I just finished reading Black Americans, Civil Rights, and the Roosevelts, 1932-1962, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum’s forthcoming book.

The book is full of colorful artifacts, including memos and letters with handwritten comments in the margins. (So fun to draw! There’s even a typo of LBJ’s name, “fixed” — with a different mistake. It’s fabulous.) The accompanying doodle shows a memo from Eleanor to Franklin. She frequently passed important messages along to him, which was not new information to me but it was a thrill to read their correspondence and peek behind the scenes to gain a deeper appreciation.

I’m excited to share more with you. With such an important topic, narrowing down my pages and pages of doodles (without sacrificing meaning) proved challenging.

These doodles aren’t necessarily the most important points. They aren’t ranked in any hierarchical order. Hopefully, they pique your curiosity to learn more —whether by visiting FDR Presidential Library and Museum, ordering this book when it’s available, or researching on your own.

Let’s jump in…

America’s Preeminent Presidential Doodler

PS This is part of the sponsored collaboration I mentioned previously. The book isn’t out yet, and I’ll obviously share when it’s available. But if you want me to add you a special list of people I definitely keep posted, let me know.

PPS Hey, I’m playing around on Bluesky a bit. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I do know I don’t have many friends.

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Flip through my sketchbook.

Cutting 50 pages of doodles down to a single post wasn’t easy. See what I mean?

Turn his picture to the wall

For seven decades, Black voters supported the GOP. By the early 1900s, they had little to show for their support. In 1932, Robert Vann declared “My friends, go turn Lincoln’s picture to the wall. That debt has been paid in full.”

He advocated switching parties, but that was tricky. (Note Alabama Democratic Party’s symbol…)

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Those are our guys!

Both parties tried to appeal to Black voters in 1936. The Democrats focused on economics and the New Deal. (“We want Roosevelt because … Facts and Figures!”) Republicans went with more of a “Hey, remember Lincoln and Grant? Those were our guys!” strategy.

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Generational wealth

Nearly half of all mortgages were in default by 1933. The government began insuring mortgages — hooray! This lead to redlining — color coding maps according to risk. “Risk” meaning areas of minority (Black) and immigrant populations. Those areas would be refused federally insured mortgages. According to the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) 1935 underwriting manual: “If a neighborhood is to retain stability it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes. A change in social or racial occupancy generally leads to instability and a reduction in values.” This contributed to generational wealth disparities still evident today.

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‘Round and round we go

It was challenging for Black people to get a job because they likely didn’t have a union card. And they couldn’t get a union card without a job. And they couldn’t get a job without a union card. And they couldn’t get a union card without a job… do you see the problem here?

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The highest ranking African-American in the federal government during FDR’s presidency

Mary McLeod Bethune was also :

Director of the Division of Negro Affairs, National Youth Administration, 1936-1943.
Founder and president of Bethune Cookman College and the NCNW (National Council of Negro Women)
Vice president of the NAACP
Good friends with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt

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Storm clouds gathered

While FDR wanted to make meaningful change, over in Europe and Asia war was brewing. He couldn’t tick off Congress because he needed their help getting the military ready (particularly since many of them already had an isolationist bent as it was).

Many New Deal initiatives ended up watered down. Social Security posters enthusiastically boasted “a monthly check to you — for the rest of your life”. But the smaller print noted exclusions for agriculture and domestic service, which left out huge swaths of Black workers.

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Oyez oyez oyez

FDR’s long presidency meant that by 1941, he’d named the majority of the justices. Jim Crow could begin to be dismantled! When Brown v Education of Education was decided in 1954, 5/9 of the justices were appointed by FDR!

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Fearless and relentless support

Eleanor’s highly publicized one-hour flight with a Tuskegee Airman (along with her tireless support/lobbying and their stellar performance) helped the Airmen finally see combat.

Check out this video — and hear about the flight from the pilot she flew with Charlies Alfred Anderson. (He taught himself to fly!)

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Breeding fascism

In a fireside chat in 1942, FDR pointed out that some communities didn’t like to hire women, Black people, or older men, warning “We can no longer afford to indulge such prejudices or practices.”

More than a year later, protestors demanding equal access to employment holding signs that declared “In Democracy, freedom to work belongs to all!”, “Race discrimination breeds fascism”, and “We drive tanks why not trolleys?” A pamphlet pointed out the hypocrisy of fighting fascism with a segregated military.

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Double Victory!

James G. Thompson recommended we adopt a “double V for a double victory” — “the first V for victory over our enemies from without, the second V for victory over our enemies within.”

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1944 DNC

FDR accepted the nomination for the 4th term. Organized labor and African Americans blocked South Carolina segregationist James Byrnes as VP pick. Southerners blocked the liberal sitting vice president, Henry Wallace. Everyone agreed on Harry Truman.

The previous Democratic presidents were represented on the wall of the convention. It should be noted that Martin Van Buren’s head was comparable to the other Democratic presidents and, I would assume, heads in general. I inadvertently drew him with a tiny noggin.

When FDR died shortly into his fourth term, we ended up with President Truman. His grandparents were slaveholders and he was from Missouri, which was still into segregation and discrimination. It seemed unlikely that he would support civil rights.

W.E.B. DuBois wrote about being grateful that FDR “did not die while Garner was vice president” because “that would have been too awful to contemplate”, wishing that Wallace was the new president. He was sympathetic to the task Truman had ahead of him and seemed optimistic that he “may do a far better than his antecedents indicate.”

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The story was not over.

When FDR died, Eleanor initially believed “the story is over.” Once the shock wore off she noted to a friend “Franklin’s death ended a period of history and now in its wake for lots of us who lived in his shadow… we have to start again under our own momentum and wonder what we can achieve.”

I didn’t know much about how she and Truman worked together and found this section of the book particularly interesting.

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Eleanor…

Backed Truman in ‘48 after he beefed up his civil rights platform.
Supported Adlai Stevenson in ‘52, ‘56, and ‘60, despite his caution with civil rights.
Pushed back on Eisenhower, questioning his dedication. He introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1957, was involved in desegregating both D.C. and the military… but she was disappointed he didn’t send troops to protect Black students in Little Rock following Board v Board of Education.
Skeptical of up-and-comer John F. Kennedy, due to his youth … and his father. When he won the nomination in 1960, he visited her at Val-Kill, where he promised to focus on civil rights. She backed him then and he continued to take her counsel.
Worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. to pressure JFK’s administration. She forwarded MLK’s articles to the president and backed his demand that the government step in on cases of voting rights violations and attacks on civil rights workers.
Aroused J. Edgar Hoover’s suspicions. He had a massive file on her — one of the largest collected on a single person.
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24th Amendment

Coincidentally, I doodled about the poll tax on the 61st anniversary of the ratification of the 24th Amendment, which got rid of the poll tax for federal elections. (I love coincidences like that!) Two years later, state poll taxes were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Eleanor Roosevelt had worked to eliminate the poll tax, but did not say “buh-bye, poll taxes!” as indicated in this doodle because she obviously did not talk like that. And also she had died a couple of years earlier.

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Narrowing 250 pages of rich history and artifacts down to 50 pages of doodles down to one blog post wasn’t easy. I could have edited this post down bunch of different ways, each way telling a bit of a different story. That said, there are so many possibilities for future blog posts within these pages. More to come, I’m sure! On that note, I’m closing with a powerful quote: