[captioning made possible by democracy now!]  amy: from new york, this is democracy now! mrs.s. roosevelt: if we e obsee these rirights for ourselves and fofor others,, i ththink we wilill find it is easasier inhe w world to build peace because war destroroys l humaman rights and f freedom, so in fighting forhohose, wewe fight foreace. amy:y: what would eleanonor d? today, we lookok back at t the e and legacycy of eleanor roosose, from her time as first lady to her remarkable work

as a diplomat, early feminist, human rights activist, the architect of the u.n. declaration of human rights. president harry truman would call her the first lady of the world. we speak with the prize-winning historian blanche wiesen cook, author of a trilogy of books about eleanor roosevelt. blanche: she matters so much today because her vision was that we will have peace if everybody has education, health, work, creativity, security, housing in their lives. amy: historian blanche wiesen cook for the hour. all that and more coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy y goodman. this year 2020,, marks the 100th anniveversary of the 19th amendment,

which guguaranteed women the right to vote, and we begin the new decade with an hour long special about one of the most influential women in u.s. politics, eleanor roosevelt, who served as the first lady of the united states from 1933, when her husband franklin d. roosevelt took office, until his death during his fourth term in office in 1945. that wasn't the end of the story for eleanor roosevelt, though. she went on to serve as united states delegate to the united nations general assembly and spearheaded the u.n. convention on human rights. president harry truman later called her the first lady of the world. i recently sat down with blanche wiesen cook, distinguished professor of history and women's studies at john jay college and the graduate center of the city university of new york, who is the author of the definitive three-part biography of the former first lady, "eleanor roosevelt, volume 1: the early years 1884-1933,

volume 2: the defining years 1933-1938, and eleanor roosevelt, volume 3: the war years and after." blanche wiesen cook started out as a military historian, and i began by asking how she came to write e this triloy on eleanor roosevelt. blanche: well, i alwlways say my life e is an accident. because things just happened accidentally, and i started out in life where i cared about nothing but sports and music. and i had an accident. i was a gymnast, and a boy put a a barbell at thehe end of thet and i came out of a triple flip onto it. and that was -- i felt that was the end of my life. and i couldn't major in physics and i couldn't go to the olympics and i had to major in other things, history, anthropology, political science, and i majored in all that. and then i went off to abilene, kansas,

to write about eisenhower. and friends sent me books to review and kate stimpson, then editor of sign, sent me a really stupid book on eleanor roosevelt and marina hickok. it was the first book that used her papers, but the author was horrirified by the letters and wrote this book couldn't possibly mean what it seems to mean because eleanor was a saint and a mermaid. and i wrote a review of the book saying, you know, poche a freud, a cigar may not always be a cigar, but the nonortheast corner of your mouth upon my lips is always the northeheast corne. whereupon a lot of folks started to say, why don't you write about eleanor roosevelelt? and i would answswer, don't be ridiculous. i'm a military historian. i do i international relations and so on, or i even said hard history. and i was wrong. but i called up my p pal, joe lash.

and joe had become a good friend because he blurbed my book on crystal eastman, which is going back into print.t. it was published by oxford. and joe said, this is a book that should stay in print forever. crystal eastman was the founder of the aclu. amy: explain who joseph lash is. blanche: joseph lash was the biographer of eleanor roosevelt, really, her chosen son. they were very close, and joe was a good son. so anything that eleanor roosevelt said, joe wrote, and anything she said she didn't want dealt with, he didn't deal with. and then she said, i didn't care about power. and hehe wrote, she didn't care about power. and then i knew i had a story. but first, i called him up. and i said, joe, what's up with you not having hic at all

in any of the many books you've written about eleanor roosevelt? and he said, well, i hated her. but let's have d dinner. and we had dinner. and he s suggested t that i rey needed to write about eleanor roosevelt. and he took me up to hyde park, and i saw the papers. we walked through them together, hyde park, where the rows where the roseville and where the fdr library is, and it's called the fdr l libra, even to this day. it's not called the fdr and eleanor library. anyway, so i thought this was like 1981. and i thought i could finish it by her centennial, 1984. but that's not what happened. it just got bigger and bigger. and one of the ways that it got bigger was a lot of things were classified, and workining on my eisenhower bookok, i always say never go anywhere without your gang.

when i was wororking in abilen, eveverything i wanted was secre. and so i flew back to new york and i called a meeting with my pals in law and journalism, the ccr and the aclu. and we founded foia, inc., the fund for open information and accountability. and we got lots of things declassified ovever the years. and a lot of eleanor roosevelt's materials were declassified. the state depapartment files were classified, and i got those declassified. and then folks gave me a gift of papers that had never been seen before. so they're going to the fdr library. and it just got bigger and bigger. and the stories got more and more intense. and that's why it took so long. amy: was eleananor rooseveltlt r explplicit about fighting for gy and lesbian rights, for lgbtq rights?

and what did fdr understand about her relationship with hic, lorina hickok, who is the ap reporter? and can you describe what that relationship was all about more fully? blanche: well, one didn't use those words in the 1960's. you know, people just didn't talk about it. so everybody's in the closet. all of eleanor roosevelt's friends are lesbians, esther lake and elizabeth reid, nancy cook and marion dickerman. and then comes hic, but eleanor roosevelt, i think of her as a serial romantic. there is earl miller and all available miller's papers have disappeared. amy: who is earl miller? blanche: earl miller was her bodyguard. and, you know, i have pictures of earl miller in his bathing suits, her hand on his knee. he was a hunk, you know, just an athlete.

he got her her horse dot, they rode together. he taught her to shoot with pistols and rifles and, you know, they hiked together, they travel together. so earl miller is in her life. and hick is in her life. amy: your book. blanche: my book was the first to really deal with their relationship in a very friendly way. their letters are full of politics and love and longing. amy: and how long did their relationship go on foror? blanche: well, i t think it lasd until about four years until about 1936, by 1938 it's really, you know, the romance is gone. the friendship lasts forever. but the romance is gone and eleanor roosevelt

becomes increasingly dismayed by her occasional bigotries. she doesn't like eleleanor roosevelt's young jewish friends. she doesn't like her black friends. and she's a bit of a racist, and eleanor roosevelt gets increasingly impatient with hic and moves on. amy: i mean, she wrote aboutut fighting segregation. did she ever write about prejudice against gay men, lesbians? blanche: no, not that i know of. not that i know of. but she does say at one point that love is a kind of insanity. you do strange things when you fall in love. and so there's this sense of the fluidity of love and romance. amy:y: blanche, , your first bk deals with the early years.

talk about the early years of eleanor roosevelt, but before you do, especially for young people who have hardly heard of her, why she captured your interest as a woman in terms of h her li, and then what happened in world war i and beyond. blanche: well, the early years, i mean, eleanor roosevelt lived a really very difficult life. we know her as a great and generous philanthropist. we know w her as an activist and a lot of people have always asked me, how did she get that way? and one of the ways that she got that way has a lot to do with her family. her father was an alcoholic who died at the age of 34. and we need to pause, and how much do you have to drink to die at the age of 34? you know, we're still here.

i like to tell my students, anyway, the bottom line is, she loved her father, and he died when she was 10. her mother essentially turned her face to the wall and died when she was eight. and she was brought up by her grandmother, who was very rigid, and a series of aunts and uncles who lived in these houses in tivoli in new york. amy: she was a roosevelt. blanche: she was a roosevelt. theodore roosevelt was her uncle, her father's brother, and whilst she was a woman of wealth, she came from a very troubled family. amy: so teddy roosevelt, the president of the united states, his brother died at the age of 34 of alcoholism. blanche: yes. and eleanor roosevelt's lifefe was really quite miserable until she went off to a wonderful school and had a great headmistress and teacher and mentor,

marie sylvestre, i'm spelling it, because there is no biography of her. this was an incredibly wonderful school in which there was creativity. it was really for the essentially affluent children of the affluent french, german, american class. she was a mentor of the bloomsbury crowd. she's a fascinating woman, but she recognized, eleanor's brilliance, and eleanor's leadership, and eleanor's great abilities as a writer, and we don't give eleanor enough credit for the e fact that she was also primarily a writer.

i mean, she wrote dozens of books plus a column every day after 1936. amy: as first every single day. blanche: yes. amy: which went on for 4 terms right, and then continued until the end of her life. blanche: her last column is the month before she died. amy: so how does she meet fdr? hohow did she meet her cousin? blanche: at a debutante ball. she will she met him earlierer, but theyavave an attraraction in 1904 or 1905, and they get married. and his mother, sarah delano roosevelt, very unhappy about that. but they get married, and they have a romantic relationship until 1918. he comes back from europe, and with the flu,

she unpacked his bags and sees the letters. the love letters from lucy mercer, whwho had been her f friend and his secretary, and they'd had this big affair and eleanor roosevelt devastated, and that's a big part of the story. and it's after that they have a great partnership. you know, she wants to get divorced. he wants to get divorced. they decided not to get divorced. his mother said she will cut him off without a penny if they get divorced. and they agree to have a partnership. amy: when did he get sick? blanche: two years later, 1920, polio, and she takes incredibly good care of him. and there's a very wonderful mutual friend, the bridge between them is this really interesting man,

louie howe. howe recognizes eleanor's brilliance. he wants her to become a politician. he wants her to follow fdr, you know, at the end of the day and all of the political realms that he really promotes women in public life. and it's also in this period in the 1920's where eleanor becomes very very involved, not only helping fdr in the political world, but helping because we are building. amy: sarah delanor roosevelt about wanted her son just to become a country gentleman after he got polio. and she said, no, you can stay in politics. blanche: right. you'd be much happier. amy: historian blanche wiesen cook on eleanor roosevelt. when we come back, w we discuss eleanor's impact on the new deal.   [music break]

amamy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war r and peacace report. i'm amy y goodman. we return now to my interview with blanche wiesen cook, distinguished professosor of histotory and women's studies at john jay college and the graduate center of the city university of new york, and she is the author of the definitive three-part biography of former first lady, eleanor roosevelt. her husband franklin d. roosevelt ran for president and won in 1932 and served four terms before he died in office. i asked professor wiesen cook about eleanor roosevelt's role in one of his signatature accompmplishmentss

during t the great d depressi. tatalk about the new deaeal, how w it came about, what werere the tenants of it that are still some of those accompmplishments, or those goalsls are being fought for today? blanche: absbsolutely. first, there is social security. well, first, there's the reemployment act. then there's the youth act, the national youth administration, the goal is to get people back to work. that's one goal. another goal is to get young people educated and so there was the national youth administration to get students into school but also the ccc to get students out on the farms and into the woods. amy: and the ccc stands for? blanche: the civiliann conservation corps. amy: and this is after the depression. blanche: yes. this is all response to the depression. people are desperate.

they're out of work. they're homeless, and it's a really bitter moment. but the new deal begins to get people not only back to work, but into programs that will really build community and build a future of educated, working, creative people. amy: there was another very important woman, frances perkins. blanche: francis perkins, secretary of labor, the first woman in a political cabinet, and eleanor roosevelt and francis perkins are allies. it is frances perkins who in many ways is responsible for some of the best features of the new deal, including the eight hour day, including minimum standards.

eleanor roosevelt has other friends in addition to frances perkins, but very close to frances perkins. a wonderful woman named mary herriman rumsey, who is the head of a consumers group, and consumers have to be protected. and i bring up mary herriman rumsey here because she was one of the closest friends of eleanor. they were the five of hearts at one point, and mary harriman runs the frances perkins and other people to other people were very close. those were the two most prominent. lady lindsey is one, and they are very close and mary harriman rumsey and frances perkins live together in washington, and i'm working for more on that story. amy: are you going to be the one to reveal it to us? blanche: n no. no.. other people need to do that.

but there's a a lot of intererest now. mary herrmann ramsey, she's a wonderful horse woman and club woman and she has a terrible accident during a fox hunt, where her horse tripips and rolls over her, and ultimately she dies in 1934. but she's so important to some of thehe best features of frfras perkins's contriributions. amy: some of the things that eleanor roosevelt that francis perkins fought for one of the issues was universal health care. what happened to single payer health care? blanche: ok, let me bring in yet another woman. she is eleanor roosevelt's closest friend and mentor, along with her partner, elizabeth read, who is an international lawyer. and who becomes eleanor roosevelt, not only her attorney, but her financial advisor.

and it's esther lape who begins to fight through the american foundation. let me just back up a little bit because eleanor roosevelt and esther lape through the american foundation, work to get the united states after world war i into what the fbi john edgar hoover called that an american body, the world court. so the first works together in the 1920's is activity to get the u.s. into the world court, which ofof course they fail to o and have the u.s. honor the league of nations, which they also fail to do. secondly, during the new deal, it's esther lape, who calls together a great community of physicians from all over the country. and they campaign for what we call today single payer, and the ama lobbied it to death. it first was supposed to be in the 1935 social security act.

as i said, the ama lobbied it to death. eisenhower in the 1950's tries to get what esther lape has been fighting for with eleanor roosevelt intoto the 1957 health reinsurance act. and all we get out of that is the health reinsurance act. but he calls esther lape and eleanor roosevelt and ask them to support him on this, and they dodo. and again, it's lobbied to death. and here we are as if it's the first time there's been a cocommunity ofof people saying we need health care for eveverybody, s single pay, everything covered, you know, no questions asked. and that's what they were fighting for in the 1930's. and from the 1930's until the day esther lape died in t the 1980's at the agege of. amy: we're talking to o blanche wiesen cook,

who is really the definitive scholar on eleanor roosesevelt has written three volumes on the first lady before and after. now, you mentioned columns from 1936 to 1962. eleanor roosevelt wrote a syndicated newspaper column six days a week called "my day" in 1939. she wrote about her decision to resign from the daughters of the american revolution. this is from her february 27 column. she writes, i've been debating in my mind fororome time,, a question which i've had to debate with myself once or twice before in my life. usually i've decided differently from the way in which i'm deciding now. the question is, if you belong to an organization and disapprove of an action, which is typical of a policy, should you resign? or is it better to work for a changed point of view within the organization? in the past, when i was able to work actively

in any organization to which i belonged, i've usually stayed until i had at least made a fight and had been defeated. even then, i have as a rule accepted my defeat and decided i was wrong or perhaps a little too far ahead of the thinking for the majority of that time. i have often found that the thing in which i was interested was done some years later, but in this case, i belong to an organization in which i can do no active work. they have taken an action which has been widely talked of in the press to remain as a member implies approval of that action and therefore i am resigning, wrote eleanor roosevelt. plain wherere she resigned from. blblanche: well, s she resignd from, as you said, the dar,, because they refused to allow the great singer marian anderson to sing at congressional hall, you know, which they owned in washington.

and eleanor roosevelt was astonished and bewildered and knew it was wrong. but we're really looking at the bigotry of racism and segregation in the united states. that this is 1939, but it was vicious. all through the new deal and to the end, and i'd like to go back and talk a little bit about it. amy: before you do, talk about the significance of daughters of the american revolution, and also what eleanor roosevelt ended up doingng with marian andersonon. blanche:e: well, thehe daughts of the american revolution and the colonial dames, i think eleanor roosevelt was a member of both. if you had an ancestor, if you had ancestors who fought in the revolution, you could be a member of the dar and it was a philanthropic group

that supported all kinds of causes. it still is. and so, you know, this was just wrong. amy: s so since she couldn't go into constitution hall -- blanche: right. oh, there was a great concert in at the lincoln memorial. amy: so let's go to that moment at the lincoln memorial, where e the world renowned singr marian anderson sang before, what? 75,000 people. it was easter sunday, april 9, 1939.

 amy: t the great marian ananden singngg before the lincoln memomorial before 75,000 people, eaeaster 1939.9. blanche: she also invited maririan anderson when the queen of england came to the united states, to be the entertainment. she had integrated entertainment for royalty. and marian anderson and also mary mcleod, the soonon constantly in t the white house.

amy:y: the great educator.r. blanchche: the great e educatr and activist and also the head of, you know, the african american cabinet, politician, got a lot of things done, but it was really eleanor roosevelt was insisting on integrating at least areas that she could integrate in a time when it was virtually impossible. eleanor roosevelt's very first and most important speech on the end of segregation to the educators of the united states was 11 may, 1934. and i wonder if i could read just a little frfrom that speec. amy: and feel free to do it as you channel eleanor roosevelt. blanche: to deny any part of a population the opportunities

for more enjoyment in life, for higher aspirations, is a menace to the nation as a whole. there has been too much concentrating wealth, and even if it means that some of us have got to learn to be a little more unselfish about sharing what we have, we must realize that it will profit us all in the long run. i think the day of selfishness is over. the day of really working together has come, all of us, regardless of race or creed, or color, we musust wipe out any feeling of intolerance of belief that any one group can go ahead alone.

we will all l go ahead togethe, or we e will all go down togeth. 11 may, 1934. and this was to a mostly white collection of educators who stood and cheered those words. and after she said that, it was the very first time the educators of america, teachers in elementary school, high school, colleges, and universities all agreed, and they passed a resolution. segregation was wrong and must be ended. 1934. amy: racial justice was an issue that she championed her entire life. wasn't her last column a month before she died in 1962 also around racial justice? blanche: yes. amy: why was this issue so close to heher heart?

blanche: i think that as she went around the country, it was the most urgent issue. people w we starving to death and living in hobbles or living homeless because of racial injustice, and she really did believe that it could be ended. one of the first things she does in washington when she becomes first lady, she joins a committee to end the back alley slums of washington and build model housing. and this is really protested by various people in washington, certainly by the plutocrats and the real estate people. but eleanor roosevelt creates a committee to do that. and she is absolutely dedidicatd to e ending housing injustice

and to ending all of the injustices about race. amy: explain what arthurdale was. blanche: ok. arthurdale is this w wonderful community that eleanor creates, and let me just go a littttle slowly. it's in west virginia, and hic is on tour for the new deal. and she writes to eleanor roosevelt, if you want to see the worst place in the united states, where miners who are out of work, coal miners who are out of work are living in hobbles or they are living next to the mines. they're living in the most dreadful conditions. come join me in this area, logan county, west virginia. and eleanor roosevelt goes there. and immediately, she determines to build a community for these out of work miners and their families.

and at this point, she's making rather a significant amount of money. and she gives most of her money to thehe american friends service committee to do the kind of good work she wants done, but she puts together a team. doris duke is part of ththat te. bernard baruch is part of that team, a team of folks who will help her build a community and she has a really important vision for it. the houses will have indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water at a time when 80% of rural america didn't have those things. and people will be self-sufficient. they will have garden space, they will have a half an acre at least, maybe an acre and a half, to plant and so on. and they'll have electricity.

and she builds these incredible homes. amamy: she builds ararthurdal. she also pressures for the creation of the she she she camps for unemployed women. blanche: rightht. there were ccc camps. and then but there are no young girls in the ccc camps and eleanor roosevelt says that's not fair. and so there's the camp jane adams in upstate new york, and eleanor roosevelt goes there and then she's very angry cause it's all white. and she writes to the head of the camp, why are there no young women of color in these camps? and she gets women of color in these camps, including a young woman who becomes very close to her, the firebrand pauli murray, and there are lots of books about pauli murray, poet, writer, priest, episcopalian priest, and writes many, many books and poems,

memoirs, and we all know pauli murray. amy: and didn't pauli murray have a great influence on ruth bader ginsburg? blanche: she did. amy: hisistorian blalanche wien cocook on eleanor roroosevelt. after r this break, she describs what r roosevelt consisideredd the greatest accomplishment in her l life. 

 [music break] amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as we continue o our conversatin with historian blanche wiesen c cook, author of the definitive threree-part biographyhy of former first lady eleanor roosevelt. what about in world war ii, the internment camps of the japanese? eleanor roosevelt had a great effect on her husband

in all different ways. what happenened with secluding, segregating, jailing, imprisoning japanese americans and japanese? blanche: well, the really horrible removalal, the japanese removal into cacas was horrifying to e eleanor roosevelt, and she e opposes them. she visits them. and one of the things that she does is that when she visits them, she makes sure that the young people, if they want to go to school, they will be admitted to school, if they want to go to college, she makes all kinds of arrangements for them to get scholarships to college and admitted to college. and if they want to join the military, they can join the military, which many of them do. so eleanor roosevelt really has an incredible influence on the camps in in terms of --

but i mean it's just one of those shocking things that fdr did. i want to go back to arthurdale, just for one other -- harold ickes, who was the secretary of the interior, you would think that he shared a lot of activities and visions that eleanor roosevelt had. but he didn't like her because he didn't like bossy women, because his wife was a bossy woman. and he resented bossy women. and he wrote to fdr saying, do you know what your wife is doing down there? she's spending money like a drunken sailor. if she has her way -- and she's building, you know, indoor plumbing and all of these things. 80% of rural america didn't have any. if she has her way, how are we going to tell the rich from the poor? and eleanor roosevelt answers well,

in matteters of such simple dignity y and decency, we should not have to tell the rich from the poor. and that is a piece ofof her ongoing legacy. amy: i wanted to go to the same period and world war ii, a year before the united states denied thehe ss st. louis permrmission to dock with 937 refugees from nazi germany on board, 250 of whom would later be killed in the holocaust. this is known as the voyage of the damned. eleanor roosevelt helped rescue another ship that arrived with hundreds of r refugees, the ss kwanzaa. ththis is a clip from a documentary produced by laura seltzer dooney called "nobody wants us" when we hear a passagege from the diary of a a 13-year-old gil named melvina,a, who's on the ship in 1940.

>> i'm so relieved to be on this ship. bubut i hope they will a allows in the united d states.. i heard thatatnother shipp was turned away and sent back k to europe. what i if america doesn't want ? amy: whahat if ameririca doesn't t want us? blanche wiesen cook, talk about eleanor roosevelt during the warar, the issue of jewisish refugees being deninied entrance toto the united states.. but the kwanza that wasn't the case because of mrs. roosevelt. blanche: after the ss st. louis, which appalled eleanonor roosevelt, she said this is not never going to happen again. amy: would you describe fdr as an anti-semite? blanche: i wouldn't say he was an anti-semite. but i would say he did nothing. just as i wouldn't say he was a racist, but he did nothing about race

and he did nothing about refugees. and on the question of refugees, in volume two, i have a whole section called a silence beyond repair. and this is the only time that eleanor roosevelt is actually silent about the great tragedies that arere going onn inin hitler's europe,, the great removal of people, which shshe knows all about because she has s a very close frfrie, ladydy stella reading, and lady stella reading is a member of eleanor rathbone's parliamentary committee to save the perishing. so in england, there is a committee, and eleanor roosevelt knows all about that committee because there's a correspondence between eleanor roosevelt and lady stella reading, so she knows every detail. amy: the house of lords. blananche: yes.

they know exactly what's going on. eleanor rathbone is a member of the house of commons. and the committee is a very powerful committee. but there's a terrific amount of silence. in the case of the kwanzaa however, eleanor roosevelt really works with members of the aclu and attorneys and says these people will not be sent back. there are people who were about to be sent back on the kwanzaa and eleanor roosevelt said they can be here as my guests, and that really upset breckenridge long. and for me, your question, was he an anti-semite? i can't answer that. i mean, you know, but the question, why did he not fire breckinridge long? who was the man in charge of delay and denial, the man who sent people back. you know, there's a very and fry rescue committee,

the emergency rescue committee which eleanor roosevelt has, again, something to do with creating. but varian fry i is prevented from carrying out his work by the state department by breckenridge long. you know, eleanor roosevelt says to fdr, he's a fascist, whwhy don't you u fire him? and fdr said, don't use that word. and she says, well, he is, you know, like that. amy: so after world war ii, after fdr dies, and eleanor roosevelt -- what is her famous quote to a repororter? blanche: the story is over. the story is over.r. amy: but i it wasn't. blanche: no. amy: talk about truman's choice to bring her into the u.n. delegation and what this led to, perhaps what she considered her greatest accomplishment in her life.

blanche: harry truman appoints her to the united nations to its first meeting in london in 1946. and her children are there when she gets the phone call, and she e is tempteded to say she can't possibly do it. she knows nothing abouout international relations. and her children say, mama, you know everything, you you've been there, and everybody knows you. and off she goes. and it's an amazing journey because the press, the world press, i i mean, she sent off with peoe like john foster dulleles, who were also part of the us delegation. they don't care what dulles thinks, they only care about what eleanor roosevelt things. they follow her everywhere. and eleanor roosevelt makes really great friends and a great impact. and at some point, she is made chair

of what becomes the committee for human rights. amy: when they make her head of the humanitarian committee, she asks her assistant what exactly this means, he's her liaison. she says, what is my agenda? my portfolio? he says actually nothing. because i'm a a woman, and they want to have me this prominent person involved with the u.n. they give me nothing. and he said, well, maybe you can turn this into something without an agendnda. you can determine the agenda of the united nations. and so they she thinks there should perhaps be a bill or a resolution or a declaration, a declaration. it could be a fantasy, but there could be a declaration of human rights, the u.n. declarationon of human rights.

let me just say that this is an incredible moment because she's unanimously elected chair to the committee that founded the human rights commission. and she was part of an extraordinary team, and they're going to write an international bill of human rights. there is john humphrey, the canadian international lawyer, a wonderful chinese scholar, musician, diplomat named ping chon chang, pc chang, and lebanon's learned dr. charles habib malik, and then francis renee calf sam, who had spent the war years in london as charles de gaulle's legal advisor, and he had lost his sister and about 25 other relativeses

in nazi concentration camps. by 1947, renee and eleanor roosevelt supported a jewish homeland, while habib malik emerged as a leader of the arab league. but the three of them were in absolute shoulder to shoulder unity on the possibility of creating a universal declaration of human rights. and also on that team was india's hansa mehta. she's president of the all india women's conference. and she's the only other woman on the team. and it is she who makes some very stirring contributions to the universal declaration of human rights. she says, excuse me, mrs. roosevelt, i must tell you,

if you say all men are created with certain inalienable rights around the world, it will be limited to all men. and so we get all human beings are endowed by the creator. and that is how it reads. amy: and her friend in london the woman in the house of lords begins to introduce her to refugees, the massive number of refugees who come to london who have no place to go, nothing, are completely y beref. blanche: right. and she goes and she visits camps as well. she spends the summer visiting many of the refugee camps and really becomes part of a great movement to resettle refugees, not only in the united states,

where there's a great effort to do that, but around the world. amy: so john fososter dulles, senator vandenberg, these men who were part of this u.u.n. delegation are fighting every step of the way to undermine her. john fosteter dulles would later become secretary of state, his brother allen dulles, head of the cia, they would lead secretly the overthrows of the most adept government in iran in 1953 and 1954, the overthrow events in guatemala. they're trying to undermine her, but she has to get the consensus of the world to pass this declaration of human rights. how did it ultimately happen? blanche: ok, she agrees. again, it is hansa mehta who susuggests there be two covevenants and eleanor.r. and the big issue is, will the united states ever address

the universal declaration of h human rights? if there is only one covenant, the all of the rights are connected, meaning everybody has the right to not only speak, religion, press, but also to a job, also to healthcare, also to housing, the u.s. won't vote for that. so she compromomises and agrees to two covenants, the economic and social covenant and the civil and political covenant and i want to say what happepes is it is passed. she gets a standing ovovation 10 decemember, 1948. so the universal d declaration of humuman rigights passes, but it is not ratified by the united states until much later, because under eisenhower, the dulles brothers,

they want nothing binding. they absolutely insist, we don't want any part of the universal declaration of human rights. they walk away from it. it doesn't come up again until finally in 1966, the covenants are printed. they are ratified around the world. but not until jimmy carter signs them in 1977 are they even signed. and then finally, in 1992, after the soviet union collapses, of all people, it's george herbert walker bush, who says, well, maybe now that the soviet union h has collapse, we can ratify the civivil and polititical covenant of the universal declaration of human rigights. and he does, but we still haven't had a conversation

about the economic and social rights covenant. so this is all, you know, if we are fortunate enough to have a decent visionary and human rights activist elected to the presidedency, ththis is the e unfinished busis and the legacy of eleanor rose. amy: i wanted to turn to eleanor roososevelt speaeaking in 191, on the anniversary of the uniniversal declaration of human rights, which of course she helped to write about the linkk between human rights and peace. mrs. roosevelt: if she observed these rights for ourselves and d for othersrs, i think k we will find ththat it is easasie in the worldld to build peacee becacause war destroys all maman rights andnd freedom, so in fighting for those, we f fight foreace..

amy: c compare h her to otother leadining politicians today. i don't want to just leave it at first ladies, but talk about her role as a first lady. and do you see anyone walking in her footsteps after eleanor roosevelt? blanche: well, i think that eleanor roosevelt would be delighted by the young women who are running for office. the people around a.o.c., the young women in congress today, eleanor roosevelt would be delighted. a lot ofof people wanted her to r run for office. and at some point, she said, i would rather be chloroformed than run for office. and that was she said she didn't want to run for office because she wanted to be free. she wanted to be free to say what she really thought and to write what she really thought. but also, she felt that women weren't organized sufficiently

to promote and back women running for office and she felt women, people needed really to be organized for change.. they need to be movements for change. anand her own activism included gogoing door to door,, block by block, community by community, and building movement. so that was a big part of what she really believed. she also really believed that we won't have domestic peace or international peace until everybody had free public excellent education, healthcare, housing, creativity, opportunity. these were things that governments exist for. and i think now we h have some people, t the youngng peo, and the people around bernie, and the people around elizabeth warren, and maybe even buttigieg, you know, who have that vision.

we've got to have a movement. we've got to have -- eleanor roosevelt didn't use the word democratic socialist, but she was a democratic socialist. you know, you really need a big vision. and you really have to have activism. and that was her contribution. and i think she would be pleased now that there are movements afoot and campaigners afoot, and a new level of hope. amy: let me end with the question in this era of trump. what would eleanor say? blanche: well, i think she would totally horrified at the abdication of power by people with power, like why isn''t ththis man accud of what raping 30 women? why isn't he in prison? how is he being protected? i think she would be entirely horrified by --

first of all, we've never had a fascist in the white hououse before. and eleanor roosevelt really believed thatat the way to prprevent fas, and she always said fascism and commmmunism, the way to prevent that kind of control is to have movements and responsibility. and we're looking at a moment where folks who are in the senate don't have responsibility, and we're looking at a moment where a creature has been allowed toetet away with absolutely malign things. eleleanor roosevelt woululd not be silent. your silence will not protect you. amy: historian blanche wiesen cook, author of the definitive three-part biography of former first lady eleanor roosevelt. that does it for our show. democracy now is produced by mike burke, deena guzder, , nermeen shaikh, carla wills, tami woronoff,

libby rainey, sam alcoff, john hamilton, robby karran, hany massoud, charina nadura, tey-marie astudillo, adriano contreras, and maria taracena. i'm amy goodman. thank you for joining us. happy new year. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. email your comments to outreach@democracynow.org