Eleanor Roosevelt arrived at the seat of power as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wife, but her power was much more pronounced than that of any other First Lady. Mrs. Roosevelt was a one-woman war on poverty during the Depression. She visited coal mines, hospitals, and squatters’ camps all over the nation. She traveled around the world, speaking with kings, presidents, and the destitute with equal enthusiasm and compassion. During her husband’s presidency, she acted as unofficial ambassador to the world and devil’s advocate to his conscience and the conscience of a nation. She achieved all this in spite of the fact that she was painfully shy.
After her husband’s death, with no official capacity, Mrs. Roosevelt continued to be a spokesperson for dozens of causes. When President Truman appointed her to the newly formed League of Nations, Henry Cabot Lodge gave her what was considered an inconsequential committee concerned with human rights. Lodge did not realize that he gave Roosevelt a perfect platform from which to launch a worldwide fight for fairness and equality.
She was, at first, ignored and minimized. Every place she turned she encountered barriers that would have discouraged a less passionate person. She cajoled and compromised. She pleaded and demanded. Everyone she came into contact with felt the power of her convictions. Her work on the “Bill of Human Rights” for the newly formed United Nations came to fruition after four years of arduous effort. To date, this document has been used as the basis for the constitutions of sixty nations! Eleanor Roosevelt was on a mission and she made a major difference in our world. (1)
If you and I are not as powerful as we ought to be, maybe it is because we have no mission burning in our soul.
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1. Sheila Murray Bethel, Making a Difference (New York: Berkley Books, 1990).