it was three of the happiest years of her life.

>> but it wasn't only her teacher who admired eleanor. >> when the girls appreciated another girl for doing something for them, they would buy them violets and little books. eleanor would come back on saturdays whether they d saturdays when they did this and her bed would be covered. eleanor learns she can make friends and helps others and this feels good to her after the kind of childhood she had. >> after she leaves, writes her letters. she says, don't be so seduced by the tease of the social events. remember who you are and what's truly important. maria changes elanor roosevelt's life. >> after that, the shy damaged child is gone.

there is somebody else. >> she began to believe in herself as a woman with convictions and with self-confidence to go forward and make her mark on the world. >> this cnn original series, first ladies, is brought to you by -- personalized wealth plag and unmatched overall value. together with a dedicated advisor, you'll make a plan that can adjust as your life changes, with access to tax-smart investing strategies that help you keep more of what you earn. and with brokerage accounts, you see what you'll pay before you trade. personalized advice. unmatched value. at fidelity, you can have both. ♪ more than this

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president, franklin roosevelt age 39 contracted polio pa paralyzing him from the wasist down. >> once in the white house eleanor will often stand in for the president. it's a role that will give her more influence than any other first lady in history. >> she is on a tour of the country with fdr. he wants her to serve as eyes and legs, talk to the people and tell me what they are thinking. >> frankly often used me to get the reflection of others

thinking because he knew i made it a point to talk to many people. >> over and over again you hear people talking about meeting her in a very few moments feeling that she was truly listening and truly connecting. >> they had this opportunity of greeting people of southern california. >> frankly comes to realize she's really good at this. she is the voice that he trusts most. he would go into cabinet meetings and say my mrs. says there is not enough budget in this. my mrs. says these resources are nt getting to the place they are supposed to be getting to. >> the men in the administration felt they had to take her seriously. so it was a different kind of partnership than people were used to. >> by the time they reached the white house, they had been together over 30 years. distant cousins, the couple

started courting when eleanor was only 18. >> they fall in love over a series of meetings and events and balls. >> she was really attracted to fdr who >> she says to him, i want you to come meet one of the girls i'm helping and come to her house. which is a tenement. tenements are unsanitary, overcruded, airless, smelly. and she takes him there.

>> he knew there was poverty. >> he hadn't really seen it, but she showed it to him. >> famously, franklin turns to her and says, my god. i didn't know people live like that. and to me, this is the moment when the greatest political partnership in american history happened. >> decades later, fdr launches emergency measures to ease poverty and hardship caused by the great depression. eleanor, already an established columnist, makes a personal appeal to the public. >> i want you to write to me. >> i love this. i want you to write to me. i want you to write to me and tell me what your problems are. but also, i want you to give me your ideas. because we don't know everything in washington.

>> people so responded to this. >> there were thousands, tens of thousands of letters that came to the white house addressed to her every month. she had such a rapport with the american people that they felt they could write to her. it's a different relationship than a first lady had ever had. here's a letter from a young girl. dear mrs. roosevelt, i'm a very poor girl, and i'm able to work. i haven't got any father. will you please send me an overcoat for the winter? >> dear mrs. president, can you help my daddy get a good house to live in? because right now we're living in an old shack. of course, eleanor roosevelt would often write responses. she would occasionally try to help people, put a check in. the people of america really believed that the roosevelts were really going to try to help them. but particularly that eleanor roosevelt was going to help them.

>> eleanor's country retreat provides refuge from washington, but not from work. >> it's such a wonderful room. this room has so many wonderful memories. in here, we would play games, have pillow fights with the pillows from the couches. and grandma would be working away at her desk, and it was lovely. she would turn her hearing aids off so we could make all the noise we wanted. she did have a lot of work to do. and she would answer all her correspondence. from this desk. >> where she got the energy or the time from to answer all those letters, to go on all these travels, to give all these speeches, how there were enough hours in the day is just phenomenal.

>> she seems to be perpetually on the move. writes a weary reporter traveling with her, please make eleanor tired, just for one day. >> in the first four months as first lady, eleanor receives 3,000 letters. 300,000 letter. she's especially outraged by the suffering in a mining town in west virginia. >> the miners had been unemployed for 20 years. there's malnourishment like you've never seen. it is poverty that is unimaginable in the united states. >> she realizes she's someone who has access to the most elite, powerful policymaking circles there are. and she has the ability to mold public policy. >> she pushes franklin to put

federal fund into an experimental funds into a housing project called arthurdale. >> she throws everything she has into rebuilding this community. she devotes all her political capitol to this. she gets federal funds allocated there. >> nobody expected a first lady to have the kind of influence she had politically. >> the secretary of the interior is ballistic. >> do you know what your wife is doing down there? she's spending money like a drunken sailor. >> why are we giving people refrigerators? >> how will we tell the rich from the poor? >> when fdr repeats that to eleanor roosevelt, she says, it's such simple dignity and decency. well, if indoor plumbing is like that, we should not have to tell the rich from the poor.

>> people look at her failure to bring industry to arthurdale and say, oh, my god, this is the perfect example of a liberal imagination run amuck. that is so short-sighted. the community that comes out of this has houses, schools, medical clinics that are still in use today. >> arthurdale was the first of hundreds and hundreds of communities that were built all over the country. it was life-saving and life-transforming. >> eleanor is beginning to appreciate how much she can achieve as first lady. >> eleanor cared about the world, and that was her driving force. and if she wasn't going to do it, then who would? (vo) businesses are always making choices.

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election night was an evening of triumph. in times square, tens of

thousands screamed themselves hoarse. >> with eleanor by his side, roosevelt wins a second term by a landslide. >> she was the idealist, he was the pragmatist. as a political team, they were unstoppable. >> married in 1905, they have one daughter and five sons, one of whom tragically died in infancy. but their partnership almost fell apart. in 1918, he returned from a european trip gravely ill. >> he's got pneumonia, he was close to death. they whisk him off to the house, and eleanor is left to unpack his trunk. when she opens his trunk, there's a packet of letters and of course she recognizes the handwriting. >> the letters reveal a longstanding affair between franklin and eleanor's own

secretary, lucy mercer. >> when we think about this girl who has had so little love in her life, and thought she had finally found love and security, and here she sees that he is loving and he is in love with lucy. >> the whole thing reads like a play. i mean, how shocking that must have been. my grandmother was totally taken by surprise. of course that's going to hurt. >> he promises that he will never see lucy again. and they stay married. >> but she was terribly depressed. she said the bottom had fallen out of her world. >> after the affair, i do

believe they were always in separate bedrooms. i can remember her saying, you know, you forgive, you don't necessarily forget. but you can forgive. >> from then on, their marriage became a partnership. in a way, that freed her up to become the woman she became. so through adversity, sometimes, we rise and become things that we never thought we might become. >> over the decades, eleanor turned to her friends for support. closest among them, lorraina hickock. she was wicked smart journalist. she was the only woman reporter in the country. >> she had her own byline on the front page.

she was hired to report on progress of the new deal. >> she was moved to a small room near eleanor's quarters in the white house. >> she was a very provocative personality. she wore men's clothing, smoked cigars, played cards, drank bourbon. >> everybody knew that hick was gay. >> the women's friendship grew over the years, as fdr's eyes and ears, they toured the country. >> it's hick who says, look at all these daily activities you're telling me about. the whole country wants to know how you spend your day. and it's hick's suggestion that results in eleanor roosevelt's my day column.

>> she had a style of writing that was very personal and very informal. and she could talk about anything from a meeting with the king and queen of england to literally what she had for breakfast that day. she was the original blogger. >> by 1938, eleanor's daily column is wildly popular. with a readership of over 4 million americans. >> if eleanor roosevelt was alive right now, she would be facebooking, tweeting, youtubing. every media that existed at the time, she mobilized and her public life comes to prominence at the very beginning of the radio age. >> reach for the remington. >> there were very few women on the radio. women were allowed to do programs about housekeeping or education, or they would be allowed to sing.

>> but eleanor is broadcasting in the early 1930s. >> this is eleanor roosevelt. >> good day, ladies and gentlemen. i attended last night -- >> people would sit in the living room, and it was like the first lady was talking to you. >> i want to talk to you about the general question of housing. >> it's like you were sitting there in the living room, and her voice was there. >> eleanor roosevelt connected with ordinary americans, and it was a remarkable thing. and it grew out of her relationship with hick. >> hick falls deeply, deeply in love with eleanor. >> over their lifetime, they write almost 3,000 letters to one another. >> they write about missing each other. you get the feeling of this deep caring between them. and then there will be specific things, i looked at your photograph, and i kissed you in the right corner of your mouth.

there's some debate about whether it was physical or not. but i don't think anyone can deny that it was a deep love. >> as a lesbian, nothing would make my political soul happier than to think that eleanor and hick had this great, passionate affair. as a historian, i don't care. i'm grateful for lorena hickock. eleanor loved, and was loved in return, and she was empowered by that relationship. (customer) hi? (burke) happy anniversary. (customer) for what? (burke) every year you're with us, you get fifty dollars toward your home deductible. it's a policy perk for being a farmers customer. (customer) do i have to do anything? (burke) nothing. (customer) nothing? (burke) nothing. (customer) nothing? (burke) nothing. (customer) hmm, that is really something.

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mr. roosevelt is greeted by microphones -- >> even though eleanor would frequently say she's not a politician, she had good political instincts. at the top of that agenda was civil rights. >> in the late 1930s, to eleanor's shame, african-american citizens are still segregated by law. often denied basic rights like jobs, housing, and the vote.

>> she was very much involved in the struggle to get congress and the president to move toward passing anti-lynching legislation. >> eleanor comes to truly understand how undermining of our democracy is this idea that everyone is not being treated equally. >> so eleanor roosevelt goes to great lengths to open the doors of the roosevelt white house very wide to people of color. you see eleanor bounding down the white house driveway, very much in public view, to greet female civil rights advocates in a way that she doesn't greet royalty. >> eleanor roosevelt was a leader willing to take a stand. and she did something that really caught the attention of the nation. >> in 1938, defying the secret

service, she travels to a civil rights meeting in birmingham, alabama, with her friend, mary mccloud bethune. >> it's segregated. whites on this side, blacks on this side. she just trucks down that aisle, and, boop, right by bethune. almost immediately, a young police officer comes over and asks her to move. the legend is true. eleanor does get a chair, sits in the middle of the aisle. and straddles segregation. one foot in black, one foot in white. >> local papers picked it up. black press was just delighted. white press and the southern

press was really upset. >> other first ladies had been criticized, but nobody faced the intense venom in such a consistent, persistent way as eleanor. the ku klux klan put a price on her head. $25,000 if you could kill eleanor roosevelt. this was criticism on steroids. >> we ask every citizen to immediately report any information regarding espionage. >> but eleanor's most powerful opponent is the head of the fbi. >> the first entry into her fbi file by j. edgar hoover, who hated her guts, is her support for civil rights. that, for him, is the most un-american. >> it's about 3,500 pages long, it could fill a whole file cabinet. the earliest document is from 1924.

>> every word on behalf of justice for black people was considered communist. >> j. edgar hoover sees eleanor roosevelt the way a lot of people in conservative white america see eleanor roosevelt. why can't she just shut up? why can't she just not rock the boat? >> you had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way. >> but the first lady refuses to toe the line on race. when fern african-american opera singer when marion anderson is banned from performing at a concert hall owned by the daughters of the american revolution, eleanor once again springs into action. >> eleanor is quite upset about this. first of all, she's a member of the d.a.r. so she writes a letter. >> it is a classic eleanor roosevelt letter. i'm afraid that i have never been a very useful member of the daughters of the american

revolution. and i know it will make very little difference to you whether i resign or whether i continue. >> she sends it to newspapers all over the country. soon there is international recognition about this. >> and i feel obliged to send in to you my resignation. you had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way, and it seems to me that your organization has failed. her resignation was huge news. it was very important, and it put enormous pressure on all organizations to confront their racist policies. >> the world is watching. and eleanor helps organize a new venue for the concert. in the place that most symbolizes freedom. >> in this great auditorium, all

of us are free. >> marion anderson is standing there. and in front of her are 75,000 people, black and white, together. >> this was the first public event that was desegregated. >> everybody there could freely mingle and sit next to each other without regard to race, creed, or color. >> it was simply inspiring. >> here to listen to the voice acclaimed by many. >> eleanor didn't go to the concert. she wanted that moment in history to belong to marion anderson. ♪ my country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty ♪

>> people in the audience silently wept. a wave of emotion washed over the strong. >> my country tis of three, sweet land of liberty. to thee we sing. >> eleanor roosevelt defied the conventions of her role as first lady. a woman in arms with african-americans. ♪ let freedom ring [ applause ] >> this was the first step in the great journey to freedom. 5, the fastest nationwide 5g network. now, new and existing customers can get our best deal. really?! mom! at&t has the deal for new and existing customers! i will. so what'd she say?

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>> speaking on behalf of the administration, the first voice the nation will hear is eleanor's. it's an unprecedented moment for a first lady. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. i am speaking to you tonight at a very serious moment in our history. many of you all over this country have boys in the services who will now be called upon to go into action. you cannot escape anxiety, you cannot escape a clutch of fear at your heart. i have a boy at sea on a destroyer. for all i know, he may be on his way to the pacific. two of my children are in coast cities on the pacific. whatever is asked of us, i'm sure we can accomplish it. i have faith in you.

>> it's as if she is the president speaking when she tries to unite the country, tries to put people's minds at rest and at the same time make sure that they are ready for action. >> we are the free and unconquerable people of the united states of america. >> if that isn't presidential, then i don't know what is. >> the next day, president roosevelt declares war. >> all four of her sons were fighting in the war. you can imagine, like any mother, any military mother, how she felt. >> she was not one who thought war was glorious. but her duty to her country and to her husband really came first. >> so, when franklin asks eleanor to make a perilous trip

to the south pacific, he puts personal feelings aside. >> traveling under the code name grover, she visits combat areas and makes it a point to stop at every hospital. >> naval commanders were opposed to this idea, mccar thur. they thought it was a terrible idea. we do not want the first lady traipsing through a war zone. what a disaster this is going to be. she could have been killed at any point. >> she was the best medicine they could have had. >> but at the end, the admiral said she had a greater impact on the people in the field than any person who ever visited throughout the entire war. >> she visited every single hospital and spoke to every single gi joe who was wounded and took their family names. and when she got back, she called their parents and loved

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♪ over the white house and washington, the flag flies at half staff as a grief stricken nation mourns the death of franklin delano roosevelt, president of the united states. >> three months into roosevelt's fourth term, the longest presidency in american history is over. >> franklin roosevelt's death really shocked the nation. it was a double loss because eleanor roosevelt was leaving as first lady. and for many african-americans, she was the unofficial president. >> i think that she was very concerned that under president truman everything that she and franklin together had fought for

domestically and globally would now somehow be forgotten. and she wanted to secure that legacy. >> so when president truman asks eleanor to join the first american delegation to the newly formed united nations, she jumps at the chance. >> the most interesting arrival was that of mrs. roosevelt, wid ower of the late president. >> the un is created to make a forum for discussion so we never have to go to war again. >> now, this was the great dream of the roosevelts, a united nations that would ensure peace in the world. >> delegates are attending the meeting. from all corners of the earth they came. >> secretary marshall meets mrs. roosevelt. >> eleanor is elected chair of the subcommittee, charged with drafting the universal declaration of human rights. >> she has to negotiate with 18 countries. they don't agree on anything.

they don't agree on whether god exists. it took almost two years. it was absolutely grueling. >> the soviet union insists -- >> her ability to navigate the hundreds of meetings that it took to draft the declaration, it was brilliant negotiation strategy. >> her whole pub lulic life andr life in the white house had helped her to exceed in that role because she's figured out decades ago that you can get a tremendous amount done when you don't care about taking credit for it. >> this universal declaration of human rights may well become the international magna carta of all men everywhere. >> eleanor's presentation caps a lifetime of championing human rights. >> it's the most important document of the last 100 years. all human beings are born free

and equal in dignity and in rights. all human beings. it's the first teime in the history of the flipping world that we say that. >> and i must confess the person who's been the leader in this movement, the person who has raised an even greater honor, i prefer of course to mrs. roosevelt, the delegate of the united states. [ applause ] >> the longest serving first lady in american history, eleanor roosevelt efrply identifies greatness. her achievements still resonate today. >> this is a better day for what's my life. we will always remember fondly. >> thank you very much. >> she's not just a first lady.

she's a first woman, a first activist, way beyond first ladyhood. eleanor roosevelt was lady big eleanor roosevelt was lady big heart. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com staying the course despite top aides testing positive for the coronavirus, the u.s. vice president will not leave the campaign trail. americans arer energized f the u.s. presidential election as early voters cast ballots in record numbers. and the united states and europe both seeing spikes in the virus. we go live to france where they are seeing a new record number of case for a fourth day in a row. hello everyone. welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. i'm michael holmes. you're watching "cnn newsroom." ♪