July 25, 2024
Dear Kathleen,
All is well for me, thank you for asking. I enjoy each day as it comes. Just as you like writing to me, I feel the same about writing to you. It’s interesting to see my own words and thoughts making the rounds in 2024. For one thing, it helps me look back and see how I might have said and thought one thing based on what was happening at the time. However, it’s good to see that whatever I said still honors the essence of the human spirit and serves as a beacon for what’s possible.
I’m not surprised you accepted the call to serve Dutchess County. Good on you!
And a great representation of Edgar’s poem Kathleen. It also fits with my belief to "Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t." Now that’s something I’d like to say to your presumptive presidential nominee.
I was delighted to read that she and I share democratic values and the promises of the UDHR.
During my years at the UN, it was my work on the Human Rights Commission that I considered my most important task.
As chairman of the Commission, I felt that the Declaration represented a step forward in a great evolutionary process. We couldn't expect to lay down a hard and fast code. We would not be creating an international law, but we were creating a standard of aspirations and hopes. It was a question of doing the best we could in the time we had.
My most thrilling experience was the final adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was the culmination of very hard work and I think an important step in international development. (If You Ask Me, June 1955)
You might have gotten some idea of how excited I was when you read what my niece Eleanor Roosevelt said about me in her book, With Love Aunt Eleanor. She wrote about my behavior after a small reception I gave for my colleagues at the Palais des Nations in Geneva when the commission finished its work. As she says in her book, I wrote to her that “after all the guests had left and I was walking through the empty halls with my advisor, I came up with a better way to celebrate than with a glass of champagne at a party. The marble floors were polished to the shine of black ice. My aunt’s feet were long and narrow, and her low-heeled shoes had leather soles. I ran, gathering momentum, and then slid down the hall, my arms outstretched in triumph. It was so much fun that I did it again.” Fingers crossed that moment will come for Kamala.
You wrote that I didn’t think women could be leaders. I did indeed say that I do not think the time has come for a woman to be President of the United States. It seems to me that before a woman can successfully be President many more public offices must be filled by women and we in this country must have ceased to think of our candidates as men or women but only as people who have the proper qualifications for the job to which we are considering electing them. (If You Ask Me, August 1950) Happy to see what progress has been made with more to come.
I said earlier that some of my words and thoughts were based on the circumstances of the time. In the early part of my public life, I had doubts about whether a woman should be president. At that time, cultural norms and societal expectations often confined women to the domestic sphere, and we had never seen a woman hold the highest office in the land.
I believed that the presidency's demands and public scrutiny were too intense given the significant obstacles and pressures women faced. Instead, I emphasized the importance of women working at the grassroots level to effect change. However, as I witnessed the evolving role of women in society, my views grew. I became a strong advocate for women's rights, encouraging women to participate more actively in political life and supporting female candidates. My journey has shown me the complexities of gender roles, and I firmly believe in the tremendous power women have in shaping the destiny of the world.
Kathleen, you know it is customary to refer to countries as “she.” So, it is right and fitting that a woman be given the opportunity to serve as the leader of the American people. As she stands tall and proud, America can embrace her newfound identity under the guidance of a woman's hand. The winds of change rustle through her fields and cities, whispering promises of a brighter future.
With each decision, each policy, each word spoken, the leader can weave a new chapter in the story of a nation reborn. Gone are the days of rigid expectations and stifled potential; now, America can flourish under the wisdom and strength of a woman's touch. From sea to shining sea, she will pulse with the vibrant energy of a people united, eager to witness the boundless possibilities that lie ahead.
This is the America of today—a nation embodied by the spirit of a woman, led by the grace of a woman, and forever transformed by the power of a woman.
(If You Ask Me, May 1948)
It seems to me that America’s objective today should be to try to make herself the best possible mirror of democracy that she can. (Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt)
There is no doubt that your presumptive nominee is in for some rough times simply because she is a woman with brown skin of Jamaican and Indian descent. When race and gender become the deciders of what one can and cannot do, the best thing to point out is that one is not asking for equal rights to begin with, but equal opportunities, and then when those are obtainable the rights will take care of themselves.
Women who want to lead must stand up and be shot at. (Australian Women’s Weekly, September 1943) And all women in public life need to develop skin as tough as rhinoceros hide. (Circa 1936) From what I’m hearing and reading, Kamala Harris passes both tests.
Yes, democracy is today at the crossroads, and unless we show some zeal in fighting for fundamental democratic beliefs, we may find other beliefs in the ascendancy. It pleases me that America has a presidential candidate who understands the importance of democracy at work in the lives of everyday people.
Thank you for telling me about Kamala Harris. Sounds like she has a forward-thinking vision for America and its people. This is a good thing because where there is no vision the people perish. (Tomorrow is Now)
With love,
ER