I presume that the worst attacks on Eleanor Roosevelt came in the wake of the Detroit riots, beginning in 1942 and culminating in that awful scene in 1943. Eleanor Roosevelt had urged the introduction of blacks into the Sojourner Truth Housing Project in Detroit. Now incidentally, the housing project was named after an African American heroine, Sojourner Truth. Well, they went about doing it. There was great opposition, keep in mind, great opposition within Franklin Roosevelt's Administration. All of this was not just outside. It reached a point that, at one time, she referred to one of his aides as a fascist. That's how strongly she felt. And they were always advisors cautioning him about going too far. "Hold back."
For an example, it was so bad that he declined making a statement in praise of the Urban League, which was truly a moderate organization. He declined by advice of his tutors there, whoever was giving him advice on race, not to say too many nice things for an opening of the NAACP. And even an organization founded by none other than the great accommodationist Booker T. Washington, the National Negro Business League, he declined to even make a welcoming statement to that organization. This is how divided his advisory board was on what to do about black people.
So here is Eleanor Roosevelt urging the integration of a housing project, not in Birmingham or Montgomery, but in Detroit, Michigan. The Polish community staged an uprising, which tells you something about what goes on when immigrants come to America. One of the first indoctrinations you have is, to be a true American, regardless of what you ran from, is to be opposed to black people. So there was much resentment in a largely Polish community. And they held up the entree of blacks to Sojourner Truth. But finally, with protection, 200 families, I understand, did go in. In April of 1943, Belle Island exploded. That's the little island in the Detroit River. It was one of the worst. Thirty-four people were killed. Seventeen blacks killed by policemen alone. And what they did to each other is historic. It's one of the worst riots in the history of this country.
And of course, who did they blame? Eleanor Roosevelt's advocacy of blacks being brought into a public housing development in Detroit. And they laid it on her. They accused her of being a communist. They accused her of everything. They wanted the FBI to take action on her. And of course the FBI didn't need any encouragement under J. Edgar Hoover. J. Edgar Hoover, according to one researcher, said that Mrs. Roosevelt must have had Negro blood. ... But she didn't stop. This is the remarkable thing. This woman didn't stop. She defended herself. She continued to write her column. Scripps-Howard publishers urged all of its member newspapers to drop her column, My Day. And they all did, except one. But she didn't stop, because this woman evidently was convinced that she was doing the American thing. She was thinking about the future of her country.
Q: Describe the riots.
A: It was one of the worst. People unaware of what was going on would have been smashed out of cars and brutalized and killed. And the policemen were, by and large, in favor of the white mob. And then black people began to retaliate, attacking innocent white people. It was just brutal. I mean, massive. I think Roosevelt eventually had to send in about 5,000 troops. You had to federal troops brought in to quell this riot.
Lest we forget, this was why we were in a war with Hitler. This was April, 1943. And people were shouting the same remarks that Hitler was shouting about the Jews: "These inferiors. They don't belong here." People who just got here were saying we didn't belong here. And a woman with Mrs. Roosevelt's sensitivity had to be aware of what was going on. She stood her ground and didn't back up.
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