the first half of the 20th century, A. Philip Randolph was a charismatic speaker and public militant who organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925. His efforts led to the first serious reform of labor practices impacting African-American employees of the Pullman Rail Company, as well as black and white workers in other realms of American work life. Not only was Randolph a wellspring for the modern civil rights movement, his successful agitation sparked the growth of a vibrant black middle class.

During his early years, Randolph could be found standing on soap boxes in Harlem, rallying the black masses to action. He was a founder of the radical Socialist magazine The Messenger. In 1941, he conceived of a march where 100,000 blacks would descend on Washington to demand equal justice. Such a maneuver not only caused panic in the Roosevelt administration and rankled many mainstream civil rights organizations, but it also prompted the United States Attorney General to call him one of “the most dangerous negroes in the United States.”

As the nation continued to mobilize for World War I, a large-scale political demonstration of this kind threatened the war effort and potentially made foes and allies abroad question America’s ability to live up to her own tenets of democracy. The First Lady shared these sentiments and pleaded with Randolph to call off the march. She reasoned that the limited public accommodations of a segregated downtown, could produce explosive confrontations that would undermine the march’s purpose. It wasn’t until President Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 8802, ordering the integration of the defense industry and outlawing discrimination in various government agencies, that Randolph called off the march.

Eleanor Roosevelt, the longest sitting and most active First Lady, was a vocal, assertive and direct woman who spoke on issues of war, poverty, education, discrimination, labor issues and other contemporary problems.  She was an unwavering advocate of women’s rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and workers’ rights.  Mrs. Roosevelt often arranged White House meetings between her husband and various black leaders.  She persistently prodded her husband, who was either ambivalent or silent on issues of race, to enact legislation to right injustices.

The First Lady’s support for civil rights and her activities, including serving on the national board of the NAACP, even prompted rumors. Former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover suspected that Mrs. Roosevelt had “Negro blood” in her veins and this explained her subversive behavior. One woman blunted asked the First Lady, in a monthly magazine, “I don’t mean to be rude but do you have colored blood in your family, as you seem to derive so much pleasure from associating with colored folks?”