Opening
A private phone call on a quiet Canadian island becomes a civil rights breakthrough, and a wartime America turns two women into each other’s lifeline. Across these chapters, Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune move from political allies to indispensable partners, while Franklin Delano Roosevelt looms as a force Eleanor must push—and resist.
Their victories are hard-won and deeply personal: a signed executive order, a nation at war, a private breakdown answered by friendship, an FBI scare beaten back, and a renewed crusade to put the Tuskegee Airmen in the sky.
What Happens
Chapter 61: Campobello Island, Canada
June 1941. Eleanor escapes Washington’s pressure for the family’s summer home on Campobello Island, where she readies the house for a student leadership camp. The illusion of calm breaks with a telegram from Mary and A. Philip Randolph: the anti-discrimination order for defense industries—meant to avert the March on Washington—has sat on the President’s desk for weeks, untouched.
Eleanor strides to the island’s lone telephone and calls Franklin. He answers with banter; she cuts him off. When he calls the draft order an “unprecedented step,” she replies it’s an “overdue step,” refusing euphemism for injustice. The exchange spotlights their governing rhythm—her moral insistence and tactical pressure as a hallmark of Political Activism and Strategy. He reads aloud the language of Executive Order 8802; she asks if his pen is handy. Over the line, he signs. The win floods her with relief and purpose—an immediate advance in Civil Rights and Racial Injustice—and she wires Mary with the news.
Chapter 62: Washington, D.C.
December 8, 1941. Eleanor stands beside Franklin in the Capitol on the morning after Pearl Harbor, haunted by a grim triptych: the September death of her formidable mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt; the loss of her brother Hall to alcoholism; and the shock of the attack that kills over two thousand Americans. Having urged calm in her own radio address the night before, she now tries to find it for herself as Franklin, leaning on their son James, approaches the rostrum.
As he delivers the “date which will live in infamy” speech, the war’s reality lands with force. Eleanor grips her chair, fear radiating outward—to her sons who will serve, to Mary’s grandson now eligible because of the very order she helped force through. The public face and the private toll collide, amplifying the cost of Personal Sacrifice for Public Service at the instant the nation enters war.
Chapter 63: Washington, D.C.
By August 1942, the war and the bruising climate of politics plunge Eleanor into a “Griselda mood.” For days she remains in bed, overwhelmed by her ouster from the Office of Civil Defense amid backlash, fury at Executive Order 9066 and the internment of Japanese Americans, and relentless press attacks that damn her for acting—and for not acting. Her secretary Tommy, alarmed, reaches for the one person who can reach Eleanor: Mary.
Mary arrives to find Eleanor unkempt and withdrawn and meets her not with alarm but recognition. Naming the feeling as “melancholy,” Mary shares her own battles with despair. Her presence—quiet, steady, unjudging—becomes a rescue. Over tea and cake, their solidarity takes shape: strength isn’t solitary; it’s mutual. Their moment of care embodies Friendship Across Racial Lines and showcases The Role and Power of Women sustaining one another when institutions will not. Eleanor rises at last: “We’ve got work to do.”
Chapter 64: Washington, D.C.
September 1942. Unable to get an appointment, Mary arrives unannounced at the White House. She is under FBI investigation for Communist ties and fears she’s on a list of “dangerous subversives.” Eleanor, buried in wartime demands, snaps and tells Mary to wait—calling equality “your issues.” Mary fires back: “I never knew that equality was my issue; I thought it was all of our issue.”
The tension dissolves as each woman recognizes the other’s strain. Eleanor apologizes and confides a raw, private wound: Franklin has asked her to resume their marriage in full. Knowing he still loves Lucy Mercer, Eleanor refused. The confession restores trust; the alliance resets. Horrified by the FBI probe, Eleanor promises to shield Mary, suspecting political enemies like Congressman Martin Dies. If needed, she will face J. Edgar Hoover herself. Their friendship evolves into a protective pact: each has now saved the other from a precipice.
Chapter 65: Washington, D.C.
February 1943. After a life-threatening asthma attack and months in bed, Mary returns to the White House unsure whether her era of influence—and her friendship with Eleanor—has ended. Defunded New Deal programs like the NYA linger as reminders of loss. Eleanor greets her with an embrace that erases the fear.
Eleanor reveals she has quietly intervened with the Justice Department to close the formal FBI investigation. Mary suspects surveillance continues but feels seen and safeguarded. Then Eleanor pivots to a new mission: the 99th Pursuit Squadron—the Black pilots trained at Tuskegee—are barred from combat despite their readiness. Together they sketch a strategy to force the issue: national attention, public outrage, and a moral argument sharpened by wartime necessity. Planning a joint trip to Tuskegee reignites Mary’s purpose and their powerful partnership.
Character Development
These chapters deepen the portrait of two women whose public courage is inseparable from private vulnerability. Eleanor’s moral audacity repeatedly collides with institutional resistance; Mary’s steadiness becomes the hinge between Eleanor’s despair and renewed resolve. Franklin remains a force Eleanor must cajole and circumnavigate, emblematic of pragmatic power strained by conscience.
- Eleanor Roosevelt:
- Forces the signing of EO 8802 through moral argument and deft pressure
- Confronts grief, fear, and a crippling depressive episode, then rises with Mary’s help
- Rejects Franklin’s bid to restore their marriage, asserting autonomy and boundaries
- Transforms into Mary’s protector, leveraging access to curb the FBI probe
- Mary McLeod Bethune:
- Ministers to Eleanor’s depression with empathy grounded in her own struggles
- Endures political smears and serious illness without relinquishing purpose
- Reasserts the shared obligation of equality in their brief, sharp argument
- Co-designs a public strategy to champion the Tuskegee Airmen
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
- Hesitates on civil rights until pushed, then acts decisively
- Projects wartime resolve while revealing private loneliness and control-seeking
- Misreads the permanence of Eleanor’s transformation after his affair, exposing their emotional distance
Themes & Symbols
The friendship between Eleanor and Mary becomes the section’s emotional engine. What begins as political alignment matures into interdependence: Mary lifts Eleanor from paralyzing despair; Eleanor uses her institutional reach to shield Mary from a punitive state. Their bond demonstrates that the most consequential partnership in this story isn’t marital or partisan—it’s the cross-racial companionship that sustains courage and multiplies impact.
Activism here is multivalent: an urgent phone call that births a policy; a radio address that steadies a nation; a private intervention that averts a personal collapse; a media strategy designed to pry open the military’s color line. The chapters show how insider access and public agitation must work in tandem, and how women’s influence—often exercised in liminal spaces like bedrooms, tea trays, and off-the-record calls—reshapes outcomes. War intensifies the stakes, revealing the steep personal costs of service while widening the moral frame from domestic reform to global crisis.
Key Quotes
“An overdue step.”
- Eleanor’s retort to “unprecedented” reframes civil rights as delayed justice, not political risk. The phrasing pressures Franklin to see action as moral catch-up rather than innovation, collapsing his hesitation.
“Full and equitable participation of all workers in defense industries, without discrimination.”
- The heart of Executive Order 8802, this language codifies principle into policy. Its clarity becomes leverage: it both averts the March on Washington and creates a standard advocates can enforce through wartime necessity.
“A date which will live in infamy.”
- Franklin’s phrase fixes the nation’s trauma in memory and commits the government to decisive response. For Eleanor, hearing it in the chamber fuses public resolve with private dread for her sons and for families like Mary’s.
“I never knew that equality was my issue; I thought it was all of our issue.”
- Mary’s rebuke punctures Eleanor’s moment of defensiveness and reasserts shared responsibility. The line preserves mutual respect while resetting their alliance on the ground of collective moral duty.
“We’ve got work to do.”
- Eleanor’s reawakening after Mary’s visit grounds recovery in action. The simple future-tense promise converts private care into public purpose, embodying their cycle of support and strategy.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters pivot the narrative from New Deal battles to global war and from transactional collaboration to unbreakable partnership. EO 8802 caps Eleanor and Mary’s early push against systemic racism, while Pearl Harbor recasts their work as wartime necessity. Eleanor’s breakdown and Mary’s FBI ordeal expose the human cost of advocacy—and the power of friendship to counter it. By the end, their renewed mission for the Tuskegee Airmen readies them to confront the military’s segregation head-on, confirming their bond as the story’s central engine and setting the stage for the next, higher-stakes campaign.