HIGHLANDER FOLK SCHOOL Highlander Folk School was committed to causes including economic justice and an end to racial segregation Courses included literacy leadership and nonviolent desegregation strategies Notable activists including Rosa Parks attended classes there Opponents of its causes tried to close the school They had a pistol in the car They arrived in Monteagle without confronting the Klan In her national newspaper column My Day Roosevelt wrote of her time at Highlander Folk School She had learned about the harsh rules states made for voters of color This included African-American women Women had gained the right to vote in 1920 with the Nineteenth Amendment But state laws in the South made it nearly impossible for African Americans to vote Roosevelt said people of different ethnicities could work together so all Americans could vote
Equal Rights Advocate Roosevelt was born in 1884 American women could not vote then When Roosevelt was a teenager women across the country fought for suffrage The Nineteenth Amendment was just one step toward equal rights for women Roosevelt’s family was wealthy and politically powerful Eleanor’s uncle Theodore PERSPECTIVES AGAINST SUFFRAGE It took decades of fighting for female Americans to earn the right to vote Women’s suffrage was a controversial topic Many men and even some women did not believe women needed to vote In 1910 the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage made a pamphlet The back cover explained why the group thought women did not need the right to vote One reason was because 90 of the women either do not want it or do not care Another was because it means competition of women with men instead of co-operation Roosevelt was US president from 1901 to 1909 The Roosevelts helped Americans of all backgrounds
This was especially true of Eleanor From her late teens she promoted equal rights for all Americans She married rising political star Franklin Delano Roosevelt FDR in 1905 FDR was elected president in 1932 and Eleanor became the First Lady This position gave Eleanor the ability to influence leaders She secured more rights for women and minorities Her work did not stop after FDR’s death in 1945 She advocated for women’s right to work affordable childcare and housing in the 1950s and 1960s And she stood with African Americans in the fight for civil rights Roosevelt’s work toward securing equal rights helped pave the way for future leaders Roosevelt’s full name was Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
