The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice [Paperback]

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NOMINEE • The riveting history of how Pauli Murray—a brilliant writer-turned-activist—and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt forged an enduring friendship that helped to alter the course of race and racism in America.

“A definitive biography of Murray, a trailblazing legal scholar and a tremendous influence on Mrs. Roosevelt.” —Essence

In 1938, the twenty-eight-year-old Pauli Murray wrote a letter to the President and First Lady, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, protesting racial segregation in the South. Eleanor wrote back. So began a friendship that would last for a quarter of a century, as Pauli became a lawyer, principal strategist in the fight to protect Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and a co-founder of the National Organization of Women, and Eleanor became a diplomat and first chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

A Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Award for Excellence in Nonfiction • Nominated for the National Book Award • A Washington Post Notable Book • A San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus, and Booklist Best Book of the Year • Lillian Smith Book Award • Finalist Georgia Author of the Year  • Nominated Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award

“Masterful. . . . Powerful and important.” —Boston Globe

“Thorough and engaging . . . Our lives are richer for the accounting of their friendship in this important book.” —The Washilx