Eleanor Roosevelt Resigns from the Dar: A Study in Conscience

In February 1939, Howard University, a black institution in Washington, DC, invited internationally famous black contralto Marian Anderson to give a concert. Because their own auditorium was too small to accommodate the expected audience, Howard officials asked Washington-headquartered Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) to use the DAR auditorium, Constitution Hall, on April 9. The DAR refused, explaining in a press interview reported in the New York Times on April 19 that local conditions and custom did not favor such a move. Some years earlier, the interview revealed, the DAR had defied the local custom of segregated seating at public events when it opened Constitution Hall to another distinguished black singer, tenor Roland Hayes. Hayes had refused to sing in a segregated hall, so the DAR responded with open seating. Hayes sang, but those who attended the concert protested the mixed seating so loudly that the DAR subsequently decided to avoid any future problems by adopting a "black exclusion" rule. That rule was invoked in Anderson’s case. Washington was a city still reflecting southern racial attitudes.

The District of Columbia Board of Education refused to let Anderson sing in the auditorium of its largest high school unless she agreed to segregated seating, something she would not do. But the DAR decision was even more uncompromising, even more controversial. Not only did the organization refuse to permit her to perform in a segregated facility, it denied her the use of the hall altogether.

Protest over Anderson’s exclusion blazed from black artistic and religious communities, threatening to turn the incident into a national scandal. But when DAR member Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from that organization in protest to its rejection of Anderson’s request, the social and political reverberations rang widely and deeply. Eleanor Roosevelt was a member of a family who had come to America in 1640 and had produced two Presidents of the United States. Her beliefs as they evolved were simple, visionary, deeply religious and, in America of the 1930s, revolutionary. In a society where poverty was thought to be the fault of the poor rather than of the economic or social system, Eleanor Roosevelt believed in a social order in which everyone had enough to live on and poverty did not exist. She was concerned for the young, for women, and for peace. Raised in gentility, she believed in political action.

Unsure of her own powers or direction for many years, Eleanor Roosevelt nevertheless became a quiet, persistent, and powerful moral force upon her husband and cousin, Franklin. After his election in 1932, she began to emerge as a political figurein her own right, becoming deeply involved in the Women’s Division of the Democratic party (which her husband saw as a way into the American home), in black and white youth groups, in advocacy for the poor, and in writing for newspapers and magazines. By 1939, in her husband’s second term as President, she was proud that every week she received thousands of letters from Americans asking for advice, solace, and relief from the rigors of the Depression. She had broken the traditional mold for First Ladies that had existed since Martha Washington and had been exemplified by her immediate predecessors, Mrs. Coolidge and Mrs. Hoover.

Her support of Marian Anderson was not a surprise to the black community. She had supported justice and equal opportunity for blacks for many years, though her views were not so much in advance of her time as to include integration. (Her gently forthright position was exemplified in her reply to a critic who protested that she had her picture taken eating with a black child at a Hyde Park picnic. "…I believe it never hurts to be kind. Eating with someone does not mean you believe in intermarriage," her biographer, Joseph Lash, quotes her as saying.) As early as 1932 she had been vilified in cartoons and in print by the southern press and some northern newspapers for attending black meetings, inviting racially mixed groups to the White House, urging her husband to appoint a black woman to head Federal black relief programs, visiting black share-croppers in their homes, and supporting NAACP anti-lynching legislation.

Her husband trod gently in these arenas, fearing the loss of white southern votes. But Republican efforts in the election of 1936 to split southern Democratic votes by exploiting Eleanor’s racial views failed miserably; the party was solid. In the North, historically Republican blacks switched for the first time to the Democratic party. At the heart of this profound shift in party loyalty was the admiration blacks felt for Eleanor Roosevelt’s moral determination and her activity on their behalf. Years later, Walter White, longtime president of the NAACP, said that in his darkest moments the thought of Eleanor Roosevelt kept him from hating all white people.

Although her support of blacks had helped President Roosevelt’s reelection in 1936, members of his Cabinet mistrusted Eleanor’s activity, and her resignation from the DAR in 1939 on behalf of Marian Anderson confirmed that mistrust, Henry Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture, into whose departmental restaurant no black dared come; John Nance Garner, Vice President and prospective Democratic candidate for the presidency in 1940; and James Farley, Chairman of the Democratic party, disapproved of her action. Only Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior and a past NAACP chapter president, proved to be a supporter.

To the nation, Eleanor’s personal act of conscience in resigning from the DAR was a stunning public statement. A Gallup poll reported that 67 percent of the public approved her action. Moving on this tide, both impresario Sol Hurok, Anderson’s manager, and Walter White proposed to Ickes that Anderson give an open-air concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Ickes promptly agreed, and the concert was widely publicized. On April 9, when Marian Anderson sang at the foot of the great statue of Lincoln, 75,000 people, most of them black, were there to hear her. She began with "America" and ended with "Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen." Ickes, who introduced her, later wrote, "I have never heard such a voice...the whole setting was unique, majestic and impressive." An artistic and political triumph, the concert received overwhelming press and public approval. Whatever her reason, Eleanor Roosevelt did not attend.

The event had political consequences. The most immediate was the collapse of John Nance Garner’s hopes for the 1940 Democratic party presidential nomination. His refusal even to acknowledge the invitation sent to him alienated both blacks andwhites. The longer-range consequences, though harder to measure, were great. FDR won a third term in 1940 with the overwhelming support of white liberals and northern blacks. Eleanor Roosevelt’s role as a White House lobbyist on behalf of blacks was strengthened, and her support of black concerns was influential in keeping the black vote Democratic, As war approached, the issue of black rights in the military became a central one, and Eleanor was her husband’s constant conscience and mover. Oddly enough, she had never viewed her resignation from the DAR as more than a personal statement, one that would neither engage public attention nor change events.

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Teaching Activities

The following activities vary according to ability level. We recommend that you review the activities and select the one most consistent with your class objectives.

1. The Inductive Detective. These documents lend themselves to some detective work. Present both letters to the students. Ask them to determine the facts of the situation. The unsigned letter: What is the date of the letter? Who is Mrs. Robert? What and where is Constitution Hall? Who is the "great artist"? Who wrote the unsigned letter? Why is the letter unsigned? What is the complaint? What action is the writer taking? What is the tone of the letter? The response from Mrs. Robert: Why is it a handwritten note? What is Mrs. Robert’s response? What is her tone?

As a summary of the activity, read the historical background to the students.

2. Interpretations of Purpose and Intent. After explaining the historical background of the two letters, provide the students with copies of the letters. Allow time for the students to read them carefully. Ask the students to interpret the content of the following question: Is Mrs. Roosevelt’s letter a move of an activist or a personal act of conscience? Is there a difference between the two? If so, what is the difference? What factors might separate a "personal" statement from a "political" one? What elements of Mrs. Roosevelt’s letter suggest a position of strong protest? Do any phrases indicate a position of weakness or casual concern? What could explain Mrs. Roosevelt’s failure to use the artist’s name? What evidence in the response indicates that the DAR is concerned about Mrs. Roosevelt’s resignation? Does the response of the DAR attempt to change Mrs. Roosevelt’s opinion? Knowing the historical background surrounding the DAR’s decision, do you consider the response to Mrs. Roosevelt firm, adequate, or weak? Would Mrs. Roosevelt consider the response adequate? Would another member of the DAR consider the response adequate?

3. Related Topics and Questions for Research and Reports. For further study of the issues surrounding these letters, ask the students to conduct independent research and make reports from the following suggestions.

a. What is the current position of the DAR regarding black membership, the Marian Anderson incident, and current humanitarian efforts?

b. What role did Eleanor Roosevelt play in the elections of Franklin D. Roosevelt; in the formation of FDR’s views and actions on racial issues; in the campaigns of Adlai Stevenson; and in issues that were important to labor, women, children, immigrants, the aged, and the unemployed? What influences did Mrs. Roosevelt’s syndicated column "My Day" have on readers?

c. Read biographical materials and report on Marian Anderson’s childhood, education, career, accomplishments, and awards.

d. Read biographical material on current minority musical stars to determine the general type and quality of their education and training.

e. Conduct personal interviews with musicians or artists on the subject of travel and accommodation restrictions during the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s.

f. Investigate current practices with respect to race and gender of organizations such as Rotary International, Elks Club,DAR, and public and private country clubs.

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Click the image to see a printable, full-page version of this teaching activity

g. Compare the roles of the First Ladies. What are the various models (e.g., traditional, political activist, social and moral reformers)? Contrast the involvement of recent First Ladies as political and social activists.

4. Discussion. Consider and discuss with the students the question: Are there ever any valid reasons for which the use of a public auditorium or stadium might be denied to an individual or group?