there was eleanor's outspokenness. there was her literally putting her life on the line for this, and there were executive orders written, and the justice department created. so i look at his record as a huge step forward to help jump-start where we want to be. is that good in three minutes? [ laughter ] i've never done it this fast. ever. [ applause ] >> so let's move to another small topic. [ laughter ] the desegregation of the armed forces, we'll have a panel that's going to talk about president truman, but where did fdr stand, and i think it would be of interest to people that, you know, have seen the recent movie on the tuskegee airman. did he know those stories? his main accident was to win the war but how did he face this issue? >> well, fdr always thought that the primary responsibility was to win the war. there was never any doubt in his mind about doing that. fdr did instruct the war department to, in fact, allow to remove the barriers placed in front of african-americans who wanted to enlist and serve. at th

eleanor goes to the radio programs to say, you -- basic until politely eleanor language, which i will never in my life be accused of having, if you want me on the radio, you need to carry this. and so it's eleanor's pressure on the radio stations that make it the first live coast-to-coast nationally broadcast radio event in the history of radio. she also works with walter white to schedule the concert at 4:00 in the afternoon, so churches around the country. african-american churches in particular, on easter sunday can have picnics and suggests to walter white that perhaps they can make arrangements for those elections that are capped to be donated to the naacp and the collections that are raised that day are the second largest donation in the history of the naacp, only surpassed by duke ellington's national concert tour when he gave the proceeds of that to the naacp. she also had -- before the -- the debacle that was -- the insult to marianne anderson. eleanor invited her to the white house, she had stayed in the white house, had talked about her voice in the column ask said singing,

what eleanor roosevelt did -- if i may inject to say if you remember one thing, remember eleanor was political before lucy. >> lucy mercer. >> lucy mercer. what eleanor did was help work with the women of new york state to build a grassroots campaign system which totally restructured the politics of new york. if i knock on your door, mrs. bush, you say well, i have questions about farm parity, okay, i'm -- going to write down on my card if i can't answer it. then i'm going to come back with an answer and i'm going to knock on your door again. and if you give me another question that i can't answer, i'm going to write it down on the card. they had note card systems for voters in upstate new york that were visited five times. i'm not talking robo calls. i'm talking -- respectful one-on-one, what do you care about? and that says to al smith to say to his key aide, we must have fdr on the ballot in '28 because his wife is more well-known among the party fateful and upstate voters than anybody in the history of the state. so that -- they understand, you know, what they have to do you abou

nobody told eleanor roosevelt she was going to be in a foxhole. nobody told eleanor roosevelt she was going to fly in uninsulated military aircraft and spend five weeks on 17 islands in war time and have her ear drums shattered and go deaf in one ear because she's -- you know, she's flying through shooting ballistic for that time missiles. i mean, you can't prepare for this. >> and once she did that, the -- the generals who had initially been very hesitant to have her do that saw what a huge difference she made in troop morale like martha did. >> absolutely. >> and said please come back. >> absolutely. and they went on record in both the press and in their memoirs saying it was their single biggest miscalculation of the war was to oppose her visit. and so i think you can't train for that. i mean, we can talk about policy. we can talk about politics, but the thing to me that is so remarkable about the women who have assumed this position is how much guts they have, how much brains they have and stamina that is just beyond imagination and a willingn

eleanor traveled without secret service protection.re were assassination attempts on her life, not threats, attempts, as first lady. the ku klux klan places the largest bounty in history on her head. they firebomb trees next to revolutionary era churches that she spoke in, in north carolina, in 1937, 1938, when she's talking about the poll tax, she joined polly murray in chairing the national commission to abolish the poll tax, and so there were profound risks that were taken. and if i may sort of goad friendly with great respect to my colleagues who write on this, for once, just for once, please, as a favor to me, when you write about fdr and you write about race, will you, please, say that people were trying to kill his wife and that she could have shut up if he said to her on this she will not cross me, like he did in internment? there's a huge difference here, and the untold story of the roosevelts and race, which if i could ever go back and be a fly on a wall and engage in the what if school of history moment would be the conversa

so eleanor roosevelt wrote that back to betsy mitchell. the next little bit is after the convictions were overturned, all six, by the new jersey supreme court. it is at a mass meeting in trenton. the speaker is paul robison. i think some of you may know who he was, a fantastic human being, a huge black guy. he could sing, he could act, he was, um, an athlete, he was very active in civil rights in his time. paul robison said, the wealth of the usa was built on the backs of my people, yet we are made to crawl. we are loyal to the america of lincoln and the abolitionists. but not to those who degrade my people. 1% of the american population gets 59% of the national income. i am a radical, and i am going to stay one until my people get free to walk the earth. the last person i'm going to introduce you to briefly is raymond alexander. he was a black lawyer who was recruited for the second trial. he was recruited by the naacp by think good marshall -- thurgood marshall who, of course, later was on the u.s. supreme court. raymond alexander, for t

she wrote a letter to eleanor roosevelt. my name is bessie mitchell. my brother, my brother-in-law and four other men are sentenced to the electric chair and are in the death house. maybe you have heard or read of the murder case for better known as the case of the trenton six in trenton and new jersey. these men are innocent, and the record shows that. since the time my brother was arrested life in fighting for him and the other men. i did the police to let me see my brother and they wouldn't let me. i went to several organizations, newspapers, federal and administration and even the fbi. i also wrote to the governor come supreme court and many other rich people. if they refuse to me in a nice way of them i lost faith in the united states of america. i have always believed before that the people from the justice when they couldn't anywhere else in the world. she then learned about the civil rights conference and begged them to help me. then they gave me courage to keep funding to win. i remember you when i was a girl how interested you were in negro p

it is a great privilege to have eleanor with us.e neimseem to have a nominee as he has won the state of texas. again, thanks for being on the war room tonight. coming up: if you can't beat them, don't let them vote. >> former governor rick scott with a progressive strategy for the g.o.p. is it a winning strategy? one week from today, wisconsin goes to the polls. at stake: the recall of governor scott walker and possibly a whole lot more. we are just getting started, and we want you to join in on the conversation here on the war room. go to current.com/the war room to connect and make your voice heard. we will be right back. valley, hollywood, and beyond. >>at the end of the day this show's simple. it's about ideas. ideas are the best politics. ideas can bring us together. >>(narrator) the gavin newsom show. friday at 11 eastern/8 pacific. only on current tv. so, you guys grew up together. yes, since third grade... what are you lookin' at? not looking at i anything... we're not good enough for you. must be supermodels? what do you mo

and what i'm talking about there is as allida black has so wonderfully laid out, eleanor was an ally, but one of the things about these alliances, and that is absolutely essential in understanding movement, and understanding these -- these freedom strategies, is that your allies can take you so far, they can only go so far, and if you're relying upon your ally to go this far, because what the naacp was counting on, because she was a member of the naacp board of directors, and w.e.b. dubois had pulled together a fabulous petition to the u.n. called an appeal to the world, where he pulled together top school ears, legal school ears, socialists, his tore tans to document the systematic violation of human rights for african-americans since the founding of this nation, and because no government entity within the u.s. was willing to fully address these issues, the naacp took it to the u.n. this is 1947. this would be the beginning of the cold war, and in that cold war frame, eleanor roosevelt was not about to allow this dirty laundry to be aired before the soviet union because the soviets a

. >> the relationship with eleanor roosevelt? >> be um, eleanor roosevelt didn't like her. [laughter] she didn't like her especially in her pacifist metamorphosis because dorothy thompson had organized this what she thought would be this international women's movement, women for peace movement. in which she said can't we all be friends? let's just put our guns down and our plowshares, and eleanor roosevelt believed that the greatest defense was a highly, um, avant-garde, state-of-the-art military. and she actually -- she, meaning eleanor roosevelt -- denounced her, denounced dorothy thompson on the floor of the u.n. when she was, when eleanor roosevelt was the head of the humanitarian commission. thank you. and dorothy thompson was, oh, just mortified and very embarrassed. and as a matter of fact, after that her movement just died on the vine, and she resigned. >> we have time for one last question here. >> hi. >> hi. >> you have given us an amazing portrait of each of these two women. could you say a little bit more about their relationship with one another? did they encou

>> really, eleanor? >> you're saying al-qaeda is not just one man? >> he wouldn't move heaven and earth to go after one man. >> disend -- [overlapping speakers] >> this president has also attacked al-qaeda. he's really driven an arrow through the heart of that organization. and when you cut the head of the snake off, you make a big difference. also, mitt romney was in new york delivering pizzas to first responders to mark the anniversary of osama's death. he's trying to edge in the photo-op. political campaign! >>> don't think thinks being -- unseemly -- [overlapping speakers] >> when we come back, chinese miss-fortune? >>> the united states raises the importance of human rights and fundamental freedoms because we believe that all governments do have to answer to citizens' aspirations for dignity and the rule of law, and that no nation can or should deny those rights. >> tread cautiously! that's what u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton did in beijing on thursday by not mentioning head-on in front of her host the case of activist chen guangshen. c

>> reporter: congresswoman eleanor holmes norton says she is being barred from testifying behind theses a house judiciary subcommittee on a republican-backed bill that would outlaw abortions in the district after 20 weeks. >> the republican majority is trying to barnstorm the country and barnstorm the supreme court. >> reporter: joining congresswoman norton was d.c. mayor convinceent gray who has been fighting his open battles with republicans in congress on budget autonomy for the district. gray says not allowing norton to testify is an insult to the more than 600,000 d.c. residents she represents. >> why was our very able representative to congress, as you already heard, denied the right to testify at a hearing that will consider this bill? >> reporter: this is not the first time that republicans in the house majority have faced criticism over who can and cannot testify at their hearings. back in february, a national debate was sparked when georgetown law student sandra fluke was not allowed to testify at a hearing that looked into whether or not employers should cover certain women'

eleanor roosevelt. [ applause ] a lovely moment. your memoir where you are there, a young student at the university of georgia. the phone rings. and it is james meredith. and james meredith is in the process of trying to integrate the university of mississippi. and the first -- at first you don't believe it is him. but finally you do. and basically he asks for advice from what he calls a fellow traveler. i thought what advice you would give to the fellow traveler, especially today defending their own rights or rights of others? >> again, to go back in history, my grandfather, who was presiding elder in africa methodist episcopal church, used to tell his son, my father, and his other son, my uncle, get an education, boy. boys. that's going to be the key to your liberation. and i think that is what propels so many generations of young black people but i think that if we bring it forward to today, as a journalist, i tend to ask questions much more than i give statements. so my question would be who is educating our young people this ne

allida, what would eleanor roosevelt say to us today as we are leave thing conference? >> she would say the last sentence she ever wrote -- staying aloof is not a solution. it is a cowardly evasion and that we cannot leave our problems in the government. we are the government. >> and from allida's book, she has a lovely quote in her book from eleanor roosevelt. you are going to live in a dangerous world but it's going to be an interesting and adventurous some. when you know what you really want to be and what you want to fight for, not in a war but in order to gain a peace, then i wish you imagination and understanding. god bless you, may you win. eleanor roosevelt. [ applause ] so sharlayne, there's a lovely moment in your memoir where you are there, a young student at the university of georgia. the phone rings. and it is james meredith. and james meredith is in the process of trying to integrate the university of mississippi. and at first you don't believe it is him. but finally you do. and basically he asks for advice from what he calls a fellow traveler. and i thoug

we bring in eleanor clift of news week.focus on north carolina justified both from the standpoint of is this a winnable state for the democrats and is this a disaster staring them in the face? >> i think it is a swing state, and i think they would make at it bigger disaster if they walked away. the voters in north carolina are broodly against gay marriage but i don't think they have a good idea of what they are voting for. they already have a law that bans gay marriage in the state, this would make that it much harder to repeal but i don't think the obama campaign or democrats particularly want this election to be a referendum on whether you support gay marriage or not. in some states it's a winner and in some states it is not. and the president is valiantly trying to finesse it. i don't think he will be able to finesse the issue, but i think stamping his feet and taking the convention out of north carolina would only make what is right now an embarrassment and a difficult issue -- i think it would just make it that much bi

. >> reporter: christopher roosevelt is franklin and eleanor's grandson.chairman of roosevelt campobello international park. spread across the 3,000 acres of the family's former estate, the park is jointly funded and managed by the united states and canada. >> the park is, we believe, the only true international park in the world. >> reporter: the roosevelts' 34-room cottage still looks as if the family had just stepped out for a quick swim. franklin's ashtray is at the ready, and eleanor's megaphone is there on the porch. >> do you want me to call to franklin? >> i do. >> i will do that then. >> franklin! >> how great. >> reporter: like so many campobello native park guides teresa and darlene speak of eleanor and franklin as if they were dear friends. >> he loved campobello. he loved the cottage and the people. >> reporter: by all accounts the feeling was mutual. as a boy, fdr learned to sail under the tutelage of island fishermen. no small accomplishment. here in the bay of fundi, you'll find the highest tides in the world, rising and falling as much as

. >> there is a very touching moment when, of course, fdr's dog -- eleanor then took the dog over. and the dog was so used to hail to the chief that whenever it would be played when fdr was alive, he would get excited. at one point eisenhower came to visit eleanor after fdr was dead and the dog was so excited and thinking fdr was coming back. >> that's sad. >> please don't tell stories like that. >> fortunately barney and beasley never got that excited. >> i would like to point out that when your photographer talked about the children, patty and barney -- good luck. >> be careful. >> didn't one of you have to give diet restrictions? was that for ranger? >> ranger. >> everybody is trying to feed them. >> we discovered ranger had some ham or something and it had gone down to kitchen and the chefs put plates for dinner, low. he just went and helped himself for a while. so he had a -- george put a thing on him. >> what about christmas in the white house? that must be a very special -- >> it is always really fun. we never spent actual christmas there. that was always at camp david becau

eleanor kaufman's own parents will testify on behalf of the accused murderer. in other words, they don't believe adam killed their daughter. >> so interesting. it really does speak -- i mean that's going to speak strongly -- >> real hard to convince a jury when her own parents say he didn't do it. >> thank you, sir. >>> a lot of other news developing and for that we head over to mr. ron claiborne. good morning, again, sir. >> dan and sharyn, hi. john, good morning. good morning, everyone. >>> in the news five men charged with plotting the 9/11 terror attacks refuse to enter pleas during a dramatic day in court in guantanamo. the defendants disrupted the hearing shouting at the judge and ignoring him and praying in court. >>> for the first time in 40 years japan is a nuclear-free power. the last of the country's nuclear reactors has been turned on for checkups following last year's earthquake and tsunami that set off meltdowns. >>> warren buffett says he feels terrific despite being recently fiedzing out he has prostate cancer. he will be replaced when and if ne

. >> what's important to know -- >> you know what -- wait, what's interesting, eleanor, first of all i was just talking this week to a young man who wants to go back to college and get his additional credits for a nursing degree. secondly we have a huge nursing shortage in this country, years ago we were importing women from eastern europe to try to fill -- now the philippines and other places. why not let unemployed american men become nurses. and secondly, i know, again this isn't data just personal anecdotes, i know a nurse in phoenix, arizona, earning more than $100,000 a year. that wouldn't be happening if men weren't entering that field and driving up wages. >> that's one of the most important points here, we've always said that we wanted men, this is one of the great feminist issues, men need to get in to women's jobs just as we've been saying women need to get in to men's jobs. and we also said, you will see the wages go up if men enter those fields. not only the wages go up they quickly move to the top, they still, male supremacy, range, too. what is really interesting and w

we are very honored to open this briefing and hear congresswoman eleanor holmes norton. she joins us this morning. the congresswoman understands the challenges facing retirees, especially women retirees, and elder women of color. she has been, as we all know, a tireless champion of equality and equity for civil rights. the issues addressed in our report that we're releasing this morning speak to exactly the kind of fairness she's championed throughout her distinguished career. we're very honored to have you here congresswoman. please welcome the congresswoman. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. this briefing should be particularly welcomed in the halls of the congress. its a beautiful cover and a very readable report. it's not like your government reports. it's a report meant to be read not only by members of congress, but by the larger public. a public that is increasingly female that needs to focus on social security. so i want to thank the three organizations who are responsible for this report. the national committee to preserve social security and medicare, the na

>> reporter: congresswoman eleanor holmes nor done says she is being barred from testifying -- nortonays she is being barred from testifying behind these doors on a republican-backed bill that would outlaw abortion in the district after 20 weeks. >> the republican majority is trying to barnstorm the country and barnstorm the supreme court. >> reporter: joining congresswoman norton was d.c. mayor vincent gray who has been fighting his own battles with republicans in congress on budget autonomy for the district. gray says not allowing norton to testify is an insult to the more than 600,000 d.c. residents she represents. >> why was our very able representative to congress as you already heard denied the right to testify at a hearing that will consider this bill? >> reporter: now this is not the first time that republicans in the house majority have faced criticism over who can and cannot testify at their hearings. back in february a national debate was sparked when georgetown law student sandra fluke was not allowed to testify at a hearing that looked into whether or not employers should

if you look to the back, you'll see a beautiful dress of eleanor roosevelt which is actually her first inaugural gown. eleanor roosevelt had a busy life, and she made a point of saying busy women also like to buy their clothes off the rack. but she also stressed that you shouldn't buy clothes from sweatshops. so her politics also came into her clothing. >> what is the oldest gown? >> the oldest gown in the collection is actually martha washington's. it's not on display right now. it's been on display for a long sustained amount of time. so it's having a rest right knew. in this gallery, when we round the corner, the oldest dress will be dolley madison's. >> fast forward to today. michelle obama, she donated hers personally? >> actually, mrs. obama came and presented the dress and the jewelry and the shoes. but they were actually donated, and she -- it's interesting. she says this is the first time we had the designers donate. and mrs. obama had them donate these pieces. so jason wu and jimmy choo and lori rodkin actually donated the pieces. and they're donated. when you see the label,

joining us now, congresswoman eleanor holmes norton from washington, d.c. thank you very much to be here. appreciate your time. you asked to be allowed to hear to testify at this hearing on a bill that specifically targeting your district and you were refused. is there precedent for allowing a member from an opposing market to speak on legislation that affects his or her district? >> abundant precedent. rachel, when there is a bill, a bill affecting a country, but you want to speak on the bill, perhaps you were a cosponsor, maybe one of ten cosponsors, you get to speak on the bill for any of the really relevant witnesses do. here you have a bill that affects only my district, in other districts in the united states, which signals out the residents of the district of columbia and say you women will not be subject to the constitutional mandate of roe versus wade. you alone can have an abortion only until 20 weeks. by the way, don't talk to us about how this violates the 14th amendment as well, which treats you differently from women in other states. not only