franklin d roosevelt library and museum. ms. cook has written a thee-part biography of former first lady. the third part is titled "eleanor roosevelt: the war years and after." book festival in lewes delaware hosted this hour-long conversation. year my colleague's honor board go to great lengths to find the ideal keynote speaker. it is not an easy job. first of all, it is finding the right person at the right time. honorary totend an our keynote speaker or other offers. they come here on their own with modest accommodations. we greatly appreciate that we

can get somebody of the caliber of the two people we have this evening. we feel greatly privileged and honored to have them. is the measure, if you are looking for the right person at the right time at the right place, i think we can find no better person than blanche wiesen cook, who is your with us this evening. welcome. [applause] if you are not already familiar with her extraordinary credentials, you have her formal qualifications in front of you. reputation speaks for itself. distinguished historian, revered scholar of women's studies, acclaimed biographer of eleanor roosevelt, leader in the calls for transparency of government,

and a citizen at heart. we are socook, delighted to have you here tonight. we appreciate you coming here and spending time with us and extending your insight. we are also fortunate to have l sparrow here to conduct the interview. he is the director of the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and museum in new york. i have had the honor of working with paul at the museum some years back. he was the senior executive there. i can send much more about paul, but ladies and gentlemen if you will please join me in thanking paul sparrow for joining us this evening. [applause] and before i ask blanche paul to step up here, we will have a question and answer with them and then we will turn to

you for some questions. then we will close with some music from david and his band. e, thehat paul, blanch stage is yours. welcome. [applause] paul: are our microphones working? blanche: i think they are. [laughter] ron, iibby say thank you am honored to be here with the preeminent eleanor roosevelt historian of our era. it is important in this day and this time to be thinking and talking about one of the great american women. we can also see them down here. books, weritten three are supposed to focus on the

third volume. obviously you have dedicated much of your life to studying her. let's start with putting her in context. how would you describe eleanor roosevelt impact on american society and history? blanche: i really have to say how profoundly moved i am to be lewis, the first city of the first state. [applause] filled with the most wonderful people. has been we have met so generous, the food is terrific. thank you. i really want to thank my partner and my god daughters for coming. you.t to thank i want to thank jan and ron for reception.ant

we need each other right now, hearts open, fists high. [no audio] [applause] paul: absolutely. blanche: her impact was really very profound. her great friend and biographer who encouraged me to write my books because i once said to joe, what is up with you not having her in anything you have ever written? he said i hated her and let's have dinner. joe hadfriends because been published by crystal who founded the aclu.

you get to be friends with people who blurb your books that way. i had gottenne was this book to review while i was working on eisenhower in kansas. a dry town, you couldn't even get wine with dinner. i made friends with the local sheriff who had single malt in his office. guns, which i like to shoot. people sent me books to review and there was this really hideous book about eleanor roosevelt and marina by a woman who hated them. talk about buck tooth, ugly

eleanor roosevelt. eleanor was a saint. saying a cigarw may not always be a cigar but the northeast corner of your mouth is always the northeast corner. folks started to say why don't you write this? i said don't be ridiculous, i am a military historian. i do hard history. park, tome up to hyde the fdr library. i realized i had a story there. anything eleanor roosevelt wanted to deal with joe dealt with. she didn't want to deal

with he dealt with. 1982, my eisenhower book just came out. my goal was 1984 to finish it. paul: how did that work out? in 2016.i finished it it was fun because as joe said her vision was profound. it turns out not only was her vision profound, her writing is profound. she wrote 27 books. manyss articles in different venues. column from 1936 until the end of her life. we was very blunt and now have more and more of her

letters which is a most incredible story. everywhere she went, literally, around the country and the world, she loved meeting people and she only had one introductory presentation. tell me, what do you want? what do you need? vision was dedicated to changing the world. people needed and wanted food, --s, economics appear ready economic superiority, justice, freedom, security, peace, education. some of her most powerful articles are about the failure of education. not just education in the three arts. she was insistent in sports and music.

loved music.velt later years she waited for her grandchildren to come , she loved jazz, she loved folk music. she took her grandchildren to hear florence price, the first symphony --d a black african american woman who had a symphony. i did not notice until recently, she studied the pno as a girl. music is a very big part of her life. to me, a very big part of her life for me was an epiphany when

i read it, something she wrote when she was 76. she wrote that the happiest day of her life was the day she made hockey.t rtteam at field the first team at field hockey, paul. that gave me a real insight. rtsanor roosevelt liked spo and she was competitive. once i got that, a whole lot of things fell into place. she had this lifelong partnership with her husband, franklin delano roosevelt. she is competitive. it starts very early.

we know about lucy mercer in 1918. one of the interesting articles int really designates it is 1923 she wrote an article called the women of tibet. shesaid the women of tibet learned had many husbands, which seems to me a very good thing. [laughter] so many husbands have so many wives. paul: could we go to the next slide? one of the interesting relationships with eleanor's early political career with the two women she started the business with. you can see them here by the

cars they love to drive around. can you talk about the relationship, how it influenced her political impact? dickerman andn nancy cook were new york state political activists. we go from the suffrage movement to essentially true thing for democracy. the idea that women will change the world if women have power. what we have to do is go door to communityk by block, by community, and build movements. there they are. two of the women in her circle who were going to build groups,s in self-help

they were involved to give work to local people who needed work. they were involved with local politics. that group, one has to put caroline o'dea. nobody has really written yet about caroline o'dea. one can question, we know mary dickerman and nancy cook a in oralmary dickerman history says she was closer to nancy cook. then there is caroline o'dea. we don't know. what we do know is ultimately eleanor roosevelt, who is a serial romantic i have decided, she dismisses them. bigoted out they are and they cannot stand eleanor

roosevelt's new friend. they are rude to her new friend. they are rude to earl miller, who becomes eleanor roosevelt bodyguard. here is one of those mysteries of her life. eleanor roosevelt and earl lly close, they have fun together and do wonderful things together. they play and travel and he teaches her how to shoot and he gets her a course, she loves to ride and rides it daily. they have fun. to the end, he is always there. relationship, we don't know because all of the papers have disappeared. about 1972ites in

that there were many letters between them. they were almost daily and were very long and specific. letters.he somebody i think bought them and destroyed them. a -- one ofre is , there is ais found divorce between earl miller and his third wife. name who theto correspondent for this divorce is. sayingivan has a column the world will be shocked to know who is going to be named in this divorce suit. she is not quite named but everybody knows. it becomes gossip.

it is the daily news in the daily papers. we do not know. one interesting thing, earl miller was quiet until the end of his life. he lived anonymously. he did not want people to know about his friendship. of course there is hick and they hated him. people whowo other are much more important to her politically. pe.t is esther la i spell it wherever i go because there are writers in the audience and there is no biography, this is the most amazing thing. there is only one or two wl really good articles by a pal of mine who introduced me to esther lape, we were students at

hopkins together. was a pioneering activist who introduced eleanor roosevelt to international politics and to a kind of activism that becomes really a very important to her. in fact, eleanor roosevelt has one of the guest fbi files ever collected by john edgar hoover. all 4000 pages at the library if you want to come up and see it. hours are heavily read acted. i might have more. i got them through the freedom of information act. found this through foia inc. we got many papers declassified. it started with eisenhower.

i always say never go anywhere without it, we flew to new york and called a meeting of attorneys. we founded foia inc. and won a great case. we got incredible documents including ultimately your secret papers and let me say one thing about the secret papers. u.n.e u.s. archives, her papers, 198 boxes of her papers were all secret and classified until we declassified them in 1988. there is lots of stories there in those papers. have some home movies i

want to show briefly. this is from campobello, home movies taken by missy lohan. there is no sound so we can sort of talk over it. campobello was a sort of an important place for eleanor. that is nancy cook, that is marian dickerman. wasescape to campobello away for them to get away from the pressures of albany or washington, d.c. you talk about this second volume, this is the arrival of fdr after the first 100 days when he sales up the coast. this is an interesting exchange. ship about their relation and how they found parallel lives to be effective. there is his court

-- these are missy luhansk movies?-- lohan's she really welcomes her as the junior wife. really close and they treat her with great respect gets sick, itan is eleanor roosevelt who goes to visit her. she is a welcome presence. there is his court in the white house. hers is on one floor, anyway, they are all there. eleanor roosevelt has a four earl miller.

we were talking about competition a bit. eleanor roosevelt did not like boats. she preferred to fly and she preferred horses and trains. interesting. she is not with him very often. this is an amazing -- steve and his girlfriend. is that missy there? it is hard for us to understand today. eleanor was a global figure of extraordinary popularity and celebrity. you see her there with shirley temple. go to the next slide please. she was a media mogul. blanche: she is the first lady of radio.

i talked about how she had 27 books and endless daily columns. she also had a daily radio show for a little while, then she had a television show. and she ishe air called the first lady of radio. there is a wonderful group of people who have done some wonderful things with the radio. worksn smith of radio really organized a lot of the radio. they disagree with each other, the first modern couple, they had their own careers, political activities, controversies, and constituencies. they each have radio space. angets an hour, she gets

hour. paul: after the bombing of pearl harbor, eleanor roosevelt was the first person to make a statement. blanche: i want to hit on this competitive thing. i want to come back to esther lape too. at one point after the first year in the white house, i want you to know that this year i have earned more through my columns and public speaking then an fdr earned as president. paul: she loved earning money. she gave most of it away though. blanche: she given to the american friends service committee, good causes, and all during the war, that is where her money went. americanhrough the friends of services.

she gave it all away. had athe two of them complicated relationship. on the right, that is their wedding photograph, on the left that is the inauguration. their personal relationship and political relationship changed. their personal relationship changed in that they had a deal. mercer, they are not going to get divorced but they will live separately, emotionally. on the other hand, eleanor roosevelt was devoted to fdr. she believed he had a vision for the country that they shared. and they did not agree didn't agree as i emphasized on race, where he did not take. he never went as far as she urged him to go.

she could not believe when she came back from london and from saw how theand she british troops were integrated. she saw how britain was integrated. she saw how cruelly segregated the u.s. situation, the military situation was. she really fought against that. it was -- hethat agreed with eleanor roosevelt that the military should be integrated, that women it fly, the tuskegee airmen who we saw, we will get to that in a minute. she really fought for the

testing the airmen, for women in the air force. the end to segregation. eisenhower did segregate some structures when eleanor roosevelt really protested. it did not happen the way she thought it should. we need to's year as we see the situation that we are currently living in. tube and out there was something called the dixie crat. the southern control of the democratic party moved to the control of the republican party when lyndon b. johnson insisted on the civil rights act. he knew that was going to change the party. it did. look at them.

the bigotry is in place, the failure to integrate. make me do it. have a movement. you want change? create a movement. eleanor roosevelt tried to do that. writing, she is called lady great heart by who lyndon b.ll johnson appoints to the supreme court circuit. oral history that eleanor roosevelt was lady great heart. she change the tone for civil rights, fdr did not do a damn thing. he actually said that. paul: here she is, we'll talk about her relationship soon and here she is with marian

anderson. she made this a central tenant of her career. absolutely, she runs down when she comes to dinner at the white house. she runs to embrace her and walker into the white house -- walk her into the white house. anderson. is marian sheche: not only does support her fabulous concert on that easter sunday. entertainment when the queen of england comes. clear,lly makes it very we have got to change the situation. as soon as she leaves the white house she becomes a board member of the naacp. here she is with the queen.

your book does a wonderful job of describing this and her relationship with the queen. it is a fascinating study in contrast. blanche: it really is. eleanor roosevelt is dazzled that the queen cap everything. she was so beautiful, impeccable, even in this heat wave. problem for eleanor roosevelt, she wants the queen to be exposed to american food. she has a picnic and it is a hotdog picnic. there were finger food, fancy she had almostut a heart attack. how could she possibly serve the queen hot dogs? there are some funny things. paul: it is one of those times

they worked together. this is 1939 and fdr's trying to get the american public to emphasize with the british. blanche: they don't want anything to do with the war. the whole point of this visit is americans to say look, they are just like us, they speak our language. we are the same people. you don't want them to be trampled by the nazis. paul: eleanor goes back to england during the war, talk about that. that is an important moment. blitz.there during the the happiest day of her life next to her being first team in at her school in england and she has many friends there.

she is committed to -- she is memory of to her england and her friends in england, her school in england. there is no biography. she goes to england during the blitz and if she visits the theps, the british troops, women doing incredible war work. this inspires her to think of the ways women can be activist and do more work. she comes back from her visit fueled with ideas that she communicates and creates things people can do. worlde got to defend the against the horror going on.

to have aybody has job. everybody has to be educated. she was horrified that so many of our young men at 18 could not pass the draft test because they could not read. eleanor roosevelt wants schools opened everywhere. is one of my favorite photographs of eleanor. this is her at the tuskegee institute. do you want to explain the back story? she rides with the tuskegee airmen and she is a smiling and happy. are 900ly, there tuskegee airmen at the graduate center there was a fabulous guy named roscoe brown who was a one

of the most decorated of the tuskegee airmen. on the reds a book tails. eleanor roosevelt made this possible after being trained and having a lot of time in the air, they were not being sent anywhere. within several weeks they were moved out. they really are involved in all kinds of her heroic and dangerous, life-threatening, and highly decorated -- it is the most decorated unit. anderson. is chief she maintained a correspondence with him the rest of her life. like many things, they never publicized and remain friends. onto the next one, we are running out of time.

war, the height of the eleanor roosevelt goes on a secret mission to the pacific to visit american troops. on the right is joe lash. closest people to eleanor throughout her life. we talk about this journey? she was flying military planes throughout the specific, under attack, being bombed, and yet she persevered. she always said courage could be as contagious as fear. because she is being bombed, things are exploding all around her. she goes to every hospital, veterano every wounded and takes notes, saying i will contact your parents, wife, whatever. she does.

she goes home and corresponds with everybody. whatever she said to the wounded she cheered them up. they were depressed, suicidal, eleanor roosevelt managed -- she really did just love the people. one of her great friends actually said eleanor roosevelt loves the people. that is a real truth to her life. roosevelt is very close to joe and one of the things i'm excited about is nobody has ever about the member of the german anti-nazi underground. ratt,arried elliott p

one of the richest men in the u.s.. newspaper. anti-nazi they come to the u.s. and they have three children. at some point she meets joe and they fall in love. eleanor roosevelt has a very strange connection to this relationship. ncourages her to get a divorce. clearly they had an open relationship. you want a divorce? you have all the freedom you need and evidently so did he. they had three children. with thery involved german underground. she is responsible ultimately for the rescue operation which

is the most important -- one could argue, the significant rescue operation before the war. i asked her,ed what is up with nobody ever giving her credit for the rescue operation? she isclear to me that the only connection to eleanor roosevelt in this situation. tablenged her fist on the and her glasses fell off, she said don't write that. i said i'm going to write that, why not? childrento protect her but ultimately before she died she said ok i could write it and i did. she said to protect her family and i could not understand it until her children told me she had two brothers who fly here and two brothers who fought there.

and a mother who was such a nazi she would never meet joe. that tension and reality, she was a great activist and committed to all of the programs for justice and education for children. for housing in new york city. it is really equal education that was her big passion. she did wonderful work and as i said there is no biography. there are many papers. i know that because her children gave me 10 boxes. paul: we will be happy to take them off your hands. you are going to get them -- blanche: you're going to get them. paul: this photo was the only photograph in eleanor's wallet on the day she died. blanche: i did not know that. paul: we have everything from her pistol permit to her press photographs of

her children, grandchildren, franklin roosevelt, just that one photo of joe lash. blanche: that is amazing. paul: april 12, 1945, franklin roosevelt dies. his body is brought up to hyde park where he is buried. this is a traumatic moment for the country, world, particularly for eleanor roosevelt. whatu want to talk about happened and how eleanor responded to both her personal tragedy and this global loss? fdr had just written an incredible speeches that he was going to deliver the next day. it really is a speech that sets off what eleanor roosevelt thinks of the united nations. we have to have a world in which world war not be --

ii eisenhower said should be the last war to tear humanity apart. that vision should be the last war. if we had justice, if we have economic security, if we have literacy for all, health care all, we housing for would not have war. she ishat vision that left with, it is her vision. she has written many articles. time to read her moral basis of democracy in which she says we should stop worshiping the god. she says we have to give up greed and very specifically give up greed and really have economic citizenry where you think of your work as connected to the needs and works of all the other people.

her definition of citizen is neighbor. we are all global neighbors. everything that happens anywhere affectsin his books everybody, everywhere. we are all connected in one world. he and eleanor roosevelt become close. he dies in 1944. that is one piece of the legacy. the other piece is she learned he was with lucy mercer when he died. eleanor roosevelt never referred to that publicly. she never tells anybody, not even joe lash. she lives with it. actually becomes friends her.her cousin who told

overtime.e friendly in onrgives her for being it and she forgives her daughter anna who had something to do with the many connections over time between lucy mercer and fdr. we are running out of time so i am going to skip this photo but this is eleanor with winston churchill one year after fdr dies. we will skip to the next picture because this is eleanor holding up the universal declaration of human rights in spanish. this really was her greatest accomplishment. to say: it is, i have the universal declaration of human rights, this november will be its 70th anniversary. the secretary general of the u.s. at the opening of the u.n. this last week really gave an incredible speech in which he

said we are further away from human rights worldwide now than we were 70 years ago. eleanor roosevelt's commitment to the universal declaration of human rights, which was a unity, economic and civic and social rights, civic and political it got divided into two wl covenants. the u.n. did not ratify the covenant, does anybody know when? we did not ratify it, jimmy carter brought it up but he did not bring it up to the senate. george herbert walker bush in 1991 brought it to the senate and to the soviet union -- after the soviet union collapse. stand forw we can

civil and political rights. the u.s. has still not had a conversation about the economic and social rights constant. there was an organization that was supposed to push it forward but it is not really doing that. we need a movement. we need a movement for the human rights. we have a creature in the white house who is just moved the u.s. international criminal court and also from the human rights commission. the humant say, rights commission had a great we were invited for the day it opened just this saturday there were 600 people, incredible speeches by members of leading countries. the head of the human rights

gave an incredibly wonderful speech. the secretary-general dated. we stand for human rights. for thesell fighting rights. we are committed to it. [applause] it was the same day the person in the white house made folks when he said he has done more than anybody ever. da,was amazingly rude to cana excuse me to all of our allies. it is a little scary what we are living through now. sorry. universal line is

declaration of human rights is goal,there, it is still a and it is still a goal. there are something like 12 nations in which the death penalty is available for people who love each other of the same sex and 48 nations where it is criminal. the goal is to stop that and the goal is to have freedom of speech, press, religion, and economic security. work for everybody, jobs for everybody, education for everybody. i have to say we are closing public schools all over the country and ending sports and music programs not only all over the country but even in places like new york and connecticut. we have all of us who are activists -- we have work to do. paul: questions from the

audience now, rate or hand and they will bring the microphone to you. on?s my mike thank you for that interview. [applause] i can talk to you all day. when i greeted lance this morning-- blanche this i said i think you are going to take something and us you have. we are big believers in free speech here. [applause] we respect all speech. we respect everyone who is here. i we are asking questions, know we probably have way more

than we have time to get to. you guys know he did the score for ken burns'documentary about the roosevelts as well as the one for vietnam? we are going to do some questions. we want everybody is a part of free speech, but we want your speech to be civil and humane to our guests' work. razor hands and we will come and bring you a microphone and you can ask a question. >> i have nothing but nice things to say. i might understand the comment but my parents lived in waverly hall georgia at the time of roosevelt's death.

my father was volunteered for service in the second world war because he only had one hand. he lost one in the frontier of west georgia as he was growing up. he was a patriot and was very much -- my whole family are just roosevelt crazy. every story you told, the hotdogs and everything i heard as a kid growing up. i am the tour is for doing this, sorry about that. meet the eleanor train? my father talked about watching him put it on and it was a very moving experience. down andshe went accompanied somebody. good evening, i work with

young people at a high school. knowing what you said about eleanor, i wonder what your message would be. what you think eleanor would say to young people today, keeping in mind that many people have withunder siege lately violence that has begotten in schools. i just wonder what eleanor's message would be to young people? blanche: eleanor roosevelt happiest days were at allenwood as a student and as a teacher where she taught with marian dickerman, who was the principal. eleanor roosevelt was the most popular teacher. she really believed in the power of teachers and education.

what she would say is unpack your heart when you write listen, the critical, never mimic the teacher, always ask questions, and that was her message to young people. that was her message, ask questions and the political, question everything, never take anything for granted, do not believe the politicians. [laughter] [applause] hi, thank you for being here i am so excited to read your book. i knew very little about eleanor roosevelt until recently when a friend asked her to help with a documentary. i am wondering if you knew about this story of the ss kwanzaa. that is wonderful, you

did a documentary? >> she is working on it, it is great. blanche: eleanor roosevelt was horrified when the ss st. louis was a sent back to europe. one of the things i did not say about the trip, it happened when the king and queen were here. while the headlines, king and queen of england are here is that the ship is not all owed to harbor anywhere. it is going back. eleanor roosevelt was horrified. she said i will personally welcome the people who come as refugees on the next ship. the neck ship was the kwanzaa. eleanor roosevelt said it let stay in virginia

beach. everyone will be here as my guest. they were allowed to stay. paul: it was a violation of immigration quota. wasn't aactually it violation because less than 10% of the immigration quotas were being filled. it was a violation of the power of the state department which was dominated by breckenridge. one of the great mysteries i bring up again and again is why absoluter fire this big it who says he is going to make it impossible for people to become refugees and be admitted? actively anti-semitic. says franklinelt

you know he is a fascist. and he is. roosevelt, eleanor he may be but do not use that word. he goes on and on and the kwanzaa is the cutting edge. , i don't know what the nature of the commitment was allegedly fdr did not agree with him entirely. paul: he ignored his orders specifically to the number of visas they were issuing. blanche: he says over the kwanzaa, who is in charge here me or your wife? fdr says to eleanor roosevelt, he is in charge, you cannot do this. there is a great new book that has just come out called

the war refugee board. it looks actively at what the end of the war resulted were. >> [indiscernible] have you read any of the letters, what would she say to them? blanche: i must say i have not read very many. we have about a million pages of them. she really does support them, tell me what they need if they need something specific. she is really horrified.

in really cold, rainy places like england in the winter, she writes to ike, what is up with no socks? very specific things like that. she goes right to it. all four of her sons served in active duty during the war. she would often talk about her own struggles of not knowing where her sons were. she could relate to the families who were back home. many of the letters to the families of servicemen were about her own personal experiences. as a former director of a presidential library, i would be remiss if i didn't ask you to say a word about the value of presidential libraries. blanche: i couldn't do my research if it weren't for the

great library that is better than ever under paul sparrow. [applause] fabulous. president's letters are at the library of congress, not much fun to work there, especially if you are a new yorker. anyway is aary, great library. you have done amazing and wonderful work and i want to see all of the films you have put together and slideshows which you have put online. it really is quite thrilling. i think fdr created the first presidential library. not only did he want to bring his papers and make them

available, he felt it was important for the transparency of the government. he wanted americans to understand how the government worked and how decisions were made. up to that point, presidents took everything with them, documents were considered personal property. he donated all of his papers, his home on the hudson river, his collection, his paintings, so committed to sharing that with the american people. since then, every president has created a presidential library where you can read these letters. one of our challenges is we have a million letters to and from eleanor roosevelt that are not digitized, it is something we figure out how to do. we have great letters in a box, if you want to come up we will show them to you, at some point we have to put them online. earlier you mentioned about

writing this biography being possibly a two year endeavor. at what point did it become such a massive work that you realized it needed to be three volumes. can you talk a little bit about that process? [laughter] >> you know, it just got bigger and bigger and more and more. the political climate was such all one wanted to deal with of the pertinent realities. this before the soviet union collapsed. it continued after. then the game changes. i a military historian, became obsessed with the political realities of the international political realities, which are in the book, and with her personal

commitments, and then the many commitments and many activities of all of her friends, including surprising people like bernard , who is really a fascinating international player. he is very close to churchill. i didn't talk about churchill, but i got very involved with churchill, because eleanor roosevelt really despised churchill. why? ,ecause he's a big it -- bigot because of his activities in india, the bengal famine, millions of people died because he would not let food in over the hump while the ships are right there in the harbor. eleanor roosevelt knows all of this. it became a vehicle to rewrite a

lot of history that needed to be rewritten. endlessly fascinating story and she does a truly extraordinary job of telling it. [applause] i think we are getting the science here. >> i think we are. l, i gotknow about y'al to stand up and walk around. are there any desperate questions we missed? ron has a desperate question. please. >> it's not really desperation. [laughter] today'soincidence in time, the new york townhome where mrs. roosevelt lived until her death, there's a $20 million sale. but a couple things an article, she hosted khrushchev at one time and actually worked on john kennedy's campaign.

any comments on her activities at the end of her life? her activities near the end of life. paul: why don't you talk about her and john kennedy? that's my favorite. eleanor roosevelt kept growing and changing. she did host khrushchev. she said, we may be enemies, but we have to talk to each other. talking is better than fighting and we can disagree. she had the russian delegation for dinner all the time. concert them to the because they loved music. and when they went to carnegie hall and heard concerts, they became friendlier. kennedy, she was very hesitant because she didn't like his father. we can understand why she didn't like joseph kennedy. joseph kennedy wanted to ally

with hitler. she was worried that joseph would be pushing his children into power and may be they would be like him, but then she met with john kennedy, and it was instant friendship. i think it would be before dessert, she makes it very clear he would support him, and that was really a great change. paul: she had been adlai stevenson supporter, up until the point where she decided, this man is not so bad after all. blanche: and then she was disappointed in stevenson. she is writing around with stevenson in new york and they are into an african-american community, and stevenson says, what do you think i should say to those people? eleanor roosevelt is more than

revolted. she is profoundly disappointed. >> we have one more question. i want to say for anyone coming tomorrow, tomorrow we have authors for an hour and then there is a break in between. tonight we have the luxury of getting to hang out a little on the. -- longer. -- aickly, can you address new discussion, there was a picture of eleanor roosevelt standing by martin luther king. can you say a few words about her engagement with martin luther king and the fight for human dignity and human rights? blanche: she really encouraged the civil rights movement. she encouraged martin luther king. she encouraged a sit in. eleanor roosevelt to roosevelt house when i was a student at hunter. i was president at student council.

i invited her to speak to us in 1961. and she said wonderful things are happening, go south for freedom. so we took two buses and went to north carolina. eleanor roosevelt was supporting siddons, the civil rights movement, from the 1940's until the end of her life. she was delighted. -- and there is a wonderful new book. booksare a few wonderful about eleanor roosevelt and polly murray. she called eleanor roosevelt the mother of the women's movement and the conscience of us all. and that is really eleanor roosevelt with civil rights. >> what a perfect place to end. [applause]

blanche: thank you. thank you. paul: thank you. [applause] tofrom george washington george w. bush, every sunday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern, presidency," a weekly series exploring the presidents, their politics, policies, and legacies. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, politico what has correspondant -- white house correspondent and a congressional reporter preview the week ahead. then opportunity america, and

the aspen institute discuss a new report on the working class. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern monday morning. join the discussion. when the new congress takes office in january, it will have the youngest, most diverse freshman class in recent history. new congress, new leaders. watch it live on c-span starting january 3. >> this week on the communicators, california have the airbus sera on my answering california's $385 billion technology industry. at the googles and facebook's of the world to big in your view? at theink you can look companies becoming very large and wondering if you are getting to the point where we have to

take a closer look. but because the internet is eight different animal. now we dealing digits. it's a different thing. one you could always touch. the others, bunch of zeros and ones. how you tackle that is i think we do, but we will have to answer that clearly, is anyone being anti-competitive? is anyone becoming monopolistic to the point where the antitrust effect?e and do we have to take a closer look at antitrust laws to make sure they have adapted to meet the needs of this new internet world? >> watch the communicators monday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two. on march 5, 17 70, a group of british shoulders -- soldiers shot into a crowd and killed five american protesters in boston. next on american history tv, the

university of utah history professor eric hinderaker revisits the famous incident in his book "boston's massacre." historical society, he comes through the almost 250-year-old evidenced and tries to determine what really happened on that fateful day. minutes.bout 45 professor hinderaker: i have a tangled relationship with boston. i'm not from here. i grew up in south dakota. i first visited as a 12-year-old when i visited my brother in school. we walked to the freedom trail. i saw my first major league baseball game at fenway park. later, i lived in somerville for six years when i was working on phd. i intended to write my first research seminar paper on boston in the era of the american revolution, but i changed my mind and chose a different